Archive for February, 2013

  • Sixth week at Socialatom Ventures

    TropicalGringo and Governor Deval PatrickIt’s been quite an eventful week.  As I, and the startups that we’re accelerating at Socialatom Ventures, head to New York City (NYC), there’s a lot on which to reflect.  On Tuesday, government agency Innpulsa Colombia and ourselves hosted an innovation event at Socialatom Ventures.  Guests included a number of leaders from the Colombian startup ecosystem (public and private sectors) as well as dignitaries from the government of Massachusetts including the Governor, Deval Patrick. It was great to see all of this come about as it was only about a month ago that some of these people reached out and mentioned their tentative plans for a Colombia trip.

    During the event, I announced that Socialatom Ventures would be moving to a new location called the Atom House located a few blocks away.  Before this announcement Catalina Ortiz, CEO of Innpulsa Colombia and myself had the opportunity to introduce the Governor to the three startups that are going through our Atom Accelerator program.  We are running two programs in parallel.  A government program called Apps.Co and our own program called Atom Accelerator where we invest US $25k in each startup in addition to our mentoring them.

    Governor Deval Patrick & TropicalGringo

    The companies we presented to the governor included JustContract.me which provides an alert service that matches government contracts with the specific skills of service providers who sign up; LegalJump which is a Chilean startup with a model simlar to LegalZoom, but for Latin America, and, finally, Oja.la which offers programming courses online to Spanish-speakers.  The Governor really seamed to enjoy speaking with these startups and also the general vibe from all of the startups from the Apps.Co program as well.

    After this event (and a reception at the Ambassador’s residence), we had our weekly Wednesday progress meeting at midnight.  Some of the startups are really progressing and it showed during this meeting.  Not all of them are progressing at the same speed, but I think that it really helps the slower ones to watch the progress of the faster ones.

    Today, Thursday, I had a quick meeting with a top global Google executive named Nelson Mattos and then headed to the Wayra Demo Day to hear the pitches of some of the startups.  I’m an advisor for Mapache and was really happy with the pitch that Ricardo Jimenez gave that day.  I’ve also been working with two other startups called AgentPanda and CodeTag and was happy with their pitches, also.

    Wayra Demo Day 2013 MapacheBowei Gai & TropicalGringo

    Coincidentally, it turned out that I was flying out to NYC at the same time that Bowei Gai of the World Startup Report was arriving in Bogota so we set up a meeting at the airport.  It was great chatting with him (he sold his startup to Linkedin) about what he’s doing and about the Colombian startup ecosystem.  Tonight, it’s off to NYC on the read eye in order to attend tomorrow night’s meetup.  It should be an eventful meetup with movers and shakers within the NYC tech scene and I’ll try to post one or two pictures and write some more at the end of this post.

    Andres Barreto & Juan Arenas Socialatom VenturesSocialatom Ventures NYC Meetup

  • AgentPanda takes the pain out of planning group trips

    AgentPandaSeveral months back, Daniel Artunduaga, CEO of AgentPanda, was trying to plan and coordinate a trip with some friends.  After numerous emails, links and images being shuttled back and forth, he came to grips with how painful this process really is.  Nonetheless, after being accepted into an incubator in Colombia (Wayra) and obtaining US $50k in investment, he and his team were trying to get a ride sharing application (yes, another one) off the ground.  His heart just wasn’t into it, though, and he remembered his previous experience and decided to create a platform for group trip planning and coordination called AgentPanda.

    AgentPanda provides a platform where friends sign up and choose a communication channel (email, facebookAgentPanda screenshot, etc.).  Users can share links for lodging and flight options as well as ideas on things to do once they arrive at the destination.  Each user can then vote on each option.  Finally, AgentPanda will connect users directly to flights and other sites (TripAdvisor, etc.) where they can book lodging or travel.  The finally itinerary shows when each person arrives and where they’ll be staying in addition to agreed outings.

    According to some statistics, group travel is a $30B+ market in the US with travel agencies handling much of this work.  Nonetheless, groups tend to assign coordination to one person who then is tasked with interfacing with the travel agent.  Other startups such as GatherBall have also launched with a little bit different take on the problem.  Nevertheless, the space is still fragmented and there is no clear leader.

    Julio Pinzon, Daniel Infante, Daniel Artunduaga

    Julio Pinzon, Daniel Infante, Daniel Artunduaga

    Daniel (right in the picture) started the company with two co-founders.  Daniel Infante (middle in photo), CTO, has been developing software for a number of years as has Julio Pinzon (left in photo).  The team has worked with more than one UX designer and is looking to have someone with deep UX expertise join the team soon.  The founders have plans to move to Silicon Valley in the near future and are applying to a number of the top acceleration programs in the Bay area.

    AgentPanda is currently in public beta and is working with users to understand how to improve this initial version of their application.  User response has already been extremely positive and the trio are working hard to iterate quickly.  Also, Daniel is meeting with travel companies of all types looking interested in referral traffic and tighter integration with the site.

  • Great Mexican startup founders I met while at Intel Capital

    KIO JackbeIt’s not been twelve years since I was living in Mexico and working as a Strategic Investments Manager for Intel Capital. It was during that stint that I developed my long term objective of some day launching my own seed fund.  I’ve even given that eventual fund a name: Tayrona Ventures.  In part, that dream arose from the frustration of sometimes seeing great entrepreneurs and startups that don’t fit the perceived corporate investment philosophy at headquarters.  Either way, my time at Intel Capital convinced me that this was what I wanted to do (but with more freedom) and it did enable me to meet amazingly impressive people, among them, two specific entrepreneurs.

    Before talking about these two entrepreneurs, a little bit more about my stint at Intel Capital.  While I really loved what I did, I was pretty bad at dealing with the corporate subsidiary infighting and the follower mentality of local directors.  I do remember the first deal I presented, a great tax software company called MasterSaf from Rio de Janeiro that recently got acquired by Thomson Reuters.  As I was doing due diligence for this deal, I realized that I really took to analyzing companies and their founders and, most importantly, “betting” on a select few.  I had the good fortune to have many sessions with the founder, Martin Janders, which I really enjoyed.  It’s amazing that I did enjoy it so much since his language was Portuguese, which I don’t know although I got pretty good at deciphering it after a while. Needless to say, I was extremely confident of the merits of investing in this company.

    What I wasn’t so confident about was coming face to face (or through conference call) with the legendary (and scary) Les Vadaz, part of the founding team that created Intel and the founder and President of the Intel Capital division.  Just a few short months ago, I was doing business development of Intel’s chip, motherboard and server business in the Northern Cone of South America.  During my training period at Intel Capital, I spent quite a bit of time listening to presentations by my colleagues from Israel, USA and other countries and heard how, sometimes, Les would tear into the presenter for being unprepared or uttering, what he considered, nonsensical statement.

    When the morning of my presentation of this first deal arrived, I was more than scared.  Nonetheless, although I started off with the typical crackly voice, I started to gain more confidence as I went down the points of the deal.  Now, sometimes, even if a deal was approved, there was a lot of extra homework that was given (e.g., find out more about their response to such and such a competitor, etc.) before any investment could be made.  To my amazement, after one or two questions, the deal was approved.  Needless to say, the legal folks at Intel decided to pass on the investment (as was their prerogative), but as Strategic Investments Manager, I had presented the merits of the deal, which included the financial aspects (analyzed by a financially focused colleague) and it was cleared for investment.

    I presented three more deals (e.g., channel partner, software companies); all received approval.  While my colleagues were able to get perhaps one or two of these approved (some after several presentations),  I got the four that I presented that year approved after the first presentation.  Nonetheless, there was a deal that didn’t fit the common wisdom of VC investing that I felt strongly about presenting which I know would have been much more challenging to get approved.  Not only did I not get to present this deal, but I got sent to the dog house for proposing it.  :)

    The deal was for a company called Kio Networks, a new high quality data center set to offer managed services.  The only problem was the a number of these had just flamed out in the states in spectacular fashion.  One of these, Exodus Communications, was fresh on everyone’s mind.  Nonetheless, I was convinced that Latin America needed more of these types of high quality data centers.  The founders of Kio Networks had even contracted with a California consulting company to design the whole thing with appropriate redundancy.

    Sergio_RosengausAfter several months talking with an impressive group of individuals which included Maria Aramburuzabala (extremely professional and personable) and an amazing founder and CEO called Sergio Rosengaus, I was ready to present their deal to the Investment Committee, but, first, I had to get approval from the Latin American heads (Business Development and Financial) of Intel Capital.  As opposed to almost all of the startup CEOs who had come to our offices, Sergio did not need our money and had a clear vision for his company and detailed plan on how to achieve it.  In fact, he mostly attended the meeting at Intel Capital because of our relationship and because I asked him to explore the possibility of our investing in his company.

    After setting up a meeting between Sergio, his team and my boss, we had an internal meeting to discuss this “deal.”  Without going into details, my presenting this deal to my boss, made him rethink whether I knew what the “you know what” I was doing (regardless, of what I had already accomplished). This action, to him, seemed incredibly out of character as he couldn’t understand how, someone who seemed to be in tuned with the current trends, could present a deal in a space that was not getting funded in the states (and at headquarters) and had just witness spectacular flame outs.

    Needless to say, Kio Networks and Sergio Rosengaus have been tremendously successful and recently announced that they’ll be investing over US $120M as they expand their data centers across Latin America.  There’s been a lot written in the last few years about the Venture Capitalist herd mentality and here was an example that I experienced first hand. My Latin American bosses at Intel Capital actually thought they were in the driver’s seat and companies that didn’t get funded were losing out.  This blinded them to the reality: thinking that way, makes VC’s lose out on a disruptive, counter-intuitive players who would have provided strategic and financial value to the company.  Also, instead of listening to my reasons for wanting to present this deal, they were more driven by a desire not to be embarrassed in front of the Investment Committee in Santa Clara, which may have actually approved the deal if allowed to hear the arguments for it.

    Luis_DerechinNow, for the second impressive entrepreneur – this time with a positive outcome for Intel Capital.  An incredibly capable and driven CEO named Luis Derechin was at the helm of a web software company focused on the Pharmaceutical sales process.  One of the key differentiators was the responsiveness of the software even using a dialup connection – this was the first time I had seen an application that made use of AJAX technologies. I had already seen his demo and his pitch, but what was much more impressive was Luis, his passion and his experience as an entrepreneur.

    One day, a number of investors, including myself, heard his pitch and then went into closed doors to discuss what we had heard while Luis and his team waited outside.  During the meeting, there were a number of comments about the software, the industry he was attacking and other issues.  The general consensus was that though the product was very good, it was attacking a niche market.  Also, not everyone found Luis’ type A personality agreeable. :)

    My comment was that what these guys should do was build a tool that would enable other companies to create applications like the one they had created.  The other investors in the room agreed that this course had the most promise and we conveyed this message to Luis.  Though he wasn’t thrilled at our decision to not invest, he took the advice extremely well and quickly began to implement that specific strategy (he “pivoted” before there was a term for this action).

    Needless to say, that company became a great success and continues to innovate by providing tools to create great dashboards and front-ends to corporate apps.  He named it JackBe and moved the headquarters to Washington DC.  Also, Intel Capital invested in it after I had left Intel.  Executing on all of this took amazing skills and persistence.  Sergio and Luis, in very different ways are leaders and talented entrepreneurs that I remember extremely well and hope to identify many like them (before they achieve their visions) as I continue down my own road.

  • Fifth week at Socialatom Ventures

    TropicalGringo_JaverianaWe just finished the fifth week at Socialatom Ventures and now the teams are focused on getting results (or traction).  A number of the companies have changed their focus and are starting to validate their new assumptions (or hypotheses). Also, we’re starting to practice longer pitches as we get ready for our trip to New York City (NYC). We’re all traveling Thursday night and have a meetup lined up already on Friday night.

    On Wednesday, I gave a presentation at one of the local colleges called Javeriana University.  I really thank my friend Carlos Vanegas, an experienced entrepreneur and excellent writer, for inviting me to speak as it was a rewarding experience.  It also got me out of my comfort zone of taking while using my favorite crutch (slides) as I had to speak off-the-cuff about what brought me to where I am today.  My favorite part of the night was the question and answer period where I got to hear what the students most had on their minds (e.g., how to find a technical cofounder, where to spend the little money they have, etc.).

    Carlos_Vanegas_SocialatomDuring our Wednesday midnight progress meeting (after my presentation) with all twelve startups, Carlos was able to join us. He heard everyone’s pitches and gave his feedback.  AddArturo_Noriega_TropicalGringoitionally, we told the startups in advance that the startups that Carlos saw the most potential in would be highlighted on his blog, which gets approximately twenty thousand visitors a month.  Fortunately, Carlos was impressed with quality of the startups and chose more than one about which to write.

    Aside from that, I got to see my new friend Arturo Noriega, founder and Executive Director of Centro Community Partners, a nonprofit that provides business training to under served entrepreneurs.  Arturo had reached out through email and I met him for the first time last week at our accelerator.  Aside from being impressed by the work he’s done around the world to help people become more successful, I enjoyed hearing him recount his meetings with his professor and mentor, Peter Drucker, who I admired immensely.  It was great seeing him again this week after his trip to Pasto and Quito, Ecuador.  He’s a great role model not just as a professional, but as a human being.