Boca Raton–Miami Venture Capital Fund $10 Million Flash Pitch Competition is Today!
Minimum 9 offers available today to founders that have completed due diligence and our valuation process.
Complimentary Drinks and Snacks until 7PM today courtesy of Miami Venture Capital Fund
Location: 661 NW 53rd Street, Main bar area, Boca Raton, FL 33487
Time: 5:30 - 7:30 PM Eastern Standard Time
Bring your best 30-second pitch and come ready to connect with investors.
Register now to guarantee your opportunity to pitch or sit with the sharks and invest.
All founders pitching remotely must be sponsored to pitch today. Please contact us ASAP if you want to pitch remotely and you are not sponsored yet.
We still have room for more founders, sponsors, and investors today. Please contact us ASAP if you want to get in!
I get a lot of texts. People asking for advice, for connections, for money. Most of the time, the subtext is the same: they want an easy button.
I don’t have an easy button. Nobody does.
Entrepreneurship isn't about having all the resources. It’s about being resourceful when you have none. It’s about solving problems. The first, most important problem to solve is usually, “How do I start with nothing?”
I want to show you a text exchange I had this week. I'm not sharing this to call anyone out, but because it is a perfect, unfiltered example of the most critical mindset gap I see every single day. It’s the gap between wanting to be an entrepreneur and being one.
Here’s the Actual Conversation
[5:38 PM] Willie: REN can you cash app me so I can get some things
[7:02 PM] Willie: I need some thing to start my car wash
[7:35 PM] Me: Get a few customers write up a list then we can talk about it
[7:37 PM] Willie: Brother go back and re read our messages I have five customers that’s been waiting but no car wash supplies we have to be professional
[7:41 PM] Me: Figure out how to wash them, videotape for social media, sing your little jingle, and let’s go make some money
[7:46 PM] Willie: Figure out what bro I'm not stealing anything and I'm not get to bottle of water or use nobody things without permission or trespass on no one property without there consent stop that's illegal we doing everything legal and the Godly way right
The Breakdown: Was I Wrong to Say "Figure It Out?" Click Here to Vote Now!
Let's get right to it. My answer is no. And my reasoning gets to the absolute heart of what it takes to build something from zero.
Willie’s reaction is completely understandable from a certain point of view. He heard "figure it out" and translated it to mean "do something shady." He immediately jumped to stealing, trespassing, and using things without permission. His desire to be “legal and the Godly way” is commendable.
But he missed the entire point.
"Figure it out" is not a suggestion for a crime. It is a test of resourcefulness.
When I said "Figure out how to wash them," I wasn't telling him to go siphon soap from his neighbor’s garage. I was prompting him to think like a founder. Here’s what "figure it out" actually means in the real world of starting up:
Pre-Sell the Service: "Hey [Customer #1], I can be there in an hour. The first wash is $25. Can you pay me upfront via Cash App so I can grab the professional-grade supplies on the way?" Boom. You just capitalized your business with revenue, not a handout.
Use the Customer's Resources: This is standard for mobile services. "I have the specialized sponges and towels. Do you mind if I use your water spigot and a bucket?" 99% of customers will say yes.
The Minimum Viable Wash: Maybe you can’t afford the $50 pro-detailing kit. What can you do for $5?
Can you get a bottle of car soap and a sponge from the Dollar Store to get the first car done and prove the model? The first version is never perfect.
Barter or Borrow: "Hey man, can I borrow your bucket and hose? I'll wash your car for free."
This isn't about being "illegal." This is about hustle. This is about refusing to let a tiny obstacle—the need for maybe $20 in basic supplies—stop you from serving the five customers you claim are waiting.
The Real Blocker Here Isn't a Lack of Supplies
The real blocker is a mindset.
Willie saw a hard wall: No supplies -> No business.
A founder sees a puzzle: Have customers -> Need supplies -> How do I turn the former into the latter?
This is the entire game in a nutshell. If you can’t figure out how to solve a $20 problem, how will you handle a $2,000 payroll you can't meet? How will you react when a $200,000 deal falls through or your lead developer quits?
No investor, mentor, or partner is going to stick around for a founder whose first move is to ask for a handout instead of creatively solving the problem right in front of them. We are looking for people who find a way, not people who list the reasons why there isn’t one.
Willie’s concern about professionalism is valid. But true professionalism isn't about having the shiniest equipment on Day 1. It's about keeping your promises to your customers. He has five people waiting. The professional thing to do is find a way to wash their cars, not to text a third party for money while the customers keep waiting.
So no, I wasn’t wrong. I was giving him the first, and most important, entrepreneurial lesson. I was giving him a chance to prove he could solve a problem.
Because the path forward wasn’t in my Cash App. It was in his ability to figure it out.
Entrepreneurship’s Gray Zone: When Hustle Helps—and When It Handcuffs You Click Here to Vote Now!
Entrepreneurship thrives in ambiguity. Founders push boundaries, ship before it’s perfect, and tell a vision of the future as if it’s already here. That edge can create real advantage—but the same tactics can cross bright legal lines or erode trust fast.
This piece explores where lawbreaking or truth-stretching has helped startups gain traction, and where it’s backfired—plus a practical framework to compete aggressively without ending up on the wrong side of regulators or reputation.
Every founder has heard the mantras: “Move fast and break things.” “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”
These aren’t just catchy phrases for a motivational poster; for many iconic startups, they were the literal business plan. The startup world is built on a foundation of challenging the status quo, and sometimes, that means not just bending the rules, but snapping them clean in half. This can be the very thing that catapults a company from obscurity to a multi-billion dollar valuation.
But there's a razor-thin line between disruptive innovation and outright fraud. Cross it, and you go from a feature in TechCrunch to a feature on the evening news for all the wrong reasons.
The brutal truth is that some level of truth-stretching or rule-bending is often baked into the entrepreneurial cake. You’re creating a future that doesn’t exist yet, so you describe it with absolute certainty. You’re entering a market dominated by slow-moving dinosaurs, so you exploit regulations they wrote for themselves decades ago.
The question for you, as a founder, isn't if you'll face this dilemma, but when. And your answer will define your company’s trajectory. Let's look at the tale of the tape—three times it worked, and three times it ended in a spectacular train wreck.
The Wins: Where Breaking Rules Built Empires
The Wins: Where Breaking Rules Built Empires
In these cases, founders broke existing laws or stretched the truth about their scale to gain a critical foothold. The key? They delivered undeniable value to the customer, which created a groundswell of support that politicians and regulators couldn't ignore.
Uber/Lyft vs. The Taxi Medallion
Uber/Lyft vs. The Taxi Medallion. This is the classic playbook. Uber didn't ask for permission to operate in cities around the world. They ignored existing taxi and limousine commission rules, launched their service, and created a product so superior to the alternative that millions of people started using it. They built a massive political and consumer base before the regulators could react. Their lawbreaking was their market entry strategy, and it worked.
Airbnb vs. Zoning and Hotel Laws
Similar to Uber, Airbnb’s core business model was, and in many places still is, in direct violation of local zoning ordinances and hotel regulations. By allowing individuals to rent out their homes, they created a massive supply of accommodations without building a single hotel. They fought cities tooth and nail, arguing that old laws shouldn't apply to this new model of peer-to-peer commerce. The initial rule-breaking allowed them to scale to a point where they could afford the legal and lobbying battles.
DoorDash vs. Restaurant Permission
In its early days, DoorDash and other food delivery apps took a radical approach: they listed restaurants on their platform without permission. They scraped menus and hired drivers to place and pick up orders like any other customer. While this infuriated many restaurant owners, it gave DoorDash an enormous selection advantage overnight, attracting a huge customer base. Once they had the demand, they could go back to the restaurants with a much stronger negotiating position.
The Wrecks: Where Stretching the Truth Led to Collapse
Here’s where the story turns dark. The fatal mistake in these cases was lying about the core product, the technology, or the company's financial health. They weren't just breaking rules to create a market; they were deceiving the very people who trusted them—customers and investors.
Theranos & The Magic Blood Box
Elizabeth Holmes didn't just bend a rule; she fabricated a reality. She claimed Theranos had technology that could run hundreds of blood tests from a single drop of blood. It was a lie. The tech never worked. This wasn't about disrupting an old industry; it was a fundamental deception about the product's capability, putting patients at risk and incinerating nearly a billion dollars in capital. The result: prison sentences and a legacy of fraud.
FTX & The House of Cards
Sam Bankman-Fried was hailed as a genius, the respectable face of crypto. The truth? His company, FTX, was allegedly using customer funds to make risky bets through its sister trading firm, Alameda Research. The "truth-stretching" here was a catastrophic lie about financial solvency and the separation of funds. When the market turned, the house of cards collapsed, vaporizing billions in customer assets and leading to one of the most stunning and rapid corporate implosions in history.
Nikola & The Gravity-Powered Truck
Electric truck maker Nikola and its founder Trevor Milton made bold claims about their hydrogen-electric vehicle technology. The problem was, much of it was fake. Most famously, they released a video of a Nikola truck "in motion," which was later revealed to be simply rolling down a hill, unpowered. This wasn't a "vision of the future"; it was a deliberate deception to pump up the stock price. The result: Milton was convicted of fraud, and the company's reputation was left in tatters.
The Takeaway for Founders Click Here to Vote Now!
So, what’s the lesson here? It’s not "don't break rules." Sometimes, you have to. The lesson is to know which rules to break and why.
Rule Bending vs. Outright Fraud: Is your "hack" about challenging an outdated regulation that stifles a better customer experience (like Uber)? Or is it about lying about your core product or financial reality (like Theranos)? The first is a calculated risk. The second is a crime.
The Customer Value Test: Does your rule-breaking ultimately deliver massive, tangible value to your end-user? Airbnb and DoorDash passed this test. Their customers loved the product so much it became a shield against regulators and angry incumbents. Theranos and FTX failed spectacularly; their deception directly harmed their users and investors.
The Sleep-at-Night Test: This isn't just about legality; it's about integrity. Are you building a real, sustainable business, or are you just running a scheme that depends on no one looking too closely? The pressure to succeed can make you justify anything, but a business built on a fundamental lie has a ticking time bomb at its core.
The line is thin, and the stakes couldn't be higher. Know which side of it you're on before you take that leap. Your company's survival depends on it.
Sponsorship Packages Available Now - Everyone Wins!
Miami Venture Capital Flash Pitch Events are designed to identify overlooked businesses and investment opportunities in underserved communities.
We communicate this information to potential investors, strategic partners, sponsors, and followers so they can add value to these businesses, support their communities, and pursue generous returns on their investments (ROI.)
We help the businesses in these areas build founding teams and find funding so they can create profitable businesses for themselves, their families, the community, and stakeholders.
Founders Receive
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Next Step
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The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!"
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Disclaimer
The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!"
Mark 13:2
