How I Built This: Santa Barbara Edition

Meaghan Azlein

Mar 25

4 min read

What does it really take to build a successful company in Santa Barbara?

On March 25, 2026, Ventech brought together three accomplished Central Coast entrepreneurs for How I Built This: Santa Barbara Edition, an evening of candid conversation about starting companies, navigating challenges, building the right teams, and turning ideas into businesses with lasting impact.

A packed room at the Cabrillo Pavilion heard directly from leaders behind Sonos, Seek Thermal, FastSpring, and Santa Barbara Venture Partners, each with a very different entrepreneurial journey and plenty of lessons learned along the way.

Three Founders, Three Different Journeys

The evening featured an accomplished panel of entrepreneurs who have built and scaled companies right here on the Central Coast:

John MacFarlane, Founder and former CEO of Sonos, shared perspective from building one of Santa Barbara's most recognizable technology companies. MacFarlane led Sonos for 15 years, helping transform an ambitious idea about the future of home audio into a global consumer technology brand.

Bill Parrish, Co-Founder and CTO of Seek Thermal, offered a different perspective on company building. Founded in Santa Barbara in 2012, Seek Thermal took a steady, bootstrapped approach to growth while developing thermal imaging technology for consumer, commercial, and industrial applications.

Dan Engel, Founder of FastSpring and Managing Partner of Santa Barbara Venture Partners, shared lessons from a career that included both startup failures and successes. Engel founded FastSpring in Santa Barbara in 2005, building the software commerce company with a remote-first approach long before distributed teams became commonplace.

The conversation was moderated by Marcus Chevitarese, Ventech Board Member and Founder of SIGHTIR.

What It Really Takes to Build

Rather than focusing only on the successes, the evening explored the realities behind building a company.

The panelists discussed early ideas, failures, pivotal decisions, growth, leadership, and the importance of recognizing your own limitations as a founder.

One theme that emerged throughout the conversation was the value of the people you choose to build alongside.

Parrish emphasized the importance of finding partners whose strengths complement your own. Trying to handle every aspect of building a company alone is incredibly difficult, and surrounding yourself with people who bring different capabilities and perspectives can make all the difference.

MacFarlane spoke candidly about the personal demands of entrepreneurship and the limits founders inevitably encounter as their companies grow. His experience highlighted that leadership is not simply about having the right idea. It also requires understanding yourself, adapting, and knowing how to respond when you reach your own limits.

Engel's journey offered another important reminder: entrepreneurship rarely follows a straight line. Early ventures do not always succeed, but the experience, lessons, and willingness to keep trying can shape what comes next.

Building in Santa Barbara

The evening also explored a question especially relevant to the Ventech community: What is it like to build a globally successful company in Santa Barbara?

While Santa Barbara may not have the startup reputation of Silicon Valley or Los Angeles, the panelists highlighted some of the advantages that come with building outside of a major technology hub.

Engel reflected on how Santa Barbara's distance from the noise of larger startup ecosystems gave him room to think differently while still allowing access to major technology centers when needed. FastSpring's early remote model also allowed the company to recruit talent beyond the immediate region.

The stories shared throughout the evening demonstrated that world-class companies do not have to begin in traditional startup hubs. Some of them have been built right here on the Central Coast.

Lessons From Those Who Have Built Before

There is tremendous value in hearing from entrepreneurs who have already experienced the highs, setbacks, pivots, and difficult decisions that come with building a company.

While MacFarlane, Parrish, and Engel followed very different paths, several ideas connected their stories: find the right people, be willing to experiment, learn from failure, understand your own strengths and limitations, and keep moving forward.

For founders and aspiring entrepreneurs in the room, the evening offered something more valuable than a formula for success. It offered perspective from people who have actually done it.

Thank You for Joining Us

Thank you to John MacFarlane, Bill Parrish, and Dan Engel for sharing their experiences so openly, and to Marcus Chevitarese for guiding the conversation.

A special thank you to InovarHR, our event sponsor, for helping make the evening possible, and to Gaviota Coast for joining us as an event partner.

And thank you to everyone who packed the Cabrillo Pavilion, asked thoughtful questions, made new connections, and helped make How I Built This: Santa Barbara Edition such a memorable evening.

At Ventech, we're proud to bring our community together to learn not only from today's ideas, but from the people who have already turned ambitious ideas into successful companies.

Santa Barbara may be a small community, but the companies built here have made an impact far beyond the Central Coast.

Want the full scoop on this event? Check out the feature in the Pacific Coast Business Times here