All posts in General

• January 20, 2015

  Traits of successful startup founders outside of Silicon Valley

  I think few would argue with the affirmation that creating a startup in Silicon Valley is a different experience versus creating it anywhere else.  Sure, building a successful business presents the same challenges, but the environment in Silicon Valley provides many benefits.  Nonetheless, everyday there are more and more examples of successful startups created elsewhere.  From SnapChat in Los Angeles, Etsy in New York to Allibaba in China and Flipkart in India.  These founders have a lot of the same characteristics even though the environment where they create their companies is a dimension away from the environment in Silicon Valley.

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• January 6, 2015

  $3M invested in Founder Institute Colombia Graduates!

  

  The Founder Institute continues to grow globally.  It’s amazing to realize that I’m going on my fifth year as Director of the Founder Institute (FI) in Colombia.  In 2011, there were relatively few cities with a Founder Institute chapter and I was really determined to make sure that Colombia be the first Latin American country to have one.  By then, I had sat with a lot of Colombian entrepreneurs and knew that they needed help from the moment of conception.  Well that dream was realized and, with the amazing help of Adeo Ressi, the incubator’s founder, graduates of the program in Colombia have already received over US $2M in funding. This is unheard of for any startup accelerator or incubator in this country.

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• January 3, 2015

  What I’ve been up to.

  It’s been far too long since my last post.  As  you can imagine, I’ve had my head down and my nose to the grindstone for the last six months.  As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m an advisor and shareholder in a number of startups and during the past six months, I’ve been working full-time at one of these called Tappsi, the leading cab-hailing app in Colombia.

  As I wrote in April, the company, founded by a pair of talented entreprenuers, has grown to become quite a powerhouse.   I became the company’s advisor when it was still a two-man operation after they had launched the app and experienced incredible growth.  In those days, we talked about the different ideas for getting more drivers, what the company’s mission was in addition to other topics.

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• September 8, 2014

  Reflections on running an innovation workshop for bankers.

  
  This week, I was invited by some top-notch colleagues (Andres Fontao and Fermin Bueno with a great recommendation from Dan Gertsacov) to work with executives from the top banks in Colombia by running a digital innovation workshop we called “Hacking Finance @ Next Bank Bogotá”.  I must say that I enjoyed myself immensely and was pleasantly surprised by the engagement I saw from the bankers.  Andres and Fermin worked with me on designing the workshop with group activities and interaction with real-world unbanked consumers.

  It is evident even here in Colombia, where the banking industry makes some pretty nice profits, that global disruption is of deep concern to the banking industry.  In fact, this year, I’ve been working with a few corporate clients and have noticed a heightened interest in innovation and the whole startup phenomenon. Though this has made for some stimulating work, by far, the most satisfying experience of this year has been working with the companies that I advise and, in particular, working full-time with one of these (I need to write a post on this).

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