We do a lot of our current business development by actively participating in local tech community events, meetings, conferences and gatherings. It is a great way to meet new companies with technology initiatives.
There are literally hundreds of meetings going on in town as we speak and over the last 3 month I have attended close to a hundred different events, however based on my personal experience there is a handful of meetings where you can actually get business traction if you are an aspiring entrepreneur in South Florida.
I will briefly discuss 10 of these meetings down here and I will follow up with some more details in a separate blog. As we are working on setting up some of our own events, I will keep everybody in the loop with the developments.
1. Refresh Miami
https://www.refreshmiami.com/
Cost: $10
Takes place: monthly
Average attendance: 50-70 persons
This is a great event with participation of a large pool of companies and individuals. Start-ups that attend are often offered on stage pitching opportunities and funds raising relationships / vehicles. The ones that are in the crowd are many times pre-funded and are looking to develop new relationships to grow their businesses. Our company secured serious average term software development contracts out of this event.
2. Micro Venture Capital Club
http://www.meetup.com/microvc/
Cost: $10
Takes place: monthly
Average attendance: 25-30 persons
This is monthly meeting with the mission of putting together entrepreneurs and investors. Two or three pre-qualified companies are offered the opportunity to pitch during every event. Investors and members of the audience can ask questions and bounce ideas / make recommendations. There is a solid flow of tech companies that present and many other in the audience. The investors are both individual investors (angel type) and institutional.
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/network-after-work-miami-at-the-viceroy-hotel-tickets-13370679061?aff=eac2
Cost: $10
Takes place: monthly
Average attendance: 70-100 persons
This is a very intense event that gathers a large local crowd. Both Enterprise, mid-size firms and start-ups are represented. The event is organized in a Happy Hour type of manner in different restaurants and bars around town (generally around Downtown Miami / Brickell). There are real companies with real budgets and with medium term needs for technology. We got good clients out of this meeting and a few promising partnerships with companies that provide complimentary services.
http://www.meetup.com/South-Florida-Agile-Association
Cost: free
Takes place: monthly
Average attendance: 25-30 persons
This is a very good quality meeting that promotes agile software development practices. The audience is composed mainly from Project Managers from different local Corporations such as Citrix, Office Depot, Subway, KRFS etc. While this is not directly a meeting where people discuss business development initiatives, it is a great place to meet Corporate decision makers and establish relationships. We have closed software developers placement business in this meeting.
5. IACMP
(website not available)
Cost: free
Takes place: monthly
Average attendance: 20-25 persons
There are few people in town who are familiar with this "secret" meeting. They call themselves the International Association of Certified Microsoft Partners. There are pretty good size small business represented (i.e. 50+ employees) and Corporate Vendors (mainly Telcos). The meeting is focused more on Managed IT Services such as bandwidth, telephony, hosting, hardware and OS level support etc. The culture of the event is very much around building relationships to grow your business.
6. Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce
https://www.miamichamber.com/
Cost: $800 for a basic annual membership (price per meeting varies)
Takes place: weekly
Average attendance: varies (200+ persons for a Trustee Luncheon Event and 40+ persons for regular weekly meetings around town)
This Chamber meeting is a good fit for established companies looking to expand into new verticals / markets. It is fairly pricey to attend if you are a small shop and fairly hard to get visibility without a significant membership level (such as a Trustee Level at $3,000) as some of the events where there are decision makers are exclusive to these higher levels of membership. However it is a good place to be in as it elevates your credibility as a business. A lot of traditional businesses are represented such as construction companies, accounting firms, lawyers, real estate agents, non-profits etc.
7. Tech Cocktail
http://tech.co/city/miami
Cost: $10/event
Takes place: monthly
Attendance: 50+ persons
Great meeting with solid participation and energy. The meeting is another Happy Hours type of event. The Organizers offers two drinks in the price of the ticket to attract a larger crowd. It is a good event to establish relationships with Corporate Managers and Staff Employees, some mid size firms (i.e. 200-400 employees) and a lot of start-ups. Start-ups do pitch and can rent tables and purchase display ads. Start-ups at this event are in immediate need (and some of them have the financial means) of developing technology. We got a few small size clients at this event.
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/waffle-wednesday-with-liveninja-tickets-14275826381?aff=eac2
Cost: free
Takes place: weekly
Attendance: 25+ persons
This is a fun local meeting run by a company called Live Ninja. The company developed a video streaming product that can be used to deliver remote training sessions and coaching sessions and are now working on positioning the product and grow their business. The meeting is informal and has an entrepreneurial spirit. The owners of the company make waffles in front of the audience. They usually gather a similar steady crowd- which is mainly start-ups. We had closed start-up business in this meeting (based on some leads we developed in other meetings). We also found a good sales / business development person with Corporate experience who we recruited.
9. Front End Developers
http://www.meetup.com/Front-end-Developers-of-Miami/
Cost: free
Takes place: monthly
Attendance: 40-50 persons
This is a quite surprising event organized by an individual by the name of Ernie Hsiung (he is a front end developer at Rackspace). The meeting has no fuss and it is educational / informative. But Ernie's events gather an impressive pool of real companies with real software development budgets and immediate software development needs. Over the last three month we acquired three different clients out of this meeting: a financial company from Brickell, a mid size software development shop in North Miami Beach and a Marketing Company with ties to South America.
10. CTO Summit
http://theinnovationenterprise.com/summits/CTO-Summit
Cost: $1,600
Takes place: annually
Attendance: 50+ persons
This is an Enterprise Level event that caters to a Senior Managers and Executices audience: mainly VPs, CTO or Directors of Staff. Companies like Miami Dolphins, Wallmart, Seagate, Automatic etc. are represented. The speakers focus mainly on their current initiatives at work but also on certain market trends such as big data, security, scalability, compliance etc. There are some smaller companies represented in the audience as well. It is a good opportunity to meet local and national decision makers and to try to get a foot in the door as an independent software development company. Participation in the event is pricey for your average shop as the Corporations pay for their employees to attend. But they rarely fill out all the allocated seats and you can show up the same morning and get in for free (or try to get a referral from one of the recruiting companies that participate).
Make it a great day!
Adrian
Miami Beach
11/19/2014
http://wittywebnow.com
