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  • November 16, 2012

    The Bragiel effect

    Bragiel effectWell, yesterday was a whirlwind day, but incredibly impactful thanks to a visit from Paul Bragiel, President of i/o Ventures in Silicon Valley.  Thanks to some great help from my colleagues Martin Ramos and Juan Sebastian Duque, we were able to schedule an agenda of meetings/events.   In emerging markets such as Colombia, getting startup ecosystems moving in the right direction is fraught with challenges.  Yesterday, Paul was instrumental in getting some key messages across to different audiences in his own clear and passionate style for which I’m extremely grateful.

    I got introduced to Paul by Adeo Ressi who has also had a great impact through the Founder Institute on this country’s startup ecosystem.  A few months back, I had a great chat with Paul at his offices in San Francisco and we spoke of the possibility of his stopping by Colombia.  Fortunately, everything came together and, as I mentioned, yesterday was extremely productive (and fun).

    We started the day off with a breakfast with some of key business leaders.  Paul spoke to them about startup ecosystems in other emerging markets particularly from the point of view of angel investing.  His talk was clear and filled with key suggestions for how to think about angel investing and where to start.  Coming from someone who lives in Silicon Valley, is a serial entrepreneur and investor, this was invaluable.

    Then, after meeting with a few entrepreneurs, we had an excellent lunch with key players in the public and private sector.  Catalina Ortiz, Luis Florez and Marisol Camacho from government agency Innpulsa discussed a number of issues with Paul as did Camilo Serna and Claudia Obando from the Ministry of Technology.  Carlos Castañeda and Johanna Harker from startup incubator Wayra were unable to make it, but Diana Gaviria and Tatiana Leon from incubator Connect Bogota were there.  To my right in the photo was Hernando Barreto, my colleague and partner in our new accelerator called Socialatom Ventures. In the foreground is Dan Gertzacov, Americas CEO of an amazingly innovative (and well-funded) financial services startup called Lenddo.

    Bragiel Socialatom VenturesThe lunch was amazingly dynamic and stimulating and was a great prelude to the launch of the aforementioned incubator, Socialatom Ventures.  During the launch, Paul spoke to a room full of entrepreneurs about his experiences and answered a variety of questions on what it takes to create a successful startup.  The Ministry of Technology accompanied Hernando and myself as we spoke about how to apply to Socialatom Ventures.  I was pleasantly surprised to meet excellent startups such as a polished gaming company, a Software as a service company targeting the education market and, incredibly, a startup with a new take on databases (with an amazing product and a good amount of users).

    Paul Anti AlanPaul’s next stop is Cartagena and I’m sure he’ll have a great time there especially without our filling up his schedule with activity after activity.  I (and many of my colleagues) want to see Colombia wake up from its startup slumber andstart to really create some type of impact.  That’s why, watching the audiences and participants during all of yesterday’s activities was incredibly satisfying for me as I was able to see first hand the “Bragiel effect.”  The Bragiel effect is the possibility to have the maximum number of key players in an emerging market ecosystem gain additional insights into how to move the ecosystem or become aware of the possibilities of digital innovation thanks to a credible and passionate spokesperson.

    No Comments / English, General /

  • November 5, 2012

    Colombian Startup Ecosystem mentioned in Forbes

    Colombian_StartupsI tell ya, what a difference a few years make.  About two years ago, Adeo Ressi, founder and CEO of the Founder Institute, acquiesced to opening a chapter of this startup incubator in Colombia, I was able to commence from pretty intense work in developing an ecosystem in this country.  Even though there have been some Colombian startup success stories headed by people such as Andres Barreto, Juan Diego Calle, Martin Schrimpff and Jose Velez whom I mentioned in a VentureBeat article at the end of 2011, the term “Colombian startup” has been closer to being an oxymoron than many here would like to admit, but things are slowly changing and, today, Forbes published an article about Adeo Ressi and the Founder Institute where the Colombian chapter is discussed.

    This isn’t the first time that Adeo has mentioned Colombia in the press.  After visiting Colombia for the first time and then returning to kick-off the first Founder Institute semester here, he came away from the experience with a fondness for the country.  He’s also mentioned the impact that the Founder Institute is having in Colombia in interviews with the New York Times and Businessweek, among others.

    Although I’ve mentioned several times that the Colombian ecosystem still has a ways to go when compared to other countries in the region such as Brazil, Argentina and probably also Chile and Mexico, there’s a growing group of competent people in-country laboring push Colombian entrepreneurs to new heights.  I have written a number of times about the ecosystems of Argentina and Brazil as well as new startups in Argentina such as Joincube and others such as Smowtion and Brazilian players such as Compra3 and even Pio.la from Venezuelan uber startup guy, Hernan Aracena.   Nonetheless, these countries have already created some leading startups such as MercadoLibre and Buscape, among others.  Thus, I’ve always been cognizant of the fact that the efforts in Colombia are the ones that most need visibility within the the global market.

    Starting in 2009 with an article I wrote for VentureBeat on LetMego, a startup from founders Alex Torrenegra and Leonardo Suarez, I was able to start things off. After this, VentureBeat went on to publish my article on real estate portal VivaReal not only on their site, but also in the digital edition New York Times right before that company started raising an important round of funding and explosive growth.  Later, I was able to highlight Zio Studios’ funding round in 2011.  Aside from this, when interviewed for publications such as Inc Magazine, I don’t miss the chance to promote the reasons why investors should think about Latin American startups.

    Ok. Well this has all been well and good.  Promoting the Colombian and Latin American ecosystem is important as is educating local entrepreneurs on the basics of creating a viable startup.  Nonetheless, my efforts in this respect have an egotistical motive and an attempt to solve a curious problem: myy desire to run an investment fund while living in a country that I’ve grown fond of (and gave me a beautiful wife and children), but that didn’t have a viable startup ecosystem. Hence, two years ago, I started the promotion phase (highlighting existing successes and educating potential entrepreneurs) and am now ready to start a more “meaty” phase of working full-time to develop strong startups, which I also recently wrote about.

    As I mentioned, since working as a Strategic Investment Manager at Intel Capital, my goal has been to create my own fund and fund companies which I feel can become high impact startups.  During that stint, I presented four companies in one year to the investment committee at headquarters in Santa Clara, California (quite uncommon in Latin America at the time).  This, even though I was unable to present one of the deals I was most enthused about (it was counter-intuitive at the time).  I was even reprimanded by my bosses for suggesting it (the company went on to be wildly successful).

    Probably the most rewarding experience was working with a company called JackBe that we didn’t fund during my tenure, but that I advised to change their business being a technology provider within the Pharma industry to becoming a tools company.  Since then, I’ve felt my path lay in funding and working with startups.  In order to accomplish this while living in Colombia, I’ve had to develop a step by step strategy.  I’m about midway through a strategy, which, every day gets closer to becoming reality. :)

    2 Comments / English, General /

  • October 31, 2012

    WANTED: Sharp founders who know how to build stuff

    Social Atom VenturesAs I mentioned in the last post, I intend to return to posting in my blog as often as possible.  Also, I really like the fact that Conrad Egusa showed interest in posting in my blog and will look for more contributors.  Finally, I’ve asked my favorite designer, Sergio Martinez, to help me out in redesigning the TropicalGringo site so any suggestions are more than welcome!

    Now that I have those comments out of the way, I do have some pretty big news to announce.  My company (Lima Interactive, Ltda) and a company called Social Atom Group cofounded by Andres Barreto (he sits on the board) have joined forces and have created a new incubator called Social Atom Ventures. Note: In case the previous link doesn’t drive you to the official website yet, try again in a few days as we are building the website as we speak.

    If you’ve read my blog previously, you know that I mentor quite a bit for organizations such as the Founder Institute, Wayra and Endeavor, among others.  Though I’ve launched my own startup called SuperTrendi several months ago, I am quite comfortable looking at startups from the perspective of an investor not only from my experience working for Intel Capital, but also due to my role as board member of three Colombian startups.

    For some crazy reason, I really get a kick out of mentoring startups.  Aside from officially mentoring startups, I do a lot of coffee mentoring (over a cup of coffee or with my favorite breakfast – French Toast).  One of the most rewarding of these experiences was a startup a few years ago that was about to commence fund raising in the states and I did several sessions playing the role of a “not too nice” investor.  A lot of times when I would stump the CEO of this startup, it was usually either an area that he didn’t realize that was particularly weak or something about his strategy for which he hadn’t crafted the messaging or both.  Needless to say, he was successful in raising several rounds of millions of dollars.

    Like I said, for some crazy reason, I really get a kick out of all this.  That doesn’t mean it’s easy.  It’s not.  One of the hardest gigs has been as Director for the Founder Institute, which is a global, pre-idea accelerator created by Adeo Ressi and running in over 30 cities around the world. There’s nothing tougher than meeting with founder after founder each with a list of about three vague ideas for a possible startup and trying to guide them (without providing the answers) on a path that will make sense and be aligned with something they’re passionate about.

    Social Atom Ventures is one of three “consolidation” incubators that will be supported by the Colombian government. Also, we’ll be operating out of some pretty nice office space and will be expecting the selected startups to work full-time on their startups from this space.  As Program Director, I’ll be offering guidance to the teams in addition to a network of local and international mentors.  Each of these teams needs to have a tecnical co-founder and be adept at “building stuff.” Thanks to an alliance with Argentinean incubator NXTP Labs, we’ll also be investing US $25k in at least five teams and up to a possible 10 teams.

    The closest I’ve seen to something like this is in Colombia Telefonica’s Wayra initiative of which I am certainly a fan.  Nonetheless, although there may be a little bit of overlap, it goes without saying that a multibillion dollar such as Telefonica and a relatively small organization such as others will have emphasize different strengths and this is all good for the startup ecosystem in Colombia.  As i’ve written previously, when compared to Argentina and Brazil and even Chile and Mexico, Colombia has a long way to go in terms of generating the amount and quality of scalable and fundable startups (not that these are the only kind of startups that can be deemed successful).

    It’s hard to tell, but it does seem like the right time for Social Atom Ventures.  When I first brought the Founder Institute to Colombia in 2012, I watched as several of the 9 graduating founders were somewhat star-struck.  One of these managed to really tick me off when he said that we should have had more than the 4 mentors that travelled from the states when I felt that these 4 were more than enough because of the calibre of mentors we had locally.  I value these just as highly since they understand the potential of global markets, but understand the realities of the local environment.  This year, I saw a lot less of this and much more acknowledgement that there are great mentors living right here in Colombia.

    Either way, in addition to the local mentoring, we’ll be flying the teams to the US at least once and, if possible, more than this as we have high expectations for the teams we’ll be funding and mentoring.  I know there are talented Colombian founders, but I’d also like to see founders from other countries (US, Brazil, Mexico, etc.) apply.  If you are interested in applying, you’ll be able to fill out our application form in a few days a soon as the Social Atom Ventures site is live.  We are looking for teams of founders with at least one technical cofounder and ready to build product and discover and solve real customer pains that produce exciting, scalable businesses.

    2 Comments / English, General /

  • October 31, 2012

    I’m back

    Im backWow. It’s been a while.  I’ve been working on a number of initiatives this year that seem to be coming to fruition shortly and I’ll be posting more religiously once I settle into my new routine.  There’s a lot happening in the startup front in Latin America and, now, in Colombia.  Nonetheless, Colombia certainly has a lot of catching up to do especially when compared to peers such as Brazil and Argentina (the leaders) without mentioning up and comers Chile and Mexico.

    One thing that’s happened is that a fellow writer from VentureBeat named Conrad Egusa moved down to Medellin from New York City several months back and he recently set up an amazing coworking space in that city called Espacio.  I’ve asked Conrad to write a guest post which will be appearing shortly.

    6 Comments / English, General /
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