Según Kutchera, quien ha entrevistado ejecutivos de Ford, Best Buy y otros, la cultura latina tiende a ser mas sociable que otros como la anglo y son excelentes en cuanto a su uso de medios sociales. El articulo cita a alguien quien menciona que los hispanos y latinos son los usuarios con mas altos niveles de crecimiento en Internet y que, para 2014, tendran un poder de compra de USD $1.3 millones de millones (trillion en ingles).
Como pueden los latinos aprovechar este “expertise” con innovación digital en empresas existentes y en nuevos emprendimientos (”startups”)? De la misma manera que el mercado Chino ha fomentado el crecimiento de startups locales que se apoyan de las diferencias culturales para crecer, pienso que la misma oportunidada (aunque de diferente tamaño) existe en America Latina.
Recientemente, Simon Olson, partner de FIR Capital Partners en Brazil, durante una reciente charla en Stanford University, habló precisamente sobre las oportunidades dentro del mercado de Brasil. Hagan clic sobre su nombre (arriba) y subscriben a su blog ya que es una persona que hay que seguir/escuchar. En el video (abajo), Simon también menciona el hecho que los brasileros están aprovechando su adopcion rapida de medios sociales para crear startups innovadoras.
En Brasil, el crecimiento del número y calidad de startups es abrumador y debería hacer pensar mucho a los otros paises de America Latina de como formar parte de este crecimiento (como lo están haciendo Chile, Argentina y Mexico).
Abajo incluyo el video (en inglés) de la charla de Simon. Excelente!
According to Kutchera, who has interviewed marketing executives from Ford, Best Buy and other companies, the Latino/Hispanic culture tends to be much more social and less individualistic than other cultures such as that in the states. The article goes on to cite someone who mentions that Hispanics and Latinos are the fastest growing group on the Internet and will command $1.3 trillion in purchasing power by 2014.
How can Latin Americans take advantage of the understanding of social media and develop new digital innovations? Just as the chinese market has generated numerous home-grown startups that understand the nuances of that local market, I believe the same opportunity certainly exists in Latin America (albeit, taking different size markets into account).
Recently, Simon Olson, a partner at FIR Capital Partners in Brazil, during a recent talk at Standford University, spoke precisely about the available opportunities within that market. Please click on his name (above) and subscribe to his blog as he’s certainly someone to follow.
In the video below, Simon also mentions how Brazilians, great social media adopters, are working to relay that into innovative startups that leverage social media.In Brazil, the growth in number and quality of startups is incredible. This should make other countries in Latin America sit up and take notice as Chile, Argentina and Mexico have.
Below is the video from Simon’s talk. It’s excellent and eye-opening for investors unaware of the opportunities in Brazil.
It’s been a wild ride this past year and, now, in 2011, I feel that a lot of things will come together. My mantra for the coming years is helping get Latin America, as a region, competing at the highest level. This means, working with startups (getting them off the ground, giving them visibility, etc.) and working with established technology companies, training traditional companies in Digital Innovation, evangelizing the need for all of this, and, finally, actually executing (hands-on) some amazing strategies for companies.
With respect to the first objective (getting world-class startups off the ground), I’ve been insinuating for a while that I’ll be launching something in Colombia, where I see a major need for this. I’m finally ready to pre-announce what it is I’ve been working on.
Here’s the pre-announcement: On February 25th, we’ll be executing the first program for Startup founders in Colombia connecting successful international founders (especially, from Silicon Valley) and successful local founders with promising future entrepreneur/founders here in Colombia. We won’t be reinventing the wheel since we’ll be bringing an established program called the Founder Institute (created by Adeo Ressi) for the first time to Latin America. I have a counterpart in Chile who will be executing it there also.
I’ve seen a lot of initiatives here in Colombia and many of them have merit, but I haven’t seen initiatives which, in my opinion, take startup space (specifically, startups that make use of technology to innovate) to level that’s really required to get Colombia more competitive (especially when compared with Chile, Argentina and Brazil). I’ve gotten some criticism down here for saying that Colombia isn’t on a par with the aforementioned countries, but none of this criticism was based on sufficient objective arguments to convince me otherwise.
I’ll be writing more about this initiative in the following weeks. If I’m able to get sponsors on board, they will help tremendously in making this initiative much less costly for entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, I’ve already met with quite a few people that represent large organizations (government, companies and universities), which would benefit greatly from co-sponsoring this type of initiative, but that doesn’t mean that they actually will do it.
Ok. That’s enough computer work today. Now it’s time to have some great wine with a great pal named Guido…
Esta noche estaremos de nuevo transmitiendo el Tropical Gringo Show junto con Thomas Floracks. Primero que todo, esta vez necesito recordar de presionar el boton de grabacion! Luego, se enviará el Tweet del evento pidiendo un retweet y le pediremos a nuestra audiencia que se presente por chat.
Por mi parte, voy a hablar sobre un evento donde me desempeñe de nuevo como juez de una competencia. Esta vez, junto con otros jueces, calificamos unos proyectos de directivos de Universidades para crear iniciativas de fomento de startups. Daré mis impresiones sobre lo que vi. Tambien hablare de unos articulos que escribi en VentureBeat sobre una empresa impresionante Isrealita que tiene un software para manejar campañas de Google, sobre una adquisicion por parte de Adobe y, finalmente, otro sobre una reunion que sostuvo Microsoft con analistas de inversion.
Estoy seguro que Thomas tendrá unos temas interesantes y, mejor que eso, estoy seguro que tendremos un buen debate sobre cualquier punto o tema que la audiencia nos manda. Así que piensan en algun tema sobre el cual tienen mucho interes y/o una opinion fuerte. Vamos a intentar poner a funcionar Skype (usando el ID tropicalgringo) por si acaso le pedimos a alguien que nos llame para dialogar entonces por favor tengan su Skype listo.
El otro día, estuve leyendo una articulo interesante en el Huffington Post sobre la fortaleza de los latinos y los hispanos en cuanto a los medios sociales. El articulo menciona el nuevo libro por Joe Kutchera titulado Latino Link: Building Brands Online with Hispanic Communities and Content.