All posts in General

  • March 25, 2014

    Bridge from Colombia to Silicon Valley open for 4 years

    Adeo Ressi BogotaIt’s been a couple of weeks since Adeo was in town (Bogotá, Colombia). For me, it was great to have him back in Colombia and for others who had not met him before, it was quite an experience.  Adeo has created a number of companies (most recently, The Funded and the Founder Institute) and brings with him quite a bit of Silicon Valley, which, I believe, is good for founders in Latin America to experience.

    As I have written previously, the Founder Institute has been an excellent vehicle to coalesce the amazingly talented entrepreneurs in Colombia who have already had successes (and failures) as mentors and complement these with international mentors as well as local entrepreneurs.  In a country where much government money is being expended to create new accelerators, I’m proud of the fact that, though it had previously received backing from the city of Medellin (e.g., Ruta N), it continues to run in Bogotá and graduate new founders and companies funded principally by a small course fee paid by each participant.

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  • February 19, 2014

    Silicon Valley Culture

    Nivi Angel.coI just got back from Silicon Valley where I spent more than a week.  I was able to take the ten startups that are going through the acceleration program that I am running in Bogota and show them around and introduce them to key players.  We had fireside chats with investors and entrepreneurs such as Nivi (co-founder of Angel List), Ranjith Kumaran (co-founder of YouSendIt and PunchTab) and William Hsu (CodeEval).  We also spoke with investors such as Mike Hennesey and Dan Bragiel. As usual, I was able to count on help from some great people including Jeannine Jacobson from the Founder Institute in Los Angeles and the above mentioned people in Silicon Valley in addition to a host of others that I’ll thank privately so as not to make them so public without their consent. :)

    We also visited successful companies such as Facebook, Google and Evernote to understand their innovation cultures and how the built these from their start as small startups  to big companies.  We were able to also meet with the CEO and co-founder of Xactly Corporation, Chris Cabrera, who spoke to us about the opportunities in creating SaaS companies.   During all of these visits, we heard about the innovation cultures ingrained in these startups as well as the founder vision behind each of these organizations.

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  • February 6, 2014

    The New Colombia

    New Colombia

    There’s a post I’ve wanted to write for some time (actually a lot of posts), but the day-to-day hustle has succeeded in keeping me from writing (how’s that for a lame excuse?).  It has to do with what I see happening in a number of Latin American countries (e.g., Brazil, Mexico, etc.), but have direct experience with here in Colombia. Basically, the Colombia I’m experiencing at this moment is quite different from the Colombia of only five years ago.  One of these differences, which is very trivial to some, is the fact that this past Sunday I had a plethora of choices of where to watch the Super Bowl compared to several years ago (that’s how justify attaching such a far out picture to this post).

    I recall the frustration I felt several years ago trying to find a place to watch the Super Bowl (the what?).  Nine out of ten people I would ask had no idea what this was.  Granted, this is quite an ethnocentric view of the world on my part given the comparative popularity of soccer and cricket in the world.  Nonetheless, it speaks to something that I’ve been noticing more and more: this and other countries like it are accelerating their connection to the world.

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  • January 31, 2014

    Great Bogota Visit from Gabe Zichermann

    Gabe Zichermann and TropicalGringoBefore 2013 finished, we had a great Meetup with Gabe Zichermann who stopped by Bogota . It was December 27, 2013 and Gabe decided to relax a bit in Bogota before continuing his travels on to Lima, Peru.  Gabe had been in Bogota and Medellin more than a year ago when he mentored during the 2012 semester of the Founder Institute in Bogota and Medellin.

    It was so satisfying to hear from him that he really enjoyed his stay last time and, when setting up his trip to Peru, he decided to make Colombia one of his stops. This was all the more surprising given the fact that I went a bit overboard during Gabe’s last visit as I scheduled a Gamification workshop and beaucoup press interviews in addition to all of the Founder Institute mentoring.  Wayra Colombia graciously had allowed us to use their excellent facilities both for the workshop a couple of years back and this latest Meetup.

    Gabe is a top mentor international mentor and also co-Director of the Founder Institute in New York.  Among other things, he created the Gamification Summit and has written a number of books on Gamification.  It was extraordinary to have him visiting Colombia and his agreeing to doing an excellent Meetup with a room full of entrepreneurs was much appreciated.

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