Tag: nathan lustig el mercurio

Startups: Charge US prices, with Latin American Costs

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…)

An Economic Slowdown Is a Good Time to Launch a Startup

A version of this post originally appeared in Spanish as a column in El Mercurio, Chile’s equivalent of the New York Times with the title Una desaceleración es un muy buen momento para lanzar un emprendimiento.

As some context to my non-chilean readers, Chile, along with most resource producing countries, is currently going through an economic slowdown. Most of Chile’s government revenue comes from Copper sales, who’s price has gone down by 55% from its peak. Although Chile’s not in a recession yet and Chile’s economy is in great shape compared to other Latam countries, unemployment is up, businesses are investing less and people are worried.

Here’s the original column:

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Will more Chilean startups be acquired in 2016?

Note: A version of this article originally appeared as a column in Spanish in El Mercurio, one of Chile’s largest newspapers.

Many entrepreneurs dream of solving a problem, providing great service to their clients and ideally doing something that makes the world a better place when they start their company. One of the side effects of a successful startup is that they might make lots of money. (more…)