Where are there spaces to co-work or incubate my startup? Where can I find a mentor? Where can I find funding? Where is there a list of events to connect with other entrepreneurs? Where can I find tech talent?
These are questions that a new online guide aims to answer -- and will help entrepreneurs both within the community and from other places around the world to navigate Miami's emerging startup ecosystem.
The New Tropic is publishing the guide, with financial backing from the John S. and James L Knight Foundation. The guide, startup.miami, is designed to help entrepreneurs, investors, job-seekers and others interested in the city’s startup growth. It will be announced at Tuesday's Sime MIA conference.
The guide provides insights on:
* Community: Connecting entrepreneurs to mentors, investors, and each other through events.
* Funding: Offering information on investor networks, accelerators, startup competitions and more.
* Talent: Helping growing teams find new talent and supporting job seekers who want to enter the Miami startup scene.
* Training: Providing tips on learning opportunities for people interested in working in tech and people at all levels interested in skill-building.
* Spaces: Offering insights on where to set up shop and find a workspace.
* People: Highlighting the leaders behind the growth of Miami’s innovation ecosystem.
"With the startup community growing so quickly in Miami, we heard a lot of questions about how to plug in,” said Chris Sopher, CEO at The New Tropic. He called startup.miami "a starting place for Miamians to know what's happening and who's doing it, and we're looking forward to growing and evolving it in the coming months with the help of the community."
Startup.miami includes video interviews with startup community leaders such as Shaun Abrahamson, investor and tech entrepreneur; Nico Berardi, managing director of Accelerated Growth Partners, an angel investor network; Felicia Hatcher founder of Code Fever, an organization that provides tech entrepreneurship training to underserved youth; and Laura Maydon, founding director of Endeavor Miami, which mentors and accelerates high-impact entrepreneurs. It also includes a list of events and invites people to share their own stories of working in the Miami innovation scene.
Said Matt Haggman, Knight Foundation program director for Miami, “In order to create impact, [Miami's entrepreneurs] need easy access to the support services and information that are essential to starting, maintaining and scaling their businesses. The Miami Startup Guide helps fill this gap, providing one-stop-resource for entrepreneurs looking to contribute to our expanding innovation ecosystem.”
Knight has committed more than $18 million to more than 165 investments in entrepreneurship over the past three years.