Ep 50 Miguel Torres: Modernizing Last Mile Shipping in Latin America with Shippify

Miguel Torres is an Ecuadorian entrepreneur who knew he wanted to start businesses when he saw needs that were unmet. After starting his entrepreneurial career in the food and drink industry and building the business to a successful exit, Miguel built out a daily deal site in Ecuador and other countries in Latin America.

The daily deals business morphed into Escapes With You, a travel and experience daily deals business, where he ended up in the Start-Up Chile program. After building the business, he realized that he was shipping items to guests from the travel experience business and decided to build a new business to solve the last mile problem he was experiencing himself.

Shippify is a shipping and logistics API that allows easy integration of delivery services into any E-commerce store and mobile app by adding a few lines of code.

Miguel hopped on a plane to Brazil without knowing any Portuguese and built the business ever since, expanding across the region and raising money from investors in Latin America, the US and the Middle East.

Show Notes

01:33 – Estonia and its ecosystem

03:21 –  Shipify overview

04:17 – How Shipify is different from current shipping solutions

05:27 – Overview of Miguel’s native Ecuador

06:31 – Start-Up Chile experience

08:17 – How Miguel got into Shipify

11:13 – Miguel’s previous startup experience and acquisition

14:01 – Growing up in Ecuador and doing business there

18:18 – Miguel’s first experience outside of Ecuador

20:48 – How Miguel decided to do EscapesWithYou

28:29 – How Miguel validated Shipify

31:15 – Why Miguel launched Shipify in Brazil

34:21 – The inflection point

37:41 – Advice to other entrepreneurs about doing business in Brazil

40:35 – Raising money from around the world

47:37 – Reaction to Falabella acquiring Linio

50:11 – What’s next for Miguel and Shipify

52:11 – Advice for other entrepreneurs just getting started