So I recenty decided to start interviewing companies in South Florida or south (all of latin america, etc). The first guys to respond to my offer was a neat little web based company here in South Beach: Roam. Roam is a scooter rental service at its core, and a vehicle rental service in general (skateboards, bikes, etc).

So Ryan from Roam kindly replied to my boring questions, and here they are.

1. What prompted you to start your company?
We have always been kind of obsessed with mid-century culture and in particular iconic brands of that era (Airstream, Vespa, Herman Miller, Russel Wright). These types of brands represent a level of design and quality in everyday products that is really difficult to find today. We also know how much fun it can be to explore a destination using alternative transportation. Getting outside of the confines of a car brings you closer to your environment and really heightens your experience.

So, with a specific interest in Vespas and a desire to promote alternative modes of transportation we launched Roam.

2. What problem/pain point/issue does your company solve?
Currently, the scooter rental market is dull and unreliable. It is difficult to find a quality product to rent with a reliable reservations, services and pricing model attached to it. We use a real time online reservations system which guarantees availability of your product when you want it, it is delivered to you and picked up on demand and there is never a fuel surcharge. We are able to deliver a higher quality product with a set of customer friendly services at a rate that meets and in most cases beats current market pricing.

3. How does being in your city affect your business?
Being in a city is great for our business. The products we offer (Vespa Scooters, Beach Cruiser Bicycles and Longboard/Skateboards) are all city friendly modes of transportation. They are perfect for navigating traffic, low or no fuel costs and you are never at a loss for parking. In addition, being in a city affords an existing network of communication that makes it easier for us to market and promote. It also provides us with a resource pool (technical, marketing, design) that would be difficult to find outside of a major city.

4. Who are your main competitors?
Our primary competitors are the storefront scooter and bicycle rental businesses currently in operation in South Florida. In addition, we compete with the car rental industry, many people don’t consider alternative transportation as they plan their visit.

5. How would you describe your Business/Product/Service, in l0 words or less?
We rent real fun.

6. What is your business model?
We have a hybrid business model, we go to market and conduct our business virtually yet deliver a tangible product and service. All of our transactions are conducted via our website or at the customer location using Motion Tablets and mobile broadband access. Not having the usual costs associated with a retail/storefront operation allows us to offer a much better product and unheard of services at the same or better price than our competitors.

7. Who are your target customers?
Visitors to Miami, generally staying at nicer hotels, who are looking for a way to get around that isn’t a car or a cab. Our target customers usually stay at hotels with concierges who really like the reliability and delivery aspects of our business. Many of our customers find us because they are looking specifically for a Vespa.

8. What makes you different from your competitors?
We are currently the only company offering Vespas for daily and half day rentals, the other businesses in the area rent much lower quality scooters. We guarantee that our scooters are well maintained, emissions monitored (you will not see our scooters belching blue smoke into the atmosphere) and we promise not to ruin the style of your ride with “Rent Me” stickers and phone numbers plastered everywhere.

In addition to the quality of the product, we are the only company with a real-time online reservations system. When you book your rental you can count on the fact that it is yours, there is no hoping the local shop has what you are looking for in stock when you want it. There is never a fuel surcharge at Roam, we deliver you a full tank of gas and do not require to fill upon return-we take care of that for you. We are also the only company that delivers every scooter, bicycle and skateboard directly to you-when you want it. Of course we pick them up as well.

I am not sure if you can rent a skateboard anywhere else in the area, but that is a very unique service that we are gaining a lot of traction with. One more thing, I am sure we are the only company out there that includes a free kite rental with your scooter, just because.

So realizing today that you can share publicly voicemails you receive in Google Voice, I decided we should have some fun with this and see how well it turns out. So call my GV # at (305)938-0917 and leave me a voicemail. I’ll post them all here today, and then you can comment on the funniest one. The winner will get a prize, not sure what, maybe a gift card for iTunes or something.

This is also a test to see how accurate the transcriptions are. All the transcripts have been done “automatically” by Google Voice.

The entries so far:
From @orical (Peter Martinez)

Hello, Mister Breslin, This is James from the male Clinic you result of come back and it seems that you tested positive for assist with and crafts. You should really stuff we don’t forget those tanks to hang out with a 3 dollar prostitutes. Anyways, please contact the Partners in, call us back for an appointment to start your treatments ideologies.

From @petebernardo

Hey Brian, It’s, Peter Martinez. Listen I just found out that I thought the office. Supposing crap so I really think you should do it yourself checked out. I’m worried that my dad give it to you that night. Sorry about that but talk to you later. Bye.

From UnknownUlisesOrozco

Hey baby blue, Brad plan. How you doing this is you know Jonathan, so I’ll either way I’m calling because I miss you, then the last night at the car. Love you, so if you were gonna be there but unfortunately i think i guess i guess. I must’ve missed it. Either way, J. J sets say what’s up. He says he’s missing his is 7 or phone at his wrist watch something about losing at somewhere within the cavities of your column in. He that way, so hit me back whenever you’ve got it back in Tempe awesome hear from you know. Missed you last night tile.

Another from UlisesOrozco

Color calling again. Okay. Brosnan, Hey Mister, Brian Breslin, this is Doctor shorts. I believe that James from my clinic the the mail service clinic gave you a call a little bit, Aliah listen. I thought I believe that he left a couple particularly and leakage and some sort of worked. It still yet to be just fine. Bye by any kind of the scientific journal. Either way I I I I need you to come back and because I need to scrape that. Anyway. Regardless, Brian mister Breslin. You’ve you’ve got my phone number please. Please call me, delay, or I may have to get the Center for Disease Control involved and I I I I I I I believe that something that you do not want me to do so. Again. Doctor Schwartz give me a call back. You can always reach. James, I believe James with the phone number. Anyway, James, Just to get it.

And another from same caller as last 3 (who I now know who it is)UlisesOrozco

Hey Brian, This is Jamal from State and yeah you know. Hey listen. Fine ago that I could probably get a phone number for you. I’ve been on the following you for quite a lot now and have a really interested in reaching out to you and with with you. Cute little cheeks and I have a lot. I was a lot to you soon. Do you know that I was not in the nice young wife socal social media management. Anyway, you have a listen. I’m for the be getting on a couple months now and look forward to possibly meeting you weren’t going to do is refresh thing that consulate talking about what in my refresh nothing to talk to you know what I’m going back date listen. Don’t be scared it’s alright. Jamal bring it to you tomorrow. Give it to reboot it and either way. Let me know. Let me know over over over extend myself here in possibly put you off because I’m more than willing to get into a long term relationship, you know tomorrow. Its content tamales care, won’t it. So Brian Breslin from Brian. Breslin dot com. I’m calling to reading the webpage for a strategist and. My name is floored look very much forward to left in a couple of months. Once I get out there to possibly getting together with you, so it didn’t room all don’t mean to make this loan, but I don’t know Nan truly glad to talk to you number man. Look forward to getting contact with you. Took mister. Brian Breslin. Just thought I’d say this but I love you. Brian Breslin goodbye.

From 786-***-0020

Hi Will, tonight and UFO if you look connecting juvenile freaky. Thank you. Bye.

From @bonzoesc

Transcript not available – you’ll understand why there is no transcript after you listen.

From (786)***-7070

Mister Breslin. I want you to know, got your actions are not calling on record. We know who you are, we know what you’ve been doing, and frankly, Pat polls line of summer. We saw that was and he you think you the on your call.

4 from (954)***-7778

What your by you that the your schedule. Ha ha ha. Anyway, Job Title, Hello Hi.

Transcript not available

Serious what I hope you’re having a phone call my friends Climate Action assignment.

The I’ve got a lot more don’t wanna back with you. Bye.

From Aldo Delgado

This is all the little advance trying to when the $10. Bright and I guess is a test message. Not sure exactly what we’re supposed to alright bye take care man.

From @sorcadesign

Hi. This is Sarah, which is at the Sunset sign. I got your phone number on the that you left me long way you get off but one of the bills. Libreg I can’t get you the and I look like they’re gonna kill us. Anyway pick me up tomorrow at 7. My next 5 minutes of the villages, Sonia Daisy all night and remind the dogs. I got out of shocks. See you later. Thanks Ben, The.

Are you running a tech startup in South Florida or Latin America or the Caribbean? If you answered yes to any of the above, then I want to interview you on this blog. I’ll send you a list of questions and maybe we’ll do a skype video chat interview.

Key requirements:

• You are located in either South Florida (defined as Palm Beach county and south – I’ll include South West florida too) or South. Any company in Latin America or the Caribbean is included in this (including Mexico).
• Your company provides a technology product or service
• You have a website (so that I can link to you)

Interviews will be done in either English, Spanish, or French. Unfortunately I don’t speak enough Portuguese to converse in Portuguese, but would be happy to try. We will post the interviews in English + your local language.

So if you would like to have me interview you, write about what you are doing, and offer uncensored feedback on your product (I will post my responses on the blog post/interview), then please feel free to

For an example of how this would work, see my interview with Prezentit.

There seems to be a rampant problem throughout the developer community, and its kind of ridiculous. There seems to be a rampant trend throughout the community of people building things that solve no actual problems. People are going through and building things, expecting them to be businesses, but never stopping to ask themselves if they are solving anyone else’s problems. This my friends is the Jeopardy syndrome.

My good friend Mike told me that we as developers build or buy the fanciest hammers around, and then only after that do we look for nails that need, well, hammering. So my question to you, as you are developing your next great thing, are you solving a real problem? This issue can actually be solved well before writing a single line of code. So how do you solve this problem? Start asking people in your target market if they have a problem your solution/idea can solve. Ask your friends, ask your family, ask your business partners, or be creative and use PPC ads to test your ideas, hey if it worked for Tim Ferris, it can work for you.

The greatest products of our time are always ones that solve a problem. Take the iPod, it solves the problem of “how do I take all my music with me?” or the cell phone “how do I make telephone calls without being attached to a wall?”

So ask yourself the following questions next time you have a great idea for a product:

• Does this solve an existing problem?
• Does this ease anyone’s pains in doing stuff?
• Will someone pay for this solution?
• Will someone pay you to promote their products via your solution?

So do you have Jeopardy syndrome? Are you figuring out the answer first, and then looking for the question?

Our last day in Dublin we decided to knock out the rest of the things we hadn’t seen by now, so first stop was Trinity College & the Book of Kells. So for those of you not in the know, Trinity College is Ireland’s oldest university, having been founded in the late sixteenth century. Its also one of the most prestigious schools in the world (definitely #1 in Ireland). Think of it as the Harvard of Ireland.

So Trinity College has a lot of famous architecture, etc. but is also home to the famous Book of Kells. The book of Kells is a manuscript from circa 800 that contains the 4 gospels of the new testament (thank you wikipedia). This book is of extensive importance to Ireland and the catholic church.

After seeing the intricately and ornately bound book of Kells we headed of to see the Dublin Castle, which is largely modern by Irish castle standards. I think only one tower remains from the original medieval castle (from around 1200AD).

Although decidedly un-Irish, I had to make a pitstop at wagamama my favorite noodle shop in Europe (and apparently now in Boston too). So after a heaping bowl of ramen the way ramen was meant to be served (not from an 8cent package cooked on a hotplate in a dorm room), we were off to my second libation related tourist spot: Jameson.

After walking halfway across town, we ended up at my second destination for the trip (remember I was traveling w/my parents and sister, otherwise we would have spent the trip going from pub to pub “exploring”): Jameson Distillery! This is a decidedly different type of experience from the Guinness storehouse, well for one its a LOT smaller. Not bad though. I mean Jameson isn’t as popular as Guinness, makes sense for it to be smaller. The old distillery though is purely a tourist destination, there is no actual hooch making going on there. All the distillation has been moved to a facility near Cork. Basically after your tour (takes 45min) where you find out how a whiskey becomes a whiskey (and not a beer), you are taken to a tasting. In this tasting they let you sample Jameson either with ginger ale, coke, cranberry juice, or on the rocks. I gotta say I thoroughly enjoyed this tasting. One thing to note, if you are leaving Ireland soon after this (like I did), the price for a bottle of Jameson in the duty free shop is about 20% less than it was at the Jameson store itself. Though there are a number of varieties you can’t get outside of the distillery very easily.

Once we were through getting our whiskey fix for the trip, we had to head back to the hotel for our flight back early (4am) the next morning.

So tips for visiting Ireland from someone who really doesn’t like reading guidebooks.

• Don’t go to Ireland expecting gorgeous women everywhere, Italy, Spain, Norway, and Sweden all trump Ireland in this category.
• Do eat some of the local food, but remember, its not that much different from English food, and the English all eat Indian & Chinese food.
• Its ok to support English Premiere League teams in Ireland, since they don’t care about their own teams very much anyway.
• Beer is not cheap, actually nothing is cheap. Seriously.
• Some of the best “chips” (fries to us americans) can be had in northern Ireland on the way to giant’s causeway. A dash of vinegar on the fries, also something i’m bringing back over here. yum.
• Guinness in Ireland tastes better than Guinness here. Its creamy enough to drink for breakfast. If you already drink Guinness for breakfast, then hat tip to you my friend.

Oh man am I overdue on writing this one. I had fully intended to write this on the plane ride home, but Air France’s seats are too small for even my Macbook Air, so here goes. After driving all over Ireland we ended up back in Dublin. Our hotel was the lovely Ashbourne Marriott outside of Dublin, which fortunately had a convenient bus running to central Dublin ever half hour or so. I had zero desire to try and find parking inside Dublin after having logged 1200+ KM over the previous 5 days.

So day 6 started off by making our way into Dublin, seeing some of central Dublin and walking around a lot. I had one thing I really really wanted to do on day one, and that was to visit the legendary Guinness Storehouse (headquarters/factory). This is the mecca of Irish beer drinking. Or so I thought. I had expected to walk around with taps every 8 feet and be drunk as a skunk after 15 minutes. I expected it to be to beer as willy wonka’s factory was to candy. Unfortunately despite the good folks from diageo (yeah thats right, THEY own Guinness too!) surely wanting to make the Guinness Storehouse an ode to drunken debauchery, they had to make it “educational” and “family friendly,” so it can never be as awesome as I had hoped. Now don’t get me wrong, I found it quite interesting the way you have to properly pour a pint (they only give you the one), or the sampling of the various brews (they come in thimbles practically), but they could have very easily provided more than 1 brew a piece.

One thing you’ll undoubtedly notice while in Dublin, there are no real skyscrapers. I think the skybar at the Guinness Storehouse is one of the tallest buildings in the city at 7 stories high.

So after leaving the Guinness Storehouse unbelievably sober, and completely devoid of any kind of buzz. We were famished. So we ended up stumbling upon this place called Gruel. The name sounds unappetizing, but the food was PHENOMENAL. The place is akin to what you’d get if a hipster who married a hippie produced an offspring who studied cooking at the cordon bleu. Decidedly minimalistic/unassuming decor, but you don’t go here for the ambience. You go here to eat the best bangers & mash I have ever consumed.

Other things we managed to accomplish on day 6: Visited a few art galleries, and some random churches, and had some more beer at a pub.

Brian’s Birthday Charity Video from brbreslin on Vimeo.

These past 26 years I’ve led an incredibly fortunate life, I’ve had great family, friends, and the good fortune of never being truly in need. I’ve worked hard for what I’ve gotten, but still feel the need to effect change on the world in a positive way. So this 27th year of my life I would like to be the change I’d like to see in the world. To do that, I need your help. I’m starting this year of positive giving with this charity water campaign.

Last year I tried to raise awareness for Charity Water, but didn’t get very far. So this year I wanted to step it up a notch and really put some social media muscle behind it. So this year, with your help on my 27th birthday we can raise $2,700 for CharityWater. This might not seem like a huge amount, but its a significant amount. $2700 can build wells that will positively impact 135 people’s lives.

In case you were wondering: $2700 can give water to 135 people, 27 families, and 1 community. So please open up your wallets and give to this cause. 100% of your donation directly funds clean water projects in developing nations.

Thanks to those of you who have already donated.

• Celine Clark
• Davide Di Cillo – @davidedicillo
• Pete Bernardo – @petebernardo
• Jethro Rebollar – @jethror
• Adriana Vega – @ideas4solutions
• Mike LaMonica – @MikeLamonica

Click here to donate and view the campaign page. $27 is the suggested donation amount, but feel free to give whatever you feel comfortable with. Also sharing the link would be greatly appreciated.

This friday the 25th, there will be a birthday bar crawl for charity water in Coconut Grove, FL. So if you’d rather donate in person, I will be selling refreshmiami wristbands for $27. 100% of your donation will go to this charity water campaign. Details and to RSVP, go here.

I’m giving up my birthday. What’re you doing?

So far I’ve covered a general overview of tech in South Florida, the government’s role, and how local businesses can help; now we need to talk about how you, the individual technologists of South Florida can participate.

In reality figuring out the role of the individual in this grand scheme is both the easiest and the hardest part of this series. Why is it hard? Well for one how do you rally thousands upon thousands of individuals spread out across three counties? How can we rally people across an area of more than 6,000 square miles? An area ranked 7th in the nation population wise. So we’ve covered the logistical challenges, what are the practical challenges of this movement? The practical challenge is finding tangible ways for us as individuals to effect change. Things have to be simple enough and convenient enough for people to partake in them.

Why is it also the easiest? Well its much easier to get you, a free thinking individual, to participate in this movement than to get the company you work for to buy into. It is also easier to effect small amounts of change across a wide group of people which in aggregate amount to a great deal. So here are some simple ways to help grow the tech community.

• Know a someone who works in tech (not just programmers and designers, could be the IT guy, the guy who updates your website,etc.)? Talk to them about the community.
• Know someone who could benefit from technology in their business? Tell them about the various meetups and events.
• Blog about your experience in tech, what you do, where you do it, and why. Promoting yourself as a techy in South Florida promotes the idea of tech in general
• Pass out stickers, schwag, etc. (if we get around to making them, take some for your friends).
• Tweet about events you are going to, or mention them on facebook.
• Create a tweetup! (or a pizzatweetup, whatever the case)
• Host a geek dinner (potlucks are always fun and cheap)
• Tell 2 people about Refresh, Social Media Club, Mobile Monday, SFIMA, SFTA, FDMA, etc. etc.
• Next time you head to a techy event, bring a friend (doesn’t have to be a geek, can be anyone, even better if its just someone who is curious).
• Did you figure out something others might love to learn? Blog it! Sharing ideas and information is how you learned, so spread the love.
• Put up flyers at your school. Lets spread the word old school. Not everyone is actively LOOKING for the community, but might be passively interested if they see it outside their class.
• Don’t be ashamed of being techy, geeky, or into technology

So now that you’ve got some ideas from me, why not share some of your own?

aka My upcoming speaking engagements.

Some of you who know me, know of my narcissistic love of hearing my own voice, but for those of you who don’t you are now fortunate enough to get a bunch of chances to see me/hear me rant and rave about technology. Actually, its you guys who can help me get even more exposure by voting for my panel at SXSW.

Mozilla Add-Ons Meetup (September 15, 2009)
Organized by South Florida local techie Rey Bango, community manager of the Mozilla Add-Ons website, this meetup will explore every aspect of getting into firefox development. If you’ve ever wondered what Mozilla add-ons are or wanted to explore building the next great web experience via add-ons, this meetup is for you. We’ll discuss some of the newest initiatives going on in the Mozilla add-on ecosystem including Collections, Contributions & more. I’ll be covering my experiences developing Twitbin and working with the Add-ons website.

Pubcon Las Vegas 2009 (November 9-13 2009)
I’m going back to Vegas baby! Woohoo! This year I’ll be talking about twitter. Specifically the latest and greatest twitter applications out there. Last year we talked about tagging at pubcon, this year its going to be all about using twitter applications to maximize your social media influence. The title of my panel is “Killer Twitter Apps, Services and API Trends” and I’m joined by 3 very talented and knowledgeable twitter experts: Dan Zarrella, Joe Fernandez, and Alexander Barbara.

SXSW 2010 (March 12-16 2010)
Coconut Valley – Building a Tech Community on the Beach
With your help, aka your votes, I’ll be able to present this panel in front of the crowds at SXSW next spring in Austin, TX. The premise of the panel is as much about what we’ve built so far in South Florida, what we are trying to build, and how you too can build a tech community in your hometown whether its Anchorage, Alaska or Zephyrhills, Florida. We’ll cover everything from our missteps, to the best practices we’ve learned, and everything in between. So please register and vote, it would mean a lot to me. – Don’t forget there are a bunch of other South Floridians with panel ideas for SXSW.

I’m also available to speak at your event, conference, resort, etc. Just talk to my agent. Wait I don’t have an agent, so if you’d like to be my agent, please let me know.

Step 2: Support from local businesses

The last few days I’ve been talking to a lot of people and thinking a lot about how local businesses can support the community. I previously wrote an overview of where the tech community in South Florida needs to reach out for support, and then how I saw the government playing a role in this, now its time to figure out how our homegrown businesses can help each other.

If there is any group that can benefit a lot from having a strong community, its the business community. The benefits are endless: earn business, recruit talent, get feedback on your products and services, network, and more.

So how can local businesses help each other and foster the community? Put their money where their mouths are. Start by sponsoring events, groups, meetups, tweetups, workshops and more. This enables the community to have opportunities to coalesce, share ideas, innovate, and communicate about these new findings. This is a relatively inexpensive option for most companies to dip their toes in. You’d be surprised at how many groups are out there that are merely looking for a place to hang out, some pizzas to eat, and some sodas to drink.

Another key thing the community needs: space. Not so surprisingly, many groups fail to take off here in South Florida for lack of space. Most groups don’t need large spaces to congregate, they just need some wifi, a place to connect their projectors, and air conditioning. If your company has that & is willing to share it, you should post in the comments below, I’m sure we can find someone desperate for the space.

Aside from supporting the local meetup groups and user groups, South Florida businesses need to promote each other. There is an old aphorism “a rising tide floats all boats” this holds especially true in our community. Start reaching out to other companies that complement your particular skill/service-set and work together to share referrals or leads. Ultimately it leads to lower customer acquisition costs and lower marketing costs. Don’t be afraid to send business to other companies, it will always come back many times over. You can ask all my friends, I refer business to other companies all the time, and am perfectly happy to do it.

One more thing I’d love to see is companies sharing their expertise and insights on working in South Florida. We need to create a mentorship system of sorts. If you have any ideas on how this could work, I’d love to discuss them.

As the founder of one of the larger community groups down here in South Florida, I can tell you we are actively working on building tools and solutions to help our members (both individuals and corporations) connect with each other and gain exposure to each other. With that in mind, we still need you to tell us you exist. Simply creating a company or product or service and expecting the users/customers/people to divinely find out about your service is not enough. The community wants to know about you, so tell us.

How do you think local South Florida businesses can help each other and foster the community at the same time?