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Read more: Business Accelerator Creates an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem for Students

One entrepreneur wants to make fried ice cream as popular as popsicles. Another is using AI to automate HVAC systems.

As different as they may be, the seven early-stage businesses in the Spartan Incubator program experience similar growing pains: how to operationalize an idea, where to advertise, when to hire. Their strategic edge is that they are facing these challenges together at the University of Tampa’s John P. Lowth Entrepreneurship Center.

As participants in the Spartan Incubator Entrepreneurship Certificate program, they have access to 24 weeks of mentoring, workshops and other opportunities to learn from experts and one another.

“This is one of the ways we give back to the community,” said Bert Seither, assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship. “They get all the same resources as UTampa students and share their experiences with students as part of their experiential learning.”

Belly’s Ice Cream Bike

After years of working on their marketing company from home, Fiona Fitzgibbon ’17 and Skye Gillespie ’17 were looking for a reason to get out from behind their desks. They started making ice cream sandwiches from simple ingredients and selling them from a vintage bike at farmers markets, weddings and corporate events.

Both are graduates of UTampa’s Sykes College of Business, and they’re back on campus at the incubator to see where they can take this business and how they can support other entrepreneurs.

“We want to share our insights with other students who are looking at what they want to do after graduation,” Gillespie said.

As Fitzgibbon and Gillespie look to scale their business at the incubator, they’ve already connected with leaders in the ice cream and cold-chain distribution industries. “We recognize the opportunity the incubator brings to help grow our business beyond what we can on our own,” Fitzgibbon said. “The people and the environment are so inspiring. It’s nice to be back.”

Dirty Bastard Laundry Company

If you were around UTampa in March, you might have seen a student pushing a washing machine across campus. That was Maximus Mattuchio ’26, and the washing machine was a prop in the Kickstarter campaign for his cologne-infused laundry detergent sheet for men. He hit his goal in two days.

“I’ve never had $10,000 in my bank account, nevermind making it in 48 hours,” Mattuchio said. He was hooked. With mentoring from the Lowth Entrepreneurship Center, he won $15,000 in two months at pitch competitions. Now a recent grad, he’s staying plugged into those resources and fellow entrepreneurs through the incubator.

“As a solo founder, it’s just me versus me every day,” Mattuchio said. “Being around other like-minded people gets me out of my own echo chamber.”

Izzies Bikinies

Isabella Grinter M.S. ’26 was only 17 when she started Izzies Bikinies. Sewing custom, reversible swimwear began as a hobby that she hopes will do $500,000 in revenue next year. It’s an ambitious goal, but one she feels confident about thanks to support from the incubator.

She’s been learning how to break down big revenue goals into smaller operational ones, from how much fabric she needs to how many stitches per minute she can get out of a new industrial sewing machine.

Grinter is also getting valuable time with like-minded entrepreneurs. “Family and friends who have 9-to-5 jobs just don’t have the same problems,” she said. “It’s really helpful to have other entrepreneurs around because they go through the same issues in their own way.”

Loopless Logic

Working in law firms, Shane Lisinski saw a variety of legacy technology solutions — many of which they had long outgrown. He’s helping bring organizations into the AI era with his business, Loopless Logic.

“Rather than comb through a bunch of emails to organize tasks, let’s look at an AI-driven task assigner that’s going to automatically give the tasks to the right individuals round-robin style,” Lisinski shared as an example.

Lisinski, a political science grad from Ohio State University, learned about the incubator when his mother spoke at a Lowth Entrepreneurship Center event. He’s new to Tampa and in the very early stages of his business, which he founded in March.

“It would be easy to have imposter syndrome when you’re just at home trying to figure this out,” he said. “But here you can get around other people who have done this or are doing this in different phases.”

MJI Energy

Zac Herman ’15, M.S. ’19 can look at the thermostats and sensors in a commercial building and tell if the owners are “leaving money on the table” with an outdated HVAC system. His role with MJI Energy co-founders Jennifer Ramirez and Michael Herman is to help the New York company expand into Florida and nationally with their building automation systems.

Although the company is only a year old, they’ve already acquired another organization. With mentoring from the incubator, Herman hopes to grow their remote monitoring service, which uses sensors and artificial intelligence to notice problems before tenants do. The incubator also helps him focus on what’s important to the business when he’s far from his co-founders.

“Being among other people who are in that grind is very valuable,” he said. “It keeps you pushing forward every day.”

Nelly’s Fried Creamery

Is Tampa ready for fried ice cream? Janelle Augustin intends to find out with help on market research from the Spartan incubator.

Augustin started Nelly’s Fried Creamery eight years ago on the east coast of Florida in Hollywood. It was a side hustle selling “ice cream wrapped inside something else delicious, like a cookie, cake, donut, or brownie, and then battered and fried.” Her day job was working on electronic health records for a healthcare system.

“I don’t have a background in food,” she said. “I always enjoyed cooking. I just never thought to pursue it as a business.”

Suncoast Property Visuals

“My parents always told me when you go to college, you need to make good connections,” Pablo Wills ’23 said. “At UTampa, my business partners ended up being my best friends.”

He met his partners, and fellow Colombians, Felipe Echeverri ’25 and Camilo Calderon ’24, M.S. ’26 through a social circle formed among other international students. Now the three are providing real estate agents with fast-turnaround photography, video and 3D tours through their year-old business.

Their goals for the next year include transitioning from working for the business to working on the business and growing as entrepreneurs. “Being an entrepreneur is a way of living,” Echeverri said. “It shapes the way you are.”