Appointed to Enterprise Florida board
Gov. Scott announces Biter is to take one of the governor’s seats on the board of directors at Enterprise Florida (subject to confirmation by the Florida Senate). Biter has already been serving the organization as an appointee of the Speaker of the Florida House since 2011. He succeeds Henry Rodriguez, and is appointed for a term from today through Sept. 30, 2018. Scott:
Jesse has been a leader in the Florida business community, and I’m confident he will work tirelessly to make Florida the best state for job creation.
Starts Dealer’s United
Biter and Sarasota Ford operations manager, Matt Buchanan, son of U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, launch Dealers United. The plan is to build a nationwide network of dealers that will have combined buying power with vendors.
The firm creates deals services common to many dealers, from search-engine optimization to customer management software. Network members decide independently if they want to buy into the deal.
Biter and Buchanan say they will spend at least $1 million in startup costs on the business. Five employees have already been hired and Biter plans to hire at least five more for a Dealers United call center.
Buchanan: We are going to work for the dealers. We’ll be more powerful than any one group.
Starts HomeNet
After he drops out of college his mother loans him $1,000 to start HomeNet, a company that installs fiber-optic cable. To make ends meet, he works at car dealerships, setting up computers and helping dealers save money by, for example, stringing together their PCs so they could use a common printer.
Bill Gates (was my inspiration) because he started a company in his basement — a software-based company. I could associate with him. He was solving problems with software, and I knew I could do that.
One dealership asks him to build a website to advertise its cars online. Biter doesn’t know how to create a site, with a friend, makes one. Soon he starts building websites for other dealers.
Biter starts building software that allows information about sales and listings to be handled electronically. The software cleaned up any spotty data…
Dealers would spell ‘Chevrolet’ 100 different ways
…and let sellers and buyers both know exactly what was available where, in real time.