All posts tagged adeo ressi

  • October 21, 2013

    Founder Institute Medellin 2013 Impact

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    It’s been quite a year here in Medellin.  Thanks to the help of my co-Directors Jose Betancur and Dario Palacio as well as some amazing mentors including Serge Kruppa,  Camilo Usaga, Conrad Egusa, Dan Gertzacov, Camilo Gomez, Mauricio Bejarano, Michael Puscar, Guido Becher, Gerry Murffitt, Federico Ortega, Chris Dover, Fabian Wittleben, Esteban Mancuso, Roberto Cuartas, Vagn Knudsen and Antonio Fallace all of whom resided in Colombia. Aside from these tremendous mentors we were visited by some impressive mentors who reside in the US and these include John Dallas, Ziv Gillat, Lloyd Baroody, David Beatty, Patrick Dillon, Vladimir De Franceschi and, remotely, Adeo Ressi, Dave Parker and Andrew Weinreich contributed a great deal to the semester.

    During graduation, we got to hear from Tomas Posada, CEO of La Bonoteca, about his experiences after graduating from the program in 2012.  His company continues to grow and has received several hundreds of thousands of dollars in investment and government support.  It was great hearing his story and advise to the grads during the ceremony.  Also, before continuing, I need to give a special thanks of appreciation to Conrad Egusa and Eddie Arrieta for allowing us, at a moment’s notice to make use of their state-of-the-art co-working space called Espacio. No wonder Espacio is the center of the ecosystem in Medellin. This year, there were some demonstrations in the streets and they allowed us to use their amazing facilities thanks to their desire to support the Medellin startup ecosystem and their support for the Founder Institute.  They truly went beyond the call of duty. Thanks guys!

    It’s been quite a journey these last three years ever since Adeo Ressi, creator of the Founder Institute, approved my bringing this incubator to Colombia and, in the process, converting this country in the first leg of the Founder Institute’s Latin American expansion strategy.  The strongest pillar of the Founder Institute is its mentor network.  Without the drive and vocation of these experienced entrepreneurs interested in giving back, the Founder Institute would not exist.  Aside from the help they provide the founders in the program, it is such a joy for me to meet these amazing mentors.  One of those that I met is Paul Bragiel, a friend of Adeo’s, with whom – in addition to William Hsu – I plan on launching a new seed fund called Tayrona Ventures.  As as side note, I organized a lunch with some people from the government, which would later be influential in helping Paul fulfill a dream and inspiring others in the process. :)  Such are the calibre of people you meet on this journey.

    Three years ago, you could pretty much fit all of the Colombia mentors at one lunch table (and I did).  You hardly ever heard any mention of the word “startup.”  Today, in Colombia, startups are all the rage, but there still aren’t enough viable Colombian startups and the need for the Founder Institute (in my opinion) is as great as ever.  Most initiatives in this country assume an ample supply of viable startups (to receive grants, enter accelerators, etc.).  I haven’t seen any initiatives which objectively select (testing for aptitude) founders with ideas and stick them in a crucible that connects them with over 25 mentors continuously helping with their experience and feedback and produce new companies made up of those founders who stuck it out till the end (usually a fourth of those enrolled).

    Ruta N, Medellin’s innovation agency, saw the potential for the Founder Institute to help it build up an extremely nascent digital ecosystem last year.  Since 2012, Ruta N, in alliance with the Founder Institute, has supported these efforts. Last year, we had the benefit of having mentors such as Ranjith Kumaran, Gabe Zichermman, Jeff Stewart, Andrew Lee and Tyler Crowley among others, visit us in Bogota and Medellin.  Taken as a whole, these mentors have created more than US $1 billion in wealth and directly or indirectly control more wealth as advisors and/or investors.

    These are the types of experienced mentors that any city should have to help fortify or build (in Medellin’s case) their digital ecosystem.  Also, Adeo Ressi, the creator of the Founder Institute, continually promotes and supports the program in Medellin and Bogota. We only ran the Founder Institute in Medellin this year.  Next year, we hope to have a second city step up to the plate as a sponsor with an organization as committed as Ruta N to strengthening it’s digital ecosystem.  Nonetheless, we are happy to be working with Ruta N in Medellin as their commitment to this initiative has been commendable and the fruits of this joint effort will be even more apparent in years to come.

    Ok. So what is the result of all of this? The result is the launching of eight startups (the majority new companies) – with persistent and talented founder CEOs – with a much greater chance of success than if they had not gone through the program. These eight new companies to graduate from the Founder Institute join 1000 other companies worldwide that have graduated with almost 90% still operating, which is substantially better than the industry average (by whatever measure you use).  If Medellin is able to create another Facebook or similar type of startup, this would be tremendous.  Nevertheless, you can’t predict those things and because of how nascent the whole digital startup ecosystem is at the moment, just having more viable digital startups is a key milestone on which they can continue to build.

    At the moment, Ruta N is promoting other initiatives which support digital startups that have already launched (e.g., accelerators, etc.).  Within this context, the alliance with the Founder Institute becomes even more imperative.  There are quite a few accelerators and funds which are ramping up their operations as I write this.  Nonetheless, there is a dearth of digital startups operating or launched in this city.  This means that the eight new grads are eight new companies which have a strong possibility of entering some of these later stage programs.

    This year, we had 44 applicants who were accepted into the program.  The fact that they were accepted means that they had all of the aptitude required to build a viable startup with a high chance of creating great impact in the city.  Some of those who started the program found that they just did not have the time that was required to graduate and decided to drop out in order to come back at another time.  Nonetheless, eight of these entrepreneurs stuck it out and these are the companies that graduated.  [Virtual drum roll] Presenting the grads from the Founder Institute Medellin 2013!:  Diego Guzman, CEO of Bankity (on Android); Marcela Villa, CEO of Greenduir; Natalia Siegert, CEO of IdioMotion; Juan Sosa, CEO of Mashpedia; Jose Juan Echeverri, CEO of Photograff; Diego Benitez, CEO of Siembra Viva;  Ivan Alvarez, CEO of Timba and Julian Gonzalez, CEO of TrendingConf.  As you’ll notice, 25% of these founder CEOs are women!

    4 Comments / English, General /

  • August 25, 2013

    Lots of stuff happening at once

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    As readers of this blog will note, I haven’t been able to keep up with my writing.  It’s not for a lack of topics to write about, but more because I’ve felt so overwhelmed with so many activities.

    I continue to work towards my goal of creating an early stage fund for Latin America called Tayrona Ventures (new website coming soon).   Along the way, I’ve brought the first international digital incubator (Founder Institute) to Colombia, founded a new ecommerce startup with very hands-on local angels and became a General Partner in a new startup accelerator.

     

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    No Comments / English, General /

  • April 2, 2013

    Adeo Ressi conversará con emprendedores de Medellín

    Adeo RessiEl martes 9 de abril, Adeo Ressi hablará con emprendedores de Medellin desde Silicon Valley por transmisión remota, evento que se realizará en El Espacio. También contaremos con la presencia y una conferencia por parte de uno de los mentores con mejores calificaciones: Serge Kruppa. Despues de la presentación de Serge, él y Conrad Egusa, otro de los mejores calificados mentores de Founder Institute Medellin, escuchará sus “pitches” de un minuto para proveer su retroalimentación en vivo. Registrese ya para el evento haciendo clic acá.

    El crecimiento del Founder Institute durante los ultimo tres años ha sido abrumador con muchas lecciones aprendidas sobre lo que funciona en mas de 40 ciudades por todo el mundo.  Hace 3 años que llegó el Founder Institute a Colombia y este año será el segundo año que estará operando en la ciudad de Medellín, recientemente nombrada la ciudad mas innovadora del globo.  De nuevo, el instituto se está aliando con Ruta N, el cual recientemente habló sobre sus resultados durante el ultimo año incluyendo el impacto de los graduados del Founder Institute.

    Por el crecimiento del Institute y el trabajo que esto implica, es claro que esto ha limitado mas las posibilidades para contar con la presencia (remota o fisica) de Adeo.  Sin embargo, desde que vino a Colombia hace dos años se ha enamorado del país (también cambió su dominio de founderinstitute.com a fi.CO).  Tiene especial interes en Medellín y por esto es importante aprovechar esta oportunidad para escuchar y conversar con él.  Traigan sus preguntas mas dificiles para este reconocido experto en temas de emprendimiento.  Registrase para el evento haciendo clic acá. Aproveche también las pocas semanas que quedan para aplicar a Founder Institute Medellin 2013 sin costo haciendo clic acá.

    No Comments / Español, General /

  • December 18, 2012

    How to find a good mentor for your startup.

    Adeo and AlanA few days ago, I received and interesting Tweet from @EndeavorCol asking my opinion on the question of how to find a good mentor for your startup. Even though it’s 4am and wisdom should dictate that I get the point forthwith, I’m going to take a step back and give my general thoughts on mentors, startups and founders (mostly in the tech space).  I don’t usually make it a point to beat around the bush, but I feel the subject warrants a broader conversation before jumping into the topic of how to actually find a good mentor.

    Because of what I do, I have occasion to actually mentor startups.  Each year, I probably listen to over a hundred business ideas (usually for startups) or pitches of ongoing startups.  After listening to these, I normally communicate my thoughts, which sometimes include my suggestions to the entrepreneur. It’s up to the entrepreneur whether they’d like to take this advice or not.

    Many entrepreneurs are surprised when I convey my philosophy on the importance of mentors (such as myself).  What I truly believe (and what I tell some) is that their best mentor is the customer.  In other words, actually testing things out finding out what a customer is willing to pay for (or what a user is willing to spend time on).  After this, comes the vision (whether evolving or coalescing) of the CEO and the founding team and third comes listening to mentors.

    I’m not saying that mentors can’t and don’t make a big difference.  In fact, I’ve seen first hand when entrepreneurs who have taken my own advice have translated it into incredible business results and/or million dollar fundraising success (other times, my advice was better left unheeded, but I won’t mention such instances). Don’t tell anyone, but I’m sometimes surprised by these results.  What I’m saying is that I truly believe that, if you have a strong team that knows how to test things in the marketplace and a solid leader with an inspiring vision for the company, that foundation will greatly increase the possibilities of a company’s ability to follow through on good advice.

    As a recent Business Insider article highlighted, most of the technology visionaries we can think of had one or more mentors which helped them along the way.  Nonetheless, even if the right mentor comes along, many entrepreneurs are just not ready to be mentored.  In Colombia, a lot has changed in the past two years (many international mentors have visited the country) and I’ve seen the following:  1. A few impressive entrepreneurs who are both good at executing and good at listening and processing advice (these are the most fun to be around); 2. Entrepreneurs who have become addicted to interacting with “celebrity” mentors without building the aforementioned foundation and are immune to advice from “mere mortal” mentors (their prospects are clearly limited); 3. Rudderless founders who get confused with advice from so many mentors and are ill equipped at translating it into directed action and finally, 4. Entrepreneurs who have built a successful, growing business and are pretty good at distinguishing insightful advice from superficial suggestions.  These last ones are the self-assured, talented entrepreneurs, some of whom, could build high impact businesses, but in Colombia, are, for the most part, building lifestyle businesses.

    Now, on the question of what makes a good mentor, some speak of the necessity of finding a mentor that has built at least one successful company.  An example of this might be Adeo Ressi (next to me in the picture above – he’s the tall one), whom I’d like to consider a mentor of mine.  Adeo has started eight businesses with some successes and some failures.  Aside from that, thanks to the volume of deals he looks at, he’s developed the analytical skills similar to those of a prolific investor. Amazingly enough, Mark Suster just wrote a great post on the subject not only of mentors, but all of the people behind the scenes who help entrepreneurs.

    I’m wary of absolutes (e.g., all mentors should be successful entrepreneurs) in such an exploratory endeavor as building startups.  There is no doubt that former founders have a ton more street cred (and rightly so).  However, if this were a steadfast requirement, impressive individuals such as Keith Rabois, who has never founded a successful startup (though he’s worked for the best) wouldn’t be in consideration, yet, he is one of the most prolific investors and sought after mentors in the valley. Perhaps I’m rationalizing since, I have been an investor, but am just now building an eCommerce company (SuperTrendi). :)

    Speaking from the mentor perspective, choosing to mentor a company, sit on its board and/or be an official advisor has as much to do with chemistry with the CEO and team as it does with my opinion of the teams general performance.  Again, for me, the actual industry is my last consideration since one of the companies that I’m most excited about, and for which I am a shareholder and adviser (Mapache Studios), works in a space where I have limited knowledge (gaming and learning).  However, the reason I get such a kick out of mentoring them is that 1. I admire the CEO and CTO and 2. They’ve built a talented team that executes.

    Not all mentors serve the same function, though.  Some mentors are subject matter experts (e.g., technology, industry) and some mentors help with business development. Also, some of the best mentoring sessions I’ve seen (mine included) have been short and, some would say,  harsh.  When done with the right intentions a pointed no-nonsense question can be more effective than hours of sweet-coated office hours.

    So, how DO you find a good mentor for your startup?  My first suggestion is to get as far as you can in building an exciting startup so that you can attract the type of mentor (and talent) you want.  If you are, indeed, able to build something exciting (e.g., growing fast, solid team, etc.), you’ll have a much easier time attracting the quality mentor or mentors you need.  Most entrepreneurs in Latin America that I’ve come across don’t have a good understanding to of the mentor or mentors they need.  I’ve seen great advice be squandered by founders because it didn’t come from  a “celebrity mentor.”

    Once you have these elements in place, you can find mentors at networking and other events (e.g., Startup Weekend), local incubators and, even by reaching out on the Internet and having remote conversations.   Another option is to take a trip to Silicon Valley.  I think you’d be hard pressed to not find a contact in your Linkedin Network that can help you start making contacts in Silicon Valley in order to get the first few meetings going.  You’d be surprised how accessible people can be.

    So, to recap: 1. Do as much as you can to build an impressive startup team, traction and growth.  2. Have some idea of the types of mentors you most need (not to discard mentors who may be excited with what you’re doing, but to have some idea of where your challenges lay). 3. Start networking locally and internationally.

    7 Comments / English, Strategy /
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