A burglary at his own house sent Joe Russo chasing two strangers into the dark. Years later, he's testing whether the tech ecosystem he helped build in Palm Beach can actually support what he builds next.
More than 20 homes and cars on Russo's street were hit that night, despite a gated community and a working alarm. He didn't catch the burglars. The experience stayed with him regardless.
From Founding an Ecosystem to Building Inside It
Russo founded the Palm Beach Tech Association, which later became South Florida Tech Hub. Those relationships now underpin his newest company.
"The first couple of people that I spoke to were just because of my connections helping build the ecosystem," Russo told Refresh Miami. "Those connections and that network have kind of led all to this."
That company is Midnight, a home-security startup Russo founded in January. It combines his own burglary experience with recent work leading an AI product team at 911 technology company RapidSOS.
A Pattern That Goes Back to Hurricane Irma
Midnight isn't Russo's first attempt at building emergency technology under pressure. In 2017, he volunteered in the Florida Keys after Hurricane Irma. He organized food and water distribution logistics for more than 20,000 people over four and a half days.
That experience exposed a specific gap. When cell service and internet went down, the only way locals could get critical information was a single radio station.
Russo founded Emergency Ventures in 2021 to solve that problem directly. He built an app that could deliver personalized evacuation instructions and shelter locations even without reliable connectivity. He was weeks from launch when forecasts turned toward what became Hurricane Ian.
Asked by Miami-Dade Emergency Management whether the app would be ready in time, Russo didn't hesitate. "I said no, but give me 24 hours," he told the South Florida Business Journal. He recruited students from coding bootcamp Boca Code and shipped a working version before the storm hit.
What Midnight Actually Solves
At RapidSOS, Russo saw a different inefficiency up close. Alarm companies still call emergency centers by phone, and false alerts eat up dispatchers' time that real emergencies need.
Midnight aims to verify threats and send useful information to emergency services faster than that phone-call model allows. Russo's cofounders and advisers include people tied to ADT, Google Home, Citizen and Motorola.
The team completed early-stage VC Antler's New York residency and has been validating prototypes while weighing crowdfunding against outside investment.
Can West Palm Beach Actually Support This?
Russo's launch sits inside a bigger question. Can West Palm Beach convert its recent surge of money, people and construction into a working tech economy? It needs to be more than just a real estate boom.
He points to real raw material. ADT, Carrier and Kidde already provide nearby industry talent for a home-safety company specifically. FAU is putting more focus on engineering, and Palm Beach State College is backing quantum training.
Andreessen Horowitz announced last week it will make West Palm Beach a regional hub for its American Dynamism practice. That adds institutional weight to that raw material.
The Gap Russo Says Still Exists
New buildings and transplanted investors don't create a tech hub by themselves. Palm Beach County's spread-out layout can leave companies isolated in a way Miami's denser districts don't.
"It's not just about the people. It's about the infrastructure," Russo said. "How are you creating these institutions, either it be venture capital or ecosystem building, that actually help together these resources?"
What This Means for Palm Beach's Tech Bet
Russo remains bullish because he sees the needed people already arriving. He's meeting recent transplants from New York and organizing founder-investor dinners to connect them.
His own path is itself a test case. A decade after showing up in the Keys with no app and no funding, he's built three companies. Each is built around the same instinct: get people the information they need when the systems around them fail. Whether Palm Beach's network can deliver customers and capital as reliably as Russo delivers under pressure is the real question. Midnight's progress will help answer it.
DeSantis Calls Anti-AI Stance a Losing Position for GOP