Category: Latin America Startups and Investing

The Opportunities and Challenges of Doing Business in Argentina

Category : Argentina, Latin America Startups and Investing
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I’ve written extensively about doing business in Chile, and since Argentina, the country next door, has been making a lot of noise, I decided to write up an overview of opportunities in Argentina. Argentina has the third largest economy in Latin America (after Brazil and Mexico), and the 2nd highest GDP per capita in the region in PPP terms (after Chile).

You may have heard the saying, “As rich as an Argentine,” a phrase that was coined to describe Argentina’s wealth and prosperity in the 1800s-1929. Argentina had the 4th highest GDP per capita and was one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Between 1890 and 1930, the capital city of Buenos Aires transformed from a colonial town to the sprawling, mammoth of a city it still is today.

Unfortunately, the Great Depression followed all of that prosperity and then decades of political turmoil. Over the next few decades, Argentina borrowed from foreign banks and ran hefty budget deficits. In the 1970s, Argentina’s credit rating dropped so low that leaders resorted to printing more currency, leading to the Argentinian Peso’s steady decline.

Argentina next went through a period of hyperinflation and political instability which lasted until the 1990s. By the 1990s and Dot Com Bubble era, the government launched new initiatives to reopen the country, and Buenos Aires became the birthplace of some of Latin America’s most successful technology companies. A group of Argentine Internet pioneers founded companies like MercadoLibre (the eBay of Latin America) and OfficeNet (which was eventually acquired by Staples). (more…)

TechCrunch: A New Era in Latin American Startup Investing

Category : Latin America Startups and Investing, Top
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I recently wrote a column in TechCrunch called A new era in Latin American startup investing where I talked about how things have changed since I first moved to Chile in 2010 as part of the pilot round of Startup Chile.

Some of the pioneering investors and entrepreneurs have started to be successful, paving the way for the next generation of startups. Other founders who tried and failed in the early 2010s have learned their lessons and are starting second rounds of companies. The ecosystem is much more developed, including startup specific attorneys and more experienced venture investors. From the link:

Startups in Latin America are using creative solutions to address not just local but also global problems. For investors outside the region, the prospect of working with these startups can appear attractive, yet complicated. Investing in early-stage startups in Latin America can present challenges; however, despite the challenges, time and time again I’ve found it can be well worth the effort.

When I first came to Santiago, Chile in 2010 as part of the pilot round of Start-Up Chile, there was hardly any talk of startups. Most people didn’t even know what startups were. Within nine months of returning to the U.S., the company I co-founded was acquired. So I decided to go back to Chile to look for more opportunities in this emerging market.

Over the next couple of years, I taught entrepreneurship in Chile, mentored local entrepreneurs and eventually started investing in Latin American companies myself. I’ve now invested in more than 30 early-stage companies in Latin America, and I firmly believe the time to help early-stage startups in Latin America has never been better. Here’s why.

Continue reading A New Era for Startup Investing In Latin America on TechCrunch.

Photo credit: Alessandro Pautasso

How To Work In Tech in Latin America

Category : Latin America Startups and Investing
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I wrote a guest post on VentureBeat called How to find a job in a Latin American Tech Hub aimed at highlighting the growing trend of US and European tech workers coming to Latin America to both start companies, but also to work for high potential startups like GroupRaise, PropertySimple, The Intern Group and more. I covered four main paths to working for tech companies in Latin America:

  1. Working remotely from a coworking space
  2. Working for an established Latin American company
  3. Working with a Latin American startup targeting Latin America
  4. Working with a Latin American startup targeting the US market

Each of these have their pros and cons, but all are great ways to get involved in the local tech scenes, travel the world and experience a new culture.

From the article:

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Start-Up Chile 101 and Chile The Expat’s Guide 2nd Editions

Category : Books, Latin America Startups and Investing
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In 2012, after living 2+ years in Chile, I wrote Start-Up Chile 101, the book I’d wished I’d had before joining the Start-Up Chile program. A year later, I wrote Chile: The Expat’s Guide for all of the foreigners who were thinking about moving to Chile.

Since then, these books have been bought by thousands of people thinking about living, working and doing business in Chile. Over the past four years, while working as Magma Partners’ managing partner, I learned even more about Chile and the rest of Latin America and decided to update both of these books.

The new books are reworked to include:

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