Month: December 2010

Punishing Failure, Stifiling Innovation [Part 1]

Category : Startup Chile
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Ever since we’ve gotten to Santiago, we’ve heard from all sorts of people about Chile’s penchant for punishing failure.  Jesse wrote a really good post a few weeks ago about this topic called Punishing Failure and the Ramifications on Entrepreneurship and I wanted to add some more thoughts.

I met a 26 year old Chilean who graduated from one of the top universities in Chile with a degree in engineering.  He spoke great English and wanted to start a business.  He even had a good idea.  I asked him why he hadn’t started his business yet and he told me that he had a good job at a consulting firm and that he couldn’t risk failure because he would never be able to get another good job if his business failed, even if it failed because of factors outside of his control.

He told me his plan was to go back to the US to get his MBA and then come back to Chile to start his business.  He said that if he failed, he would still be able to get a job because he was so over qualified and would have better qualifications than his boss.

So, in order for this 26 year old to feel comfortable starting a business, he had to graduate from the best university in Chile, work at a top consulting firm, learn english, get an MBA from a top US university and then he could start a business.  He told me that if he started a business and failed, a potential employer would rather have a 22 year old recent grad with no experience, instead of his work and entrepreneurial experience.  Talk about overhead!

In the US, companies would love to hire someone who tried to start their own business out of college, even if they failed.  They would call it “real world experience” and employers would like that the potential hire was a “go getter.”  I’m confident that if I decide I want to get a job instead of doing startups, I could.  Here, it’s the opposite.  People believe that if a business fails, its because the owner was either corrupt, stupid or both.  People shun failures.

It’s not exactly the best environment for creating new businesses or innovation.  Many people here have good ideas, but they don’t believe it’s worth it to take the risk to start a business.  I also learned that making a ton of money is sort of looked down upon here.  Multiple people have told me that Chilean President Sebastián Piñera had to fight off attacks from the opposition that he was TOO successful.  Not that he was corrupt, but that he was too successful.

It’s a very difficult cultural difference for people who want to start businesses, but it’s an opportunity for Chileans who are willing to take risks and shun the cultural pressures to make money and be extremely successful.  There are so many opportunities to create amazing businesses here in Chile that people who can break free from the cultural pressures will be able to create some amazing businesses.  That’s part of the reason we are here:  Start-Up Chile was created to show Chileans that starting a business is an option, failure is ok and that Chile is a great place to start a business.  We’ll see what happens.

Part 2 in this series will have some thoughts about why some places have more entrepreneurs than others.

A Quick Trip to Viña del Mar

Category : Travel
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Viña del Mar is the closest beach to Santiago, so we decided to take a trip.  I went with a few of friends from Startup Chile, including Tiago (Portugal), Raj (UK), Hank (US) and Jesse.  We took the $5 bus through the hills and ended up in Viña about 1.5 hours later.  They played a movie with no sound, but with Spanish subtitles, so it was a good way to practice.

We got to Viña at about 2pm and walked around.  Viña is right next to Valpariaso, which used to be one of the most important shipping cities in the entire world.  After the Panama Canal was built, Valpo wasn’t as necessary anymore.  Our hostel was located about 4 blocks from the ocean, atop a huge hill.  We had great views of the city.

We walked all over Viña to get the lay of the land and found a cool boardwalk and a bunch of bars/restaurants.  Many of the restaurants were your typical tourist trap, but we found some good ones by asking out hostel owner which were good and worth going to.  We spent some time on the beach and then went out to a few bars.  It’s much cooler in Viña compared to Santiago, especially at night and we happened to be there during an extraordiarialy windy time, but it was still really fun.  We spent most of the day Sunday on the beach, then took the bus back to Santiago.

We were only there for about 36 hours, but it was great to get out of Santiago and go to the beach with some new friends.  We’ll be back over the next few weeks and I’ll write an in depth blog post about where to go, what to do and where to eat next time.  For now, here’s a few pictures:

Christmas (and Chanukah) in July

Category : Personal Thoughts, Startup Chile
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Its about 2 weeks before Christmas and Chanukah has come and gone, but it doesn’t feel like it at all.  I don’t want to sound like The Grinch, but so far, I really like it.  I missed having a good Chanukah meal with my family and I know I’ll miss Christmas dinner and hanging out with my family on Christmas morning (yea, I do both), but I’ve really enjoyed being removed from “the holiday season” in the US.

There’s three reasons why I think it doesn’t feel like the holiday season to me right now.  First, it’s 80 and sunny every single day in Santiago.  I’m used to it being 20 and snowy during Wisconsin’s December, so it’s quite the difference.  I just can’t picture it being Christmas time without the cold.  Second, there doesn’t seem to be as much Christmas music, advertising and products in stores compared to the US.  Yes, our grocery store has a Christmas display near the front of the store and there’s Christmas lights on Pedro de Valdivia (our street), but compared to home light displays, store displays and Christmas music in every store, it’s nothing.

Third and I think most important, Christmas is much less commercialized in Chile.  Only about 10% of  TV commercials are about buying things for Christmas, compared to seemingly 50% in the US.  I’m watching about the same amount of TV as I do at home, but it seems like I’m seeing way fewer Christmas commercials advocating buying all sorts of things.  It’s more low key here and seems to be more religious, not materialistic.  That’s not to say that people don’t give and get presents, but it seems way less than the in your face materialism that US Christmas has become.  There certainly weren’t people waiting outside stores at 3am to get the best sale price.  Nor are there slogans like “More Values, More Christmas” like in the US.

I really have grown to dislike many parts of the holiday season in the US, so it’s been a nice break to disconnect this year.  It bothers me to see so many commercials that equate buying things with happiness.  It’s one of the things that’s wrecking the US.  People have been conditioned to think that they need all sorts of things instead of the things that matter: people, experiences, knowledge.

What do you think?  Am I just a grinch?  Are you seeing more materialism in this year’s holiday season?

Futbolito, Facebook and other Observations from Chile

Category : Startup Chile
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Futbolito

I played pickup soccer last Thursday with Enrique, one of the other Startup Chile entrepreneurs and Cristóbal, a Chilean I knew from UW.  We played 8v8 (futbolito) on a small field at San Carlos de Aponquindo, which is Universidad Católica’s soccer complex.  It was a really cool setup on the far east side of Santiago, in an area called Las Condes, which is the foothills of the mountains.  We played at 9pm, so we got a great view of the city from the field.

In addition to the main stadium and fields for plenty of other sports, there are at least 12 small sided soccer fields with artificial turf, lights, goals and everything you’d need to play a game.  You can rent the fields and play with your friends.  Enrique’s friends had rented the field and needed extra players so I got to come.

The level of play was like good high school with a few D3 college players thrown in and there were some fun differences from pickup games that I’m used to in the US.  We played with throw ins when the ball went out and in the US, we normally just pass it in and get the ball moving again.  Chilean pickup games include slide tackling, but they’re good at it, so there weren’t any bad challenges.  Chileans play a technical style, with lots of small passes and quick footwork, but it’s not just one guy dribbling all the time.  You don’t have to run nearly as much.  Chileans would rather score with a bunch of small passes leading to an open goal, rather than take long, hard shots.  Sort of like Arsenal’s style.

On defense, you are supposed to go in and make tackles, no matter where you are on the field.  I’ve always been trained to drop, give ground and force the attacker to make a mistake, until they get close to the attacking third, so they were always urging me to jump in and make a tackle.  My style worked most of the time, because they weren’t used to it.  We also played with goalkeepers, which was much more fun than not, like we normally do in the US.  I’m used to talking all the time on the soccer field, but I didn’t know any of the slang for man on, tackle him, you take him etc, so it was hard from time to time.  I’m hoping to figure out a way to play at least once a week while I’m in Chile.

Facebook

It seems to me that Facebook is basically a dating site in Chile.  People friend each other much more quickly here than they do in the US and use Facebook chat all the time.  According to a few different Chileans, it’s normal to friend someone, then start chatting with them using Facebook chat, right away.  I’ve been on the receiving end a few times and it’s quite different from what I’m used to.  Most people don’t seem to use any of the privacy settings either.  Apparently MSN messenger is really popular here too.

In the US, I use Facebook mostly to stay in touch with close friends, not meet new people.  I rarely friend someone I just met and have my privacy setting up really high.  I also rarely use facebook chat, in favor of gchat with my friends that I actually email.  I also use Facebook to share blog posts and interesting links.  Here, it seems different.

Nightlife

If you’re young and don’t like to dance, you probably won’t have much fun here.  It’s quite the contrast to Madison, where most of the bars are consist of loud music and people just standing around.  Here, there’s live music, djs and people love to dance.  As any large capital city, there’s lots of great bands that come through Santiago, so we’ve seen Girl Talk and a few other bands.  Lollapalooza just announced that they’re expanding from Chicago to Santiago while we’ll be here, too.

Pisco

The only liquor I’ve had since I’ve been here is pisco, which comes from grapes.  It’s really good and we normally mix it with coke or sprite to make piscola or piscola blanca.  It’s either 35 or 40% alcohol and really cheap.  A 750ml bottle of really good stuff is about $10 and many times comes with a bottle of coke/sprite.

Protests/Strikes

I think I’ve seen some sort of protest just about every day I’ve been here.  Most are very small, but there was a larger one a few days ago about the government’s attempt to cut government worker wages.  I’ve seen people protesting animal rights, public workers and a few that I couldn’t figure out.  The metro isn’t working today because the drivers are on strike, which isn’t a big deal since it’s Sunday.

So far, I’m really enjoying being in Chile.  The people are nice, the weather is beautiful and business is going good.  I have a few longer posts written that I’ll be publishing over the next few days, so be sure to check back.