TropicalGringo.com » digital innovation

Paradigm Shift: SaaS/Cloud Computing Workshop

admin — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:33:41 +0000

Last week, I finished one of my SaaS workshops. Eight people registered (from four companies) to learn about SaaS models that have worked, different options of revenue streams and use new tools to get to a concrete set of actions to execute and develop a SaaS offering with much more chance of success.

Some of the quotes from the attendees: “The workshop confirmed to me that my understanding that continuous innovation in business is a reality”, “We now have tools to create a solid SaaS plan”, “We learned a ton!”, “The workshop allowed us to plan everything we need to plan,”the learnings from the workshop will allow us to convert our abstract ideas to concrete plans,”we now have new ideas for SaaS initiatives which we never had planned.”

In Latin America, Venture Capital is still scarce for startups, so there’s a big chance that the trailblazers will come from existing companies with profitable revenue streams. Nevertheless, there are already startups (such as JoinCube) that are off and running with their initiatives. This workshop is designed to get the group learning from each other and provides some conceptual models for team members to exchange ideas in order to, first, develop an original plan and, secondly, to iterate or “pivot” quickly as the project starts to take flight.

I will be giving this workshop in Colombia and then in other countries. There are two versions of the workshop. One is focused on developing SaaS offerings. The other is for employees of large companies in Latin America interested in taking advantage of digital innovation and understanding how, as John Hagel espouses in his white paper on the “Shift Index”, digital technologies are transforming industries such as banking, retail, tourism and media. Participants will make use of new tools to develop innovation initiatives for their companies while becoming literate on the “new world” that has come into being through digital technologies.

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Hawaian Shirts and Startup Tips

admin — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:24:50 +0000

This Wednesday we had a great Tropical Gringo Show (in Spanish) with a super interactive audience and startup tips from Thomas, Brian and myself. Also, we were transmitting a brand spank’n new higher resolution camera direct from the offices of VivaReal in Bogota. We also touched on some news items as well as recommendations for marketing your startup.

Gabo Sarmiento asked a great question about Groupon, Compra3 and the whole group buying space in Latin America and we will be covering this in our next show. Stop buy and watch us next Wednesday at 7:30pm (Colombia time).

Finally, if you’re interested in attending a great panel during SXSW in Austin on investing in Latin American startups, please vote for this by clicking on this sentence.

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The Tropical Gringo Show

admin — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:12:40 +0000

Click here to check out
The Tropical Gringo Show!

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Look Out Web. Here Comes Latin America

admin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:07:17 +0000

I’ve spent the last several months, exploring the state of Digital Innovation in Latin America. Although I wouldn’t say that there are tons and tons of examples, what I would say is that there are some impressive companies. The obvious examples are players such as Buscapé with their US $340 investment from Naspers and Mercado Libre, which had their IPO in the states a few years ago. As ComputerWorld recently published, Latin American Net Arena offers VC Opportunities.

Nevertheless, smaller companies such as VivaReal and Compra3 have achieved great success early on thanks to building world-class teams and executing very well. Both of these companies, similar to Buscape and Mercado Libre, are focused primarily on Latin America though the potential to go global is being pursued by others. Though I wouldn’t dissuade a company from targeting the global market, there is such a void at the moment in terms of interesting content and applications targeting the regions rapidly growing user base.

Indeed, Twitter just released some numbers, published also by TechCrunch, on user growth and Latin America is the fastest growing region. Latin American culture is extremely social and this region has been shown to be heavy users of social media and mobile devices. The end result is that the users exist for new applications and content, but, for the most part, they need to make due with a few local choices or hook up with the main players such as Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and others.

Also, in terms of taking advantage of the approximately 150 million Internet users in Latin America from a marketing perspective, it certainly seems as though most companies in the region are asleep at the wheel. There are certainly exceptions to this rule doing some pretty innovative things. In fact, lately, Brazil has been in the news thanks to its growing economic leadership and even thanks to their recent interest in acquiring companies in the developed world.

Either way you cut it, there is a tremendous amount of opportunity in Latin America, which isn’t apparent yet to global investors and even people in the region. There are some exceptions and these are growing. Brazil, particularly, has been attracting angel investors such as New Yorker, Michael Nicklas, who has been quite active recently not only in terms of funding, but also, in promoting investment through speaking at conferences and his blog, Startupi.

As an example, I had the opportunity the other day to talk with another US investor interested in funding a company in Latin America in the digital space. It was a great conversation as this investor is extremely sharp and am sure closes deals worth many millions every week. Nevertheless, he was trying to rapidly come up to speed on the environment and the nuances of this market, which is not easy. Some things don’t happen as quickly down here and some basic infrastructure (e.g., credit cards, e-commerce, etc.) are not well established, yet, the growth rates and early successes can not be denied.

I could quote many statistics showing that each country boasts growth rates in terms of users, time spent online, e-commerce and other areas of 40% and above. Any of these statistics can quickly be found by doing a quick search. However, this is more of a paradigm switch where more US and European investors need to wake up to the fact that they are ignoring a region with a dearth of content and applications, but with a user base that grows exponentially on a yearly basis. Differentiating a company in Latin America is much, much easier and, for the most part, amounts to bringing world-class teams and execution to bear.

There’s no question that countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile and, to some degree, Mexico, are at a more advanced stage when it comes their start-up and investment ecosystems. Nevertheless, there are small pockets of world-class teams working away in countries such as Colombia and this will continue to grow.

It definitely feels like we’re at the beginning of something very big. I am extremely confident that within three years Angel and VC investment in technology start-ups will have dramatically increased and two years after that Latin America will be home to at least ten powerhouses on a par with Buscape and Mercado Libre.

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VCs are Interested in Latin America and 1 of These is in Colombia

admin — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:51:25 +0000

Last night, after knocking down a few too many glasses of wine (and some JD) with an old Argentine friend who was passing by, I got home and started chatting with someone I admire a lot, Yuri Gitahy. Yuri created an excellent fund called Aceleradora in Brazil and he mentioned an article in TechCrunch about a study that found that VCs are looking for start-ups in emerging markets. As if that wasn’t enough, a few friends, like Andres Barreto, commented that one of these VCs, Dave McClure, was actually visiting Colombia at the moment (accompanied by writer Sarah Lacey).

This is, by no means, an isolated event. As I mentioned in my previous post, the time is now to create quality start-ups in Latin America. In the next three years things are certainly going to accelerate. That’s why , as I announced in another post, Thomas Floracks and I will be transmitting every Tuesday at 7:30pm the TropicalGringo Show. Part of the show will include a segment where one or two start-ups will present to us (even an idea) and we will provide guidance about how develop it better. I’ll leave you with this: more and more you’ll notice that there is no scarcity of resources (investment, etc.), but a scarcity of excellent teams hooking up and focusing on world-class digital innovation.

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Historic Moment: Latin American Web Takes Flight

admin — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:06:46 +0000

It’s been quite a week which, for myself and others such as Felipe DeConce (Chile) and Simon Olson (Brazil), marks an inflection point in the world of Latin American web start-ups. As I mentioned in the article published in VentureBeat and NYTimes.com, US web start-ups are starting to acquire Latin American web companies much earlier in their development process. For example, witness the recent actions by Groupon and Playdom in rapidly acquiring web companies in Latin America.

Also, I wanted to write said article because I’ve been observing the funding process of a few Latin American start-ups looking for funding in the states and I wanted to get something published on the Latin America web investment opportunities which start-ups could reference with international investors. Although I wasn’t able to go too much into detail, I highlighted the fact that I feel Latin America offers what Warren Buffett looks for in investments which are defensible “moats” around great profit margins and growing competitive advantage.

Aditionally, VentureBeat published an article I wrote about Netactica, an Argentine web company offering end-to-end solutions to the online travel industry in Latin America. Incredibly, yesterday, Google acquired ITA Software (relatively similar to Netactica in Latin America) in a demonstration that there is much value in these types of end-to-end solution providers in online travel. According to a number of analysts, this acquisition changes the dynamics of the online travel booking and search market. Personally, I think that a player like Netactica has much to gain with this turn of events and, with the increasing interest on the part of international investors in Latin America, the company should benefit quite a bit.

As if this weren’t enough, I spoke last week with Fernando LaBastida and Ricardo Guerrero who have an excellent initiative with the organizers of SXSW in Austin (they live there) to include a panel on Latin America during the next event in 2011. Nevertheless, in order to make sure there is interest on the part of audience members, it’s important for people to suggest ideas for the panel.

I’m completely serious when I say that this week was a critical moment for the development of Latin American web start-ups. You can be certain that investor interest will now start to accelerate at an amazingly fast pace. Now, we need to find the most talented technical and non-technical people in the region so that these can focus on digital innovation.

In order to accelerate this, Thomas Floracks and myself are launching a weekly show (we haven’t decided the day and time, yet) so that, among other things, we can analyze one or two interesting initiatives during the show. Note: for now, we’ll do it in Spanish, but will do a shorter recap show in English if there is interest. More details on this are coming soon. It’s a good moment to launch this show because we need to elevate the conversation beyond comments like “look at my neat website” or “I’m going to sell xyz on the internet.” It’s time for clear paths to profitability and solving real customer problems.

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Latin American Startups – Yesterday’s News Items

admin — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:54:00 +0000

Yesterday was an interesting day in “Startupland Latin America.” TechCrunch published an article about Groupon’s entry into this market by acquiring Chile’s ClanDescuento and Brazil’s ClubUrbano. According to the article, the blogosphere is abuzz with the fact that ClanDescuento (humorously called SpamDescuento) built up its audience with a ton of spamming, which is a shame since companies such as Compra3 which I wrote about a while back, have been innovating in the space. The article also mentions a blogger called Mariano Amartino who has some interesting posts (note to myself: I need to explore more Latin American blogs).

Also, yesterday, VentureBeat published my article on a really interesting online travel company called Netactica. This is what happens when you get two Argentineans together with an Aussie. You get some innovative and robust end-to-end technology to help Online Travel Agents (OTA) and others (such as the impressive guys at Mantaraya Travel) be successful in Latin America.

Mark my words. Digital Innovation is about to explode in Latin America. There’s still a lot of evangelization to get accomplished in this region, but the list of future success stories will continue to grow from examples such as Buscapé and MercadoLibre to more and more companies getting outside funding.

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Speech at Universidad Sabana

admin — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:29:33 +0000

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to give a speech about Digital Innovation in Latin America. It was a great experience and I appreciate Juan Correales’ invitation. I gave the speech within the context of their annual entrepreneurial event. I was able to talk with some impressive students about their projects.

For me, it’s extremely gratifying to see so much interest in hearing about the possibilities today in terms of Digital Innovation. Specifically, I try to evangelize the fact that people need to change their internal “chip” and understand that, in Latin America, they have the same access to gobs of information as well as having low-cost tools for creating new services and marketing these services.

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Digital Startup Ecosystem in Colombia – Bogota Meetup

admin — Sun, 30 May 2010 21:05:01 +0000

Well, it’s been quite an active week. I had the good fortune to talk with Arturo and Omar from Emprende.la about the state of Digital Innovation in Latin America (according to moi). If you wish, you can listen to the podcast where I discuss my Incubator project and the fact that I’m still at the initial planning stage. I also gave a radio presentation to a local station called RCN where I spoke about Digital Innovation in Latin America. I made this presentation utilizing the web platform called Pio.la.

Finally, one of the sharpest Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors in the business (according to moi), Fred Wilson, is promoting a global series of Meetups to talk about start-ups. Please join me next week by clicking on the widget below so we can all meet in person and discuss the current start-up environment in Colombia and Latin America and what we can do to accelerate the creation and growth of innovative digital start-ups. See ya next week!

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Judging Microsoft Digital Innovation Contest

admin — Sun, 09 May 2010 22:48:35 +0000

A week and a half ago, I had the pleasure of judging a number of entrepreneurial initiatives for Microsoft’s Imagine Cup competition. It was great to see how innovative and dedicated Colombia’s youth can be to creating great technology while helping out the needy. As usually happens during these events, it is a truly enjoyable experience not only to meet these youths, but also to meet and get to know my fellow judges.

We debated the merits and weaknesses of the different competitors. I had a favorite that tried to solve an important problem (poverty) by applying better information design. Unfortunately, they had some snafus with their presentation and demo and I was unable to vote for them as the winner. We ended up giving the final prize to a sharp group with an incredibly polished presentation and they will be traveling to Poland to represent Colombia. I wish we could have had the winning team train the other team to be more polished and to finish off their software as I think it would have been an excellent presentation in Poland. Nevertheless, I’m sure the winners will do a great job!

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