Joe Russo: The Entrepreneur Who Took Action in the Middle of Hurricane Ian

When I first met Joe Russo around 2011, he was a college student at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers. Two weeks ago, many parts of the community of Fort Myers and other places in Southwest Florida were destroyed. These were places where Joe and so many others created memories. It will take years for people in those communities to rebuild.

Joe was featured on the Agents of Innovation podcast in 2017. At that time, he talked to me about his role as founder and CEO of Palm Beach Tech, a multi-faceted nonprofit organization that began working to build the Palm Beaches into a tech hub. (It has recently been renamed Tech Hub South Florida).

Last year, Joe left that company in good hands and went on to create another venture: Emergency Ventures — a mobile and online app to help connect citizens, volunteers, and emergency managers during natural disasters — you know, like a Category 4 hurricane.

When he came up with the idea, I don’t think he could have imagined the first time and place it would be used. His old stomping grounds.

Over the past year, Joe and I have met up a few times where he lives in West Palm Beach. While he has been doing a lot of work on this app behind-the-scenes, I’ve been privileged to hear some updates over that time.

When an app like this is being created, finding funding to back the work required is not easy.

Joe has been simultaneously leading the effort to:

1. Design the tools that would be needed for the app to perform its functions for those who might be using it during an emergency situation. For this he also needed to find coders he could work with.

2. Communicate with the powers-at-be — people in emergency management leadership positions at agencies at the local, state, and federal government levels. Plus: utility companies and other companies, whose services we take for granted on a day-to-day basis. He needed to sell them on the purpose of the app and then gain their trust to work with him.

3. Raise money: finding investors to help fund the work needed to run the app and the entire operation.

4. Raise public awareness: this involves everything from marketing the app to working with media to get the word out about it.

Joe was just weeks away from releasing the Emergency Ventures app when weather forecasts began to predict South Florida could get hit by the storm that became Hurricane Ian. The app is personalized to offer information such as weather forecasts, evacuation zone details and emergency shelter locations that are relevant to the user.

During a routine meeting with Miami-Dade Emergency Management, Joe was asked whether the app would be ready in time for the storm.

"I said no, but give me 24 hours," he told the South Florida Business Journal. "And in those next 24 hours I didn't sleep a wink."

I’ve known Joe for over a decade. The man can operate on no sleep and coffee for days upon end. And this was an emergency situation. I know he didn’t sleep. And for that sacrifice, more people in Florida were better off.

Joe had originally planned on spending the weekend prepping for a pitch competition, where the winning startup could receive $100,000. Instead, he threw that preparation out the window and recruited three students he knew from bootcamp Boca Code to finish coding a preliminary version of Emergency Ventures that could be ready before Hurricane Ian arrived.

"We coded all night," said Joe. "We basically took a ticket that that was going to take a week or two to finish and we did it in 24 hours."

"It made me realize we still haven't brought 21st century technology to the areas we need it most, like emergency response.”

While he still found time to participate in the pitch competition, he probably wasn’t as prepared with the way he could have delivered it. He had used that prep time to actually take action on his venture.

Of course, Emergency Ventures still needs money to operate. So far the startup has not secured funding from outside investors.

But that hasn’t prevented an entrepreneur like Joe from prioritizing solving the pressing problem ahead of him: one that could save lives and help people find help when the power was out and their homes were gone.

I am very proud that Joe Russo is a Featured Innovator in the Fearless Journeys community. We can learn a lot from his passion, his work ethic, and his intense focus on solving problems.

Joe also knows no one journeys alone.

As he told me in 2017: “Nobody gets to a point of success as an entrepreneur unless they have people around them that they can lean on and in return can lean on them.”

If you or someone you know is struggling to find what they need after Hurricane Ian, I recommend you check out the Emergency Ventures app, which is available on web app and soon on Apple and Google Play. There are new updates every day with places for housing, food, water, what businesses are open (and which are not) and other emergency supplies. There is no reason for people to have to go it alone in the aftermath of a storm.

And when you are ready to level up your career, know that you can find amazing people to consult and be around in the Fearless Journeys community, including Featured Innovators like Joe Russo. There is no reason for people to go it alone as they seek to solve problems for others in the world. We have mentors and guides to help you on your Fearless Journey! Join us today!