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• January 22, 2015

  Founder Institute rising.

  

  The latest issue of Entrepreneur Magazine just came out and it was great to see Adeo Ressi, creator of the Founder Institute, on the cover.  In this issue, he, along with other entrepreneurs talk about the characteristics of a startup founder. The print version of the magazine also has some sample questions so that you can take a quick version of the Founder Institute test to determine (initially) if you have entrepreneurial DNA.  The full version of the test can be taken here.

  For accelerators, it’s important to be very careful in selecting the candidates  with whom they will be working.  Most, such as YCombinator, choose based on a number of criteria that they discern from an online application and in-person interview.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Founder Institute decided to use an online aptitude exam that tests for a variety of characteristics.  It’s an interesting and unique approach.

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• January 20, 2015

  Traits of successful startup founders outside of Silicon Valley

  I think few would argue with the affirmation that creating a startup in Silicon Valley is a different experience versus creating it anywhere else.  Sure, building a successful business presents the same challenges, but the environment in Silicon Valley provides many benefits.  Nonetheless, everyday there are more and more examples of successful startups created elsewhere.  From SnapChat in Los Angeles, Etsy in New York to Allibaba in China and Flipkart in India.  These founders have a lot of the same characteristics even though the environment where they create their companies is a dimension away from the environment in Silicon Valley.

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• January 12, 2015

  Colombia: Pais en la mira de inversionistas de startups.

  No es todos los días que uno comienza una hornada nocturna (con los niños al fin dormidos) y se encuentra con, posiblemente, el inversionista de startups mas famoso en el mundo, Marc Andreessen, enviando un Tweet sobre Colombia.  Mi plan esta noche no era escribir otro post pero no pude dejar después de ver este Tweet del eje de Silicon Valley sobre un articulo escrito por Chris Schroeder y Mach Kolarich sobre Colombia.

  El articulo habla sobre lo que ha pasado en Colombia durante los últimos años  en términos de startups y sobre una iniciativa de Startup Angels de venir para este país en Marzo.  He seguido la carrera de Andreessen desde cuando yo vivía en Silicon Valley y el estaba fundando su primera compañía , Netscape.

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• January 6, 2015

  $3M invested in Founder Institute Colombia Graduates!

  

  The Founder Institute continues to grow globally.  It’s amazing to realize that I’m going on my fifth year as Director of the Founder Institute (FI) in Colombia.  In 2011, there were relatively few cities with a Founder Institute chapter and I was really determined to make sure that Colombia be the first Latin American country to have one.  By then, I had sat with a lot of Colombian entrepreneurs and knew that they needed help from the moment of conception.  Well that dream was realized and, with the amazing help of Adeo Ressi, the incubator’s founder, graduates of the program in Colombia have already received over US $2M in funding. This is unheard of for any startup accelerator or incubator in this country.

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