All posts tagged startups

  • November 14, 2013

    The impact of mission-driven organizations on emerging markets

    Adeo Ressi New York TimesToday, New York Times subscribers are reading the story on Adeo Ressi and the incubator he created: The Founder Institute.  In the article, when asked why he launches also in countries such as Colombia that are nontraditional entrepreneurial environments, he responds that he has created a mission-driven organization with the objective of helping the two percent of the population with “entrepreneurial genes” launch meaningful and enduring technology companies.

    As I’ve written before, it’s been quite a rewarding ride to have been able to work with Adeo and the Founder Institute for these past three years and to be able to count on his support while running the program here in Colombia.  At one of the Founder Institute Director meetings that Adeo ran in Silicon Valley, he asked all of us, among other things, about the value of FI in each country.  In my case, I said that I feel that the value of something like the Founder Institute could be even greater in an emerging market such as Colombia, because the size of the startup industry is so small and the know-how is extremely sparse.

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  • November 8, 2013

    Hop on the Google Developer Bus Bogota

    Tropicalgringo Google Developer bus

    Some good friends of mine, David Cifuentes and Francisco Solsona, are involved with a great initiative which will be underway in a few days: Google Developer Bus Bogota. There are a number of reasons this would be a great event for top designers, developers, etc. to attend (no matter what city you’re in).  One of these is the ability to test out an idea you have for a great app that leverages the Google platform.  Another is to show what Colombian developers are capable of accomplishing in a short time.

    More importantly, Google will be giving the winners (up to four team members) a trip to Silicon Valley.  Since I lived in Silicon Valley (Cupertino and Santa Cruz) for five years, I know first hand what a vibrant startup atmosphere there is there.  Because of this, I am passionate about taking startup founders to meet with my contacts there (have done this on several occasions).  I feel this is important in order to instill a similar culture in any startup (wherever they are based) where execution and thinking big are the norm.

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    No Comments / English, IT /

  • November 8, 2013

    Global digital innovation masters

    Digital Innovation Masters I’ve been thinking more about what really stimulates me at the same time that I’ve been considering the meaning of the word: “TropicalGringo.”  I think I’m coming up with an answer to both questions at the same time.  I’ll have to write more about each topic separately, but let me use this post as first pass to see what you think.

    What really stimulates me is meeting talented, passionate people who are great at creating new things. In general, I like to meet impressive people in all industries, but, being such a nerd, I really am intrigued by those that accomplish this in the digital space.  I’m talking about a great business builder, coder, designer or whatever.  Someone who has achieved mastery in one of the crafts necessary to engender digital innovation and, who call it, “creating cool shit.” :)

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  • November 8, 2013

    Emerging markets have a unique opportunity that most will squander.

    Think biggerThe other day I wrote a post about thinking bigger and now see that the concept has applicability to countries as well as startups. I took a day trip to Medellin yesterday to talk, along with my friend Conrad Egusa, with the management team of a multibillion dollar corporation with almost 200,000 employees.  They are taking a serious look at Colombia and, particularly, Medellin.  It really made me think about something that I’ve stated verbally but don’t think I’ve written here.  That we are living during a moment in history when a number of things are shifting (e.g., economic power,  penetration of digital tools, etc.).  Many countries (particularly, in emerging markets) such as Colombia can either decide that the future will be much different than the past and start making decisions commensurate with the opportunity before them or squander their window of opportunity and forfeit a much brighter future to emerging market countries who have more insight into this new global context.

    This event reminded me of the beginning of the year when an agency in Boston, Massachusetts (Jim and Sandy) reached out to me through my blog here because they were planning to visit Colombia.   For anyone reading this who needs confirmation that writing a blog and connecting with the outside world is rewarding, this should be proof enough.  In that case, I was able to connect them with the national government as well as my Founder Institute alliance partner, Ruta N, and they ended up having a tremendous visit.  In this case, it wasn’t a case of connecting them with others (they had that covered), but more a matter of giving them the low down from a bicultural perspective on what we see here.

    Going back to the session we had yesterday morning in Medellin with this impressive group of visitors.  First of all, it was impressive to see that the whole management team from the Chairman and CEO were present.  I just looked at their corporate website and it’s and looking at the management team pictures it’s amazing to see that they were all here.  It was really stimulating to follow their thought process in terms of analyzing the potential for doing business in Colombia and the types of deep, penetrating questions that they asked.

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