As a university professor and
an engineer, the husband and wife team of Amin
Ismail, Ph.D. and Rhonda Copley had a lot going for
them when they founded Praxis Software, Inc. (PraxSoft)
as a small engineering consulting firm. However,
expertise in business was not among their strong
points. It was during a 2005 meeting with the U.S.
SBA’s Business Opportunity Specialist, Nancy
Alvarez-Hernandez, that Copley explained her firm’s
desire for business advice, particularly with market
expansion and navigating the intricacies of selling
to the government. “We needed to ensure that
strategic decisions for our business and resource
allocation were appropriate and wanted expert advice
from experienced business professionals who had
worked with successful entrepreneurial firms,” said
Copley. Alvarez-Hernandez recommended the SBDC at
UCF’s Advisory Board Council as a way to access the
needed expertise. PraxSoft was accepted into the
program and a board of advisors was hand-picked
comprised of experts in the fields of finance,
government contracting, law, marketing, and
strategic planning. The board kicked off their
first meeting in early 2006. “We have a strong
technical background,” says Ismail, “but having an
advisory board has helped us from a business and
financial point of view.”
“The board members have given
so unselfishly of their time and have been able to
share so much of their experience with us, that it’s
been invaluable,” reports Copley. In fact, in two
years of participation in the program, PraxSoft’s
volunteer advisors donated more than 200 in-kind
hours of service to the firm, representing a market
value of $31,031 of pro-bono consulting services.
“Not only did the advisory board provide guidance on
financial issues and increasing sales,” remarked
Copley, “they mentored us on putting the proper
processes into place to sustain that growth.” In
addition to regular board meetings, Copley worked
with her board’s CFO to develop spreadsheets for
product pricing, cost of goods sold and margin
analysis. Another board member has been a huge help
with government contracting and in assisting
PraxSoft to take full advantage of their 8(a)
certification. “We didn’t know how to operate in
the Federal/Military environment and he helped guide
us,” comments Copley. PraxSoft has also utilized
the services of the Procurement Technical Assistance
Program (PTAC) at the SBDC at UCF to assist with
government sales.
When Copley and Ismail moved
the business from Ohio to Central Florida in 2004,
they began development on a group of products to
collect real-time data from remote wireless sensor
devices and deliver it via multiple communication
methods. Today, PraxSoft has nearly 1,000 customers
in commercial and government markets as a developer
of cutting-edge products that integrate hardware and
software in order to collect and display real time
sensor data through the use of meteorological,
environmental and networked RFID tags. Their
unique combination of RFID and wireless and sensor
network technology
is utilized in the firm’s three main products: WeatherActive; SensorActive; and AssetActive
which have applications
in a wide range of industries including
public works, defense, security, public safety,
transportation, sports, media and communications.
PraxSoft has demonstrated
success in the government arena and garnered
excellent ratings for their work with the U.S.
Military. Recently, the firm won contracts with the
U.S. Army and participated in a project with the
State of Florida. At the McKenna Range in Fort
Benning, PraxSoft deployed indoor tracking devices
and a 2-D GIS-based program to show real-time
tracking of live soldier entities. The system
integrates location and status from soldiers into a
GIS featured map with buildings, elevation, terrain,
and live soldier identification to monitor the
actions being performed in both real time and post
experiment through play back or After Action Review
(AAR). Another success was the Florida
Department of Forestry’s Wildfire
Predication/Mitigation and Asset Accountability
project. This project helped the
Department of Forestry predict, detect and react to
wildfires and improve situational awareness during
event response to enhance safety, resource
management and asset accountability.
All of the expert assistance
PraxSot received from the SBDC at UCF has paid off
for the company. Since becoming a client of
the Advisory Board Council, PraxSoft tripled their
annual revenues. "Each member of the advisory
board has their own strengths and areas of expertise
which we have learned from," remarked Copley.
"As individuals they have mentored young business
owners. As a group they have helped contribute to
the success of Praxsoft." |
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Rhonda Copley and Jill Kaufman
"Each member of the advisory board has their own
strengths and areas of expertise which we have
learned from. As individuals they have mentored
young business owners. As a group they have
helped contribute to the success of Praxsoft."
“We have a strong technical background,but
having an advisory board has helped us from a
business and financial point of view.”
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