Alexa-Rae Navarro - Executive Director of Startup San Diego

Startups get the party Startups get the party started. Startups get the party Startups get the party started. You want tech and tacos Tacos and tech you know we got tacos and tech is on smash border green guacamole keeper captains counting beans Contador quentan frijoles founders trying to raise some queso la vida San Diego school of rappy rapping fire tortillas round jalapenos in these modern times a crappy my coding yoga posse fold the body origami we be surfing coronado eating tacos el gordo the tacos standing puesto lucha libre and sombrero Got a shout out to cost angels by the ocean watch the sunset la Jolla shores Entrepreneurs trying to get funded When San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside, the Tijuana esti be full of hustlers from couch surfing to penthouses right on the beach Tech leaders believe stars are within reach we interview and founders who be shooting for the Moon SD TechOS with your host, Neil Bloom. Startups get the party Startups get the.

Welcome to the Tacos and Tech podcast where we discover cutting edge San Diego technologies and the builders making it happen. I'm your host, Neal Bloom, San Diego's tech ambassador and together you're going to put a face to the name of today's tech leaders with our own blend of local lifestyle.

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started.

Thanks to our friends at Cox Business for being an instrumental resource to our startup and tech community here in San Diego. As a partner in San Diego Startup Week, quick pitch and top tech awards, Cox Business has helped our ecosystem grow into the community it is today.

And welcome back to the Tacos and Tech Podcast. I'm your host Neal Bloom and we are live here at Nest Podcast Studio in lovely Bankers Hill. Thanks for having us. I'm joined in studio with Alexa Ray Navarro, the new Executive Director of Startup San Diego. Congratulations. Welcome.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Want to give us a quick little overview of what Startup San Diego is?

Yeah, absolutely. So Startup San Diego is the nonprofit that supports entrepreneurs and startups in the San Diego ecosystem. So think of us like the front door org for entrepreneurs and startup companies. You will likely know us for our main event that we host around May called Startup Week San Diego.

Awesome. Very cool. We are so excited to have you in the role have you back in San Diego and to hear your own personal story and your journey. Why don't you tell us where you grew up?

Yeah, absolutely. So I am born and raised in Riverside, grew up in Temecula, so I am a Southern California girl through and through. I went to ucsd, so I'm a UCSD alum. So San Diego really is home to me. So it's one of the reasons I'm really excited to be back here in the ecosystem.

Go Tritons. Awesome. Another fellow alum. So you graduated from UCSD but quickly left, as many of us do. I did as well. Did you immediately know you were going to LA or what took you to la?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I, in undergrad I focused on urban studies and planning. So you know, I always say my first love is sustainability, climate, you know, all things around the green movement and you know, so around graduation you tend to think big picture, okay, what's next for me? What am I going to do? And I had this opportunity up in Los Angeles at the mayor's office in the Department of Environment, Energy and Sustainability. And so, you know, you, I can't say no to the Mayor of Los Angeles. And so that's what ultimately took me to la. But I was super reluctant for all of the reasons. I mean, when you think of Los Angeles, there's a lot of stereotypes that come with that, right? The gridlock, the sprawl, the traffic, the air quality, all those things. And for someone who really studied sustainability and all things climate, you would think that that would be the place that you'd want to go. That sort of focusing on the cutting edge solutions to solve some of these major, major problems. And so I had to go reluctantly. I'm like, there's no going back. But I had this moment, super vivid moment that I remember. Packed up my car, I'm on the 5 freeway, in that stretch of the freeway when you pass Oceanside and you're kind of on the side of the base and you got the ocean to your left and just you're staring at the 5 Freeway. And you know, I had San Diego in my rear view and you know, it seemed like just miles of road in front of me and I'm just, I looked in, I looked at myself and I'm like, I don't know when, I don't know how, but you'll be back someday. And you know, so. So here we are on a podcast.

This was all planned, so.

Yes, all planned.

Uh huh. So you moved to la, worked in Mayor Viragosa's office.

Yeah.

What was that like? Jumping right into city government.

Yeah. Interesting. I learned a lot for sure. You know, like I said, LA was really doing A lot of cutting edge things. It was just at the cusp of the green movement. So, you know, they were testing a lot of things, implementing programs that, you know, nowhere, nowhere else really was at that time. But it was the place where I got introduced to the world of economic development. I got introduced to clean technology and the tech ecosystem. I worked a couple of cubes over from the person who sort of internally at the mayor's office, launched the very first initiative for the LA Cleantech Incubator. And so that project was really born out of the mayor's office. And so I was just completely captivated by clean tech. And after digging in further, just technology in general. And so at the end of every mayoral transition, it's sort of like all the staff from the previous administration goes out and then in with the new guard. And so everybody's kind of asking themselves, what's next? And for me, it was super clear that I wanted to further my education and get my master's degree. And I wasn't done learning yet. But it was really important for me as a professional to sort of immerse myself in the space that I really wanted to learn more about. And that really was economic development and startups, entrepreneurship and technology. And so that's kind of where I found the Bixel Exchange center for Innovation and Tech at the LA Chamber. And that's where I've spent the last eight years.

Oh, wow, that's really great. I'm curious, when you were at the city, from a city's purview of seeing the startup community, especially downtown, which probably was a later bloomer compared to the west side of la. Right. What was it like watching from a city's perspective, startup world grow in la?

Pretty incredible, to be honest, because, you know, during that time, for example, I mentioned the LA Cleantech incubator. I don't know if you've ever been there, to the Lacrette's Innovation campus in downtown. But it's absolutely beautiful. It's stunning. When that project first sort of was born, it was a lot, you know, and it was, you know, not a dirt lot, but like parking lot. They had to do a lot of like environmental remediation. And so in an interesting way, it sort of like as this project kind of lifted off in the same way that you could see the ecosystem sort of start to emerge and flourish. And I think it's really interesting because in Los Angeles, you know, a lot of people call LA Silicon beach, but the reality is it's so much more than just Silicon Beach. And that area in Santa Monica and Playa Vista, there's all these amazing hubs that have sort of emerged over time, and downtown is one of them. And it's sort of. There's a plethora of coworking spaces. In my master's program, to graduate, you have to do what they call a capstone project, and you're paired with a client and you have a focus. And the. My client was actually one of the very first coworking spaces in downtown LA called Indie Desk over Off of Broadway. And so, you know, you look at downtown now and there's like, you know, 20 plus developments and, you know, the skyline is a completely different place and it's just. It's just thriving.

Yeah, that's pretty great to get a front row seat to that.

Yeah.

And then to look at San Diego, a city that is a little bit backwards in time. Not backwards, just a little behind only in its development progress, thinking this is what it could be, that's pretty exciting, especially knowing that you were going to come back. But before we jump there, I want to learn more about the Bixel Exchange. So you joined it almost eight years ago. What was it at its infancy when you joined?

Yeah. And what's fun, a little fun fact about me, I joined as an unpaid intern at the time, so I was a grad intern, but for a couple of months, definitely just working. And that's based off of sort of the initial passion and mission that I felt when I met the folks who co founded the Bixel Exchange. But the Bixel Exchange is the center for innovation Tech at the LA Chamber. I mentioned that. But we really focus on connecting talent to opportunity. We like to say that talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not. And so we connect that talent to opportunity through entrepreneurship and talent development. And we really have this very strong focus on underserved populations in Los Angeles. So LA is one of the most diverse places out of the country, I would say. And so it was really our goal to ensure that the face of tech was reflective of the face of la.

That's pretty great. And that all came as a brainchild within LA Chamber, or they kind of merged?

Yeah, no, within LA Chamber. So the Chamber has always, you know, it's the largest business organization in the region, and so it's really the voice of business in la. And so the Chamber itself has historically sort of been on the forefront of supporting emerging ecosystems. Right. So, you know, they were very supportive of bringing aerospace to the county, for example. And so when it came to Technology. It was clear that there was a burgeoning economy happening. And so really trying to figure out, okay, what is the Chamber's role in that? And so the Chamber brought on a consulting team to kind of dig into, okay, well, what does involvement look like for the LA Chamber? And that consultant was my previous boss, Sean Arian.

Okay.

And so he really dug in and made it a point to understand, like, what were the ecosystem needs, like what were entrepreneurs saying that they needed? And sort of, kind of what bubbled up to the surface was free resources and access to mentors and advisors. So really like a support network. And so out of that work was born the VCSEL Exchange. And we launched our very first program. We launched what we call now the Startup Launch Program and technology sbdc. So it has an interesting model and I'm happy to dig into it.

Yeah, let's get a little bit into that. Especially the SBDC piece.

Yeah, absolutely. So for folks who aren't super familiar with the sbdc, it's the Small Business Development center. And that the Small Business Development Center Network is a program, a federally funded program. So the Small Business Administration funds the Small Business Development Centers as well as SCORE and Los Angeles. There is nine small business development centers. So centers that are really strictly focused on supporting small business. Your brick and mortars of the world, your restaurants, things of that nature. We had an opportunity to create a tech specialty center. We partnered with the SBA and the SBDC to launch the specialty center and this new tech model leveraging essentially federal and state funding.

Okay, so what were the stage that people were on the tech side pretty much coming to Bixel usually stage wise?

Yeah, yeah, I would say anywhere from ideation, super early stage to like pre seed.

Okay.

You know, and I think what's also super interesting is, you know, when you think of the startup life cycle from when we started, that was in like 2013, where now we're kind of seeing sort of the graduation of startups from going from that super early idea stage, shifting into mid stage to now, like pursuing big rounds of funding. So it's sort of the growth of the program and sort of the structure. We've seen the same in terms of the growth of the actual entrepreneurs that we're serving.

That's pretty great.

Yeah.

So I mean, you grew up from intern to kind of running the Bixel Exchange, which is pretty great to be a part of. And at the same time, LA having just quite a bit of momentum and growth as well. Beyond development within downtown, what did you see happening you know, just in the greater Southern California area, that kind of led you to say, now's the time for San Diego?

That's a good question. You know, it's interesting. I feel like the. The ecosystem up in LA is sort of a little bit more mature than the ecosystem here in San Diego. Right. And I would say the same thing in terms of comparing the ecosystem to la, up to, you know, Silicon Valley. And so I think, you know, just in terms of that differential in time, I feel like San Diego right now is sort of in that stage where I kind of walked into in the first few years and helping to really build the Bixel Exchange. And that particular time was super exciting for a lot of reasons. And so I think right now, San Diego has the opportunity to really kind of create and build the ecosystem that it wants for itself. Right. And I think building inclusive ecosystems, supporting all entrepreneurs. Right. Whether you're Latinx, whether you're a black founder, whether you're an LGBTQ or veteran. And so I think what's really cool about, at least what I got the sense of so far is San Diego feels super grassroots. And so I think the potential for the community to sort of grow. Right. To take that grassroots movement and then really create sort of like, what's the next stage for San Diego is a really cool opportunity. So I'm really excited about that.

Yeah, no, you're coming at a great time. Obviously. You also come, like we just said, kind of with this playbook, in a sense. Right. So you. You've kind of done it. You get to do it again with. With a new lens, a new San Diego lens. Obviously, we can't look too far into the future, but, like, what do you. What do you want to look back on and say, this is what we did in San Diego that may be different than la.

Yeah. I think the platform for Startup San Diego is a little bit different. Right. Than the platform that I had with the Pixel Exchange. Right. So. Which is really, really exciting. Right. Like, the concept and the notion of Startup Week, you know, an event that sort of captivates 4,000, 5,000 people. It's pretty tremendous. Right? And, you know, thinking about what that platform could turn into or, you know, expanding on that, just making sure that we're growing that event to the knees. Right. Of the growing ecosystem. Right. Because, you know, I know that initially it really was focused more towards the founder, and now it has expanded to. To sort of provide content for all of what. Whichever function you are at at a company. Right. So it's sort of the event has sort of grown over time. And so I think it has a really interesting potential to continue to grow, to continue to scale, but also really provide, you know, a lot of value and sort of the quality content that draws folks to things like south by Southwest. Right. And I think too, you know, expanding that. We have our first and third Mondays and sort of, you know, bringing the spirit of Startup Week, you know, throughout the year. And so I think, you know, leveraging that as additional platform to keep that momentum going, you know, and further expand our convergence event that's really focusing on talent and connecting university level students and job seekers to those employers. Because I think if you can build pathways to tech jobs and keep people here and continue to build awesome talent, we'll continue to help build amazing teams that will then eventually scale and then have those amazing quality exits that we can then invest back into the community, continue to grow the ecosystem, get that.

Flywheel going even faster. Well, first of all, we love that we get to see you so much in downtown now that you're downtown works. Fun community that you've quickly joined into.

Yeah.

Do you remember back in school, did you ever venture downtown much?

I did every now and then and I think I always loved little. Little Italy. Yeah, I went to El Camino a couple of times, you know, towards the end down there. But. But I'm just blown away at all of the development, all of the, you know, the farmer's market and the food truck area and just, you know, it's bustling.

Yeah.

And it's really, really cool to see.

Yeah, yeah. More to come for sure. I mean, it is definitely having its moment. Do you already have favorite taco spot or do you have a remembry of one, A remembrance of one?

Yeah. So, you know, grandma would kill me if, you know, I, if I. If I named a favorite taco place other than hers. So. You know, another fun fact. I'm Latina and you know, I have family down in San Felipe, which is about two hours south of Mexicali, and my grandma has a restaurant down there at. We. We have a campground resort that my family runs called Pete's Camp. And so she has her. She has her restaurant and her crispy tacos are amazing. So I gotta plug grandma, but I am on the hunt for, you know, my favorite local spot. So all the recommendations, send them my way.

Yeah. And where can they do that? On Twitter. Most Twitter.

Yeah, Twitter is great for that.

What's your handle?

It is Lexarain.

Okay, we'll put that in the show notes too, but you will get inbound of taco spots.

I'm ready. I'm ready. I want to find the best place.

Yeah, and you can meet people up for tacos too.

There you go.

Well, Alexa Ray, so great to have you. Congratulations again on the new role and all the best in 2020.

Thank you.

Thanks for joining us on the Tacos and Tech podcast with Neil Bloom. Thanks again to Cox Business for helping make this possible by expanding the reach of the San Diego tech ecosystem. Big shout out to School of Rap for our rad intro music. And thanks as well to Nest Podcast Network where we are recording live inside their studio at Nest Co working in Bankers Hill. You can find Neil Bloom on Twitter eelbloom as well as fresh brewed tech and tacos and Tech Pod on Twitter too.

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. You want tech and tacos, Tacos in tech. You know we got it.

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