Doing the Dirty Work

Category : Entrepreneurship
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In 18 months since starting Magma, we’ve invested in 18 companies. The biggest predictor of success so far is very simple: does the entrepreneur value doing the dirty work and is he or she willing and able to identify it and then do it.

Paul Graham calls it doing things that don’t scale. Sam Altman’s How to Startup class 8 is devoted to it. Successful entrepreneurs and VCs all have different names for it. But at the end of the day, it’s the same idea: the stuff that takes you from 0 to 1 and then 1 to 2 gets you on the path to validating your business and start to scale it without building software and business processes. (I wrote a blog post about doing the dirty work in an commerce company here.) (more…)

Startup Chile Application Help

Category : Startup Chile
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Startup Chile just opened the 15th round of applications this week and will stay open from now until September 29th with the winners being announced in December. In each of the previous rounds, 1500+  startups from more than 60 countries applied for the right to come to Chile for $20m Chilean pesos (US$34,000). Chile invited 100 of these 1500+ companies who applied and they will begin to arrive in the next months, joining the 1000+ startups who have participated in the program since 2010.

Startup Chile has become more competitive as the number of applications has grown. Round twelve saw applications grow and more than 2500 companies will likely apply to Round 13.
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Advice to My 20 Year Old Self

Category : Personal Thoughts
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I’ve been listening to Tim Ferriss’ podcasts lately and am really enjoying them. Highly recommended. He ends many of his interviews by asking his guests a list of short answer questions, one of which is some variation of “what advice would you give to your 10 years younger self.”

Most people give one or two answers, but others expand and give in depth answers. As I was wandering around Buenos Aires last week listening to Ferriss’ interview with Naval Ravikant, I started to think about what I would tell my 20 year old self. I stopped for some ice cream and started to write my list. After thinking some more, I came up with 20 things I’d tell my 20 year old self. I think there’s four really important things, then 16 more. Here’s what I’d tell my 20 year old self. (more…)

Case Study: Ecommerce Opportunities in Chile and Latin America

Category : Latin America Startups and Investing, Top
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Una versión de este post fue traducido a español por @Joseia (muchas gracias!) y apareció en Pousta con el nombre Conversamos sobre cómo montar tienda online con alguien que aprendió DEMASIADO al respecto.

In late 2012, I met up with two ex startup chile friends over beers. Like most beery conversations between entrepreneurs, the conversation devolved into new business ideas. All three of us had seen ecommerce’s steady growth in Chile and were certain that it would continue to grow toward levels seen in other developed markets. After a few more beers, one of us said, “why don’t we just start a small ecommerce business, it’s the best way to learn about the market and see where the real opportunities are.” (more…)