Tag: hackers and founders

Ep 35 Nestor de Haro: Building the Alibaba or MercadoLibre of Auto Parts in Mexico

Nestor de Haro grew up in Guadalajara, where he learned about the auto parts industry from his father. After obtaining a B.S. Degree in Industrial Engineering, Nestor co-founded Rigs Inc, an online marketplace for selling auto parts in Latin America. We talk about his inflection point from an underperforming business model to a new marketplace model and his advice for other entrepreneurs who are just getting started. If you speak Spanish, be sure to stay tuned after the normal outro, as I am testing a new segment where I put new content in Spanish after we finish the English section of the podcast. I hope you enjoy this conversation I have with Nestor de Haro.

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Ep 24 Jonathan Nelson, How the Serving Leader Empowers Startups and Changes Communities

There are many roads to Silicon Valley, but you’ll likely not hear one as unusual as the one my guest today took. Jonathan Nelson started out as the son of missionaries in Honduras and Costa Rica and learned the role of a serving leader by watching his Dad lead a mission organization. But he left Central America for nursing school, a computer science education, and finally headed to Silicon Valley.

Today, Jonathan runs Hackers and Founders, the largest network of entrepreneurs in the world. In this conversation we walk through the steps that led him from nursing school to startup founder, how he created an entrepreneurial meetup in a bar that led to an acceleration co-op, and the ways he’s iterating to bring more funding and more improvement to the cultures of Latin America through his company, Hackers and Founders.

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Mexico Venture Capital Overview

This post is the fourth in a series about Latin American venture capital ecosystems. Read the post on the Chilean Venture CapitalPeru Venture Capital, Colombia Venture CapitalHighlighting Latin American Startups. Hopefully it’s helpful. Let me know what I missed and got wrong!

Mexico is the most interesting startup ecosystem in Latin America. It’s interesting because:

  • Population (125m, Mexico City has more people than Chile)
  • Biggest Latin American economy leads to startups servicing local market
  • Proximity to the US leads to more global vision from entrepreneurs
  • US companies with their tech back offices in Mexico
  • US funds with presence in Mexico

There are three important cities for tech in Mexico, although there is activity in many other cities, too.

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