Three programs. 120 founders. A window-washing company in Franklin and an AI security gateway for hospital data, in the same building.
The Nashville Entrepreneur Center’s Fall 2026 cohorts kick off September 1 and run twelve weeks, through November. Three programs, running side by side: TakeOff, for founders with a working product and first customers (70 companies). InFlight, for growth-stage companies scaling revenue and team (26 companies). Project Healthcare, for healthcare innovators at any stage (15 companies).
Most aren’t serial entrepreneurs cashing in a network. Many are people who quit a job, or never had one to quit, and bet that Nashville was the place to find out if the idea works.
Who’s actually in the room
Amit Reshef ran a candle business at farmers markets before he started AA Window Washing in Franklin — pressure washing, gutter cleaning, Christmas lights. He’s in TakeOff, trying to convert one-time customers into recurring maintenance plans.
Diana Medina and Erik Schnaars are in InFlight with Nashville Cleaning Services, a commercial and residential cleaning company covering Middle Tennessee. Their challenge isn’t finding customers. It’s building a company that runs without them approving every job.
Also in InFlight: Eric Gilbert-Williams, who built and exited a 60-person construction company and is now running The Public Board, which turns digital billboards into a participatory public medium — closer to a shared civic screen than an ad unit.
Healthcare founders don’t just fill the Project Healthcare program — they turn up inside TakeOff and InFlight too. Two from Project Healthcare: Jay Zigmont and Stephanie Viehman’s Beyond Lineage acts as medical and financial power of attorney for the roughly 25% of Americans who don’t have children and never will — someone has to make those calls when they can’t. And MindWave Medical, founded by a physician who spent 20 years in the ICU, built a bone-conduction headset that routes hospital alarms away from speakers and, the company says, cut ICU delirium by half in its own data.
That’s five companies out of 111. Not a representative sample — a reason to go look at the rest.
Where they’re from
Middle Tennessee is the center of gravity, but the cohort reaches well past it. A few flew in from further out — Nurtureconnect’s team works out of Nairobi, and Equiply’s founder is based in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
See the rest yourself
A founder’s onboarding form is a snapshot, not a biography, and 111 companies don’t fit in one blog post. The full directories are live, searchable, and filterable by industry or stage — browse TakeOff, InFlight, and Project Healthcare. Filter to whatever slice you care about, and the link carries the filter with it.
If you’re a partner, investor, or just someone who wants an introduction to a few of these founders, reach out to Rob Williams at rob.williams@ec.co.
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