What I Learned from Jesse Davis

Category : What I Learned
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Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote,”every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.” It’s one of my favorite quotes. This post is the first in a series that highlight some of the awesome people I’ve had the privilege to learn from.

Jesse Davis taught me the happiness litmus test.

We met in November 2008 during my second senior year at the University of Wisconsin. I was looking for a new business to start after selling ExchangeHut. Two professors and two friends told me I had to talk to him. We met up in the library and he pitched me the initial idea for Entrustet. I was hooked. Over the next month, we worked together, doing market research, deciding if we wanted to start a company together. We had to make sure we liked each other enough to actually commit start a company together. After about a month, we cofounded Entrustet.

Jesse sees the world very simply and we made great business partners. We became good friends and even ended up living together for a year, including six months in Santiago, Chile as part of Startup Chile. All told, we spent the better part of three years together and took his idea from a powerpoint presentation to reality.

From the beginning, I quickly realized Jesse was guided by an important idea. He wrote it on his whiteboard in his bedroom, had it on his computer and talked about it whenever we faced any adversity. After awhile, I began to think of it as the Jesse test. It’s three simple questions to help you decide if you are on the right path:

  • Am I acting easily and without struggle?
  • Do I enjoy what I’m doing?
  • Are results coming on their own accord?

When things were going well for us both personally and professionally, we were working increidbly hard, but we were acting easily. We enjoyed what we were doing. We might work 16 hour days, but it didn’t feel like work. And our results came on their own. Sometimes seemingly out of the blue.

Jesse taught me that when you meet all three criteria, you’re much happier and good things keep happening, almost serendipitously. But if you’re struggling and not enjoying what you are doing, something could be wrong. He taught me to take a step back, to think about why I was struggling, why I wasn’t having success, why it felt like work, and why I was motivated to put in the incredible effort to get a result I wanted.

Now, whenever I am presented by a difficult decision, I use this framework to evaluate my options. I use it in business, in friendships, in relationships, in life. I take a step back, evaluate and then look for the causes of why I’m struggling. I ask myself why I want to accomplish what I’m trying to do. Then I reevaluate whether it’s worth it and whether my strategy is going to get me to the right place and for the right reasons.

Sometimes I find that the struggle is worth it and continue on my previous path, but at least my descision is reaffirmed by careful thought. Other times, I realize that I still want to pursue my goal, but I need to change my strategy. Other times, I realize that it’s just not worth it and its time to move on. Many times when things or people don’t fit these three criteria, I drop them from my life.

I use the framework nearly every day and it helps me think, work and live more clearly. I have it in a post it note on my computers dashboard. It helps me make better decisions. And live a happier, lower stress life. I learned the happiness litmus test from Jesse Davis. And for that I am grateful.

Real Starters: Entrepreneurship Classes at Universidad Católica

Category : Entrepreneurship
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I had the privilege to moderate and judge demo day for the entrepreneurship classes at Universidad Catolica today. It all started two years ago in November 2010. My fellow Startup Chile pilot round entrepreneurs Enrique Fernandez, George Cadena, Vijay Kailas, Tiago Matos, Shahar  Nechmads, Jesse Davis, Raj Utamachani and I we were motivated to create the startup class we’d all wished we’d been able to take when we were in university. We got together in the Startup Chile offices and sketched out a 10 week class that would teach students the basics of starting a company: everything from researching an idea to customer development to pitching investors to launching.

We stated with De Emprendedores, Para Emprededores (De-Pe) at Universidad Católica del Norte, a university in Antofagasta. Startup Chile entrepreneurs make the trek each week to the north to teach eager students how to make their ideas into businesses. It was a huge success and the students loved it. We saw some great business ideas and decided we needed to expand.

Enrique Fernandez, along with George Cadena took the lead. They morphed the idea into Real Starters and pitched the idea of an introductory entrepreneurship class to Professor Stephen Zhang at Universidad Católica here in Santiago. The goal of the class is to take students from just an idea and put them through the customer development process to get them ready to have a launchable business by the end of the semester. We give each student a mentor and off they go! Last semester, 13 projects went through the course, which ended in a demo day. It was another massive success.

This semester we had 10 great, motivated teams. At today’s demo day, it was amazing to see how far the teams have come from the first day of class to their final pitches. There were three companies that already have clients and are already making money. There were five more with potentially viable business models. Every single project has the potential to have success if the teams continue to work, respond to customer feedback and refine their ideas.

It’s been an amazing experience to be a part of this class and a privilege to advise some of the teams. All of the teams deserve a huge congratulations. As I told them during the competition, of all the students on their campus, they are part of a select group of students who are actually learning by doing, not just in the classroom.

Last but certainly not least, I want to congratulate the three winning teams. All three have an extremely bright future.

First Prize: Diza Shoes

The Diza team has created a platform to make every girl’s dream come true. They allow anyone to create their perfect shoe by changing the color, heel height, laces and other aspects of their shoes so that they’ll have a unique pair. They’ve already sold 500 pairs and make profit on each pair. They won an all expenses paid trip of their choice to either Stanford Entrepreneurship Week or Babson College where they’ll represent Chile and learn from some of the top minds in entrepreneurship.

First Runners Up: Webdox

The Webdox team digitizes attorneys’ documents and  then provides them with a searchable platform so that attorneys don’t have to manually find paper documents. They already have signed up three law firms in Chile and have more than 100,000 documents under contract to be digitized. They have a massive potential market not just in Chile, but in the rest of Latin America.

Second Runner Up: Biodgas

The Biodgas team invented a way to convert common house hold trash into gas that can be used to power a house. The team already is testing their invention with schools and orphanages. They not only have invented a machine that converts trash into gas, but they’ve dressed their machine up as a robot to help teach kids the value of recycling and science. Their future is incredibly bright!

Congratulations to all of the teams. You all deserve it. And if you are interested in participating as either a student or a mentor, please contact me. We’ll be starting another class next semester!

Why I’m Still Voting for Obama

Category : Political Science & Economics
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Back in March, I decided to vote for Barack Obama for President. Today, I’m even more convinced.

I still believe Obama hasn’t done a good job as President. He’s been a weak leader. He’s outsourced many of his major policy decisions to unpopular, hard left Congressional Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. He hasn’t done what he said he would. Even in the face of extreme opposition from Congressional Republicans sticking to fundamentalist positions, it’s no excuse. A leader must lead.

But I’m still going to vote for Obama because I believe a Romney Administration and Republican rule would be a disaster.  For a long time I’ve argued that both parties were the problem, that they did the same things. Much to my friend Erik’s chagrin, I refused to believe that the Republicans were really worse than the Democrats. The last six months have proven that he was right and I was wrong.

The Republicans have become dogmatic, anti-science and anti-thinking on the economy, national defense and social issues. They’ve become the party of fear. And fear leads to anger, which eventually leads to knee-jerk, dogmatic decisions, which many times leads to violence. Republicans are making policy based on dogma, religion and their gut.  Many Republicans seem to want to put us into a moral theocracy, an individualistic Ayn Randian dream world of the 53%, all the while increasing military spending. That’s a scary mix.

On the economy, the Republicans view any dollar that goes out of a government account as bad. They don’t differentiate between spending and investment. But anyone with a brain knows that it’s a completely different thing to borrow money to buy a new house (an asset) or borrow money to take a Caribbean vacation (an expense). The Republicans equate investing money in roads, bridges, schools, high speed internet or alternative energy with spending money on worker’s salaries, pensions, social security, health care, food stamps and other government services. That is just plain wrong.

I am extremely worried about our national debt and runaway spending and believe we have to make big changes to get our financial house in order. But Republican austerity for social programs while spending an extra $2T on defense that the Pentagon isn’t even asking for, at the same time cutting taxes, will destroy us just as continued runaway spending from a Democratic administration will bleed us to death. We need massive changes and at least an Obama administration will look at the facts and try to make policy, even if I don’t agree with it completely.

We are in the biggest period of economic structural change since the industrial revolution. Unlike other periods of rapid change, this time we are destroying many more jobs than we’re creating. Software is eating the world. It’s replacing jobs that people used to do with computer programs or robots. A factory that would have employed 50,000 people in 1950 would likely only employ 5,000 people today and produce way more.

We are shedding jobs at an unprecedented rate, not just in manufacturing, but also in white collar and middle management. In journalism. In government. The only sectors that are growing are highly skilled professional jobs, highly skilled service jobs like plumbers and nurse practitioners and low skilled service jobs like Walmart or Starbuck workers.

I used to lean Republican because I agreed with their stance on the economy and defense, but now that the party has moved so far right and embraced too many hard line, litmus test, far right ideas, I can’t support them anymore. Even though I believe that many Democrats are wrong on how to fix our economy, they at least have the social issues right, defense mostly right and at least know the difference between spending and investment.

I would have voted for the Mitt Romney who was the Governor of Massachussets. The pragmatic centrist in a liberal state who did what he thought was right after looking at the facts. But now that the entire Republican party has moved right, so has Mitt. He’ll do anything to win this election, even if it means pandering to the religious and economic fundamentalists that have more in common with the Taliban than they would like to think. If elected, he’ll continue to do the same.

We need massive change, a real leader. Someone to tell it like it is, not just try to get reelected. I’m voting for Obama because he might just grow a spine and say, “fuck it, it’s my last term, I’m going to lead and do what’s right.” Doubtful, but I know Romney won’t. He’ll just do what he thinks he needs to do to get reelected. An Obama win gives us a chance with a rejuvenated Obama and a Republican party that can push out the hard right, religious, anti science, fear mongering, anti-thinking conservatives and come back in four years with a real game changer.

How to Renew your Chilean Work Visa

Category : Startup Chile
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I’ve gotten a bunch of questions lately about how to renew your Chilean work visa that you got as part of Startup Chile. You have three options:

  1. Let your visa expire. You must leave the country within 2 weeks of your visa’s expiration or else you must pay a fine. If you’re not sure how long you are going to be in Chile, you can always take a trip over to Mendoza and reenter on a tourist visa.
  2. Apply for a visa extension (prorroga de visa)
  3. Apply for permanent residency

Your original visa lasted for one year from when you arrived and will expire if you do nothing. This means your RUT will expire and you won’t be able to conduct much business in Chile. Also, if you stay in Chile past your visa, you will have to pay a fine as you are leaving.

The process to renew your Chilean work visa is not that difficult, but it can be confusing and time consuming. Here’s what I did to renew my visa in November 2011. I know a few other friends did the same process and had success. Please verify that this information is up to date before you rely on it, but I believe it to be current as of Oct 1, 2012.

You should start the renewal process 2-3 months before your visa is set to expire.

1. Review the information from the Chilean Extranjeria.

You must decide if you would like to extend your visa (prorrogar) or apply for permanent residency. It is much easier to apply for a visa extension, so I will be covering these steps in this article.

NOTE: Depending on your nationality, applying for permanent residency can have adverse tax implications, so consult with an attorney or accountant who will be able to advise you.

2. Review the Requirements to Extend (Prorrogar) your  Chilean Work Visa. You will need the following information:

  • Your completed application form that you printed off from the government website. Note: In box #9, check the “prorroga de visación” box
  • Three 2cmx3cm photos with your name and rut on the bottom. Any photo shop should be able to do this for you. Ask for foto carnet con nombre y RUT.
  • A photocopy of the front and back of your carnet
  • A photocopy of passport photo page
  • A photocopy of previous visa that is in your passport
  • 1 photocopy of Certificado de Registro, which you get from the Policía Internacional (Morandé Nº 672, Santiago Centro). You can potentially use a copy of the half page paper we got from the police when we first got here, but to be safe, go get a new one.
  • Certificado de antecedentes from Servicio de Registro Civil e Identificación de Chile emitted within the last 30 days. There are many offices in Santiago where you can get them, including the one on Huerfanos. Go to registro civil and click oficinas for a full list.

Note: Los nacionales de Colombia deben presentar además un Certificado de Antecedentes Judiciales vigente y totalmente tramitado y los nacionales de Perú deben presentar un Certificado Consular de Antecedentes Penales vigente solicitado en su consulado.

3. Include additional supporting documentation

Chile wants to renew your visa. At its most basic, Chile prefers skilled immigrants and wants to make sure that visa holders won’t end up living in the streets, participating in anti-government protests, committing crimes or asking the government for money. In addition to all of that information, I included the following documentation. I suggest you think about including the same. All documents translated into Spanish:

  • My professional resume
  • A list of all of the things I’ve done in chile
  • Any press I’ve gotten in Chile or abroad
  • A one page letter explaining why I wanted to stay in chile
  • A copy of documents showing that you have either incorporated in Chile or plan to incorporate. If you have already incorporated, send documents showing that you’re up to date on your taxes and all fees. Showing an office address is helpful as well.
  • An executive summary of my business
  • If you are employed by a company here in Chile, include your employment contract.
  • If you don’t have a business incorporate here or an employment contract check the box “trabajando por cuenta propia.” I’ve heard that it’s harder to get renewed without a company or an employment contract, but it can be done.
  • A copy of my original startup chile invitation letter
  • An overview of my personal finances including copies of my Chilean bank statements and current balances in selected foreign accounts.

4. Send all of this by certified mail (Correo Certificado) to:

SEÑORES:
SOLICITUD TEMPORARIA
CLASIFICADOR N° 8
CORREO CENTRAL
SANTIAGO

Note: Some people have had success going to the office in your region where you are living and delivering the documents in person. If you are able to do this, it’s better than waiting for the documents by mail, but many have been turned away. It’s worth a shot to try it in person.

5. Wait for your visa en trámite confirmation

You will get a piece of paper that says your visa is “en trámite” and you’ll need to take this paper with you if you want to leave the country. Chile’s computer system is not connected together, so the only way to leave and enter without paying fines or paying for a new visa is to bring this paper along with you.

If you have more questions, check out the extranjeria website or feel free to ask in the comments! Hope this is helpful!

Looking for more high quality information about Chile? Check out my book Chile: The Expat’s Guide:

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