Category: Crossing Borders Podcast

Ep 19 Andres Barreto, International Business Strategy That Cuts Cost and Increases Profit

Category : Colombia, Crossing Borders Podcast
Posted on August 17, 2017 by Nathan Lustig

The term International Business Strategy is typically used to describe U.S. or Western companies looking to maximize profits through offshoring or outsourcing, or extending their sales into foreign markets. But Andres Barreto is doing things in the opposite direction. He’s working to encourage Latin American startups to focus on the U.S. market and scale there, as well as encourage US companies to look to Latin America for the talented engineers and developers they need. But instead of outsourcing, they’re building integral startup teams in Latin America.

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Ep 18 Guimar Vaca Sittic, Building and Investing in International Online Marketplaces

Category : Argentina, Crossing Borders Podcast, Dominican Republic
Posted on August 15, 2017 by Nathan Lustig

With the success of huge marketplace companies like Amazon, it might be easy to think that new online marketplaces are not going to work out very well, but my guest on this episode has demonstrated over and over that it’s simply not the case. Guimar Vaca Sittic is an Argentinian entrepreneur who has built successful online marketplaces himself and who now is a venture parter at FJ Labs, which focuses primarily on US and international marketplaces. You’ll find his story and perspective very inspiring and helpful.

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Ep 17 Codie Sanchez, Championing Diversity and Encouraging Investment in Latin America

Category : Crossing Borders Podcast
Posted on August 10, 2017 by Nathan Lustig

Codie Sanchez is not your ordinary financial expert. She started out as a journalist, writing about human trafficking and abuses going on just over the southern border of the U.S. That is, until she wrote her last story about the abandoned women of Mexico. That’s when she realized that she needed to be doing more than just writing about the issues in the world – she needed to do something about them.

You’ll hear how Codie used the opportunities afforded her as a U.S. citizen to learn all she can about the power structures of the world so that she can leverage them to make a difference.

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Ep 16 Santiago Zavala, Investing in Latin American Startups

Category : Crossing Borders Podcast, Mexico
Posted on August 7, 2017 by Nathan Lustig

Investing in Latin American startups is not the first thing that was on Santiago Zavala’s radar growing up. Even though he grew up in a home where his father was working in tech from the early days of the internet, Santiago wasn’t drawn to the finance side of business at that point. He was totally into programming. He’d have been the last person to anticipate what would happen in his life.

This conversation tells of the unexpected path of a man who’s become intricately involved in the VC scene for startups in Latin America. His involvement in his own Mexico-based startup accelerator and then transitioning into running 500 Startups in Mexico has given him a wealth of experience and insight into what it takes for a startup in Latin America to be successful. It’s an intriguing conversation you won’t want to miss.

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