As part of a look back -- and look ahead -- at community-wide efforts to build or accelerate a technology-entrepreneurial ecosystem in South Florida, I asked a sampling of entrepreneurs, investors and service providers for their views with a variety of questions. I’ll put a sampling on this blog throughout the week.
Find the main stories here: fundraising and progress/challenges. See Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
In coming days I will include comments on talent, fund-raising, progress, challenges and more. What's your view? Add your comment on this post or email me at ndahlberg@miamiherald.com.
Today's questions:
Have you been able to find the talent you need locally?
"In most cases, the answer is yes. In building and growing .CO, most of our talent was recruited by attending local tech events, tapping into entrepreneurship programs in South Florida colleges, and through referrals by friends and colleagues. Whether looking to hire a developer or bring an intern on board for the summer, we’ve been able to attract some incredible local talent for sure. In some cases, it has been a bit more challenging to find local talent. The good news is that, when necessary, we have also been able to use the allure of life in Miami to inspire people to relocate to our sunny shores!” - Lori Anne Wardi, CO
“Absolutely, we have had success finding talent across South Florida. We have done this in large part due to our work with local universities as well as building a strong culture of innovation that attracts some of the best and brightest in the area. People are CareCloud’s number one asset.” – Albert Santalo, CareCloud
“I have held leadership roles in technology for the past decade and have built a solid network of talented technologists who are ready to work. The key to finding the tech talent needed for your business in South Florida is in growing your network - you'll rarely find talented resources willing to jump ship without having a previous relationship. We simply do not have enough nerds here to make this the norm.” – Marlon Williams, Fenero
“Finding good talent has been very challenging. The current talent pool is overloaded with people who have hospitality and real estate backgrounds. It was very difficult for us to source top talent for what we were looking for. However, we did find good quality people after making use of referral and personal networks.” – Umut Tekin, Park Jockey
“Finding great talent is only half the battle and talent is only as good as the time leadership commits to coaching. We've been fortunate enough to find talent both locally and in other states and it comes down to some basic principles: raw talent, commitment to learning quickly, and grit. That combination seems to be difficult to find anywhere.” –Frankie Coletto, PassTheNotes
“For Shiver Entertainment, we are always on the look-out for great software engineers and digital artists to create amazing video games. Finding them locally has been the most challenging issue for us. While we have been able to find a few great digital artists within the local area (mostly Broward County), we have only found one local software engineer who can meet our qualifications. We have some very large local colleges (FIU, Miami Dade, UM) that produce many computer science graduates who are ready for web and enterprise software development. Unfortunately, they aren’t graduating with the skills necessary to jump into video game development or lower-level application development – even at an entry level. As such, we’ve had to recruit from other universities around the nation and “import” our talent, which is very time consuming, costly and difficult.” – John Schappert, Shiver Entertainment
In your view, what is a big challenge South Florida faces in developing a tech hub and what will it take to overcome that challenge?
"I believe the biggest challenge is reaching a nationally recognized “critical mass” of scalable,tech-oriented deal flow. In the short term, we need to craft a better story about the plethora of existing benefits for attracting and retaining Miami-based tech start-ups (for instance, an active and growing angel network, less competition for the emerging tech spotlight, the eMerge Americas Conference, increasing college graduates in tech, an emerging entrepreneurship support system, a critical mass of LA headquarters of Fortune 500 companies, Miami International Airport, Port of Miami, a network of Free Trade Zones, economic strength in key real estate and tourism growth sectors, a fascinating and magnetic international culture, a banking and transshipment center, low taxes, a world class entertainment and arts mecca and great weather.) – John Hall, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses
“Convincing the rest of the US that there is actually a vibrant tech scene here in Miami and they should invest in it, and participate in it.” – Mario Cruz, Choose Digital
“South Florida is a significant tech hub – certainly for Latin America and the Caribbean, and increasingly for the rest of the US – and we need to start from that premise. All of the necessary pieces – pro-business culture and regulatory landscape, talent, capital, academic and research institutions, entrepreneurial culture, and start-up support infrastructure – are present, growing, and in some cases, thriving. Our challenge is to continue the momentum and maintain our focus on raising the tide, rather than any one boat.” – Kevin Levy, Gunster
“In order to achieve the hyper-growth expected by venture investors, entrepreneurs need to keep their hiring standards high. I believe that much of the talent is already here and the rest will be recruited or home-grown as Miami continues to brand itself as a start-up hub. What’s been missing is the visibility into the local talent. The creation and collaborative nature of the Talent Development Network is a good start.” – Melissa Krinzman, Krillion Ventures
If you could add one ingredient to the entrepreneurial ecosystem, what would it be?
“I would have the Beacon Council focus their efforts on bringing VC's here to open offices.” –Brian Brackeen, Kairos
“Encouraging people to think local and test, test, test. Big ideas start small and develop through teamwork and feedback. I guess my one ingredient would be ‘curiosity.’ “ - Rob Davis, Code for Fort Lauderdale
“Persistence and attention span. We have to keep people engaged for the long run. We are on a 10 year mission, not a 10 month one.” --Adriana Cisneros, Cisneros Group, Endeavor Miami
“Silicon Valley investors.” –Brian Garr, LinguaSys
“More women! We still fall short in bridging the gap between women and the localtech/entrepreneurial ecosystem.” Fabiola Fleuranvil, Blueprint Creative, Beacon Council New Leaders Taskforce
Posted: Oct. 8, 2014