Tag: ride hailing latam

Gregorio Gilardini, Leasy: Driving financial inclusion for Latin Americans via car financing, Ep 183

You can now find the full show notes of the Crossing Borders podcast on LatamList.com’s new podcast section. I’ll still post the audio of the podcast on my blog and I’m planning to start writing more again on my blog, like I used to.

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Thanks for listening to Crossing Borders all these years! If you have any feedback or questions, please feel free to reach out here, or contact me on social media.

Outline of this episode:

  • [01:19] – About Leasy
  • [01:46] – Why Leasy’s model makes sense in Latin America
  • [04:32] – Financing for ride-hailing drivers in the U.S. versus LatAm
  • [09:49] – Gregorio’s background
  • [12:15] – How did Gregorio end up in Peru?
  • [13:33] – Why Gregorio decided to build Leasy
  • [17:33] – Lessons learned from entrepreneurial experiments pre-Leasy
  • [19:40] – Steps to build and grow Leasy
  • [23:35] – Fundraising in Peru
  • [27:06] – Advice on the fundraising process
  • [32:16] – Books and podcast recommendations
  • [34:48] – Advice to younger self
  • [36:53] – What’s next for Leasy

Shownotes on Latamlist.com

Andres Gutierrez, Tpaga: How Tappsi’s acquisition led to Trying to Help Latin America’s 400M Unbanked, Ep 94

Andres Gutierrez was working for a can manufacturing company in Philadelphia when he realized that web and mobile apps were disrupting the US market. When he asked friends and family in Colombia if there were any equivalents to these companies back home, he discovered an underserved market. 

While most tech companies were launching in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, startups were overlooking 50M consumers, with a GDP of $360B. Andres decided to go back to Colombia to found Tappsi, a ride-hailing app that after operating for only 8 months got a $1M buyout offer which, to his parents’ dismay, he turned down. 

In this episode, I sit down with Andres to discuss his most recent venture Tpaga, a mobile wallet that aims to give financial services to the 400M unbanked people in Latin America. We also talk about his story growing Tappsi to an exit, advice he has for Latin American entrepreneurs, and lessons learned from Tappsi that he used to start Tpaga. We also cover what it’s like to raise money and advice for going through YCombinator.

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