Since Aileen Lee’s TechCrunch post last year on so called “unicorns”, startups valued at $1 Billion and above, the term has gained widespread adoption. From the perspective of a fund manager at any top VC firm, investing in a future unicorn can be key. However, I’ve been wondering if any of the lessons from Aileen’s post hold any lessons for startups in emerging markets, such as Latin America.
I’ve found that it pays to have lofty goals. When I first arrived to Colombia, I worked at a well-known technology multinational corporation and told my team that I wanted to build a world-class services organization. One way to measure ourselves was by the satisfaction of our user base. Four years later, we were named the top country by that metric in the whole world. Now, I’m at it again, seeing how ridiculously ambitious I can get with a new Lean Startup Enterprise initiative.
In a sense, I’m expanding the scope of what I do with the Founder Institute, which I’ve been running for four years in Colombia. While that incubator (I’m careful not to say accelerator as one commenter is sensitive to the use of this term :)) is focused on startups, the Lean Startup Enterprise initiative expands this scope and invites corporate employees to join the party.
It’s been more than two years since Juan Salcedo, co-founder of Tappsi, started showing me the taxi hailing app that he had developed. Soon after this, I started meeting periodically with Andres Gutierrez (co-founder) and Juan and ended up, eventually, becoming their advisor. As the company continues it’s rapid growth trajectory, it is looking to hire talented people in engineering and other areas. Apply here.
We had a great Founder Institute Bogota pitch event last night. In attendance were Founder Institute mentors, Francisco Garcia, co-founder of Data Traffic, Juan Salcedo, co-founder of Tappsi and special guest Paige Brown, CEO and co-founder of DashBell. Each one of these founders generously shared their experience growing their specific startup and talking about the genesis of each.
Paige spoke about here time at TechStars in Boston and the road since then after multiple angel financings. Francisco spoke about the thesis that was the original plan for Data Traffic and the creation and growth of the company since then. Finally, Juan spoke about how Tappsi started from a problem that he and his cofounder (Andres Gutierrez) encountered in trying to hail a cab. Later, Juan gave a more detailed presentation detailing the creation and growth of the company.
Afterwards, a number of the founders present, gave their pitches and heard feedback from myself and the audience. It was an incredibly interactive session with great interest and energy in the room. During the event, I announced the extension of the enrollment deadline for two more weeks in Bogota, Colombia. We already have a great group of founders with excellent aptitude enrolled in the program.
For those still interested in enrolling, simply fill out the few fields in the following application link: http://fi.co/join.