It’s one thing to stand on the outside of a startup culture and look in. It’s another to actually become part of that very same ecosystem.
We spent the months following graduation from Seattle University visiting and speaking with the entrepreneurs who fuel the Latin American startup ecosystem. We began in Colombia with Bogotá and Medellín, and then had to turn back to Seattle. We now find ourselves in Santiago, Chile participating in the startup scene in a whole different fashion.
Welcome to Chile
As Latin America’s largest incubator program, StartupChile has given us (along with 100 other companies from 33 different countries) approximately $40,000 in seed funding and governmental resources to grow our business. They take a zero equity stake, but look for a social return in the promotion and widespread growth of innovation in Chile.
Chile’s goal is to become the innovation hub of Latin America — for now, dubbed ¨Chilecon Valley¨ — and they’re putting their money where their mouth is.
The program launched in 2011 and over 1000 companies later, we’re proud to be a part of Generation 11. We’re joining an alumni network that has raised over $94 million in additional funding, experienced eight acquisitions, created more than 1,300 jobs and has generated over $14 million in revenues over the past six months.
Four companies have gone onto Y-Combinator and four others have joined Techstars; one of them being Maptia, which was co-founded by our friend Jonny Miller.
It’s now our time to follow the footsteps of these alums and build a company in a foreign landscape. We’ve worked on growing a small startup in Seattle, but doing the same in a culture that picks and chooses what it wants from the startup scene in the U.S. will present a unique challenge we’re looking forward to tackling.
Meetup Mishaps
We joined November 10 and are still getting settled in the city of Santiago. Being the first incubator we’ve participated in, we’re relying on some advice from advisors and mentors with more experience than us.
The second day into the program, Start-Up Chile brought in Evan Henshaw, Twitter’s first engineer, to run a presentation a couple blocks away from the offices.
The organization and structure of the meetup was much less formalized than those in Seattle. We got started about an hour late and there was no location for the projector, so the slides that Evan prepared were never shown. At surface value, these mishaps that seem more common in Latin America might be detrimental to the meetup, but in a way, the lack of structure seemed to provide a level of connection with the audience that’s not so common with meetups we’ve attended in the U.S.
The lack of time limits and slide constraints allowed for a much longer Q&A that allowed Evan to go into detail on things the audience was curious about. Without the definitive direction that slides force upon the speaker, the presentation seemed like more of a conversation — in our opinion, a plus. Evan, who invests in Latin American startups himself, didn’t seem to mind the differences either.
Another thing we’ve realized is that the majority of co-founders currently present in our group are less technical, but have other team members in their respective home locations. We’ll have to wait and see how that plays out in the next six months (the official length of the program).
The Road Ahead
We couldn’t be more excited about diving into a startup culture that’s heating up quickly. Aside from us, the uproar is something almost every large tech and business publication is eyeing.
For the next six months, we’ll be detailing our experience from the inside.
We’ll share what we learn and note differences in the startup cultures in Chile and the U.S. What kinds of things would you like to see or hear about during our journey through Start-Up Chile? What have been your experiences with the Latin American startup culture?
Armand Pizzicarola and Andrew Mewborn are travelers, startup enthusiasts, and co-founders of Gridlee. Keep up with their journey on Twitter @gridlee_ and/or drop them a note via email.
