Author: Darryl

2nd Session of “A Conversation With Innovative Women”

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Innovative Women Hacking The Startup Life

This was the second in the series of conversations with innovative women titled “Hacking the Startup Life”, hosted byLuminary Central, Crea7ive Interactive Advertising, and Pipeline Brickell. Its aim was to engage the panelists in a discussion regarding common obstacles women entrepreneurs face, and what methods they developed to overcome them.

The entrepreneurs involved in this session were Birame Sock from FlyScan, Dawn Sole from Pluck N’ File, and Tamar Lucien from CanUStart. The event was masterfully moderated by Luminary Central‘s own Christine Johnson.

The event kicked off with interesting facts from each of the founders that shed some light on how they now face obstacles. Dawn used to play football for an all boys team, Tamar has family gingerbread house building competitions that encourage the demolition of other’s structures, and Birame responds to an irrate note with the gift of a can opener.

The conversation was fluid and directed by Christine with various pointed questions. Some of the responses are highlighted below:

Have you ever experienced an unconcious bias as a woman in the startup world?

Birame responded with an experience she had when sitting in the office of a VC in Boston. “I was sitting in the office waiting for my appointment. The door was open while we were waiting. The guy I was meeting walks by and looks in. Walks by again, and looks in. Walks by a third time and says “You’re my meeting?”. After I said yes he said “Well I have a hard stop in 10 minutes, what’s your business plan?” Two hours later he called his assistant to cancel his lunch meeting to continue our conversation.”

Are there moments when you under estimate yourself?

Dawn replied with “We all experience it, but I’ve realized it’s all in how you talk to yourself. Now I force myself to look in the mirror and say “You’re the champ” repeatedly.”

How do you overcome fear or other inner struggles?

Tamar stated “I’ve learned you just have to call it for what it is. If you’re upset, just say you’re upset. I have to own my feelings and let them out and then move onto the next thing.”

There were many other impactful moments and lessons shared by these three great founders. The insight they shared with the audience was relatable, actionable, and inspiring. Numerous audience members stated how valuable they found the experience and the actionable advice they were going to implement immediately.

We are looking forward to the next session in the series of conversations with innovative women.

Follow Darryl on Twitter @ddoonie

For those that were not able to attend, you can watch the entire session below:

 

2nd Annual MIA Music Summit

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The second annual MIA Music Summit took place on March 26th and delivered on its promise of “Silicon Valley and Miami Rock Together”. Industry leaders, live performances, celebrated artists, and curated startups took part for a day of discussion about the future of the music.

Demian Bellumio, from Senzari, and the MIA Collective gathered some of today’s leading digital music experts, entrepreneurs, and investors from around the globe to discuss the intersection of music and technology and the future. Primary moderators Derrick Ashong and Lilia Luciano skillfully kept the audience engaged while eliciting insightful responses from the curated panel.

Miami Music Summit 2015

The event fittingly took place at the historic Colony Theatre in Miami Beach. The experience began, and was maintained throughout the day, with DJ Guti Talavera showcasing his scratching and beat juggling skills. Live performances were quite refreshing, especially from Sony’s first digital artist Raquel Sofia, who also shared her journey as a singer using social media platforms to ignite her career.

Liv Buli

Liv Buli from Next Big Sound provided a data driven overview of the industry and touched on the creative ways they are using data to consistently predict who the next big artist will be.

Nicky Jam

Nicky Jam beamed in from Colombia via Skype to discuss his re-emergence as a relevant artist. He attributes the majority of his success to the platform Instagram and his ability to upload 15 second clips. Social platforms allowed him to build a significant and loyal following. He used this brand to strengthen his bargaining power while sitting down with Sony to negotiate a deal favourable to himself.

David Guetta

The event’s panelists were all passionate about the future of the business, the opportunities being revealed, and the changing dynamics within the industry. Advertising panelists introduced interesting trends shifting to more native type ads, with high fidelity sound, and playlist creation by brands. Robby Towns introduced the history and evolution of the EDM music industry while Jean Charles-Carre revealed the 20-year journey of David Guetta’s career.

The startup showcases revealed companies accomplishing amazing things. From UpClose‘s live communication tool that is platform indifferent to Bandhub that allows random individuals to collaborate musically together. Miami companies Muzik and SoStereo impressed the audience with their offerings. This impressive showing bodes well for the future of the industry.MIA Music Summit 2015 was an amazingly educational, inspirational, and revealing event. We can’t imagine how next year’s event can be even bigger and better, but we know it will be.

Follow Darryl on Twitter @ddoonie

GCVCA’s 2nd Annual Expo Showcasing Entrepreneurs

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We attended the 2nd annual Gold Coast Venture Capital Association (GCVCA) Expo on February 24, alongside 600+ fellow patrons. The rooms were packed wall to wall with enthusiastic entrepreneurs, investors, and other related parties all anticipating meeting the carefully curated exhibitors and listening to the two illuminating speaker panels.

GCVCA’s mission is to provide a forum to share information that is pertinent to and develop relationships among entrepreneurs, investors and service providers in Florida’s Gold Coast, roughly defined as Palm Beach to Miami. It is safe to say they overwhelmingly accomplished this mission with the Expo.

Bob Fitts, president of GCVCA, granted us access to the VIP Reception, which allowed us time to meet with him and all of the exhibiting entrepreneurs. Bob mentioned that one key to the success of this Expo was the significant consideration they gave to selecting each exhibiting entrepreneur. GCVCA wanted to ensure there were an adequate variety of pre-screened companies available for their investor members to converse with.

Bob Fitts

The GCVCA Expo afforded us the opportunity to meet very interesting companies that don’t frequent the Miami circuit.

One such company was a watchmaker named EnergyBionics that creates watches that have a mini solar panel on the face, stores energy, and then can be used to recharge your smartphone or other electronic device.

EnergyBionics

Another company was Prometheon whose slogan was “This is not for pricks”. Their patent-pending technology is a transdermal platform that allows for the delivery of large molecule drugs across the skin. Simply stated, they can deliver drugs like insulin through a patch thereby replacing tons of needles with a single patch.

Prometheon

There were many other stand-out companies, many from Miami, that were granted the opportunity to pitch to a captive audience of investors – all thanks to the GCVCA. You can see the full list of exhibitors here – http://www.gcvcaexpo.org/start-ups/

The other highlight of the evening was the panels. Great insights, strategies, and actionable suggestions were shared throughout the educational evening.

Speaking with various angel investors present we asked what they were specifically looking for in an investment. The top three were:

  1. An actual revenue model leading to a sustainable business
  2. A team with the capabilities to lead and grow a company
  3. A clear and thought out marketing and sales strategy

The 2015 GCVCA Expo was another resounding success. The buzz throughout the night was both electric and contagious, even more so than last year’s Expo. We are eagerly anticipating next year’s Expo!

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