All posts tagged latin america

  • January 16, 2011

    Silicon Valley continues it’s Latin America Discovery

    WelcuThis Tuesday it was announced that Google CEO, Eric Schmidt’s, investment vehicle, Tomorrow Ventures, invested in a Chilean web event management company called Welcu. The company has already gartnered an impressive list of corporate clients from Coca-cola to BBDO.  The fact that Schmidt’s investment company chose a company in Latin America for it’s 22nd investment attests to the fact that this region should be on the radar screen of more and more investors.

    It’s important to note that Welcu is not simply a clone of established companies such as Eventbrite and others, but provides some innovation by more thoroughly integrating a social layer throughout its event management platform. The company has an impressive list of previous investors including Oskar Hjertonsson who recently sold his company (along with his cofounders) to Groupon.

    4 Comments / Case Studies, English /

  • January 14, 2011

    Building from the core

    coreI had a great conversation yesterday with someone, like me, who isn’t originally from the region (Latin America), but who has found a new home here.  He was visiting Colombia and has been an entrepreneur in Latin America for more than four years and had some really tough going, but like any excellent entrepreneur, he stuck it through.  The result is that, today, both he and his original angel investors experienced a nice exit as his company was sold to a much larger one.

    This is a great story, but it’s just great to sit down and talk with people who are super sharp and, at the same time, down-to-earth and open.  Within this journey through the start-up scene in Latin America, it’s been incredibly heartening to discover a core group of amazing individuals, who are also great people to be around.  Some are originally from outside the region, but not all and all.

    A common thread is that we all see amazing opportunities for creating start-ups in Latin America as well as the potential for developing a new seed fund to nurture more and more of these start-ups.  He, correctly, mentioned that we should somehow coordinate our activities more among different countries in Latin America.  It definitely makes sense to think about building a core group of sharp individuals in Latin America interested in, among other things, funding and developing new start-ups. We’ll see how this develops.

    Additionally, yesterday, I had great video conference with a smart and funny colleague in Argentina about his interest in expanding his company footprint throughout Latin America.  Also, I chatted with some buddies in Austin about an upcoming panel over there on the start-up environment in Colombia (I’m rounding up some interesting panelists).  Well, gotta cut this short, because I’m off to Barranquilla this morning to visit another interesting company.

    2 Comments / English, General /

  • January 11, 2011

    Latinos as Social Media Experts

    The other day, I was reading an interesting article in the Huffington Post about how well Latinos (Spanish-speakers residing in Latin America) and Hispanics (residents of the US) use social media. The article talks about a new book on this topic by Joe Kutchera entitled, Latino Link: Building Brands Online with Hispanic Communities and Content.

    According to Kutchera, who has interviewed marketing executives from Ford, Best Buy and other companies, the Latino/Hispanic culture tends to be much more social and less individualistic than other cultures such as that in the states.  The article goes on to cite someone who mentions that Hispanics and Latinos are the fastest growing group on the Internet and will command $1.3 trillion in purchasing power by 2014.

    How can Latin Americans take advantage of the understanding of social media and develop new digital innovations? Just as the chinese market has generated numerous home-grown startups that understand the nuances of that local market, I believe the same opportunity certainly exists in Latin America (albeit, taking different size markets into account).

    Recently, Simon Olson, a partner at FIR Capital Partners in Brazil, during a recent talk at Standford University, spoke precisely about the available opportunities within that market.  Please click on his name (above) and subscribe to his blog as he’s certainly someone to follow.

    In the video below, Simon also mentions how Brazilians, great social media adopters, are working to relay that into innovative startups that leverage social media.In Brazil, the growth in number and quality of startups is incredible.  This should make other countries in Latin America sit up and take notice as Chile, Argentina and Mexico have.

    Below is the video from Simon’s talk. It’s excellent and eye-opening for investors unaware of the opportunities in Brazil.

    3 Comments / English, General /

  • November 12, 2010

    Latin American Star Developers

    As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m developing an interesting project to provide programming talent to web startups in the states and perhaps other regions such as Europe. The concept continues to evolve with the focus now being on finding superstar programmers instead of the typical software factory with a variety of skill levels.

    I really think that companies such as Globant have proven that, if done correctly, one can build a successful business by offering top-notch programming talent to interesting web companies.  Realizing the potential of such an endeavor has as much to do with creating a vibrant company culture in tune with the needs of the programmers and the company’s potential customers.  Here, in Colombia, I think a company such as Koombea, which has won international coding competitions, is further proof that the potential certainly exists.

    Eventhough I’ve been looking forward to building my own web app (and a company around it), there are so many things pulling me in this direction, that I just can’t ignore it any longer.  I’ve had qualms about going full force into a services business (like outsourced development), but, after further reflection, it’s finally clear to me that this path has a lot of positives.

    Like I said, building a vibrant company culture is a big part of doing this successfully, but I’ve had great experiences doing this for others.  Fifteen years ago, when I moved to Colombia from the states, I got the chance to build a services organization from 2 engineers to more than 20 at Compaq Computer and we achieved such a level of excellence that our country (Colombia) had the best customer satisfaction levels (our measure of success) in the whole world.

    The incredible thing is that when I established that BHG (Big Hairy Goal) three years prior, I got a ton of snickers from the team and I’m sure they were convinced that they were dealing with one “gringo loco” (that part was true).  Nevertheless, after five years in the valley (Silicon Valley) and a little flexibility in my adjustment to the Latin American culture, I saw that amazing things were possible.

    I’m continuing to develop this project and will, firstly, make sure that I start locating top-notch talent before offering anything to potential customers (startups and other SaaS and web companies).  I’d really like to get some young raw talent that can absorb a ton of high performance culture and values from Silicon Valley type companies instead of going whole hog for senior developers who might have acquired a few too many stodgy bad habits along the way.

    What are your thoughts on what I’m embarking upon?

    2 Comments / English, IT /
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