Mark Norton was stuck. 
He and his best friend had both quit good jobs — one at Apple, one practicing law — to build a diabetes management platform in Nashville. They were from out of town. They didn’t know anyone. They had a prototype that barely worked and a pitch they hadn’t figured out how to give.
“So, like any good founder,” Mark said, “I got on Google. What do you do when you don’t know what to do when you start a company?”
The Nashville Entrepreneur Center came up.
“The Worst Pitch You’ve Ever Heard”
Mark walked through the EC doors in 2021 with what he called “a janky prototype and maybe the worst pitch you’ve ever heard.” He sat across from Dakota, a program team member who was new to the job and admittedly didn’t know anything about building medical devices.
But Dakota knew someone who did. That introduction led to another. Which led to another.
“It started with an introduction that snowballed into more introductions,” Mark said, “and before we knew it, we built this incredible network in Nashville.”
From two guys in a spare bedroom, Adele Health grew to a team of six. LaunchTN invested. They filed 16 patents across 5 countries. They landed a partnership with one of the largest glucose meter manufacturers in the world.
Then came the EC Impact Grant: $10,000 in non-dilutive capital, funded by interest from the EC Endowment. “That $10,000 check bought a bunch of 3D printers,” Mark said, “and it’s totally changed the game for us.”
Tuesday night, he told that story at Conservation Hall at the Tennessee Governor’s Residence.
“Can You Add More Credits to My Account?”
Nikki Sanz had a different kind of persistence.
She came to the EC with an idea for a LinkedIn-style platform for the live events industry — a job board for an industry that ran entirely on word of mouth. The first person she mentioned it to said: “Just go to the Entrepreneur Center. Anyone that has an idea, just go to the EC. They know what to do with you.”
So she went. And kept going back.
“I think I hold the record for meeting with the most mentors there,” she said. “I kept being like, ‘Can you add more credits to my account? Can you add more credits?'”
She hosted focus groups at the EC. She entered pitch competitions. One landed her on Entrepreneurs Elevator Pitch, where she got a deal with Mark Randolph, Netflix’s co-founder.
“I would not be standing here without the EC,” she said.
On Tuesday night, she was standing at the Governor’s Residence, in front of the 35 angel investors who had backed her company — and in front of the McWhorter Circle members whose contributions had helped make the EC the place she kept coming back to.
Why the Governor Was in the Room
The McWhorter Circle Legacy Celebration is not a standard fundraising dinner. There are no auction tables. It’s something closer to a reunion — the people who believe in this mission, gathering to see what their belief has built.
Governor Bill Lee was there. Deputy Governor Stuart McWhorter was there.
They weren’t there for a photo op. They were there because of Clayton McWhorter — the EC’s founding board chair, the man the Circle is named for — and what he meant to Nashville.
Governor Lee told a story about Clayton that was personal enough to feel unrehearsed. “He called me out in an audience,” Lee said, “made some remark about what I was doing or the business I was running. He never stopped encouraging people, especially young people, to step up and go to the next level with you.”
Stuart McWhorter — Clayton’s son, now Tennessee’s Deputy Governor and Commissioner of Economic and Community Development — spoke about the four principles his father lived by: find a mentor and be a mentor, be prepared, act like an owner, give back.
“Companies understand what’s going on in our state,” Stuart said. He mentioned Starbucks reaching out to ask what was happening in Nashville with venture capital and private equity. “They see themselves integrating into that.”
That’s Clayton McWhorter’s long game — a city that takes entrepreneurship seriously enough that national brands are paying attention.
What the Circle Makes Possible
Bobby Frist — HealthStream founder, EC Board Chair Emeritus, founding member of the McWhorter Circle — put the numbers in the room.
In 2025, the Nashville Entrepreneur Center graduated 215 founders from five accelerator programs. Those founders raised $8.5 million in capital during their programs and created 193 new jobs. They received 1,325 mentoring sessions.
McWhorter Circle members funded $53,750 in financial aid to 35 founders — the ones who might not otherwise have been able to afford a seat in the program. They funded the first-ever EC Impact Grants: $40,000 in non-dilutive capital awarded to three accelerator graduates. One of those graduates was Mark Norton.
Zoom out: the EC’s 244 alumni companies have collectively generated $256 million in revenue, raised $146 million in capital, and created nearly 2,000 jobs in Middle Tennessee.
“You are funding the moment everything changes for a founder,” Bobby said. “The results are speaking for themselves.”
The City We’re Building Together
When the evening closed, Elise Mitchell raised a glass to the McWhorter Circle members in the room.
“Tonight you’ve heard the numbers, you’ve heard the names, you’ve heard the stories,” she said. “None of that happens without you.”
Mark Norton ended his remarks with something simpler. “At the core of all of this is the belief that people matter. That their ideas matter. That work matters. And that they matter as well.”
He’s not wrong. Neither was Clayton McWhorter, who believed the people who had already built something owed it to the next generation to surround them with capital, guidance, and connection.
If you’ve been thinking about it, the Circle is open.
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