Female Founders: Liz Dimmitt of Fairgrounds St Pete On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Doug Noll

The Importance of Building a Strong Support Network: Starting a company can be a lonely and challenging journey. Having a supportive network of mentors, advisors, peers and friends provides invaluable guidance, encouragement and emotional support during the highs and lows of entrepreneurship.

As a part of our series about Women Founders, we had the pleasure of interviewing Liz Dimmitt.

Liz Dimmitt is the CEO/Co-founder of Fairgrounds St. Pete, an immersive art experience celebrating Florida culture and stories. In addition, Liz is the Managing Partner of Dimmitt Chevrolet where she is the 4th generation of her family and first woman to lead the dealership in its 100 year history. Liz is an active participant in Tampa Bay’s business and cultural community, having been recently recognized as one of the Tampa Bay Business Journal’s 2024 Business Woman of the Year honorees and Tampa Bay Business and Wealth’s Women Who Win.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

My undergraduate degree is in finance from Georgetown and my graduate degree in For-Profit

Visual Art Administration (art business) from NYU. In my 17 years living and working in NYC, I held various positions including COO of a private equity firm investing in the infrastructure of the art industry, founding/managing Gawker Media’s corporate art program and as the Director of a major art gallery with outposts in NYC and Hong Kong. I eventually parlayed these experiences into my own consulting company, providing services to help clients drive institutional strategy by activating cultural strategies. I was in Florida working on a large-scale cultural strategy project when I learned of my brother’s passing. Previous to his death, my brother was the Managing Partner of Dimmitt Chevrolet, a dealership in Clearwater that has been operated by my family since 1924. Because I was in Florida at the time of my brother’s death, I started to go into the dealership to help with its management and eventually moved home to Florida with my husband to be the new Managing Partner. 2024 marks our 100th year serving Pinellas County. While working at the dealership, I also founded, raised funds for, built and launched Fairgrounds St. Pete, an immersive art experience celebrating all things Florida. I created our concept and raised our funds just prior to the pandemic and we opened to the public in late 2021. We have now been open for over 2.5 years and have become an integral part of Tampa Bay’s cultural landscape, having won a 2023 Good Burger award from the City of St. Pete and the Tampa Bay Times’ Best Art Museum award for 2022, among others. Both Dimmitt Chevrolet and Fairgrounds St. Pete are full-time positions and passions that I split my time between. I excel at entrepreneurship, business management and strategy, and both positions require me to put these skills to use daily.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

Since founding Fairgrounds St. Pete, the one of most interesting and inspiring trends is how we’ve helped our artist collaborators to expand their practices, audiences and skill-sets. We’ve helped our artists become more recognized brands in their own right and inspired them to venture into new areas, such as public speaking and full-time content creation. It’s been very interesting and rewarding to help them to take their careers to the next level.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Fairgrounds St. Pete is an immersive art space where guests are welcomed to explore the space and interact with the installations. However, sometimes they love the art a little too much. We’ve had some very funny and surprising guest interactions. For example, we have a strawberry-themed room and consistently find bite marks in the fake strawberry themed art. Thus, we are constantly having to redesign exhibits because of overenthusiastic audience engagement. In the bigger picture, the lesson is to observe how customers engage with your product and then to evolve your product design to reflect their behavior. We’ve gotten very smart about how to design fun, interactive experiences that our customers can enjoy.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I am forever grateful to Jeff and Penny Vinik whose mentorship and trust in me to produce their foundation’s large-scale immersive art experiences provided me invaluable experience about how to construct, market and operate large scale cultural experiences and to welcome the public to enjoy them. Jeff and Penny Vinik have trusted me to produce projects including The Beach Tampa by Snarkitecture, The Art of the Brick and Tampa Fresh Foods by Lucy Sparrow. Each of these projects were very challenging and inspiring and helped me to gain invaluable experience in the immersive experience space. I also learned much from them about integrity and engaging and supporting the local community.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

In my opinion and experience there are many societal factors holding women back from becoming founders. The first is work-life balance challenges and the high cost of child care. Balancing entrepreneurial pursuits with family responsibilities can be particularly challenging for women, because we are expected to do everything for our families while also giving 100% to our jobs. These expectations are unrealistic and we need higher-quality, affordable child care so we can go to work and feel assured our children are being properly cared for. Gender bias and stereotypes also need to evolve, because they impact how women entrepreneurs are perceived and treated in the business world. This can manifest in various ways, such as being taken less seriously and facing skepticism about our abilities. These biases make it harder for women to access the necessary capital to found a new business. Addressing these challenges requires concerted efforts from various stakeholders including policymakers, investors, corporate leaders and community organizations. Providing targeted support, creating inclusive environments, offering mentorship programs and promoting gender diversity initiatives can help empower more women to pursue entrepreneurship and thrive as founders of successful companies.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

There are many compelling reasons why more women should consider becoming founders. First, women bring unique perspectives and experiences to the table. By increasing the number of women founders, we can ensure a more diverse range of voices and ideas are represented in the entrepreneurial landscape. This diversity often leads to more innovative solutions and better decision-making. In addition, because women are often more attuned to identifying and addressing unmet needs in the market, particularly those that pertain to women themselves, their leadership often results in the development of products and services that better serve a broader range of customers.

I believe entrepreneurship offers women the opportunity for economic empowerment and independence. By starting their own businesses, women can gain control over their financial futures and contribute to their families and communities in significant ways.

Most importantly, when women become founders, they serve as role models and sources of inspiration for future generations of women and girls. Seeing successful female entrepreneurs can help break down barriers and encourage more women to pursue their entrepreneurial ambitions.

It’s important to note that women founders often prioritize social impact and sustainability in their businesses. By starting their own ventures, women can drive positive change in their communities and the world at large, tackling pressing issues such as environmental sustainability, social justice and healthcare access.

In summary, encouraging more women to become founders is not only beneficial for women themselves but also for society as a whole, fostering innovation, diversity and economic growth.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

That founders and companies are “overnight successes.” The reality is that building a successful company takes time, hard work and perseverance. Founders can expect founders to experience years of setbacks, failures and challenges before achieving significant success. There are often years and years of work put into a company before it achieves success.

Another common myth is that founders are experts in everything. While most founders have a solid understanding of their industry and business fundamentals, they don’t need to be experts in every aspect of running a company. Successful founders recognize their strengths and weaknesses and surround themselves with people who complement their skills and bring additional expertise to the table. I rely on working with colleagues that know more about their areas of expertise than I do and can educate me.

Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?

Not everyone is cut out to be a founder, as entrepreneurship requires a unique set of traits and skills. While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer, some specific traits that I have found increase the likelihood of someone being a successful founder include:

• Resilience: Founding a startup often involves facing numerous challenges, setbacks and failures. Successful founders need resilience and the ability to bounce back from adversity, learn from your mistakes and persevere through difficult times.
• Creativity and Innovation: Entrepreneurs need to think creatively and innovate to develop unique solutions to problems or identify untapped opportunities in the market. Being able to think outside the box and come up with ideas is crucial for success.
• Vision and Passion: The most successful founders I know are driven by a clear vision for their company and are passionate about bringing that vision to life. Having a strong sense of purpose and dedication to their goals helps an entrepreneur stay focused and motivated, especially during challenging times.
• Adaptability: The business landscape is constantly evolving, and successful founders need to be adaptable and flexible in response to changing market conditions, customer needs and technological advancements. Being able to pivot quickly and embrace change is essential for long-term success.
• Risk Tolerance: Entrepreneurship inherently involves risk, whether it’s financial risk, career risk or personal risk. Successful founders are comfortable taking calculated risks and understand that failure is often part of the journey.
• Leadership and Communication Skills: Founders must effectively lead and inspire their teams, communicate their vision, and collaborate with others to achieve their goals. Strong leadership and communication skills are critical for building a cohesive and high-performing team.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1 . The Importance of Building a Strong Support Network: Starting a company can be a lonely and challenging journey. Having a supportive network of mentors, advisors, peers and friends provides invaluable guidance, encouragement and emotional support during the highs and lows of entrepreneurship.

2 . The Significance of Prioritizing Self-Care: It’s easy for us founders to get caught up in the hustle and grind of building a business, often at the expense of our physical and mental well-being. Prioritizing self-care, including adequate rest, exercise and relaxation, is essential for maintaining balance, preventing burnout and sustaining long-term success.

3 . The Need to Embrace Failure as a Learning Opportunity: Failure is an inevitable part of the entrepreneurial journey, and it’s also a powerful teacher. Instead of fearing failure, as founders we have to expect and embrace it as an opportunity for growth, learning and course correction. By reframing failure as a natural and necessary step on the path to success, founders can bounce back stronger and learn from mistakes for the great benefit of their companies. I am a big believer in the “fail fast” mentality.

4 . The Importance of Balancing Vision with Flexibility: While having a clear vision for your company is important, it’s equally crucial to remain flexible and adaptable in the face of changing competition, markets and customer feedback. The most successful founders I know strike a balance between staying true to their vision and being open to new ideas, opportunities and pivot points that can lead to even greater success.

5 . The Value of Patience and Persistence: Building a successful company takes time, often much longer than initially anticipated. Success rarely happens overnight, and it’s essential for founders to cultivate and maintain patience and persistence in the face of inevitable, and sometimes discouraging, challenges and setbacks. By staying focused on long-term goals and continuing to move forward, even in the face of adversity, founders can ultimately achieve their vision for their company. You have to keep showing up day after day and pushing forward.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

At Fairgrounds St. Pete, our motto is Art for “All, Play For All and Joy For All” — and that is the goal. We invite our guests to escape reality and explore an artist made world to create memorable shared experiences. We also prioritize supporting our artist collaborators with fair commissions and support for their careers.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Empathy and shared fun and exploration of the wonderful creative world around us. At Fairgrounds St. Pete, we prioritize art, play and joy and celebrate artists for the importance they play in telling stories and bringing people together. I hope to inspire our guests to have fun shared in-person experiences together and to celebrate the magic and joy that comes from experiencing art and creativity together.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Spanx founder Sara Blakely — another Florida girl who dreamed big and changed the world. She also uses her success for good which I admire.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

About the Interviewer: Douglas E. Noll, JD, MA was born nearly blind, crippled with club feet, partially deaf, and left-handed. He overcame all of these obstacles to become a successful civil trial lawyer. In 2000, he abandoned his law practice to become a peacemaker. His calling is to serve humanity, and he executes his calling at many levels. He is an award-winning author, teacher, and trainer. He is a highly experienced mediator. Doug’s work carries him from international work to helping people resolve deep interpersonal and ideological conflicts. Doug teaches his innovative de-escalation skill that calms any angry person in 90 seconds or less. With Laurel Kaufer, Doug founded Prison of Peace in 2009. The Prison of Peace project trains life and long terms incarcerated people to be powerful peacemakers and mediators. He has been deeply moved by inmates who have learned and applied deep, empathic listening skills, leadership skills, and problem-solving skills to reduce violence in their prison communities. Their dedication to learning, improving, and serving their communities motivates him to expand the principles of Prison of Peace so that every human wanting to learn the skills of peace may do so. Doug’s awards include California Lawyer Magazine Lawyer of the Year, Best Lawyers in America Lawyer of the Year, Purpose Prize Fellow, International Academy of Mediators Syd Leezak Award of Excellence, National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals Neutral of the Year. His four books have won a number of awards and commendations. Doug’s podcast, Listen With Leaders, is now accepting guests. Click on this link to learn more and apply.