I’m writing a bimonthly column for The Santiago Times, one of Chile’s English language newspapers, about doing business in Chile and the entrepreneurial ecosystem. My first article was published today and it overviews some of the changes I’ve seen in the Chilean entrepreneurial ecosystem since I first came to Chile in 2010. From the article:
But entrepreneurs in 2010 also had to face powerful cultural obstacles. Chile was risk averse and punished failure. A typical conversation went something like this:
Chilean: “What do you do?”
Me: “I have my own business.”
Chilean: Blank look … “But what do you do?”
Me: “I have my own business!”
Chilean: “So you don’t have a job?”When new businesses failed, as many do, the typical Chilean response was that the entrepreneur was either: a) stupid, b) lazy, c) stole the money or d) all of the above. Almost none of my new Chilean friends even could imagine themselves starting a business and looked at me like an odd duck who was on a weird path — not the traditional one of getting a job at a big, prestigious company with a comfortable salary and three weeks of vacation, plus fifteen days of “feriados.”
You can read the entire article, Creating an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Chile, on The Santiago Times.