Note: I updated this post with the actual interviews. It goes without saying that I’m extremely proud of being able to interview these 5 awesome entreprenuers in order to provide a great 2015 snapshot of some of the country’s top CEO/founders at this point time (think of it as a time capsule). These guys have easily created over $250M in shareholder value up to now. If you’re from other countries, this will give you a sense of the talent of top Colombian entreprenuers. If you live here, it’s a shame you didn’t attend these interviews (we had low attendance) and take advantage of meeting and talking with these incredibly open founders, but watch the videos and learn a ton!
A couple months ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Claus Rosenberg, a serial entrepreneur from Denmark, thanks to a friend named Juan Velez. During our meeting, he made a very persuasive case for why I should become Director of Startup Grind in Bogota. Long story, short, I agreed because I see this as an opportunity to take a snapshot in 2015 of the top Startup CEOs from Colombia through a series of YouTube video interviews.
As I’ve written before, it’s become harder and harder to sacrifice family time and take on extra initiatives such as these. Also, although some may find it hard to believe, I just don’t really enjoy the spotlight in Colombia anymore. The only thing that drives me to do these types of things is the fact that I really see a big impact resulting from this initiative. Also, I just really admire talented entrepreneurs and enjoy talking with them.
I 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.
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.
Yesterday, during a rainy afternoon in Bogotá, I interviewed the co-founders of Latin American Payments, Jose Velez and Martin Schrimpff, which offers a robust payments platform, anti-fraud system and payments collection all designed specifically for the needs of the Latin American market. The company is PCI certified, have won international prizes for their platform and are already working with clients such as Sony, Amway, Harvard Business Review and Telefonica and are starting to speak with international retailers, gaming companies and travel players among others.
Latin American Payments is a division of PagosOnline, a Colombian start-up with almost 100 employees which counts Buscapé, the large Brazilian comparison shopping site, as it’s majority shareholder (75%). As many know, the South African investment firm, Naspers, bought almost all of Buscapé’s shares for well over US $300M a couple of years back and is busy building it into a Latin American powerhouse (along with it’s satellite companies).
As the pictures below show, there’s quite a bit of hustle and bustle going on right now at Latin American Payments. Jose and Martin are busy complementing an impressive team of developers and business people from top banks and international credit card companies as they go after a Latin American e-commerce market that is surging almost 40% annually to $21.8B.
It might seem strange to offer a Latin American solution from Colombia instead of Mexico or Brazil. Nevertheless, it makes more sense if you consider that, unfortunately, Colombia is one of the most challenging regions for combating credit card and ATM fraud in the world. Several years back, I was talking to a local bank executive who told me that ATM machine makers had to continually innovate in Colombia (some of these innovations found their way into the entire product line) because of the “creativity” with which some Colombians would try to “beat the system.”
Those Colombians are the bane of resourceful and entrepreneurial Colombians like the people at Latin American Payments who are using their ingenuity and hard work to make sure their clients are protected from losses. Incredibly, as happens all around the world, when you are challenged to survive (and thrive) in such hostile circumstances, you come out stronger. That’s one of the reasons that Jose and Martin are so confident about the future.
Nonetheless, there are competitors. Paypal is working to penetrate the market further and local competitors are also developing their own solutions and expand to other countries. Jose and Martin are conscious of this, but believe that 8 years of experience, constant investment in their platform and the ability of clients to collect payments from customers in a variety of ways (overcoming the low credit card penetration in the region) are key assets.
The final asset, they believe, which gives them an edge is the entrepreneurial environment they’ve fomented and the impressive team of young, knowledgeable collaborators they are assembling with the necessary chops to execute on the vision. Finally, (and for disclosure purposes), I the company its sponsorship of the Founder Institute in Colombia (for which I am the director).
