The Starting Gate

Hack for Change Miami: Where art and tech meet big government data

By Danny Lafuente

On June 1 and 2, The LAB Miami will host the 1^st Annual Hack for Change: Miami as part of the National Day of Civic Hacking. The event endeavors to bring together citizens in the spirit of collaboration to develop new technological solutions for some our country’s oldest problems. Or, as the national website puts it, “to do what is most quintessentially American: roll up our sleeves, get involved, and work together to improve our society.”

If the idea of a hackathon doesn’t already excite you, and if Uncle Sam’s call to action doesn’t already inspire you, and if you think there is actually a cooler place to be than in the heart of Wynwood, I’ll give you five reasons why you should still register and participate:

1 . Because this hackathon has new faces and new spaces. Most hackathons attract entrepreneurs, programmers, and front-end developers, but this one is also calling on artists, musicians, nonprofits, government employees, and anyone with the time and talent to spare. Hack for Change: Miami has issued three of its own challenges around Art, Technology and Sustainability. With a bevvy of other national challenges, there really is something for just about everyone. In a room full of passionate, talented people -– serendipitous collisions abound.

2. Because the data to which you’ll have access will blow your mind. Datasets and open APIs at the national level have been released by agencies like NASA, EPA, USDA, US Dept of Energy, USAID, US Dept of Labor, Census Bureau, National Science Foundation and the Peace Corps among others, in addition to a growing list of local government data. Folks, this isn’t stuff you find on Google – and
until recently, you would have needed special clearance to access it. The list of challenges range from specific ones like a national farmer’s market directory, to broad challenges on synthesizing data on everything from commute times in every neighborhood in the US to the movement of celestial bodies in outerspace.

3. Because it’s a free lesson in social entrepreneurship. Simply put, social entrepreneurship is a business that aims at solving a social problem. They differ from nonprofits because social entrepreneurs face what is called a double (or triple) bottom line, meaning they measure performance based on profit/return in addition to positive social impact. While its not easy to fix the world and make a buck doing it, companies like TOMS and Kiva have mastered it. With new local offices for organizations like Ashoka and Endeavor, Miami is a prime market for social entrepreneurs. This hackathon will not only further educate you on social enterprises, but it will also give you real life experience using some of the most coveted data in the industry.

4.  Because if you’ve EVER complained about the government, you’d be a hypocrite to sit out. This likely applies to just about everyone who’s lived since Ancient Rome but never has the government enabled, on such a broad scale, its citizens to help in directly impacting the efficacy
of government. The solutions created might lead to less traffic, greater energy efficiency, or better-informed fellow citizens. Who knows? It could even lead to a wait-free DMV…but I may be getting ahead of myself.

5. Because it’s important for Miami. Not just for the tech scene but for all of Miami’s citizens. Events like this create solutions to alleviate social problems. Events like this help build community and consensus, which are hard to achieve in a city so sprawled and culturally diverse. Events like this
bridge an important gap between the private and public sectors. The importance of this event is felt by many and is reflected in the 20-person steering committee composed of representatives from city and county government, multiple universities, local companies, and tech groups. If Miami aims to be the next big startup hub, it’s going to need governmental support. 

If you want to learn more about the different challenges or the event itself, I encourage you to come to The LAB Miami this Saturday, May 18, from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m., for a networking info session that’ll be sure to answer any questions. It’s also a great place to start meeting potential teammates, brainstorming on app ideas, or sketching out potential data visualizations. And yes, food & beverages will be provided.

You can also learn more at hackforchange.org/hack-change-miami-arts-more or on The LAB’s website at www.thelabmiami.com.

Go to http://hackformiami.eventbrite.com/ and register today.

Danny Lafuente is the COO and co-founder of The LAB Miami. He is a proud Miami native and alumni of Ransom Everglades School and the University of Pennsylvania. You can email him at Danny@TheLABMiami.com.

5 social media predictions for 2013

The LAB Miami is flying in digital marketing expert Katya Constantine to lead a  workshop on customer acquisition and digital marketing that will address how to best use the channels to acquire and retain customers, how to optimize your costs and track and measure performance. More details on the workshop, taking place May 6, are here: http://labcustomeracquisition.eventbrite.com. Below is her guest post.

By Katya Constantine

2012 brought a lot of change when it comes to social media. We saw the rise of gamification. We saw more analytical tools being launched in the social media world.  We also saw brands trying to
figure it out:  What does social media mean to them?  Should they be on Facebook?  Twitter? Pinterest? Google+?  Given the rapid revenue growth and emergence of a number of new platforms, 2013 promises to be an even more exciting year in social media.

Over the last two years, I’ve had the opportunity to be at the forefront of social media trends, as I was responsible for strategy and development of social media for one of the largest consumer brands in the world — Amazon.com, specifically for the movies product line.

Based on that, and what I've been seeing happening in social media, here are my predictions for 2013:

1. The rising use of analytics:  Social media is no longer just a brand channel for businesses. It is a fully-fledged marketing channel, just like search and email.  In 2013, brands will start to assign (if they haven’t already) business goals to this new channel.  Thus, we will see a rise in analytics tools to help businesses measure ROI on their social media spend.  We’ll see some better standardization on metrics as well as the tools that allow businesses to succeed.

2. Increased presence of consumer brands across multiple social media sites: Most brands recognize that even if they are not at the front line of a social media, they need to have a presence. In 2012, new social media channels came in to the mix such as Google+ and Pinterest.  Especially in consumer brands, we will see an increase in brands having a presence across all major social media channels. Expect to see more promotions and messages coming in from your favorite brands across multiple sites.

3. The rise of social game-based promotions: It is very common to see sweepstakes as a pathway to grow your fan base.  Expect to see more social media promotions from brands - whether it’s credits, deals, or sweepstakes -  as brands try to grow their fan base as well as customer database.  This is a great way for consumers to learn and to share their favorite brands with their friends but also one of the key ways that a brand has to build its base.

4. The rise of targeted offers:  Brands are becoming savvy in terms of using social media data to target their messages based on demographics, location, your interests… And the leading social media platforms starting with Facebook and Twitter have recently rolled out targeting mechanisms that allow proper targeting at scale.  2013 will become a year of targeted offers being delivered via social media channels.

5. Increased integration between social media and other digital channels: Expect to see brands integrate social media into all of their digital channels, whether its website, email, or search.  Social media will have deep integration whether it's for personalization or for recommendations - as well the ability to close the feedback loop with other channels. There are some tools out there that are already doing it today.  This will be a standard for how brands engage and bring awareness to their products and services in 2013.

Well, here you go.  These are our top predictions for social media for 2013.  We are yet to see what the next social media channel is that is embraced by brands (mobile messaging, anyone?), but we definitely know that social media is here to stay as an online channel for both B2B and B2C brands.

Katya Constantine is a seasoned marketer with over 10 years of online marketing experience.  Most recently, she was at Expedia and Amazon, leading projects ranging from behavior-based programs to increasing customer acquisition and conversion with great success. Katya is the founder of DigiShopGirl Media and is an active blogger for TechCocktail. Follow Katya on Twitter: @digishopgirl

 

Technology Business Incubator in Boca completes latest expansion

Ten months ago, the Research Park at Florida Atlantic University and Enterprise Development Corporation of South Florida expanded the Technology Business Incubator (TBI) by 5,000 sq. ft. in response to a growing demand.  A second expansion (previously reported on Starting Gate) will be complete this month, adding an additional 10,000 sq. ft. to accommodate a  need for additional space for its current client companies and to house new companies that have been on a waiting list.

The TBI, a location and knowledge resource center for entrepreneurs emerging from Florida Atlantic University – students, recent graduates and faculty – as well as regional entrepreneurs is currently home to 23 early stage high-tech companies as well as the New World Angels and the Institute for Commercialization of Public Research. The most recent expansion brings the TBI to a total of 25,000 sq. ft. and will accommodate an additional 15 companies, with individual offices ranging from 120 to 1,000 sq. ft., said Andrew Duffell, president and CEO of The Research Park at Florida Atlantic University.

The expansion features a 4,000 sq. ft. co-working center operated by Caffeine Spaces. The new and larger space also features a Student Innovation and Invention Lab designed for use by FAU student-based teams working on industry projects. Also included is a dedicated office for the annual FAU Business Plan Competition winner and a kitchen and lounge area. For the emerging company requiring advanced broadband capabilities, the space is wired with Gigabit Ethernet cabling and optic fiber, and includes a server room with back-up battery power and a generator available to host resident company servers.

TBI space is rented on a first-come, first-served basis after a thorough review of the TBI online application. For more information, please contact Christine Burres,ccannon@edc-tech.org.

 

Good Reads: South Florida startup scene in the national, global media

As winter turns to spring, South Florida’s startup scene has seemed to capture the attention of the national and international media more than usual. Here are a few of the recent stories.

Rokk3r Labs celebrated its first anniversary last week, and it also was the subject of a splash in Entrepreneur, which called it a hybrid investor-accelerator.  In just a year, the article said the Miami Beach-based Rokk3r Labs has $1.5 million in sales, a Colombian subsidiary, a $20 million investment portfolio, 25 employees and expansion plans for Brazil, Africa and Europe. Read the Entrepreneur story here.  

Kimetric, an Argentine company that recently relocated to South Florida and is part of the Launch Pad Tech accelerator at Venture Hive, was featured in a Wall Street Journal story. Kimetric, which also recently presented at SuperConf, helps retailers increase their sales by tracking and analyzing in-store customer behavior with an innovative application of Microsoft Kinect technology.    Read
the WSJ story here.

The LAB Miami  was featured in a Forbes blog post titled The LAB Miami: Turning South Florida into the Next Startup Hub, which describes the 10,000 square foot Wynwood space as both a co-working  space and a community for connecting and learning with classes, workshops and on-site mentors and investors.

Miami was listed as one of six cities that would be great places to launch a business on The Street,   which interviews The Knight Foundation’s Matt Haggman about the area’s recent momentum.  Read
it here.  South Florida and The LAB Miami also shined brightly in the Atlantic’s earlier coverage  when it presented Start-up City: Miami last month and its post-event video here.

This list is far from comprehensive and I’m sure I missed some. TechCrunch and The Next Web have also featured a number of Miami startups recently, and Andrej Kostresevic’s Startup Digest this morning reminded me of the recent  video interviews of Juan Diego Calle of .CO and Freddie Laker of Gui.de for Tech Cocktail’s SXSW video series.  But the point is the national media spotlight is providing more opportunities for outsiders looking in to read about and learn about the tech community.

Catching the Buzz: Caffeine Spaces Opens and Group of Groups forming

By Bill Bathurst

Mark Laymon’s dream over the last three years has been to open a clubhouse for entrepreneurs -- a place to share ideas, build business relationships and meet with like-minded innovators. Thursday night with the opening of the Caffeine Spaces  Co-working Center at the Research Park at FAU, this dream has been realized.

Most people don’t realize how hard Mark has worked to make this happen, said Ryan Teixeira at the opening; Mark was talking “co-working” well before it was the hot buzzword it is now. Laymon and Teixeira are the founders of Newtech Community,  a popular and successful  tech networking group that has been meeting in the Boca Raton area for years. Laymon also serves on the staff of the Enterprise Development Corp. (EDC) in an economic development role. (Teixeira and Laymon pictured here).

Attending the opening were local innovators such as Nicholas Mohnacky and Chris Callahan from Surfr App, a hot new in-beta ios app for surfers to log surf sessions, Andrew Danciu, co-founder of Trackablebusinesscards.com and many more. Sponsors of the Grand opening included Robin Delisser of Empower Resources and Jeff Brown of honeytreeholdings.com.

Also Meeting at the EDC is the “Group of Groups”

In the technology world there are meet-up groups, peer groups and user groups and now in South Florida, group leaders are forming a “Group of Groups.”  Spearheaded by Jay Moskowitz, a South Florida serial entrepreneur, and moderated by Dale Gregory of Cherrystone Management, this Group of Groups meets at the EDC at FAU, developing plans to help facilitate growth and vibrancy in South Florida’s tech and entrepreneurial ecosystem.

 “The goal is to help bring together the leaders and influencers from the major technology groups in South Florida, so that we can build connections throughout the region and strengthen our high tech corridor,” says Moskowitz. “If more group leaders would like to join we would love to have them.” Currently there are leaders of over 32 groups represented.

Last Tuesday night’s meeting included members of the steering committee, including Mark Wyllie, CEO of Flagship Communications Group and executive director of Internet Coast, Linda Gove, executive director of the South Florida Technology Alliance, Michael Gregson of the Life Science Technology Hub, Irene Revelas of Startup Delray, and  Laura Whalen of Voispot. Andrej Kostresevic of New Frontier Nomads and Miami Startup Digest joined by teleconference.

Bill Bathurst (pictured here) is the founder of  TheReef.biz, an online platform matching innovative high-growth entrepreneurs to private investors, advisors and service & funding providers in order to create thriving and successful entrepreneurial ecosystems. Contact him at Bill@thereef.biz 

Editor's addendum: Brian Breslin and Andrej Kostresevic report that this Wednesday for the first time -- in an effort to bridge the geographical divide -- a bus will pick up entrepreneurs at Caffeine Spaces in Boca to drive them to The LAB Miami (with a stop in Hollywood) for the Refresh Miami event on "Hardware Hacking and Robotics." The cost is free, thanks to a generous donation, but register here. Tickets are going fast.

 

How to find the best work environment for your team

By Susan Amat

Knowing what you need, when you need it is both a skill and an art. As an entrepreneur, that holds true when trying to decide where you will conduct the master planning, strategy, ditch digging, sleeplessness, power naps, wiping of tears, and jumping for joy during your journey. While terms like “accelerators’ and “incubators” are used interchangeably by many, each has very clear missions in the classic sense. Throwing co-working into the mix offers a good overview of places to set up shop with special perks for entrepreneurs.

Accelerators: An accelerator is typically a 12-week program that supports rapid growth for startups, usually in the tech space. Most accelerators either have no specialization, meaning they accept tech ideas from all industries, or they have a singular focus, such as cloud computing or healthcare. The program we are running at Venture Hive called Launch Pad Tech is an economic development-based accelerator focusing on leveraging the existing strengths of Miami: healthcare, travel/hospitality and creatives. Most accelerators have one or two programs a year. Entrepreneurs typically do not pay to be part of these programs. Usually an accelerator is able to sustain itself by taking equity in the companies or having a fund attached. The support we received from the Downtown Development Authority and Miami-Dade Mayor Gimenez allows us to give no-equity grants to the companies. If you are considering applying to an accelerator, narrow your search to those that have a track record of success in developing companies that still love them after the program is over and have investment rounds and growth after leaving. If you can find one that is focused just on your industry, that is even better. Most accelerators make their acceptance decisions not just on the idea but the team itself, so having a strong technical co-founder is usually a necessity.

Incubators: Whereas an accelerator is an equity-based model, an incubator is sustained by charging the entrepreneurs rent or fees for services. And as accelerators cap their programs at 12-weeks where everyone is in a cohort together, companies at incubators may start and end at different times since there isn’t a set lockstep curriculum. Most use language around a company graduating from the incubator when certain milestones are met, which usually must happen within a two- or three-year period. If you are considering an incubator, spend time with the entrepreneurs as well as the sales team from the incubator and make sure your company will fit, considering the pace and intensity of the other firms, the culture of the space, and the personality of the program managers. Ask resident startups for examples of how the program has supported them. Since the only one I can reference are my friends at the EDC incubator at FAU in Boca Raton, we are launching the Venture Hive Incubator in May. Applications are now open at www.venturehive.co

Co-working spaces: Co-working spaces rent private offices, devoted desks (yours that no one else can use), or access to shared workspace. You will find a combination of freelance professionals and startups working and rental income is the key to maintaining the business. Services and activities offered vary greatly; some charge for classes open to both members and non-members, others have free events as a benefit of membership. When choosing a co-working space, you can be very selective since there are many options locally. Work out of each space for a few days. Do you like the people and the overall vibe? Are the owners nickel and diming you for every cent? Your ideal schedule may also come into play — if you work nights and weekends, check the event schedules if you want to concentrate on your business instead of being distracted by a class being conducted. Can you conduct meetings with clients in a private conference room? What is the parking and public transportation situation? Is the neighborhood representative of your brand? Pick where you think you will be the happiest and your business will thrive from being around such inspiring people!

Working from home: While you may have free parking, 24/7 access and a stocked fridge, getting out of your normal environment to join others who may provide inspiration and support is invaluable to most entrepreneurs. Starting a business is incredibly lonely, but every entrepreneur needs a network to make contacts, offer feedback, and be there for the ups and downs.

Running your startup from your day job office: Don’t do it! You will get caught and then there will be questions about using company resources to support your business and who owns what.

Knowing the options and nuances of offerings will ensure your experience lives up to your expectations for the health of your business and your physical and emotional well-being.

Susan Amat is founder of Launch Pad Tech and Venture Hive. Follow her on Twitter @susanamat. She writes this monthly column for The Miami Herald's Business Monday section.

Collaborative Intelligence: how collaborating across industries turns ideas into a business

By Todd Oretsky

What happens when an advertising entrepreneur, mobile interface designer and communications expert come together serendipitously to create the next great mobile app?

At Pipeline,  we call it collaborative intelligence - and it's a phenomenon that happens multiple times each day in our shared workspace community.

Together, these three entrepreneurs are developing an application that will allow mobile users to see an instant personal profile of the caller with data and details pulled from all the social channels in which they are active, from LinkedIn, to Facebook to Foursquare, among others. It instantly provides information about the person that would otherwise have taken precious time to compile.

Entrepreneurs Adam Boalt, David Elgina and Jose Paz were able to develop the mobile application they are currently tweaking and testing because of the synergistic expertise and knowledge working together provided.


The ability of these entrepreneurs to develop an initial idea by pulling together their expertise, knowledge and experience via collaboration proves why it leads to a higher likelihood of success. The increasing demand for collaborative workspace we are seeing in Miami -- such as at Pipeline, pictured here -- stems from the growing number of entrepreneurs and start-up businesses that are investing and working in our community.

There are a number of benefits to collaborative intelligence, beginning with the ability to share what you know, what you think you know and what you need to discover. By gathering around a table and discussing, debating and developing an idea, entrepreneurs are able to create something that they may never have been able to create on their own.

Challenges still exist when collaborating with people from different disciplines.  Most parties see a problem from their own lens, fail to understand the other issues that may exist and have different levels of commitment. Start-ups and small businesses are often self-financed and require venture capital and family-friends financing to turn an idea into a business. But the end result for these entrepreneurs is not only moving the needle in innovation, but making a profit and achieving success.

In Miami, small businesses and entrepreneurial companies serve as the backbone of the regional economy.  The growth of collaborative intelligence will prove to be the catalyst that creates successful Miami homegrown companies to fuel the future of the local economy.

This, however, is going to take a collective effort on the part of the private and public sectors to support and invest in developing an ecosystem that nourishes small businesses and start-ups, so that they invest in staying and growing here in Miami. For now, we are enjoying the new ideas that are created on a daily basis as a result of the emerging concept of collaborative intelligence within our community.

Todd Oretsky is CEO and Co-Founder of Pipeline, a collaborative workspace at 1101 Brickell Avenue. For more information, visit www.pipelinebrickell.com.

Confessions of a LAB Rat: Colliding at Cirque du Cowork

By Catalina Ayubi, Photographer and LAB Rat

As the very first member of The LAB over the past year, not only have I found a place from where I can conduct a majority of my business, but it has also allowed me to make connections with people whom, under other circumstances, I may have never met. I think Tony Hsieh, Zappo’s CEO, at Start-up City Miami was right, we need to “collide.”

Take for example the many times I have been able to “collide” with different members of The LAB that ultimately lead to business opportunities. From doing art photography for one of the investors, to shooting headshots for Matthew Lewis Studio, to getting referrals from Sew Love, and receiving great business advice from the many business people who “collide” here on a daily basis.

The LAB’s  “Cirque Du Cowork” opening party was an example of just this. Nearly 500 mostly independent startup owners, turned up and were able to partake in different activities such as:

 * The Idea Jam, run by the Knight  Foundation and hosted by Matt Haggman, Chris Barr, Chris Sopher and Ben Wirz. During the Jam people where broken up into small groups where they joined forces to develop open government solutions for city issues.

* Followed by the “shark” dunk tank, where entrepreneurs had 60 seconds to pitch their ideas to a group of “sharks” or investors while in a carnival-style dunk tank full of water. The “sharks” included Marco Giberti, Angel Investor; Peter Kellner, Endeavor Global Co- Founder; Auston Bunsen, 1 Sale A Day CTO; and Matt Mahan, Causes CEO. Eleven brave entrepreneurs dangled at the mercy of these “sharks”, but Perfectore was named the winner and walked away with $500 “cool” ones, dedicated  space at The LAB and already scored follow-up meetings with serious investors. Unfortunately, the only cool thing the other 10 entrepreneurs got to take was a cool dip in the water!

* Office  Hours with New York’s Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator were packed and 25 local  startups took advantage of the expert feedback and advice of Murat Aktihanoglu,   ERA’s Founder and Managing Director.

*And last, but not least, let’s not forget the beer-pong tournament for which 20 teams signed up.

 Aside from all these businesses getting together for a celebration of the development of entrepreneurial collaboration in our community, The LAB invited several other businesses to be part of the day. Fitmap, a personalized social fitness planner that allows users access to multiple
fitness venues and activities locally, had a booth at the space. Even film buffs had access to a series of cult and B-movies like Joey Halegua‘s Gutter Films. Finally, let's not forget the farmers market, serving vegetarian food through out the day.

 The energy throughout the day was palpable and I was glad to be part of it! I am elated to see how the city, which I have called home for the past 14 years, has evolved and will continue to evolve towards a more proactive and exciting place with The LAB in our neighborhood.

(Pictures provided by CVOX Group show Leon Gomez of datingcircles.com in the tank and investors Marco Giberti of Reed Exhibitions/LAB Miami and and Peter Kellner of Endeavor Global casting their votes.)  

 

 

SuperConf winner Vinylfy "an American Dream story"

Jose Pimienta of Vinylfy won the Startup Blastoff at SuperConf 2013. Photo provided by SuperConf.

By Nancy Dahlberg, ndahlberg@miamiherald.com 

Jose Pimienta had never pitched to an audience when he got the call last week that he was selected to compete in the Startup Blastoff at this week’s SuperConf technology conference -- in front of judges and about 200 people. He didn’t even have a pitch deck or presentation for his new company, Vinylfy.

 So what did he do? He taught himself to pitch over the weekend using a slide show and  an explanatory video on “How to pitch a VC” by Dave McClure, founder of 500 Startups. “I watched it three times,” he said, and quickly put together a presentation.

On the Monday before Thursday's showdown, he made his pitch to Auston Bunsen, Davide DiCillo and Brian Breslin, the organizers of SuperConf who watched the pitches of all eight entrants before the conference and made suggestions for improvement. They told him his presentation was strong, but it needed  to be more personable. He incorporated all their advice.

“I was really nervous,” said Pimienta, but all the hard work paid off. Pimienta and  his co-founder, Osniel Gonzalez, won the competition at SuperConf, the homegrown two-day technology conference that concluded Friday.

Their new company, Vinylfy, helps record collectors keep track of their collections, trade and share with others online. The two co-founders both have day jobs at a local technology company, but they started working on it just two months ago on nights and weekends. Their total investment: under $200.

 “Now that is bootstrapping,” said Juan Pablo Cappello, a serial entrepreneur, investor and lawyer and one of the judges of the competition.

"This is my third year as a SuperConf judge and not only has the conference gotten better every year but the quality of the startups as well," added SliceHost co-founder Matt Tanase. "It was a tough decision, but what really stood out for us about Vinylfy was his passion and how important the success of vinyl records was to him. There was also a very clear path to revenue ... And he has gotten some traction with no advertising, all word of mouth. It was really impressive."

With their winnings of $22,000 in cash and prizes, Pimienta and Gonzalez intend to work on their customer acquisition strategy and legal protections, Pimienta said.  

Pimienta, a record collector, said he understands first-hand the problem his company is trying to solve. “My collection grows so fast, I even forget what I have. I wanted a way to always know what I have, and to socialize and trade with other collectors.”

But for Pimienta, 24, and Gonzalez, 29, (pictured at right), their entrepreneurial journeys go back more than a decade. They both knew each other in Cuba, became friends and shared a love of music. They both learned to code there, despite the outdated workbooks, low Internet penetration and bare-bones computing infrastructure. Gonzalez was even Pimienta’s professor at a university in Cuba for awhile.

 Pimienta moved here from Cuba in 2009; Gonzalez moved here from Cuba just last July. They have a third co-founder in Cuba.

Vinylfy is not their first project together. They recently built dNominator, an iPhone app to help  generate names for your startups, projects or apps and check domain and twitter handle availability in seconds. They have also used their design and programming skills to build numerous websites for other people through their design company, Alpis Design http://alpisdesign.com/

How are they finding the startup community in Miami so far? “We didn’t know anybody, so we started going to Refresh Miami. The people in the community are really good people. They have been really helpful,” Pimienta said.

After they won the award, offers of help began to pour in.  Adam D’Augelli of True Ventures, one of the judges,  gave Pimienta his card and asked him to follow up. Congratulations and offers of help came through tweets.  Wifredo Fernandez, co-founder of The LAB Miami, offered the team six months of free co-working space.

"We are so inspired by their journey and really want to do all that's possible to help them succeed," Fernandez said. "It really is an American dream story."

 

MapYourStartup adds partners; MiamiShared honored

In South Florida startup news this week:

MapYourStartup.com, which allows companies to put themselves on the map -- literally -- and also maps entrepreneurial events, announced two more strategic partnerships this morning: The Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce and Miami-Dade SCORE. "We'll be working together on certain initiatives for the entrepreneurial community and also co-marketing one another's efforts to the community," said Norberto "Tito" Gil, who co-founded MapYourStartup.com with Rokk3r Labs. Last month, MYS announced partnerships with FIU's Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center and UF as well as and events mapping feature.

MiamiShared, a co-working space in downtown Miami that offers dedicated desk space starting at $195, was honored this week by Business Insider, which featured it as one of 17 cool workspaces in the U.S.   "A crisp, clean space, MiamiShared is known for its bold, abstract artwork, and even allows artists to display their artwork in the space," the article said, also noting that a receptionist will greet your clients. Read it here.

South Florida startups, what's your news?