Category: Crossing Borders Podcast

Santiago Aparicio, Ontop: Building the future of work from Latin America, Ep 158

Category : Crossing Borders Podcast
Posted on November 30, 2021 by Nathan Lustig

You can now find the full show notes of the Crossing Borders podcast on LatamList.com’s new podcast section. I’ll still post the audio of the podcast on my blog and I’m planning to start writing more again on my blog, like I used to.

Subscribe to the LatamList Weekly newsletter to get updated on the week’s top tech news and stories from the region.

Thanks for listening to Crossing Borders all these years! If you have any feedback or questions, please feel free to reach out here, or contact me on social media.

Outline of this episode:

[02:18] – About Ontop
[02:39] – Top line metrics from Ontop
[02:39] – Santiago’s background
[04:53] – On joining Rappi
[07:05] – Launching Fitpal
[08:48] – Santiago’s biggest lessons
[13:54] – Coming up with the idea for Ontop
[14:23] – Fundraising for Ontop
[17:13] – The crazy world of fundraising
[18:42] – On building a sales engine
[19:14] – The best salesman (or woman)
[21:00] – Predictable metrics
[23:52] – The big milestones
[27:33] – Being famous is not being successful
[28:13] – Advice for a younger Santiago
[31:06] – How to hit network effects
[32:48] – The importance of hard conversations
[34:11] – The future of work

Show notes on Latamlist.com

Maricel Saenz, Compound Foods: Saving Coffee from Climate Change, Ep 157

Category : Crossing Borders Podcast
Posted on November 23, 2021 by Nathan Lustig

Subscribe to the LatamList Weekly newsletter to get updated on the week’s top tech news and stories from the region.

Thanks for listening to Crossing Borders all these years! If you have any feedback or questions, please feel free to reach out here, or contact me on social media.

Outline of this episode:

[01:06] – The backstory of creating coffee without coffee beans
[02:30] – Why is coffee the perfect target?
[03:28] – Why does coffee contribute to climate change?
[04:10] – Why do we need to brew coffee without coffee beans?
[05:10] – Two minute background on Maricel
[06:05] – First startup experience
[06:40] – Singularity University and meeting her first co-founder in the synthetic biology field
[07:10] – From fighting bacteria to fighting climate change
[08:03] – Can we do something for climate change now?
[08:40] – From climate anxiety to taking action
[09:27] – How to take action fighting climate change
[12:00] – Opening jobs at Compound Foods
[13:05] – What does it take to build a company like Compound?
[14:05] – From Costa Rica to the Bay Area
[15:33] – Fundraising for a live product
[16:25] – Thoughts on fundraising
[17:35] – Why is Compound not a synthetic food company?
[19:50] – What does the future look like?
[21:05] – What are the next steps for the business?
[22:09] – What advice would you give to yourself when you were first getting into tech?

Show notes on Latamlist.com

Juanma Gironella, Guros: Transforming the Insurance Industry in Latam, Ep 156

Category : Crossing Borders Podcast
Posted on November 19, 2021 by Nathan Lustig

Subscribe to the LatamList Weekly newsletter to get updated on the week’s top tech news and stories from the region. Thanks for listening to Crossing Borders all these years! If you have any feedback or questions, please feel free to reach out here, or contact me on social media.

Outline of this episode:

[3:01] – About Guros
[3:44] – Before and after for insurance retail users
[8:20] – Doing partnerships with potencial partners
[14:51] – From the idea to real traction
[18:27] – Insurance opportunities in Mexico and Latin America
[21:47] – The growth opportunity in the insurance industry
[25:00] – The fundraising experience during the pandemic
[28:20] – Resources and recommendations
[29:49] – Advice to Juanma’s younger self

Show notes on Latamlist.com

Greatest Hits Episode: Christian Van der Henst, Helping Latin America Learn with Platzi, Ep 155

Category : Crossing Borders Podcast
Posted on November 4, 2021 by Nathan Lustig

Subscribe to the LatamList Weekly newsletter to get updated on the week’s top tech news and stories from the region.

Thanks for listening to Crossing Borders all these years! If you have any feedback or questions, please feel free to reach out here, or contact me on social media.

Outline of this episode:

[1:54] – Splitting time between Platzi offices in Bogota, San Francisco, and Mexico City
[2:31] – What does Platzi do?
[3:46] – Were you always an entrepreneur?
[4:57] – How did you get started with Maestros del Web?
[5:56] – Growing up in Guatemala
[8:40] – How Christian fell in love with the internet at a young age
[11:26] – Going from Guatemala to Barcelona
[12:37] – What were some of the biggest challenges you had to overcome going from 0 to 10M page views?
[15:42] – What was like going from being a solo founder to teaming up with somebody?
[16:55] – Why Mejorando.la went from live classes to streaming and YouTube
[18:24] – Why mistakes are good for learning
[19:39] – Why Latino founders should learn to put themselves out there and stop fearing failure
[22:53] – Rebranding: Your users care more about product than name
[24:15] – Why they targeted the Spanish-speaking market
[25:23] – What was it like to enter YCombinator as the first fully Latin American company?
[27:30] – Biggest surprises participating in YCombinator
[29:19] – Why Colombia is leading the way for international investment in LatAm
[31:17] – When did you know Platzi would grow to be something big?
[34:25] – Why keep an office in San Francisco?
[36:24] – What advice would you give to other Latin American founders when they are trying to raise money?
[38:02] – Why should more US VCs be looking at companies from LatAm?
[40:26] – Why fintech is so important in LatAm
[42:53] – What’s your advice for people that want to start learning to code?
[44:05] – If you could go back to when you were first starting Mejorando.la, what advice would you give yourself?

Show notes on Latamlist.com.