As I wrote in my last post, the Founder Institute will come to Colombia (and Chile). To kick things off, Adeo Ressi, CEO of the Founder Institute, will be in Colombia in February to launch the 12 week program. This initiative is important because it connects Silicon Valley with the best Colombian entrepreneurs the country has to offer. Additionally, successful US entrepreneurs and investors will hook up with these entrepreneurs/founders. To kick off the event, Adeo Ressi will be in town to on the 8th of Februrary.
Adeo Ressi of the Founder Institute will speak on Feb 8 in Bogotá, Colombia:
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.
This is just one additional instance of established companies feeling competitive pressure from a relatively new comer. The same has happened in music, video and other industries. Competitive dynamics of business continues to be heavily impact by new technology tools making it imperative that all businesses “rethink” everything and focus on digital innovation.
Previously, I’ve written about companies such as Brazil’s Compra3 (in VentureBeat and the New York Times), which group people together to purchase goods and services with some additional value (such as deep discounts). There’s much potential in this formula.
Now, there’s a new player called Ofermatic that utilizes a point system (accepting many varieties of credit cards) and gaming mechanics to increase the level of engagement for consumers. According to the company, they provide between 10 and 100 times better repeat conversion rates than other sites. During my last Digital Innovation Workshop, I spoke about this company and about the fact that, if companies were more focused on digital innovation, perhaps an established player could have developed this idea.
As I wrote in my last post, the Founder Institute will come to Colombia (and Chile). To kick things off, Adeo Ressi, CEO of the Founder Institute, will be in Colombia in February to launch the 12 week program. This initiative is important because it connects Silicon Valley with the best Colombian entrepreneurs the country has to offer. Additionally, successful US entrepreneurs and investors will hook up with these entrepreneurs/founders. To kick off the event, Adeo Ressi will be in town to on the 8th of Februrary.
