Tag: latin american startups

Startups: Charge US prices, with Latin American Costs

Category : Latin America Startups and Investing
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A version of this post originally appeared in Spanish as a column in El Mercurio, with the title Startups: vender a precios de Estados Unidos con costos chilenos.

The internet’s magic is that you can connect anywhere with any part of the world from where ever you are. We notice it when we talk with friends living in other countries, connect on social media, look at photos from around the world and keep up to date with the latest news from all corners of the world. We’re really living in a global world.

Tech startups are also global. A startup’s market can be the entire world from day one. But many Chileans only think about technology businesses from the US and Europe that have gotten to the Chilean market.

We’ve all heard about foreign startups that sell into the chilean market and many chileans have made purchases from sites like Amazon, Asos, Book Depository, Aliexpress and more. But the vast majority think it’s impossible to do the opposite: sell in the US from Chile. (more…)

Full Stack Startups in Latin America are a Massive Opportunity

Category : Chile, Entrepreneurship, Latin America Startups and Investing
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Latin America is the perfect market for full stack startups. I’m convinced of it after living and working in Latin America for the past four and a half years and am even more convinced after having met, worked with and reviewed over 600 startups in the past year and a half as managing partner of Magma Partners in Santiago, Chile.

So what is a full stack startup and why am I convinced that Latin American entrepreneurs should be exploring full stack startup business models?

First, lets start with a definition. Chis Dixon coined the term Full Stack Startup in a blog post in March 2014. He says that a full stack startup is a  “…complete, end-to-end product or service that bypasses existing companies.” It bypasses the old, existing hierarchy to be able to control the entire experience. According to Dixon:

Prominent examples of this “full stack” approach include Tesla, Warby Parker, Uber, Harry’s, Nest, Buzzfeed, and Netflix. Most of these companies had “partial stack” antecedents that either failed or ended up being relatively small businesses.

So why are companies following the full stack method instead of the old school method of partnering with large companies? (more…)