The Word is Getting Out – Latin America is Full of Digital Innovators
I’ve been so busy contributing to other publications that I’ve been falling behind in posting to my own blog. Lately, I’ve been writing articles about companies such as Vivareal in Colombia and Compra3 in Brazil each with excellent prospects for the future. I’ve been psyched to see these articles published in the NYTimes and in Venturebeat. There is such a tremendous opportunity in this region for setting up dev centers, targeting the region for products and services or both.
I just got back from a night of Salsa and Sushi with the Mrs. and, after waking up at 2:30am this morning should be hitting the sack. Nevertheless, as if the day hasn’t been good enough, I just read Chris Brogan’s post on Colombia. By now, I’m used to seeing fellow “Gringos” wowed by the life down here, but it’s so great to see someone who appreciates that aspect, but, more importantly, objectively, sees the tremendous potential down here.
That was just the cap to a truly amazing day where, aside from happy family times, I had some great meetings with top executives at two major multinationals down here, a financial services company and a friend who works at Twitter that I finally met in person (she’s down here). Aside from all of this, Compra3 (amazing founders) had their production launch of their social commerce site, which I was able to write about to get the word out.
I should really back all of this up with more numbers and statistics, but I’m too tired tonight. I’ll leave that for another post.
Conclusion: there’s no doubt in my mind that Latin America is going through a transformation and that, within the next 5 years, the number of US VC/angel backed digital innovators with either dev centers or target market (or both) down here will explode.