No matter where you live in the world, it can be difficult for female entrepreneurs to succeed, but in Latin America it’s especially true. In this episode of Crossing Borders, I speak with Rocio Fonseca, Executive Director of Start-Up Chile.
We talk extensively about her first startup, what it was like starting a tech business in Chile in the early 2000s, why she moved to the US to study at MIT and work in Silicon Valley, why she came back to Chile to join Start-Up Chile, and the variety of programs within Start-Up Chile, including S-Factory, which focused exclusively on helping female entrepreneurs.
We wrap up the conversation talking about where she sees Start-Up Chile heading in the next 5 to 10 years.
I’m excited to introduce the Crossing Borders podcast (iTunes, Stitcher) where I share the stories of top entrepreneurs doing startups across borders and the investors who support them, with a focus on companies that have some relationship to Latin America.
Why?
Over the past 6+ years in Latin America, I’ve met entrepreneurs hailing from countries around the world doing business across borders. Some do business in Latin America. Others use Latin America as a base to target the US market.
They’re some of the most diverse, risk taking, trailblazing entrepreneurs in the world. But when I come back to the US, Latin American startups just aren’t on people’s radars.
They’re mostly stuck on stereotypes of corruption, narcos and failed states. They see Latin America as a monolith and couldn’t tell you the difference between Mexican, Chilean and Argentine food, much less the difference between each country’s business climate.
As Magma portfolio companies started to do business in the US and meet with US investors, they came across this same ignorance of Latin America and its entrepreneurs. US entrepreneurs and investors have slept on Latin America and are missing out on some of the most interesting entrepreneurs in the world. And some of the best stories. (more…)
Welcome to Crossing Borders with Nathan Lustig, where I interview entrepreneurs doing startups across borders and the investors who support them, with a focus on companies that have some relationship to Latin American.
Today’s guest is Nicolas Shea, a Chilean entrepreneur, philanthropist and now a presidential candidate running for Chile’s presidency.
Nicolas has been a teacher, started nonprofits, worked in government and built businesses that have expanded across Latin America. He cofounded eclass, one of Latin America’s largest education companies, and was the cofounder of Start-Up Chile, an innovative program that gave foreign entrepreneurs visas and equity free grants to move to chile, kickstarting the Chilean entrepreneurial ecosystem. It’s also where I met Nicolas almost seven years ago.
After Start-Up Chile, he cofounded Cumplo, a peer to peer lending platform that helps businesses access credit more quickly and at better rates than the traditional banking system does. Cumplo has now helped 800+ businesses with more than $200M in loans.
Subsequently Nicolas took a step back from Cumplo to cofound Todos, a Chilean citizen powered political party, and is now currently running for Chile’s President.
So lets get started and jump right in!
If you liked this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or Stitcher and check out the first five episodes with other top entrepreneurs doing business in Latin America.
Welcome to Crossing Borders with Nathan Lustig, where I interview entrepreneurs doing startups across borders and the investors who support them, with a focus on companies that have some relationship to Latin American.
My guest for episode 2 is my friend Adrian Fisher, CEO and Founder of PropertySimple, a real estate technology company with offices in Santiago, Chile and the United States. I’ve known Adrian for about five years now and PropertySimple was our first investment at Magma Partners back in 2014.
Adrian and I cover his journey from Scottsdale, Arizona to Argentina, Chile and then back to the United States, during which he learned to program, built technology for some of the biggest companies in the world with a 30 person outsourcing team based in Mendoza, Argentina and transitioned from a services company into a product company.
In 2011, Adrian was part of Startup Chile‘s first round, where he and his team built multiple real estate technology businesses including a rental payments system, a mortgage originator and more.
We’ll also talk about Adrian’s experience launching a product in Latin America and then transitioning to the US market and the strategies he has used for building a successful technology business from Latin America that targets the US market.
PropertySimple just closed a financing round of $3M from US investors and is growing it’s team in Chile and the US while scaling sales in the United States. I really enjoyed this conversation, so let’s jump right in!
If you liked this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or Stitcher and check out the first five episodes with other top entrepreneurs doing business in Latin America.
