All posts in General

  • January 29, 2016

    Kiwi sells it’s Lulo product to focus on the future

    Kiwi and Tropicalgringo

    As has been reported this week, one of the companies from my portfolio, Kiwi, sold one of their digital products called Lulo to Merqueo, whose founders are also the founders of Domicilios, acquired over a year ago by Delivery Hero. The funds generated from the sale will allow the company to focus on one product, a chat application for ordering all types of products and services.

    I first met the original co-founders, Felipe Chavez and Javier Santiago Lozano, more than two years ago and was impressed from the start. Santiago has always been passionate about building great products. He is amazingly talented in a number of areas including, but not limited to, developing and designing great software products. Felipe complements Santiago through his determination and drive to build an organization. They believe in hiring the most talented people that are equally inspired by what the company is trying to accomplish.

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    3 Comments / English, General /

  • November 23, 2015

    Digital Innovation in Latin America

    TropicalGringo Speaker

    Note: After a great comment from a reader (see below), I’ve re-written (or added some ideas) to this post.  Thanks to one and all who push me to improve the quality of what I communicate in this blog!

    As I’ve written previously, I define digital innovation as the ability to create innovative new business model enabled by new digital tools. When I think of the state of digital innovation in Latin America, the first thing that comes to mind is untapped opportunities.

    The big question is whether some of these untapped opportunities will be taken advantage of by startups, by big  companies or both (e.g., acquisitions, etc.).  The reality is that, with a plethora of new digital tools available, anywhere there are complex problems, there are usually new ways to solve these.  What’s required are talented entrepreneurs passionate about treading untrodden territory.

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    4 Comments / English, General /

  • October 12, 2015

    Startup dreams and some spicy Indian cooking

    TropicalGringo and Sanjay ManchandaI just had the most surreal experience. I was able to hook up with an old friend from our days working at a software company in Santa Cruz, California.  His name is Sanjay Manchanda and the company we worked for was called Santa Cruz Operation or SCO.  It’s been 20 years since I was living and working in Silicon Valley (e.g., Cupertino, San Jose and Santa Cruz). That was a five year period of my life (after moving from Pennsylvania) that I’ll never forget both for personal and for professional reasons.

    Sanjay and I had the good fortune to travel to London at the same time, he for Box (VP Product Marketing) and I for BBVA (Ecosystem Builder).  It was pretty amazing seeing him again after so many years. He still has the same calm, self-assured way about him and hasn’t lost his sense of humor and enjoyment of life (e.g., he’s always been a jazz enthusiast and a great cook).

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    No Comments / English, General /

  • September 10, 2015

    BBVA OpenTalent Mexico pitch preparation

    BBVA OpenTalent Mexico preparationThis week I started a new chapter in my life as the Open Innovation and Ecosystem Builder in Latin America for BBVA (I’ll write a longer blog post about this soon).  I’ll be traveling quite a bit around Latin America (especially, to Mexico) and Europe, which makes me quite happy as I’ve always wanted to get a clearer picture of the great entrepreneurs that exist throughout Latin America.

    Right now, I’m in Mexico, at the moment, before going to the Open Talent competitions in New York and Barcelona in the coming weeks.  Yesterday, we had a great session, organized by Finnovista (who also organized today’s event) with the entrepreneurs before today’s pitch competition where they can win 30,000 Euros and enter an immersion program in London and Mexico with key experts.

    As the picture shows, in the morning, a few BBVA executives (including the Data Science expert shown) gave a quick 10 minute presentation about what they do and we all had conversations with the startup founders.   It was incredibly productive and it was good to see so much interest from both participants (founders as well as BBVA employees).   There are founders from all across Latin America including Chile, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and the US.

    During the afternoon, I was part of a panel of mentors that heard each pitch and gave some feedback offering opinions about the business and about how, possibly, to improve the pitch.  I was really impressed with this group of entrepreneurs.  The judges today will have their work cut out for them.  It’s going to be really tough to select only two winners.

    2 Comments / English, General /
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