All posts tagged tropicalgringo

  • June 26, 2016

    Mi vision del futuro en WOBI TV

    Tropicalgringo Wobi TV
    Hace un tiempo atrás, cambié mi adicción a la televisión por la adicción a YouTube.  Lo malo de esto es que no tengo un paquete de TV cable muy premium y, por ende, no puedo ver un canal llamado WOBI TV.  Hoy, un amigo, Arnulfo Ospina, CEO de Vendty (soy Advisor de su startup), me acaba de enviar una porción de la entrevista (grabado en su movíl) que hice para este canal hace aproximadamente diez meses.   A diferencia de mi entrevista en CNN, en esta conversación presenté más de mi visión sobre el futuro tomando como contexto la acelerada adopción de dispositivos moviles inteligentes.

    En ese entonces, yo estaba ejecutando mi rol como Advisor y Vice Presidente Ejecutivo de uno de los startups mas exitosos que haya salido de Colombia llamado Tappsi, la cual como he mencionado antes fue adquirida por un startup mas grande.  Aunque me ayudaria ver la entrevista para ayudar a mi memoria, hay algunos conceptos que recuerdo habiendo tocado durante dicha entrevsita.

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    4 Comments / Español, General /

  • March 15, 2016

    Mexico’s Conekta from Founder and Investor point of view

    Tropicalgringo conekta jaguarA few weeks ago, I had the good fortune to chat in Mexico City with both the co-founder and the investor of one of Mexico’s key startups, Conekta.  Conekta is a payments platform that has previously secured funding from local VCs as well as some international angel investors such as Dave McClure. I spoke with the company’s co-founder and CEO, Hector Cardenas, as well as one of it’s investors, Eric Perez-Grovas, General Partner of Jaguar Ventures.

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    No Comments / English, General /

  • January 12, 2016

    Platzi closes $2.1M seed round

    Platzi seed roundI’m happy to report (as did the Wall Street Journal) that Platzi has closed a $2.1M seed round.  It’s CEO and co-founder, Freddy Vega, is pictured above during my recent interview with him in Colombia.  Freddy is Colombian and his talented co-founder, Christian Van Der Henst, hails from Guatemala. Nonetheless, both are true blue global startup guys (citizens of the world).

    I’ve always felt that these guys are valuable role models particularly for entrepreneurs in the region because of their having been able to bootstrap their business through sheer talent, desire and hard work.  I see this as extremely valuable in terms of a model that a large portion of Latin American entrepreneurs (that don’t have access to initial capital or highly placed business connections) can emulate.

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    6 Comments / Case Studies, English /

  • January 8, 2016

    TropicalGringo Portfolio: Tappsi exit good news for ecosystem

    Tappsi ExitAs some of you know, one of the startups that I advise is Tappsi, the leading taxi-hailing company in Colombia. Recently, the company announced their merger with Easy Taxi.  Not only is this a good outcome for the company’s talented founders, shareholders (such as myself) and the Colombian startup ecosystem (particularly, for investors and potential investors), but it is a logical next step in the company’s evolution and allows it to play the long (regional) game as part of bigger company.

    Though this outcome may have been a surprise to some, it was a scenario that the founders (and myself) always saw as one of several probabilities down the road. This space was quite obviously destined for consolidation (especially, from a regional perspective).  In such a market, as many know, you can be the consolidator of several markets (countries) or, if you can build dominance in one lucrative market (country), you can, later, join forces with that same consolidator through a merger, acquisition, etc.

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    2 Comments / Case Studies, English /
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