I attended a tech panel at the University of Miami Launch Pad. The Launch Pad provides resources to entrepreuneurs and inventors. David DiCillo and Alan Knitowski of Phunware spoke about mobile apps. Brian Breslin was the moderator. Other speakers were Yanier(also known as Niero )Gonzalez creator of Destructoid, a very popular gaming site. Niero grew up in Hialeah and shared his story of his dreams to make his site successful.
Nelson Gonzalez, founder of Alienware Computers also grew up in Miami and shared his story of long hard work to make his company successful. Nelson sold Alienware a couple of years ago to Dell. I spoke briefly to Nelson after the talk. It took him 10 years of very hard work to get a call from Dell for an offer to sell.
The common element with these two successful entrepreuners is customer service, dedicated work and persistence. You can see pictures on my slideshow of Niero’s presentation where he shares some tips for success.
It was an inspirational event although before the talk as I was looking for the building for the presentation, I was whisked inside the building along all the students. It was quite a scare for about an hour. A student had shot a BB gun and the entire University of Miami was in lockdown. I was tweeting to my local friends, some of which are Miami Herald reporters and through twitter, I was given updates of updates while I listened to the speakers.
