Every since I started blogging, I’ve done a year end post summarizing what I’ve done in the past year. These posts are mostly for me, so that I can look back and remember what I did, what I was thinking and what was important to me each year. Previous versions (2000s, 2009,2010, 2011, 2012).
I started and ended 2012 in nearly the same place: on a friend’s rooftop in Santiago, champagne in hand, surrounded by great people, watching a multitude of fireworks explode across Santiago’s expansive skyline. In between, the first part of 2013 continued on 2012’s theme: a time in flux. I started out preparing to become a professor for the first time. My business partner and friend Enrique Fernandez and I completely revamped our entrepreneurship class How to Build a Startup and began teaching at Universidad Católica in Santiago and Universidad Católica del Norte in Antofagasta.
Antofagasta was a real challenge, but it was extremely rewarding. While the two hour flight eight times in twelve weeks was challenging, the hardest part was teaching a class solo, 100% in spanish. I was really nervous my first class and could see from the looks on my students’ faces that they weren’t looking forward to a whole semester with my gringo spanish, but by the second class, I started getting better and by the final class, my spanish was much better and I wasn’t nervous at all.
I’m glad I got to practice in Antofagasta, because in August I taught another class completely in spanish to undergrads at Universidad de Desarrollo in Santiago. It was rewarding to see my students actually learn something each semester, see their self belief growing each week, and seem projects go from ideas to reality.
My blog continues to build traffic and I was featured in multiple international publications again this year on Startup Chile, Entrustet, Chilean Real Estate and the Madison entrepreneurial ecosystem. It was cool to see Google implement their deceased account option that we’d pushed for back in 2009. While I haven’t written as much as I would have liked, I read more in 2013 than I did in 2012.
I traveled back to Wisconsin in August to help organize the fourth annual Forward Technology Festival and was happy to see it keep growing. Matt, Bryan, Forrest and Preston have done an awesome job since I moved to Chile. Forrest continues to grow Capital Entrepreneurs and Madison’s entrepreneurial scene continues to get more national prominence.
While the first half of the year was a year still in flux, the second half was much more focused. After coming back from my trip home in August, I started Andes Property, a real estate investment company focused in Santiago and published The Expat’s Guide to Chile, a book about living, working and doing business in Chile, which has been consistently ranked in the top ten most popular books about Chile on Amazon. I also launched an ecommerce business, La Condoneria, that sells condoms online. It’s been fun to start to build a business from scratch again and to work with two great business partners. In November, I celebrated three years in Chile.
I also made it back to Wisconsin for my family’s Thanksgiving and my group of friends’ 9th annual Friendsgiving. It really was great to get back and see my family twice this year and it was amazing to see our group continue to grow with more engagements and our group’s first kid. I expect both trends to continue in 2014.
I explored more of South America, but didn’t travel as much as I would have liked. I made it to Chiloé and Uruguay, then visited Mendoza when my parents visited Chile for two weeks, and Pucón, Puerto Varas and Frutillar when my friend Polsky came to visit from the US. I’ve done a better job of taking advantage of going to the beach more in 2013 than in 2012, but plan to do it more in 2014.
I didn’t exercise as much as I would have liked, but continued to play squash and increased my soccer. On the sports side, I went to a Chile world cup qualifying match, some chilean club matches and watched the US qualify for the world cup. Overall, it was a year of transitioning into my next projects that I’ve since been able to sink my teeth into. I expect 2014 to be a very interesting one!
Favorite posts of 2013
What Entrepreneurship is Really Like
Your Internet Business Probably Isn’t A Startup
How to Deal With A Smart Disruptive School Kid
My Talk From The Forward Technology Festival
One Comment