Search Results for: chile

The Kindle Can Change South America

Category : Books, Startup Chile
Posted on by

Books are incredibly expensive in Chile.  I’m talking $50-$80 for a new hardcover and $30-60 for a new softcover.  Even used books can be $5-15.  It’s even more expensive for books in English.

It’s easily 2-5x more expensive here to buy a book, sometimes more. Textbooks are closer to US prices, but that’s still much more expensive when the GDP per capita is around $15,000 and the minimum wage is about $400 per month.  These extremely high prices put books out of range for Chile’s poor and even middle class.

I talked to a friend who works in a language school who told me that when she goes back to the US, the school asks her to bring books back because they are so much cheaper there.  Every Chilean I’ve talked to about book prices says “oh man, don’t get me started, it’s ridiculous.”  It’s a big problem.

Books are fast, simple ways to transmit large amounts of knowledge quickly.  They are the the most cost effective way for poor and middle class people to learn.  Those without access to the internet still read the printed word, and even those with internet access still buy one of the four published daily newspapers (primero, sengunda, tercera, cuarta) which come out at various times of the day.

I’ve talked to a few people and it seems that the reason they are so expensive is taxes.  The government has a tax that amounts to about $3-6, and sometimes more on each book.  Also, there seems to be a tax on publishing that gets baked into the cost somehow.  All of these costs add up to $80 hard cover books.  It makes no sense, when the government ran on a platform of education reform and educating the poor.

Which brings me to the Kindle.  The 3g enabled Kindle provides free access to the Amazon store from over 100 countries in the world, including Chile and Argentina.  You can be sitting in park, pull out your Kindle and browse for free and Amazon foots the bill.  They have made deals with all of the local cellular networks so that you can buy books from anywhere.  I can buy just about any book in English for between $1 for classics and $9 for brand new hard covers.  The vast majority are $6 and you have the entire Amazon store at your fingertips.  Books download in 30 seconds.

The new wifi enabled Kindle costs $139 and the 3g enabled Kindle costs $189 on Amazon.  When buying a Kindle costs less than 2 books, it just makes sense to buy, even for those without much money.  As the price of Kindles fall below $100, they will begin to be even more attractive to South American readers.  Unfortunately, you can only buy a two generation old 3g Kindle in Falabella for 199,000 pesos, or about $400, as the government slaps a tax on imported electronics.

The other problem is that there are hardly any books in Spanish available for purchase.  There are classics like The Count of Monte Cristo, Don Quijote and The Three Musketeers, trashy romance novels, a few different versions of the Kama Sutra and believe it or not, lots of books from the “church” of Scientology.  There are a few exceptions: you can find a few Isabelle Allende books and other very well known Spanish speaking authors, but there are not many.

As more books in Spanish get formatted for Kindle and Kindle’s price falls, Chileans will have a much greater access to books at a much lower price.  Kindles and other ereaders are poised to change Chile and other South American countries by providing cheap access to knowledge and circumventing the taxation and publishing industry prices.  It will be interesting to see if the government tries to extend it’s hand into ebooks, as they have with published books.

Travelogue: Mendoza, Argentina

Category : Startup Chile, Travel
Posted on by

Santiago and Mendoza, Argentina are separated by about 120 miles and one huge mountain range.  Instead of a 2 hour drive, it’s a 5-6 hour drive through the Andes mountains.  You can go by plane in about 40 minutes.  Mendoza had been on our list of places to visit and when Mendoza showed up LAN Airlines’ Last Minute specials for about $70, we decided to book a weekend.  If you’re traveling in South America, make sure to look at the prices in Spanish, they were 50% cheaper than the ones in English.  For more Mendoza tips and tricks, check out my friend Paige’s post on Tripeezy.

Mendoza is a laid back city of Malbec, beef & pasta, olive oil, ice cream and beautiful, wide streets, set at the foot of the Andes mountains.  A little over 100k people live in Mendoza proper, but the city sprawls out to include about 850k people in the suburbs and surrounding area.  Central Mendoza sort of reminded me of an Argentine Madison in terms of size and pace of life.  The city is set out in a grid system emanating from the beautiful, green Plaza de Independencia in the middle.  Main streets are wide boulevards with ample pedestrian walkways shaded by large trees.  The streets are lined with cafes, restaurants and gelato parlours.

Mendoza is much cheaper than Santiago and clearly less developed.  The houses and buildings look a bit older, but it’s still a very well developed city.  Argentina has a large Italian influence, so that means pasta and gelato, along with a more sing-songy Spanish.  They also pronounce words that have the “LL” as more of a “sh”, although less so than in Buenos Aires.  They often say “vos” instead of “tú” and speak slower and more clearly than most Chileans.  There also seems to be a higher penetration of English, but that could be because we were in a touristy part of the city and Mendoza is a touristy city.

Nightlife starts even later in Mendoza.  We ate dinner at about 10pm and we were pretty much the only people in the restaurant.  It filled up by about 1045.  We went out to for some drinks about 12/1 and the clubs weren’t even open yet.  They start to open at 2am and then close around 6/7am.  Mendozans take a siesta, which means just about everything is close for an hour or two in the afternoon.   Everything and I mean everything was closed on Sunday.

On Friday, we took the short flight over the Andes and checked into our hostel.  It was about $15 per person per night and located close to the city center.  We walked around for a few hours, ate some great gelato and then met some friends for lunch on one of Mendoza’s many wide boulevards.  We walked to a nice park and then went back to the hostel for a bit of a rest.  After awhile, we checked out The Vines of Mendoza, which was started by two guys fro Austin, TX.  They had a great selection local wines and you could get a great class for about $2-3.  They also had a great cheese and meat plate with some great blue cheese.

Next, we went out for dinner at an Italian restaurant named La Marchigiania that the taxi driver recommended.  We shared an amazing caprese salad that included the best balsamic vinegar I’ve ever had.  Next, we split two different types of steak and a spinach and pasta dish that were both top notch.  Dessert was a chocolate fudge ball, covered in ice cream, then covered in hard chocolate.  By about 1230, we had our fill and asked for the bill.  For two appetizers, four main courses, three nice bottles of wine and a dessert, our bill came out to about $75 total, or about $19 each, including tip.  Needless to say, we were impressed by the quality and price of Argentine food.

Bodega Cavas de Don Arturo

The next day, we got up early and went on a wine tour.  The four of us booked a driver and three wineries and spent the day in the beautiful wine country at the foot of the Andes.  Our first winery was Cavas de Don Arturo, a small family owned winery that only produces a small amount of wine by hand each year.  We tried a few different wines and took at tour of the beautiful winery.  Next we went to Septima, which is part of a large Spanish company.  It was quite the contrast between a small, handmade winery and a large, commercial operation.

Ruca Mallen

We ended our tour at Ruca Mallen, where we booked lunch.  For $50, we had a six course tasting menu, with six wine pairings.  The Ruca Mallen outdoor dining area is an amazing place to eat and the meal matched the setting.  The highlights were the quinoa lemon & olive oil salad, pumpkin milanesa and the fig crusted steak.  All of the food was great.  The best wine of the day was a 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec blend that was paired with the steak.  This $50 meal would have cost $175-200 in the US and the wine alone was probably $75-100 in the US, maybe more.  The value for money was top notch.

Steak, photo credit Paige Brown, Tripeezy

That night, we slept off our meal and then checked out some of the nightlife.  It was nice and relaxing and after the huge meal and wine, we ended up calling it a night fairly early by Mendoza standards.  The next day, we woke up and took a minibus about 45 minutes outside of the city into a canyon with a river flowing through it.  There was a public pool which reminded me of a smaller Wisconsin Dells and an upscale spa that was really expensive, so we just joined the other locals and walked down into the canyon and hung out by the river.  We had lunch at a small asado restaurant and ate costillar (beef ribs) that had been grilled with real wood about thirty yards away.  We spent the rest of the day lounging around and then took the minbus back to the hostel.

We decided to have one more top notch meal and ended up at 1884 for another top notch meal.  I had another steak and we all shared appetizers and wine.  The highlight was a goat cheese and apple salad with an interesting balsamic.  The outdoor setting was beautiful, the food was great and the conversation was even better.  While good, I thought the other two meals we had were better values.  Although we can’t spend any Startup Chile money on our travels, the weekend was an expense I was willing to pay.  We all needed a relaxing break away from Santiago and our businesses.

Shahar, Jesse and Paige napping after a big meal

How to Replicate Airplane Productivity: Or Why I Don’t Buy Wireless on Flights

Category : Personal Thoughts
Posted on by

I am incredibly productive on airplanes.  I read faster, write more and am more creative.  Some of the best ideas for Entrustet have come while I’ve been at 30,000 feet.  In early January, I took a flight from San Francisco to Atlanta on my way back to Chile.  During that 3.5 hour flight, I wrote my last five blog posts, read all of The Economist’s dense year end review and the last half of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  (I don’t get that book at all, but that’s another blog post)

That’s 3,754 words written, 50+ Economist articles and about 250 pages of fiction.  It felt great and quality didn’t suffer.  Three of my last four blog posts are now in my five most trafficked posts of all time.  So first, how did it happen?

I’ve experienced similar spurts of productivity when on airplanes.  I’ve been able to attribute it to a few things:

1. You have nowhere to go and nothing to do.

There are no distractions.  No trash tv, no twitter, no facebook messages and emails to check.  There’s no phone calls and you can’t leave (unless you have a parachute).  It’s just you and your thoughts for the duration of the flight.

2. Traveling causes you to think

Getting out of your normal routine changes your perspective, even if you don’t notice it.  When you get on that flight, you’re out of your routine.  You see things differently.  Couple this new perspective with no distractions and you’ll be more productive.

3. You have an uninterrupted, known block of time to work with

You (hopefully) will have a defined block of time during your flight.  When you have a definite stop and end time, you’re more likely to get things done, than if you’re just sitting at your desk or in your kitchen trying to get things done.

Once I got back to Santiago, I looked at all of the things I’d done during my 3.5 our flight and was astounded.  I’d been meaning to write most of those blog posts, but I would get distracted by tv, sports, friends, email, phone calls, whatever.  I could always push it until later.  I don’t buy wireless because my productivity is so good without it.  I decided I wanted to try to replicate my time on an airplane.

Here’s what I’ve been doing so far:

1. Exercise at a strange time

Go on a walk, take a bike ride, go for a swim.  Do something to take your mind off of whatever you’ve been thinking about.  I guessed that exercise would replicate travel and getting out of my routine.  Even 15 minutes will do.

2. Set a defined block of time and pick a location

After exercising, pick a defined amount of time for your “plane time.”  I’ve started with 1 hour.  I’ve been going up to our rooftop, but you can go to a coffee shop, a park or anywhere where you you’ll have at least one hour of uninterrupted work time.

3. Turn off your cell phone

Do it.  It’s not the end of the world.  Better yet, leave it at home.

4. Bring diverse materials

Bring a book, magazine, notebook/pen and your computer.  For me, I want to work on whatever I feel like, not something I need to get done.  It helps me avoid writers block or decision paralysis.  I’ve done this two times now and the first time, I just read for an hour.  The second time, I worked almost exclusively on Entrustet.

So far, it seems to be working.  In our society, we’re always plugged in and multitasking.  It’s been worth it to me to take a step back and just let my mind wander to whatever task it wants to do.  Getting out of a routine has been helpful to me to duplicate the productivty gains I’ve experienced on flights.

I’m planning on experimenting to see if I can get closer to my airplane level of productivity and will update as I find out more.  Are you more productive on airplanes?  Do you try to get out of your routine to work better?  Interested in giving my ideas a test flight?  Got any tips?

How to Talk to Media and Get Quoted in the Press

Category : Entrepreneurship, Top
Posted on by

The first time I was interviewed in the media, I think I was about 19 and was incredibly excited, but also nervous.  Over the 30 minute interview with my local newspaper, I talked a ton and thought it went really well.  When the article came out, I wasn’t even quoted and only got a short mention.

The next interview I did with another newspaper, they quoted me, but took some of the quotes out of context and tried to pin me into a corner on one aspect of my business.  Over the next three years, I got better at talking to the media and giving public presentations, culminating in a 20 minute presentation to a congressional committee (PDF) and a TV news segment about my website.

Fast-forward six years.  My business partner Jesse and I have been interviewed 100s of times for major newspapers and blogs including the NY Times, Mashable, the Financial Times, TechCrunch and have appeared live on Fox Business News, two local TV stations and multiple radio shows including NPR San Francisco.  Now we both get prime coverage, tons of quotes and compliments on how well we handle speaking to the press.

So what went wrong in 2005? And how have Jesse and I gotten to the point where we’re completely comfortable in any media situation that comes our way?

In 2005, I talked quickly, rambled and didn’t really practice ahead of time.  I gave up too much information just because the reporter asked.  I talked about too many things, but not one super interesting stat.  In short, I made the journalist’s job hard.

Over the course of 2005-2008, I got better speaking to the media with practice.  In 2009, just before we were launching Entrustet at South By Southwest, we hired a PR firm called Shift Communications to help us out with our launch for our first few weeks.  They did a good job helping us get in the news, but to me, their real value with in their prep work.

Shift interviewed Jesse and me and then told us which parts to keep and which parts sucked.  They listened in on our first interviews and then helped us with “after action reports.” After each call, Shift employees told us how we could have said something better, the parts the journalist really liked and the parts we should drop for future interviews.  After a few weeks, Jesse and I were clearly getting better.  By the time our contract with Shift was up, we were pretty good.

Over the next few months, we honed our interview style on our own.  Here’s 19 tips for giving interviews so that your quotes get used and you don’t say something you regret:

Before the Interview

 

1.     Practice.  Write down 3-4 key points that you want to get across and practice saying them concisely.  Practice on your friends, family, in the mirror, random victims in the coffee shops/bars.  Try reaching out to small blogs and pitch them your story.  If you make a mistake or are nervous, only a small audience will notice.

2.     Get 1 go-to stat.  Ours is three Facebook users die every single minute and Facebook doesn’t know who they are or what they wanted done with their accounts.  With ExchangeHut, it was we facilitated ticket transfers for 10% of the student section during homecoming games. Our Facebook stat has been used in the NY Times, Atlantic, TechCrunch and many more.

3.     Get Feeback. Find someone outside your company who will agree to listen to your first few interviews while you are giving them who can provide feedback after the interview is done.

4.     Make a plan. Decide if there is anything you absolutely don’t want to discuss and go over your 3 main points you’ve been practicing.

During the Interview

 

5.     Relax. The interviewer wants to get your story.

6.     Ask how much time you have. At the beginning, ask the reporter if he has a hard stop, which is asking if the reporter must stop at a certain time. If you only have a short window, don’t chitchat, just get right to the point.

7.     Talk slowly. Reporters are taking notes, so talk slowly.  If you’re live, talking slowly makes you sound relaxed, smart and personable, even if you’re not.

8.     Don’t ramble.  Try not to speak for more than 30-60 seconds at a time.

9.     Answer directly. Don’t use business buzzwords and don’t speak too technically.

10. Don’t feel like you need to answer every question. If you don’t want to answer a question, don’t.  Develop a line to sidestep the question.  Say, “we’d rather keep that stat private.” Or “we’re a private company and we don’t disclose those figures.”

11. Don’t fill silence. In non-live interviews, silence is ok. The interviewer is gathering her thoughts or taking notes.  They don’t want to hear your nervous verbal diarrhea.

12. Let the interviewer finish. Even if you know what the question is going to be.  Nothing pisses off a journalist more and it makes you sound like an asshole.

13. Don’t sell.  Inform. Nobody likes a salesman.  Being a salesman is the quickest way to piss off a reporter, who will not include your quotes.  Be yourself.

14. If you don’t know, admit it. Don’t make something up.  The correct response is “That’s a great question we hadn’t though of yet.  I’ll research it and let you know the answer when we find out.”

 

After the Interview

 

15. Say Thanks. Send a thank you email telling the reporter that they should feel free to contact you if they have any follow up questions or need anything clarified.  Include your phone/email.

16. Follow up with facts. If there is anything to add to the story, email the reporter before the article is published.  For example, Oklahoma just passed a law that allows executors access to online accounts of dead people.  I emailed a link to any reporters who were still working on our story and might benefit from it.

17. Respond to comments/Twitter. When the article is published, make sure to respond to comments and interact on Twitter.

18. Do an after action report with your friend who listened to the interview.  Be honest and demand honesty from your friend.  If they don’t provide honest feedback, you’ll never get better.

19. Be honest with yourself and learn from each interview.  Take your friend’s feedback and incorporate it into your next interview.

Do you have any tips or strategies you use to make sure you get quoted?  Do you disagree with any of my tips?  What would you add to my list?

Photo Credit: Jon S.