The New Tropic relaunches Startup.miami to connect region’s entrepreneurs and innovators with needed resources – Knight Foundation
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The New Tropic relaunches Startup.miami to connect region’s entrepreneurs and innovators with needed resources

A version of this post was originally published on The New Tropic website.

We are thrilled that The New Tropic is launching the next version of Startup.miami today, an effort supported by Knight Foundation that began in 2015 to help better connect South Florida’s burgeoning community of innovators and entrepreneurs. With this next take on Startup.miami, the goals remain the same. The aim is for this to be a place that helps you navigate Miami’s growing startup community, learn more about cool things that others are doing and share what you are doing with the broader community.

This site is meant to help you. So, we ask that you look at this iteration with your most critical eye. Give us your most candid and unflinching feedback. 

Wynwood tour during CityLab 2016.

With your assessments, The New Tropic can further refine this resource to be a useful place to learn about meetups and talks that align with your interests, find a co-working space that serves your needs, connect you with a mentor who can provide timely advice, tell you about an accelerator program that can help propel your venture, find an exciting job, or get access to needed investment funding.

We supported the launch of Startup.miami, and support it now, because we kept receiving feedback that it was too difficult for entrepreneurs here to find the information and resources they need. After all, Miami’s startup community is new, and it continues to evolve—fast. So, we hope this will help ease that learning curve, and that it will help you whether you are already deeply engaged in the innovation ecosystem or simply curious and looking for ways to dip your toe in.    

Graduates of EcoTech Visions’ Digital Citizens Bootcamp. Photo by Chris Caines.

This resource is meant for entrepreneurs of all kinds. Sometimes people conclude that the Miami startup scene is solely for people deeply into tech. Not true. Yes, to grow a big idea it is important to use the best tools, but entrepreneurs are solving all sorts of problems and those efforts can take all sorts of forms. Whether for-profit, social impact, government innovation, or focused on issues ranging from better ways to educate children to serving healthy food, it is all part of the innovation ecosystem we are building together.

A final point: Innovation is built on connecting people with a variety of backgrounds, experiences and viewpoints. Diversity is our differentiator. Startup.miami can help illuminate the innovation happening in all sectors, across South Florida’s cities and neighborhoods, and draw in more people to help make this guide a resource for everyone.

Virtual reality demo at The New Tropic’s MiamiLand event.

So, look around the site, and please tell us what you think. We want to make a site that better guides you to the resources that help you build the ideas and solve the problems that are important to you.

Matt Haggman is Miami program director for Knight Foundation. Email him via [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @matthaggman.