Tropical Gringo

From a class of 34 founders, the Founder Institute in Colombia launched 7 start-ups with 9 graduates.  It was a tough program and many founders weren’t able to make it through the process.  Andres Cifuentes and Carlos Rozo were definitely the co-founders (of Thotz) with the biggest global vision: to help users visualize their information.  They’re currently working away at developing the initial app for Thoz.net that will run on the iPad and on Android Tablets and will give you a visual representation of all of your Google Apps information.

Carlos is an information/knowledge management freak (he studied this topic in Australia) and Andres Cifuentes is a successful entrepreneur focused don the Google Apps market.  They are building a strong team with a developer (Alex) and a designer (Gloria) working on the first version of the app.  Aside from this, they have been meeting with different users to get an understanding about how they’d organize their information from a conceptual perspective.  If you’d like to sign up for the beta you can sign up here.

Here’s my quick interview (in English) with Carlos:

Founder Institute Grad Thotz.net from Tropical Gringo on Vimeo.

It looks like I’ve been doing a lot of talking lately about Digital Innovation and Internet startups and the startup ecosystem.  Last night, I had the opportunity to talk at an event called eCommerce Day Bogota along with impressive entrepreneur, Oscar Giraldo, founder of Arcaris.  It was great to hear the interest from everyone in entrepreneurship and  what we’ve been accomplishing with the Founder Institute in Colombia.

Additionally, last week, I had the opportunity to address a group of bankers at an event sponsored by the Bankers’ Association.  I was able to give them a perspective on where the startup action is in terms of the financial services vertical and was happy with the feedback and the interest from the industry in these topics.  I was accompanied by my Founder Institute Colombia team member, Juan Manuel Lopez as well by a co-founder of one of the Founder Institute graduating companies that is firing on all cylinders, financial product comparator site: Comparamejor.

Last but not least, I had tremendous pleasure of staying in some swanky accommodations in Cartagena and took advantage of this by smoking 4 of my favorite cigars during that two day period.  I’m sure hardly anyone kicks back like that, but to each his own.

It’s only been two weeks since I got back from my trip to San Francisco and I’ll be going back this week.  It was really a blast last time not only attending the Founder Institute activities, but also hooking up with an old friend (and crashing at his place).  The Founder Institute has been amazing in terms of the energy and the impact the program offers.  Nevertheless, for me it’s Adeo Ressi, its creator, and his team, especially Cindy and Gopal, who all make it all so worthwhile thanks to their openness and great personalities.

Also, thanks to them, countries such as Colombia, South America have a bridge to Silicon Valley.   This country isn’t on the map for many in the US, but the impact that this program is already having and will have on this country is difficult to describe.  Nothing else happening in this country on the start-up front (and there is quite a bit happening) has the potential to create as big of an impact.

One of the activities that I attended was a luncheon to honor the top contributors (mentors) at the institute.  I was looking forward to talking to one of the mentors, David Weekly, and his fund in Mexico. I had met Cesar Salazar, who handles the fund activities in Mexico, a few months back at SXSW.  Needless to say, I’m sure I’ll be talking with David.  Like so many who have had success in the digital start-up space, he’s a super open person.

In that vein, I had the good fortune to sit next to Jason Johnson who, among other things, has set up the Founder’s Den as a unique place for a select group of start-ups.  it was really interested to hear that he had traveled to Costa Rica (and enjoyed it immensely) and had actually had experience with programmers in that country.  I really enjoyed our conversation which touched into topics such as family, travel and start-ups.  While we spoke, something that could only happen in Silicon Valley was occurring in the background.  Another impressive dude, Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, was walking around the room in robot form as he joined the event (and received a much deserved award) all the way from Spain.

Among the other activities that Adeo had lined up was the biggest (I think) Founder Showcase ever with excellent keynotes from Naval Ravikant and Mark Shuster.  At the event, a number of start-ups gave their pitches and the networking at the event was super productive. The general consensus seems to be that there is definitely a bubble that is about to burst.  Nevertheless, it might be wishful thinking, but it seems more like some isolated cases of overvaluations (Color, Twitter, some early stage deals, etc.) than a general bubble along the lines of what Ben Horowitz has eloquently (and with more gravitas than I could bring to the table) written about in his blog.

Well, next week, I’m off to the valley once again with some great meetings lined up.  This time I’ll be accompanied by my co-founders in an initiative to bring funding to some select start-ups in Latin America and, especially, those with operations in Colombia.

I really enjoyed Ranjith Kumaran’s visit last week here in Bogota. Ranjith came to mentor at the Colombia chapter of the Founder Institute.  He also spoke at the alumni association of one of the most prestigious universities in Colombia.  As you’ll hear if you play the streaming version of this presentation he lays the blame on my doorstep for leaving him with little time to work on prettying up his slides after the several social engagements we had.  Also, Ranjith, very intelligently, stopped by the coast and experienced the amazing atmosphere in Cartagena before arriving in Bogota.

It’s been about two months since the Founder Institute semester started here in Bogotá and it’s been so gratifying to see the impact that it’s been having on the local ecosystem.  It’s tough to put into words the different levels on which the Founder Institute is starting to transform things here. Something I’ve really enjoyed is the observing the founders as they realize that people like Adeo Ressi and Ranjith Kumaran and the local mentors (building this group has been one of the best things about the Founder Institute for me) are so incredibly accesible and fun to be around.  My impression of Colombia is that, in some respects, it’s quite a formal society, and, because of this, many expect people who have earned a certain level of success to build a wall around them.

I have to say that the interest in technology startups is accelerating at a rapid pace here in Colombia.  There are really big organizations and companies (some multinationals) who are interested in nurturing this environment.  Nonetheless, it’s the Colombian startups such as CO Internet (Platinum Sponsor) and the regional “Paypal” called Latin American Payments that understood how transformational the Founder Institute will be in this country and decided to sponsor this initiative in Colombia.  Between these sponsors and the local mentors, the energy and interest in giving back has been the common denominator in supporting this initiative and that characteristic is obviously present in people like Adeo and Ranjith.

While he was here, Ranjith was also able to stop by the Caracol Radio station for an interview.  The Founder Institute session was excellent and, along with local mentors Camilo Gomez and Christian Boelke, Ranjith was able to review a number of the ideas from the Colombia founders.  Ranjith was also able to talk about his new loyalty startup called PunchTab which recently closed a $850k funding round.  Aside from specifics, it helps local entrepreneurs to hear HOW Silicon Valley entrepreneurs even talk about different aspects of their business from customer acquisition to customer development.

Aside from the impact that these external mentors have on the local environment, it’s great to see the impact that Colombia has on these mentors.  If you listen to any of the interviews, Ranjith comment about the fact that he travels around the world and he quickly felt like Colombia is one of those places where he could spend quite a bit of time in the future.

I’m sitting here on the plane from Bogotá, Colombia to Atlanta, Georgia. What irony. I’m actually just stopping by, but it is amazing to think that I was born in Atlanta (I’m not going to divulge how long ago that was). I’m on my way to South by Southwest (SXSW), a large event for tecnology, film and music held in Austin, Texas. Among other things, I’ll be moderating a panel about the investment and startup environment in Colombia.

As the picture on the left shows, already on the way, I began meeting interesting people. In this case, it’s Kelvyn Santos, aka, Kashmir Hip Hop, an exec at a multinational ad agency in the Domincan Republic and a part time Hip Hop artist.

Thinking about the topic of startup investing in Latin America, if I take the position of devil’s advocate, it’s not hard to see the excellent opportunities for investing in basic things like infrastructure projects, natural resources (e.g., oil, gas, gold, coal, agriculture, etc.). Even real estate, I believe, continues to promise top notch medium and long term returns.

For regional and local investors, these types of investments have the advantage of familiarity and relatively well-known risk levels. Even in terms of size of returns, as a whole, these traditional investments will probably generate one and more probably two orders of magnitude of the total amounts than startups will generate.

Investing in Latin American startups, I believe, holds the greatest attraction for two types of investors: 1) those looking to allocate millions rather than hundreds of millions of dollars to investment funds and 2) those who understand the space well enough and who truly enjoy investing in innovation and are interested in putting their knowledge and expertise to work in emerging markets.

If I would continue to play devil’s advocate, I’d really have to find a way to convince potential investors that they should pass up opportunities to invest in the next opportunity with hundreds of millions of dollars or billions of dollars in value (Buscapé and Mercado Libre, respectively). Additionally, I’d have to come up with a reason not to look for companies who found quick and relatively lucrative exits, such as Clan Descuento and Three Melons or for the next OLX, Mentez and Vostu with large follow-on investments.

So I guess I’m answering my own question. In general, there are opportunities all across Latin America and, realistically, Colombia is getting into the game a bit late. Thus, I think the best way to look at this is to see the general Latin American landscape as a region with interesting opportunities with Colombia being a part of the whole.

So, instead of singling out Colombia as presenting more opportunities, I think it’s more relevant as part of the general Latin America startup story, which, in turn is part of the larger emerging market story. One only needs to look at the influence that funds such as Tencent and DST (both of which came from emerging markets) have in order to understand that powerhouse investment firms can come from other parts of the world besides the states.

The other day, I was talking about this with a reporter from a major US magazine who was curious about this phenomenon. That article should come out in about a month (I’ll keep you posted), but my thesis was that emerging market investments are sometimes worthy of Warren Buffet’s epithet of “moat” investments.

This is the reasoning that Buffet uses to justify investments in state furniture and jewelry stores. These franchises are firmly established in a geographical niche. First of all, they are hard to establish and, even more importantly, they are harder to topple. Similarly, emerging market firms such as Tencent and DST so thoroughly dominate their geographic markets (I’m talking of the startups that spawned the investment divisions), that they develop “moat” economics particularly in terms of steady and attractive margins.

In Latin America, I’d say two firms are great examples of this: 1) Buscape/Naspers and 2) Mercado Libre. If nothing else, those two firms, in addition to hedge funds and VCs already active in the region, provide valid exit options for startups.

Ok. That’s enough philosophizing (anyway the flight attendant is refusing to give me any more wine for inspiration). What do you think? What have a missed? How off the mark am I? Remember, I reserve the right to mention your comment and username during the panel.

I haven’t started packing yet for my trip to South by Southwest (SxSW), but I am running around trying to get everything in order here in Bogota, Colombia before I leave.  I’m going to be moderating a panel at the SxSW Tech Summit (this is the first time it’s being held) on the startup/investment ecosystem in Colombia.  At the same time, I’ll have a chance to visit SxSW and meet some interesting people.

There are tons of presentations and I’m sure there will be some interesting ones, but I’m more interested in meeting people and talking with them, which is probably why the parties are so famous (for meeting and talking with counterparts).  I’m going to take my video and camera equipment and blog to my hearts content.  In part, to let others know how this experience is stacking up and, also, as a public note-taking exercise.

If you’ll be there in Austin this week, I’d certainly enjoy meeting you.  Please let me know either at @acolmenares or emailing me at alan [at] tropicalgringo [dot] com  We’ll see how things go.

When you think of startups and venture capital investing, the last thing you’d probably think about is Colombia and for good reason. Although a local gaming company recently received a respectable investment from a local VC, that’s been the exception rather than the rule.  Nevertheless, after spending some time with Adeo Ressi here, it is quite apparent that his company, the Founder Institute, could have an incredibly large impact on the local startup/investment ecosystem.

Although other countries are further along in building up their startup ecosystems, Colombia has some interesting raw talent that is open to getting guidance on how to grow and develop their startups and a dearth of quality accelerator programs.   It’s within this vacuum that the Founder Institute enters the scene.  I’ll be discussing this further at the SxSW Tech Summit on March 16th.   For now, I’d like to talk more about Adeo’s visit to Colombia.

First off, after talking with Adeo over the phone several times during the past months, it was really great meeting him in person.  As the below photos show, we were able to talk with a diverse group of people and had some fun at the same time.  We were able to meet with some applicants to the Founder Institute, the local mentors, a radio interviewer and some government officials.

For the most part, entrepreneurs have been slogging away without much interaction with Silicon Valley and that has left Colombia a bit behind in terms of development in digital startups (with a few exceptions).  Hence, it’s no surprise that a program, such as the Founder Institute’s, that guides founders and connects them with networks of mentors and investors, is generating so much interest.  In the process, getting a solid team of mentors and other players together for the program has done wonders to get this small group of players organized.

It certainly feels like some subtle though powerful things are happening that can create a big impact on this country.  Time will tell, but I’m pretty confident that things are going to get a whole lot more interesting down here.

Finally, as the below video shows, Adeo held one of his Ideation Workshops for about 70 potential and current applicants:

It’s been quite a week.  I was finally able to write about a VC round closing in Colombia.  A local VC actually closed a $1.3M series A round with social gaming company, Zio Studios, based in Colombia.  This has been the talk of the town down here since VC investing is pretty non-existent here (although, private equity investing is pretty well-established).  It’s really another example of how things are changing making geography less of an obstacle and more of a choice of life.

Last week, I also wrote in a local portal called KienyKe about the stuff going on in the Middle East with the toppling of Mubarak in Egypt and the turmoil in the other countries.  In this new world we’re living in, if entrepreneurs aren’t connected to other world-class entrepreneurs and investors, it’s almost becoming a matter of choice.  As I said, geography is becoming less of an obstacle.

Even within the Latin American region, digital strategies that target the whole region used to emanate from countries such as Brazil and Mexico and, on occasion, from Argetina (Mercado Libre) or Chile.  Nevertheless, now companies such as PagosOnline with their Latin American Payments (see video) strategy and VivaReal are targeting Latin America all from a headquarters based in Colombia.

A few months ago, I wrote about “Mover & Shaker” Santiago Pinto, a successful Argentinean Angel investor and entrepreneur who’s backing ad network, Smowtion.  I wrote about Santiago and about Smowtion’s success at building its publisher and customer base.  Now, Facebook has just announced that they are part of its white list of approved ad networks. While I see tremendous opportunities in targeting the Latin American market and will be talking a bit about this at the SxSW panel in March, I believe that companies such as Smowtion and Brazilian company BT Buckets (mentioned in a vieo in a previous post) are great examples of entrepreneurial teams who think big and tackle global challenges. Yesterday, I was talking to a US journalist about trends in global start-up investing (at least my take) and it’s definitely a reality that top start-up talent knows now geographical boundaries and can be found world-wide.  Latin American start-ups and entrepreneurial teams are maturing at an astonishing pace and companies such  as Smowtion are leading the way.

About 15 years ago, when I first moved down here to Colombia from Silicon Valley, one of the biggest culture shocks was the fact that it was pretty much impossible to find a bar where I could watch the Super bowl.  After checking out numerous places, I was just unable to find any place that was showing the game (most didn’t even know what the Super bowl was).  This is in stark contrast to how things are today where one has a host of options where to, not only watch the Super bowl, but to really enjoy it.  By the way, my brother and I are the two on the left side of the photo (guess who is who).

This may not have anything to do with anything, but last night, while watching this at the local Irish Pub, I couldn’t help thinking about how things have changed.  A lot of expats really are enjoying Colombia and this is just one of many reasons why they choose to stay.  In the last few weeks, I’ve been amazed by the amount of Colombians living abroad (Diaspora) who are either moving back here or considering it. Almost all of these are focused on the tech start-up market.

Well, on a personal not, last night was also the end of a three week trip that my brother and his friend, Tim, have taken here in Colombia.  It was great to see how much they thoroughly enjoyed their trip and referred to it as the “trip of a lifetime.”  It seems that this isn’t just a case of a couple of guys who enjoy remote places.  This morning I was having breakfast with a super sharp entrepreneur, Camilo Gomez, CEO of Mantaraya Travel and he mentioned an article in the New York Times with it’s readers naming Colombia as the second highest rated travel destination. Also, check out this article from the Huffington Post on why it’s Colombia’s time.

Well, it was quite wild time last night. Here’s a quick video I took during the game (interviewing Tim, but also with my brother, sister, Matt, Thomas and Daniel!):

I just had a great time visiting a place in Colombia called Chinacota.  This was actually the place where my mom was born and where I spent some great vacation days as a child when we’d come down to Colombia from Pennslyvania for summer vacation.  My brother insisted that I hook up with him and his friend, Tim, who was also visiting.

Not only was it a bit nostalgic, but it was great fun and gave me some much needed rest as well as an opportunity to disconnect from the daily routine.  It was really great to get away and just relax, have fun and a bit of drink and cigars (my favorite).  My brother had an interesting contraption called “la caja china” shipped over and we roasted a pig inside a box (which was really an oven).

Colombia has a ton of great points including the way it’s people like to have fun and enjoy life.  it was wonderful to see this through the eyes of my brother’s friend (Tim).  He has been having a blast, going to the local country club and playing golf and tennis while at night he enjoys the gettogethers that everyone attends.  There’s just an amazing love of life down here that shows up especially in these smaller towns (away from the capital).

Now it’s back to work and things seem to be coming together nicely with the Founder Institute initiative.  We alrleady have 30 applicants in Bogota and 400 people registered for the conference with Adeo, the creator of the Founder Insititute.  I’ve got a number of options in terms of venues and need to decide which one makes the most sense.

I had a great conversation yesterday with someone, like me, who isn’t originally from the region (Latin America), but who has found a new home here.  He was visiting Colombia and has been an entrepreneur in Latin America for more than four years and had some really tough going, but like any excellent entrepreneur, he stuck it through.  The result is that, today, both he and his original angel investors experienced a nice exit as his company was sold to a much larger one.

This is a great story, but it’s just great to sit down and talk with people who are super sharp and, at the same time, down-to-earth and open.  Within this journey through the start-up scene in Latin America, it’s been incredibly heartening to discover a core group of amazing individuals, who are also great people to be around.  Some are originally from outside the region, but not all and all.

A common thread is that we all see amazing opportunities for creating start-ups in Latin America as well as the potential for developing a new seed fund to nurture more and more of these start-ups.  He, correctly, mentioned that we should somehow coordinate our activities more among different countries in Latin America.  It definitely makes sense to think about building a core group of sharp individuals in Latin America interested in, among other things, funding and developing new start-ups. We’ll see how this develops.

Additionally, yesterday, I had great video conference with a smart and funny colleague in Argentina about his interest in expanding his company footprint throughout Latin America.  Also, I chatted with some buddies in Austin about an upcoming panel over there on the start-up environment in Colombia (I’m rounding up some interesting panelists).  Well, gotta cut this short, because I’m off to Barranquilla this morning to visit another interesting company.

As I wrote in my last post, the Founder Institute will come to Colombia (and Chile).  To kick things off, Adeo Ressi, CEO of the Founder Institute, will be in Colombia in February to launch the 12 week program.  This initiative is important because it connects Silicon Valley with the best Colombian entrepreneurs the country has to offer.  Additionally, successful US entrepreneurs and investors will hook up with these entrepreneurs/founders. To kick off the event, Adeo Ressi will be in town to on the 8th of Februrary.

Adeo Ressi of the Founder Institute will speak on Feb 8 in Bogotá, Colombia:

The other day, I was reading an interesting article in the Huffington Post about how well Latinos (Spanish-speakers residing in Latin America) and Hispanics (residents of the US) use social media. The article talks about a new book on this topic by Joe Kutchera entitled, Latino Link: Building Brands Online with Hispanic Communities and Content.

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.

According to research from TeleGeography, Skype added twice as many long distance minutes than all of the other long distance providers combined! Although long distance is now only a small part of telecommunications company revenues, Skype keeps on innovating by coming out with video chat for mobile and TV.  GigaOm analysts feel that video calls and video chat will make up 30 billion calls by 2015.

This is just one additional instance of established companies feeling competitive pressure from a relatively new comer.  The same has happened in music, video and other industries.  Competitive dynamics of business continues to be heavily impact by new technology tools making it imperative that all businesses “rethink” everything and focus on digital innovation.

Previously, I’ve written about companies such as Brazil’s Compra3 (in VentureBeat and the New York Times), which group people together to purchase goods and services with some additional value (such as deep discounts).  There’s much potential in this formula.

Now, there’s a new player called Ofermatic that utilizes a point system (accepting many varieties of credit cards) and gaming mechanics to increase the level of engagement for consumers.  According to the company, they provide between 10 and 100 times better repeat conversion rates than other sites.  During my last Digital Innovation Workshop, I spoke about this company and about the fact that, if companies were more focused on digital innovation, perhaps an established player could have developed this idea.

I was just reading in one of my favorite blogs, GigaOm, about documents unearthed because of Goldman Sachs’ investment in Facebook. Though the Facebook seems to have generated about $77 million in net income this year, it could generate as much as $1B in profits next year.

TechCrunch even published a table showing their different revenue line items. I was actually surprised by the $75M run rate for virtual goods that, although substantial, was lower than I had thought it would be.  It’s interesting to note, also, that while Facebook stays private, Linkedin is rumored to soon go public.

There’s an interesting quote at the end of the GigaOm article from a Piper Jaffray analyst stating that Facebook continues to take advertising revenue away from Google.  There’s definitely a lot of conjecture about what Google should be doing in regards to social media.  One of their own VPs actually made a statement to the effect that they’re letting Facebook take over that space.  Talking more about Google, I found a recent article by David Linthicum quite interesting.  In that article, he talks about why Google should acquire Amazon!

Finally, it’s not only about Facebook, other sites like Quora and Groupon are growing rapidly thanks to their social component.  Many ask if Google has ceded this space to Facebook and others or whether their GoogleMe product might better position them in this space.  What do you think? Will “social” increase or decrease Google’s relevance over time or is that the wrong question to ask?

Below is a larger version of the Facebook Economy Infographic from VisualEconomics:

I just read an article in Mashable written by Douglas Rushkoff, author of Life Inc.: How Corporatism Conquered the World, and How We Can Take It Back. He has a problem with the way that marketing and corporations seem to want to take over something that he says has the potential to “generate the biggest change in how culture and commerce operate since the inventing of the printing press.”

Them there is pretty big words and it’s great validation of my own beliefs.  Specifically, I just feel that all the talk about social media and these new digital tools at our disposal have so much more potential beyond the becoming the province of sharp marketers.  Within a business context, I see much opportunity for, what I call, digital innovation.  Nevertheless, I like Rushkoff’s broader interest in seeing social media as offering the potential to connect with peers without the oversight of “controlling interests.”

I was just reading the reports from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas about the new tablets that are coming out as well as BusinessWeek’s article on the future of tablets. In my opinion, the way to look at this is not the future of “tablets”, but the future of making the division between the virtual and physical worlds more transparent.
This could be a good thing or a bad thing, or both, but it’s definitely something that’s happening. In the business world, organizations that continually view the digital world as a quaint space where they inhabit by outsourcing specific activities (online marketing, etc.), increase their risk of being disrupted. The way to view the current state, IMHO, is to completely rethink how to deliver value to your customers taking into account the new posibilities enabled by the digital: Digital Innovation.

I’m not going to write a full-fledged predictions post, but have been thinking about what’s on the horizon in terms of big changes. First off, who knows what’s coming on the economic front, but when you have guys like GE CEO Jeff Immelt saying that we’re in a reset period, you know big things are happening on the digital innovation front.

In technology, it’s interesting to see the tablet movement as the virtual and physical worlds continue to meet (accessing digital information is becoming more transparent). Forrester just revised their tablet forecast and says that tablets should overtake laptops by 2015.

Finally, the whole cloud computing thing continues to accelerate. The disruptive power of this technology which levels the playing field for smaller companies that want to “act” biggger and bigger companies that want to “act” more agile, continues to play out. As BusinessWeek published a couple of days ago, the M&A activity in cloud computing will really heat up in the coming year as HP and others look to buy their way into innovation.

Finally, I’m pretty psyched about the kick-off of the Foundation Institute initiative here in Colombia and expect a good turn out of people attending the launch event.  Last night, I finished my next Kienyke article about  this launch and hope to get interesting feedback from it.