By Nancy Dahlberg
Demo Days, founder dinners, happy hours, product launches, and dozens of events large and small marked the 2024 version of Miami’s Art Week, actually almost two weeks this year. Add in the perfect weather, beautiful views and of course the world-class Art Basel and other art fairs going on – what more could you ask for?
For the tech community, this Peak Miami experience was all about networking first and foremost (and hopefully you got to experience some of the art part too), mixing it up with community leaders, founders and investors celebrating Miami and what’s ahead as well as sharing knowledge about their journeys.
That includes celebrating the “How can I help?” moment four years ago, when Miami Mayor Francis Suarez responded to a tweet by Delian Asparouhov about moving Silicon Valley to Miami with that simple question, helping to set off an explosive migration of founders and funders during the pandemic to the Magic City that has slowed but not stopped. “The how can I help response reflects a set of values planted by Manny Media, the godfather of Miami Tech,” said Suarez at Tech Basel, a full-day event last week produced by eMerge Americas that explored AI, quantum, healthtech and dual-use technology.
“What Manny saw was this wave taking over the world. He said we’ve got to get into the game,” said Suarez, and today, we are in the game, with big aspirations. “We want to be the capital of capitol. We want to be the most relevant and important city in the world. Is that going to happen by accident? No. It’s going to happen by [everyone] rowing in the same direction, with the same vision, the same intensity and the same desire,” the mayor said at his Tech Basel address.
“We’ve evolved a long way in Miami, I would say, from the cocaine cowboys to now it’s the tech, financial, medical, entertainment, and education cowboys,” said Armando Christian Pérez (aka Pitbull), in an inspiring conversation with eMerge Americas founders Manny and Melissa Medina. Pérez founded the charter school SLAM in Little Havana, which has a 100% graduation rate. He has now founded 12 SLAM schools in underrepresented communities around the US, and he’s not done.
In Miami, everyone has that immigrant story, says Pérez, who called Miami a hub of opportunity for entrepreneurs. “When you have that chip on your shoulder, you build different because it comes from a deeper connection.”
Throughout the weeks, founders were front and center, including taking the stages at demo days for Techstars Miami, Endeavor Miami and VC firm Nex Cubed.
At a VC Ready event hosted by Lazo, Your Cohort and Power to Pitch, entrepreneurs in the audience heard from both founders and investors about how to prepare for early-stage funding.
Alejandro Resnik, co-founder and CEO of the Miami-based proptech Belong, expressed the importance of having not only a great idea but an enormous amount of credibility. “Be consistent, be bold, do what you say you are going to do.” If you’re not building while in fund-raising mode, that’s a mistake, he said. He emphasized the importance of building something of value, having a clear plan and understanding market dynamics.
Dileep Thazhmon, founder and CEO of Jeeves, a Miami-based fintech building a global B2B banking platform, also stressed the importance of proving to potential investors that the founder can hit key milestones that show traction and then seeking the funding needed to get to the next milestone. Your passion will be your motivator, he said. “It’s very hard to do startups if you are not all-in, building something that matters,” he said. “In the beginning it really isn’t all that complicated, how much money do you need to get to the next milestone and your job is to get to the next milestone,” he said, adding that you also need flexibility to navigate a changing landscape.
Founders also took center stage at the Endeavor Summit this week, hosted by Endeavor Miami, and a common theme was entrepreneurship shouldn’t be about getting rich; it’s about building startups that are valuable to the world and create wealth for others.
Sebastian Mejia, co-founder and president of the unicorn Rappi, a Latin American super-app founded in Colombia, said that in any given month, more than 100,000 careers are connected to the Rappi platform. “These are people back in Latin America living below the minimum wage. We’re paying three or four times more than the minimum wage on a per hour basis,” he said. What’s more, there are about 90,000 merchants who in some cases get 60% of their sales through Rappi. On top of that, 140 companies have been built by Rappi alumni, added Mejia, in an on-stage conversation with David Senra, host and founder of Founders Podcast, and Laura Gaviria Halaby, Venture Partner at Outliers Ventures.
There’s no better feeling than sharing the wealth with your team at the exit, founders Emiliano Abramzon and Seth Cassel, co-founders of Nearpod and Everymundo respectively, in another discussion at the Endeavor Summit. “90 percent of our team made at least a year’s salary in one check,” said Cassel, and the outpouring of gratitude was overwhelming. Handing out checks to employees when their companies were acquired was indeed the “best feeling ever,” added Abramzon.
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