The Starting Gate

Susan Amat: 4 leadership tools for startup success

By Susan Amat

I wish I could blame the queasy feeling I have had for the last few months on bad food choices or the blessing of another baby on the way. Entrepreneurial nausea is a common condition experienced by those pushing their limits in the pursuit of some milestone for a venture. The eternal optimism of most founders is the best explanation of why anyone would choose the path of new business creation, which many would consider sadomasochism.

When I started my first real business in high school, I remember feeling sick a lot. I was balancing six advanced placement classes and going out almost every night to see bands and have meetings, so I chalked it up to not sleeping much. Then I spent years developing content, connecting entertainment industry entrepreneurs, and traveling on tour buses, so the rush was always there to keep me focused on building my business rather than questioning the unique (read: crazy) situations that became my norm.

I have to admit that it is scary to be an entrepreneur in startup mode again. Every day is a rollercoaster of emotion. I left the comforts of steady income, a clear role, and a consistent schedule and dove headfirst into the great unknown, which I have the pleasure/pressure of designing and executing every day. I know we are going to be great. My team knows we are going to be great. I am not running for homecoming queen – my role is to lead a team to build the best content and technology to create scalable programs and processes to empower entrepreneurs and support their development, and that is all I do every day.     

      There are four key ingredients needed to create a business that has staying power:

1.  A clear vision. Why does the company need to exist? And what impact will your product or service and team have over the next 20 years on an industry, a continent, or population? If it seems achievable, you aren’t thinking big enough.

2.  Share your vision through your story. The tale of Venture Hive starts 25 years before it opened and has lots of twists and turns. If I wrote my vision without referencing my past, any rational reader would dismiss it as fantasy, but once he knows my values, my love for Miami, and my passion for supporting entrepreneurs, it is hard not to cheer for the underdog.

3.  Lead your team to greatness. This was the biggest hurdle for me to overcome. I love being in a team and working together as equals, but the brave souls who have decided to join me on this journey aren’t there for my friendship. I have to be clear about what I am doing and what their roles are in supporting my vision. Being a leader is lonely but the power contained in the gift of trust that one’s team bestows is enough to fuel a city for 100 years, and makes the impossible feel attainable.

4.  Build a team for sustainability. I hire and develop to create redundancies. My team must breathe life into the seeds I planted or else our growth will be limited by dependencies.

If you want to change an industry, a mindset, or millions of lives, be prepared for battle every day. Having to be strong is exhausting – for my team, my family, and for the entrepreneurs who call Venture Hive home.

What keeps me going, with a smile at least 80 percent of the time, are the founders that we support. And if you are addressing a problem, providing a solution that transforms lives, your drive will overpower the doubts that may surface, including the notions that seem innocent and rational but can usurp the confidence that an entrepreneur musters daily. If we don’t do it, who will?

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” – Apple Inc.

Susan Amat is the founder of Venture Hive. You can follow her on Twitter at @susanamat.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/16/3454576/susan-amat-four-key-ingredients.html#storylink=cpy

Startups on stage: Kairos selected for ‘WSJ Startup of the Year’ video documentary series

Later this month and continuing through much of the year, the world will be able to follow a Miami-based startup’s journey. And reality-style, viewers will have a chance to help vote the startup to the top.  

Kairos, which brings facial recognition technology to workplaces in a variety of ways, is one of 24 startups chosen by Wall Street Journal editors to participate in the first  'WSJ Startup of the Year,' an episodic video documentary for WSJ Live, the Journal's online video platform. The series premieres June 24.

According to the Journal, the series matches the 24 startups with global business leaders and tracks their progress from startup to success over the course of five months. Throughout the series, WSJ editors, working closely with the business leaders and strongly considering viewer votes, will narrow down the field to one “Startup of the Year.”  

Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, Steve Case, chairman of Startup America and co-founder and former CEO of AOL, and Tory Burch, CEO of Tory Burch LLC, are among the global business leaders participating in WSJ Startup of the Year.

According to Brian Brackeen, co-founder and CEO of Kairos, each week, the show will include videos submitted by the startups that show the real ups and downs of startup life. There will also be periodic live events where the startups will meet with the business leaders, and those interactions could also be  included in the episodes.

Brackeen explained that the process started about four months ago, originating with encouragement from and connections with NewME, a Google-backed San Francisco accelerator his team participated in last year. After an extensive interview process that included several submissions, the 24 startups were notified a couple of weeks ago and the startups were just announced yesterday.

“We’re geeky excited here," Brackeen said Thursday morning, during some filming. "We are making the most of the opportunity.”

So how does a startup rev up for this? With a lot of community involvement, of course. Brackeen is working with five interns from the Posse Foundation, some of them with media backgrounds, and they are all helping with this project. He has also hired the Max Borges Agency for coaching and promotion expertise.  Much of the taping has been going on at The LAB Miami, where Kairos is now based.

Brackeen said he is currently raising a seed round and plans on raising a Series A in the fall, so he believes the exposure will help with that -- Kairos and the other startups will be featured across
all of the WSJ platforms including print, television and online.

The 24 startups, from a wide range of industries, were chosen from more than 500 applications. Each startup is U.S.-based, has a prototype or proof of concept in place, and less than $10 million in annual revenue.  Brackeen describes the stage of Kairos as firmly in the seed stage, currently bringing in about $500K in annual revenue and projecting about $3 million for next year. “Our stage is 'on the way',” he said.

Read more about the other companies selected here and  watch WSJ Startup of the Year's sizzle reel, its trailer, and the series beginning on June 24 here: wsj.com/startupoftheyear

 

Crowdfunding Friday: This startup wants to End Bad Hair. Forever.

Hair Construction, part of the first accelerator class at Venture Hive, is a Miami-based startup with a global team (40 stylists from 10+ countries) that is leading the transition toward online education and online product purchasing for the hair industry.

Along the way, Hair Construction hopes to shake up the huge, sleepy hair industry by introducing technology that provides Style-Discovery Apps to salon clients, along with video recipes and blueprint instructions to hairdressers. E-commerce has yet to transform the hair industry as it has others, but Hair Construction will soon fold product purchasing into its mobile offerings to lead that transition, in a model similar to Amazon Prime.

Cory Hoffart of Hair Construction says: "We at Hair Construction are on a mission to End Bad Hair. Forever. We are doing this by creating a Stylez App, with which everyone can find styles they love, with accompanying how-to videos and text instructions for their stylists to reference. This ensures they get the exact styles they asked for.

 "To generate awareness of our campaign, we are taking the Stylez App to Kickstarter, making it available to stylists and salon clients everywhere. Additionally, the app will have updo videos for everyone to use, along with multiple celebrity styles."

Hair Construction is trying to raise $8,000 via Kickstarter to fund development of the iOS and Android app, and the campaign ends June 23 (if you are having a bad hair day, the thank you gifts  may entice you). Here's the link to learn more and donate: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1812952994/on-a-mission-to-end-bad-hair-forever

Starting Gate will feature a South Florida campaign on Kickstarter or another crowdfunding platform on Fridays. If you would like your campaign to be considered, email me at ndahlberg@miamiherald.com

.Club Domains wins .club name, completes $7 million funding round

The Internet domain game got a new player as .Club Domains won the rights to the new generic top level domain (gTLD) name .CLUB. The .CLUB name was obtained in the first private auction to be completed since ICANN began the new gTLD process, the Fort Lauderdale-based company said.

.Club Domains also announced that it has completed a $7 million funding round and plans to add 20 to 30 jobs. “What .COM has done for companies, .CLUB will do for membership organizations of all sizes." said .Club Domains’ CEO Colin Campbell, founder of Tucows International and Hostopia.

Brando undergoes stem-cell surgery for paralysis -- thanks to Stemlogix treatment

Brando,  a paralyzed 9-year-old German shepherd, underwent  stem cell surgery on Wednesday, thanks to an innovative treatment developed by Stemlogix, a Weston-based company launched in 2010 that develops and sells stem cell therapies for animals.

Brando, paralyzed from the back down since January, received the first of a  two-part stem cell surgery performed Wednesday at Paradise Animal Clinic in Hialeah.  In about three to four weeks, the dog named after Marlon Brando will get another injection of high-octane stem cells, and that process will continue until Brando is healed, said  stem cell scientist Julieta Radiche, who works for Stemlogix.

Stemlogix pioneered the landmark stem cell therapy treatment regimen and this is the first time this combination stem cell therapy treatment has been performed in Florida to treat paralysis. Stemlogix treatments have been used successfully on dogs, cats. race horses, chimps and other animals.

After the surgery that took several hours Wednesday, Brando responded to pain tests to his legs -- a great sign -- giving the doctors and the dog's owners hope that he will benefit greatly from the treatment.

Read more about the procedure and see a photo gallery in a Miami Herald article here. The photos taken at the surgery on Wednesday are by Miami Herald photographer Walter Michot.

Medina Capital invests $11 million in Sunrise-based Easy Solutions

Easy Solutions, a South Florida company offering fraud protection solutions, today announced that it has closed an $11 million Series B financing round from Medina Capital, a high-growth equity investment firm focused on the IT infrastructure sector. The funds will be used to expand sales and marketing in the U.S. and worldwide to meet increasing demand for the company’s total fraud protection platform, said Easy Solutions, which has headquarters in Sunrise and Bogota.

More than 100 enterprise-class customers, from high-value, client-centric market segments such as banking and online retailers, leverage the Easy Solutions platform to secure over 32 million end users worldwide. The company’s comprehensive line of products provide a multi-layered approach to securing transactional environments from fraud, while leaving legitimate users unaffected.

“Online fraud is a growing concern, with sophisticated attacks becoming increasingly difficult to detect and block,” said Manuel D. Medina, founding and managing partner of Medina Capital. “Easy Solutions has a proven, multi-layered approach that enables their customers to prevent both simple and complex fraud attempts. Their customers, including major banks we spoke with, have seen a significant drop in fraud-related losses as a result of leveraging Easy Solutions’ scalable fraud prevention platform.”

Easy Solutions’ products deliver cross-channel fraud protection across transactions performed on online and mobile platforms, as well as via ATMs, Point-of-Sale terminals, and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems. This ability to quantify and protect against cross-channel risk in real-time continues to grow more critical, as criminals leverage multiple channels to conduct highly sophisticated fraud.

“The recent US$45 million theft, which utilized both online hacking of credit card processors databases in India, and then physical ATM fraud in New York, is just the latest example of why cross-channel fraud protection is increasingly crucial for financial institutions,” said Ricardo Villadiego, founder and CEO of Easy Solutions. “With this infusion of capital, we are excited to expand our reach to new markets as we deliver the industry’s most comprehensive fraud protection platform to customers around the world.”

Medina Capital focuses on areas such as cloud computing, cybersecurity, big data, software-defined security and software-defined networking.

 

Internships offer a taste of the startup life

Around South Florida, organizations have mobilized to immerse talented college and high school students into the startup life.

Venture Hive, the accelerator/incubator in downtown Miami, held an Intern Open House last week (pictured here) with 19 startup companies and 57 high school and college students, said Susan Amat, Venture Hive’s founder. The high school students were part of Miami-Dade Schools’ tech-oriented magnet programs, said Amat, who also chairs the Miami-Dade County Schools STEM Board, and university students came from FIU and other schools.

  Some startups hired interns on the spot while others scheduled follow-on interviews. “These companies see the importance of preparing the next generation of technologists and entrepreneurs in South Florida,” said Amat, who was on her way Friday to South Africa, where she was speaking at the World Bank Global Innovation Conference and running a four-day workshop for startups.     

The LAB Miami in Wynwood is holding a Startup Speed Interviewing event from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 29, for rising seniors from magnet high schools, said Wifredo Fernandez, the LAB’s CEO. While the internship program offered through the Miami-Dade Schools is not new, pushing the program to startups is.

As part of the internship, students will be working 30 hours a week for five weeks. “We really commend the startups who are stepping up as leaders and providing life-changing opportunities for these students,” said Fernandez, adding that the project is a direct result of a recommendation during Rokk Miami last month.

There are more than 30 startups signed up, and some of them would like more than one intern. Fernandez expects at least 60 high school students to participate in the “speed interviewing” event. Companies can still sign up through midnight Monday, May 27, by  registering here.

The Enterprise Development Corp. launched an internship program for college-level business students, including MBAs, who are paired with startup tech companies. The interns work at their sponsoring companies Monday through Thursday and come together on Fridays for workshops, speakers and networking at MEC261, a new entrepreneurship center in downtown Miami, said Gerard Roy, who is directing the EDC program. The program began May 20 and culminates with a public event Aug. 9. 

Roy, who had five internships himself, is modeling the program after one he ran in San Francisco. In addition to helping the companies with marketing, finance or operations, the interns work on a major project throughout the summer. “I want the interns to feel a sense of ownership,” he said.

As part of the One Community One Goal initiative, a Beacon Council committee is working on a county-wide internship program with a goal of placing at least 200 students from local universities and high schools into paid internships every year, said Irma Becerra-Fernandez, vice president of Engagement at FIU, who is helping coordinate the project. The idea is to create one central clearinghouse for college and high school internships.

The intern positions will be aligned with the seven industries outlined in One Community One Goal. Sponsors from companies, nonprofits and government are being lined up and the working group hopes to get the program off the ground shortly, said Becerra-Fernandez. For students that seek real world experience, companies that want an efficient way to find interns and an economy that needs to combat brain drain, the program will be a win-win-win, she said.

Gregory Johnson, pictured here, didn’t wait around for a program. As a senior at Miami Union Academy, he became interested in all things entrepreneurial and reading books by entrepreneurs, watching TED talks and networking at local tech events. That led to an opportunity at Project Lift Miami, the new healthcare-tech accelerator at the University of Miami Life Science & Technology Park. He graduated this month and is interning about 30 hours a week, learning as much as he can from the five businesses in the accelerator and helping them with social media strategy and research. Johnson plans to attend Oakwood University in Alabama in the fall, studying finance and marketing. “My career goal is to be a social entrepreneur,” said Johnson, who also interned for the Obama campaign. “I want to learn as much as I can.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/26/3418405/wanted-a-taste-of-the-startup.html#storylink=cpy

Do You Remember wins at pitch night

It was a launch week not to be forgotten for DoYouRemember.com, a nostalgia company that recently moved from New York to accelerate at Venture Hive. The company not only went live with its new site and five apps, but it also won the startup presentation competition at Refresh Miami’s Demo Night at the South Florida Technology Summit and took home the $1,000 prize provided by New Frontier Nomads. Do You Remember is already a team of 20, headquartered at Venture Hive.

Do You Remember is the first social website and series of mobile apps created to bring together people passionate about nostalgia and it does this by connecting them through memories, said its founder Michael Gitter (pictured here). The site offers news, places to post memories and a highly interactive chat room, and it launched with an impressive 20,000 initial beta testers, a Twitter following of 115,000+, and 33,500+ “likes” on Facebook. Gitter literally wrote the book on nostalgia, several of them in fact — The  Do You Remember? series in the 1990s.

Other South Florida startups pitching at Refresh Miami's Demo Night included PostKard, Mock, LayoutIt, EyeTalker, Pop.cp, Clutch Tutoring, Fitting Room Social and Kairos. Kairos, which offers facial recognition software solutions for the workplace, won the People'[s choice vote. About 400 people attended the Refresh Miami event, which was held in conjunction with the South Florida Technology Summit.

See related post on Refresh Miami here. 

Refresh Miami then and now -- and news

THEN: The first Refresh Miami event ever, in 2006: Left to right, Brian Breslin, Robert Murray, Chris Saylor, Alex De Carvalho. Not  pictured is Rebecca Saylor, who took the picture.

NOW: Refresh Miami's April 2013 event, on Lean Startup, held at the Miami Science Museum and attended by about 400 people. Photo by Allan Tito.

Refresh Miami, the largest tech entrepreneur organization in South Florida, started out with just five people meeting at a Starbucks in 2006. Today the group has grown to 5,000 members and attracts several hundred people to every monthly events, giving countless entrepreneurs a platform to connect with others and share their milestones. Today Refresh has one of its own to announce.

Matt Haggman, Miami program director of the Knight Foundation, announced tonight that Refresh Miami will receive a  $150,000 Knight Foundation grant to help it expand its programming.  Noting the impact Refresh Miami has already had on the community and that people need the right connections and a central place for ways to learn and engage, Haggman said, “Refresh Miami will fill this gap by providing entrepreneurs with the opportunities they need to build their ideas and inspire others to participate.” He made the announcement during Refresh Miami's Demo Night, which was held during the inaugural South Florida Technology Summit hosted by TigeerDirect.com at the Miami International Airport Convention Center. r

Brian Breslin and Peter Martinez, co-directors of Refresh Miami, say they will use the funding to provide more and higher quality programming, such as the ability to fly in a speaker from Silicon Valley, for instance. Other plans include co-hosting a multi-university career fair with local startup DemoHire in September. Refresh will also hire an event planner, something the all-volunteer group has never had. This will give the directors more opportunity to work on growing the community,
upgrading the programming, drawing corporate sponsors, and adding resources for the membership, said Breslin, who like Martinez also runs a couple of companies.  Maybe he won’t even have to buy the event pizza either.

 “Refresh has the potential to help in many more ways that up to now we didn’t have the resources to do,” Breslin said, explaining that the RefreshMiami.com website will also be revamped, with an events calendar easily searchable by subcategory and enabling notifications, a job and internship board, a robust membership directory and tools for smaller groups to promote themselves to the Refresh audience.

The group has steadily grown over the years and produced about 80 monthly events, but it began reaching a wider audience in the last six months. Recent events have included themes like founder matchmaking, fund-raising, fashion tech and food entrepreneurship, in addition to events on 3D printing, Lean Startup methodologies and Windows 8. Indeed, one of the recent challenges has been to find venues big enough to host Refresh Miami.

Although Refresh events are free and open to all, the group has begun a VIP membership program. For $100 a year or $10 a month members get such perks as VIP seating, early access to events and discounts to local co-working spaces and services.

 “Through this expansion, Refresh can continue on its mission of growing and refreshing the technology and entrepreneurial community," added Martinez.

Susan Amat: Using your roots to grow your business

By Susan Amat

Miami is special for many reasons – among them is that we have the highest percentage of foreign-born individuals in any city in the world. That contributes to the amount of startup activity we enjoy but also is a reason why many of our businesses don’t scale to the levels other regions see over the same time period. The different perspectives and churn of the population itself keeps creativity flowing but the transitional nature of our demographics sometimes hurts an entrepreneur’s ability to reach deep into the local network for support.

The last few weeks I have been neck-deep in Diaspora education and programming. A Diaspora is defined as the scattering of a people from their homeland to other countries. A major goal of the Diaspora initiatives is engaging the community around business opportunities to increase trade and support the concept of global citizenry.

Because a great deal of the residents of South Florida are first or second generation immigrants, the concept of connecting to our region of ancestry is not as radical as it may be in other parts of the United States. Your concept may be a good idea locally, but a game-changing idea abroad.     

       In examining whether your birthplace or another region is the best place to build your customer base, finding the right experts and partners will make all the difference. You can start with the many foreign Chambers of Commerce in Miami, representing a score of countries including Spain, Brazil and France, but there are many opportunities beyond that.

Begin by looking at your roots. If you are part of a Diaspora group, there may be defined resources to support connections to help your business. That may include grant funding as well as contests to promote trade relations.

The International Diaspora Engagement Alliance (IdEA) programs are a great place to start. In Africa, the Lion@frica program has been doing incredible work, magnifying the tech startups from all over the continent. The African Diaspora Marketplace is a place where entrepreneurs can start making connections to promote their products on a global platform.

The Caribbean IdEA program takes a different approach, focused on building connections between the islands and the Diaspora. Its business competition receives hundreds of submissions to find the most promising concepts, which last year included both high-tech and agricultural businesses. Those selected receive mentoring and support as well as curated connections. Its Caribbean Diaspora Marketplace is up and ready to bridge the countries for an easier path for entrepreneurs.

Another program, which will soon be launched, is La IdEA, focused on the Latin America Diaspora.

The Miami-Dade economic development organization, the Beacon Council, regularly hosts delegations from dozens of countries each year. Contact its office and let them know about your international needs so when the opportunity arises, they may be able to invite you to represent your company, and our community, to foreign visitors. Greater Miami Chamber trade missions are another great way to learn about international opportunities. This year they already went to Peru, the Dominican Republic and Brazil and Mexico is coming up.

Finally, look to your neighbors, many of whom may have spent much of their lives in other countries. Share your concept and understand the needs of their culture. The customers with the greatest need for your product or service may be in a country where you may have never visited, so be patient and open to spending time understanding the country and economic issues. Your efforts could be the beginning of creating jobs and hope both locally and abroad.

Susan Amat is the founder of Venture Hive and the co-founder and executive director of The Launch Pad. In 2012, she was named a Champion of Change at the White House for her work mentoring entrepreneurs. Follow her on Twitter @susanamat   

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/19/3405539/susan-amat-using-your-roots-to.html#storylink=cpy