Family ties: Hi-tech C-suiters see Greenville as a sweet spot for families, entrepreneurship

It’s graduation season — and crunch time for those age-old questions: What are you going to do with that humanities degree and where could you possibly get a job with one?

Dylan Whitman earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy, and Gary Shiffman has a B.A. in psychology. Both served in the Navy. Both have started and built tech companies into global multimillion-dollar businesses. And both chose to move to Greenville.

Whitman is a serial entrepreneur/investor, and his wife, Megan, is vice president of growth marketing at New York-based Wandering Bear Coffee. In 2020, they moved here from San Diego. In mid-May, they celebrated daughter Ruth Mae’s first and Whitman’s 41st birthdays — and the launch of his newest company, Inveterate, which helps companies create subscription programs.

The influx of experienced entrepreneurs, innovators and investors adds to the momentum that’s been building here for over a decade. It’s imperative that we recognize these folks for what they are — economic engines — and invest community time and resources to onboard them quickly and accelerate their impact here.
–– John Moore. Principal, Momenteum Strategies

Meanwhile, Shiffman and his wife, Dr. Jeanne Shiffman, who practices in Greenville at Spruce MD, moved from Arlington, Virginia, where, in the 1990s, he staffed the chief of naval operations, among other marquee military jobs. Today, he’s founder/co-founder/CEO of two machine-learning companies, Giant Oak and Consilient.

So what is it about Greenville that lured these high-power C-suiters? For both, the decision boiled down to quality of life — especially for their families.

“I really feel like when you walk down the streets here,” Whitman says, “it feels like you’re in a movie set for some nostalgic, old-school Americana-type place.”

“Old school” sounds faintly amusing given Whitman’s multiple roles as habitual startup whiz-slash-angel investor … oh, and that time he was an e-commerce expert for ABC’s “Shark Tank” (2015).

Since building his first computer at age 14, he has helmed and raised millions of dollars for future-tech companies whose internet-ese names sound — to the layperson, anyway —incomprehensible. (Although, he did chair one e-commerce branding company with such clients as P&G, Hallmark and Red Bull, among hundreds of others.)

Still, what about California’s status as high-tech’s home office and a venture capital fountain?

“The West Coast tech-business scene’s environment, it’s like the cool kids. Everybody thinks they’re super cool — but like lobsters in a bucket trying to get on top of each other,” he says.

Shiffman echoes Whitman when he talks about family, as well as Greenville’s fertile grounds for startups.

While he doesn’t call himself an entrepreneur, the 1991 Gulf War veteran who earned a doctorate in economics says, “I refer to myself as somebody engaged in bringing science and technology together to understand the world.”

In 2020, he co-founded and became CEO of Consilient. The company’s next-gen technology fights financial crime, money laundering, terrorism financing and the like, in addition to providing compliance tools for financial institutions. In 2009, he started Giant Oak to “predict and detect real threats to safety and security at home and in communities around the world, reducing crime, fraud and violence,” the company’s website says.

Like Whitman, their relocation choice also involved family. When their daughter, Belle, enrolled at Clemson, they visited Greenville and fell in love with the place. That’s when, he says, he and Jeanne decided, ‘“We gotta do something, we just gotta mix it up.’”

And he concurs with Whitman’s assessment of Greenville’s accessibility to everything a startup needs. Obtaining seed capital, for instance, is no harder here than anywhere else.

“I don’t need to be in fill-in-the-blank city to raise $9 million” for his two companies since arriving here eight months ago, he says. Of Charlotte and Atlanta, he adds, “I’m a two-hour ride from two of the largest financial centers in the country, and I have a nicer quality of life, and I gave up next to nothing and I gained, so it’s just net-positive.”

As Whitman sums things up: “Whether it’s in the neighborhoods or in the startup scene, there’s a strong sense of community in Greenville that you don’t find in larger cities.

Dylan Whitman
CEO and co-founder
Inveterate.com loyalty program software.
July 2021 to present

Shark Tank: 2015
Co-Founder
Pari Passu Venture, Investing in early- to growth-stage businesses at the intersection of technology and commerce.
November 2020 to present

Investor in the following companies: