Adventures in entrepreneurship and venture capital in Latin America
I am a big fan of not looking in the rear view mirror when you are at a start-up with a new market opportunity. When you are not Coke vs Pepsi, looking behind you can be more of a distraction and more often companies go under from poor execution, lack of funding or some market […]
After many years doing business in the US, in 2008 I co-founded a fintech venture in Mexico. Even though I was born and raised there, many of my friends and mentors warned me that I would be shocked at the amount of corruption prevalent in the country. Their businesses faced frequent bribe demands to stave off largely invented […]
In a recent conversation with Nacho de Marco, our blog partner and super successful Argentinian entrepreneur now living in SF, the subject of advisors for a start-up came up. Everyone seems to have an advisory board. Why? And are they useful? It made me realize that having formal advisors is a very Silicon Valley construct […]
In a previous post, I talked about how money is just never in a hurry and how you really need to plan for a looong process when fundraising, especially if you are in a nontraditional business or geography (in Mexico, I have seen good companies with solid investors take 9 months for fundraising from start to […]
We spent the last 18 months creating, iterating, fixing and re-iterating our Mimoni online lending service. We operated for all that time just in Mexico City, where we have our home office, in order to keep it in as controlled a setting as possible. Earlier this month, we launched in three other cities. We started preparing for […]
It had to happen at some point. Our customers are finally getting on the digital bandwagon. Before you roll your eyes at these late adopters, note that these are lower-middle-class Mexicans making about US$500 per month and enjoying one of the most expensive and slowest broadband speeds in the world (can you say telecom monopoly?). In […]
As I have mentioned in another blog, Pedro and I strongly believe that every member of the team should be empowered and — contrary to Mexican company customs — making mistakes is ok as long as you have a logical reason for having made that decision and we all make sure that the same mistake […]
Email is the bomb. The best thing ever. Arguably the most powerful business tool around. However, it can also be a debilitating crutch. Since the late 90’s, email has been the best way to communicate without intruding and at the same time leaving an all-but-indelible trail for future reference. You know all this (you probably […]
Ours or theirs? Outsourcing can be a crucial decision for any start-up. Doing it well can accelerate a product launch and reduce your fixed costs. Screwing it up can leave you vulnerable and stifle innovation. Not doing it at all limits your growth. After 6 years and having at one point had over 400 staff, […]
In a previous post, I talked about how when you raise your current round, you must be able to pitch the next one. This blog delves more into the nuts and bolts of funding, and specifically the idea that money is never in a hurry. Once you raise money from a professional investor, your interests […]
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