All posts tagged tropicalgringo

  • February 10, 2011

    Panel Sobre Online Marketing

    Online Marketing Colombia PanelAyer tuve la oportunidad de moderar un panel sobre online marketing en Colombia. Abajo está el video pero no se porque salió tan borroso. Los panelistas fueron Paula Gaviria, Tuyo Isaza, Luis Acosta, Gabriel Amorocha y Matias Jaramillo y contamos con una audiencia de mas de 50 personas.  Gracias a la gran labor de Jaime Alberto Rincón, se pudo ejecutar en las excelentes instalaciones de Uniandinos.

    Me encantó conocer a personas que siguen mi blog como Javier (su esposa Ingrid), Ricardo y Juan Pablo.  Uno de ellos viene de Francia con el proposito de crear uno o mas startups en Colombia.  Varios conocían mi iniciativa del Founder Institute para traer  a las mejores practicas para crear startups.  Fuera de esto, tuve el mal gusto de promocionar mi taller sobre Innovación Digital. :)

    Salieron muchos temas interesantes durantes las conversaciones con los panelista.  Con respecto a las oportunidades en Colombia para crear impacto, Gabriel mencionó la importancia de crear contenidos y Matias especificó la importancia que estos sean de calidad. Un tema que salió varias veces fue la disincronización entre la cantidad de Colombianos que utilizan el Internet (alrededor de 60%) y los pocos fondos (alrededor de 3% de su presupuesto de mercadeo) que las empresas le dedican a estas iniciativas.

    Los panelistas fueron muy complementarios con Luis hablando de su experiencia variada y los logros que se han conseguido en Legis, Paula dando un caso de exito impactante (el de Coca-Cola) entre otras cosas, Gabriel hablando sobre la realidad Colombiana comparada con el resto del mundo y Matias haciendo algo dificil que es explicar conceptos esotericos en terminos palpables.  Finalmente, Tuyo, quien tiene un nombre que, en mi opinion suena excelente (Tuyo Isaza), habló apasionadadmente sobre varios temas incluyendo el hecho que lo digital no necesariamente se aplica solo a mercado – lo cual es el punto principal de mis talleres sobre Innovación Digital.

    Tuyo Isaza alcanzó a grabar el programa acá: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/12617691

    Bueno, aunque salio borroso, acá está el corto video que da un poco de idea sobre el ambiente de la noche:

    9 Comments / Español, Mercadeo Internet /

  • July 2, 2010

    Historic Moment: Latin American Web Takes Flight

    Latin American Web InvestmentIt’s been quite a week which, for myself and others such as Felipe DeConce (Chile) and Simon Olson (Brazil), marks an inflection point in the world of Latin American web start-ups. As I mentioned in the article published in VentureBeat and NYTimes.com, US web start-ups are starting to acquire Latin American web companies much earlier in their development process. For example, witness the recent actions by Groupon and Playdom in rapidly acquiring web companies in Latin America.

    Also, I wanted to write said article because I’ve been observing the funding process of a few Latin American start-ups looking for funding in the states and I wanted to get something published on the Latin America web investment opportunities which start-ups could reference with international investors.  Although I wasn’t able to go too much into detail, I highlighted the fact that I feel Latin America offers what Warren Buffett looks for in investments which are defensible “moats” around great profit margins and growing competitive advantage.

    Aditionally, VentureBeat published an article I wrote about Netactica, an Argentine web company offering end-to-end solutions to the online travel industry in Latin America.  Incredibly, yesterday, Google acquired ITA Software (relatively similar to Netactica in Latin America) in a demonstration that there is much value in these types of end-to-end solution providers in online travel.  According to a number of analysts, this acquisition changes the dynamics of the online travel booking and search market. Personally, I think that a player like Netactica has much to gain with this turn of events and, with the increasing interest on the part of international investors in Latin America, the company should benefit quite a bit.

    As if this weren’t enough, I spoke last week with Fernando LaBastida and Ricardo Guerrero who have an excellent initiative with the organizers of SXSW in Austin (they live there) to include a panel on Latin America during  the next event in 2011.  Nevertheless, in order to make sure there is interest on the part of audience members, it’s important for people to suggest ideas for the panel.

    I’m completely serious when I say that this week was a critical moment for the development of Latin American web start-ups.  You can be certain that investor interest will now start to accelerate at an amazingly fast pace.  Now, we need to find the most talented technical and non-technical people in the region so that these can focus on digital innovation.

    In order to accelerate this, Thomas Floracks and myself are launching a weekly show (we haven’t decided the day and time, yet) so that, among other things, we can analyze one or two interesting initiatives during the show.  Note: for now, we’ll do it in Spanish, but will do a shorter recap show in English if there is interest. More details on this are coming soon.  It’s a good moment to launch this show because we need to elevate the conversation beyond comments like “look at my neat website” or “I’m going to sell xyz on the internet.”  It’s time for clear paths to profitability and solving real customer problems.

    1 Comment / English, General /
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