Tag: Technology

How do startups look like in the beginning?

Two guys in 1995 who were at Stanford had an idea to gather all the information of the world, giving rise to the birth of Google, which at first seemed that it was not going to be a company that had much potential, its logo is made in WordArt. Who would invest in their healthy judgment in a company whose logo is made in WordArt? it was also the number 12 search engine, Yahoo! it already existed, and Larry Page had to insist to 357 different investors before obtaining his first investment ticket.

All the Startups at the beginning look ugly and without much sense, the reality is that yours probably looks like this and that of many looks like that, and it does not matter, because the investor is not going to invest for what you are today, it is going to Invest for the vision you have, but you will pay today’s price. So do not worry about the best design, or if you do not have all the best, you will have it at some point, the goal is that today you concentrate on finding that problem and solve it, if you do that you will eventually work, like Google. For example, what would have happened if any of us had invested 1,000 pesos in Google in 1998, how much money would you have earned in 2010? Maybe then it was very easy to make the decision, and it always happens the same, when we see Google in 2010 of that size we say: “Of course it was obvious” but remember your WordArt logo, “it was not obvious” but there is people who have the ability to see the invisible. If any of us had invested those thousand pesos in Google in 98 we would have earned around 42 million dollars in 2010. Those are Startups, you kill the inflexible giant, you grow exponentially and you change the world. Focus on a problem, solve it and do not worry about how you look, know and understand that as Startup you probably need money, we know where you are standing but the important thing is where you want to go. I’m sure you’re already convinced and say “I’m going to be a Startup, I’m going to invest in a Startup, I’m going to find a problem, I’m going to solve it, I’m going to change a whole industry, I’m going to make a lot of money in the process and I’m going to benefit my investors”.

Now we have to understand a little bit the philosophy that exists between investor and entrepreneur, and what we have to think about here is that there is no difference between the entrepreneur and the investor, why? If a Startup solves a problem with innovation generates value, then the entrepreneur goes out with his Startup and tells a person that we call him an investor, hey, I give you a bit of that value in exchange for your money, if the investor accepts, you realize there was never a difference because you as an entrepreneur are selling value and he as an investor is buying value. It is important that we change that perspective we have of entrepreneurs who are “not doing anything” and transform them into “people who are generating value” through problem solving and innovation, and also stop seeing the investor in suits who If you give us an appointment it will be the best thing that happens to us in life and it will probably take us 5 minutes and we have to run away. I believe that today in the 21st century we are at a point where entrepreneurs generate value and investors give money in exchange for that, and it is such a common transaction.

How are Start-Ups born?

Surely you already want to be a Startup or that you would like to invest in a Startup, but before that there are some things to tell you.

There is a good and bad news. The good thing is that anyone can become a Startup. The bad news is anyone can become a Startup. What it means is, it’s a speed race.

Today a person with a computer can reach anywhere in the world and make virtually any digital innovation in that sense and create a gigantic business.

Continue reading How are Start-Ups born?

Expectations of a Startup

This is a continuation of the previous blog.

Startups are projects that solve a problem through innovation and are scalable. From what we mentioned in the previous blog, I think we already know that we all want to be a Startup and not an SME.

With all this innovation and with all these things:

  • What can we expect from the life of a Startup?
  • And what should our expectations be as Startup? either as an investor or as an entrepreneur.

There are four things that can happen.

1.- The first is that Startup starts to grow, grow and grow, until it does something called IPO which means that the company is made public and goes public, it is what a company could aspire to the most. Google and Facebook for example are out there as a public company where any of us can get and buy shares.

2.- The second option that a Startup could have is that it grows, grows and grows and someone arrives and buys it. For example, Facebook that is in the stock-market bought WhatsApp who were a company with 50 employees and did not even own the building where they lived and bought it for 19 billion dollars.

3.- The third option of a Startup is that it goes bankrupt, so simple, and in fact it is so common for Startups to break, that they invented an event called ‘Fuck up Nights‘ so you can see how people have or they had Startups have gone bankrupt.

What I’m going with this is that a Startup like we were at the beginning, solve a problem with innovation, if the problem exists and innovation is enough to solve that problem, then your venture will start to grow exponentially until a time when you are giant like Facebook or like Google because you changed an industry forever. Think of Uber, which changed an industry forever, we see taxis differently.

4.-The other option is that you die, there are no average options for Startups, as entrepreneurs and investors have to understand the risk that this implies, if we play and hit it, we will grow a lot, but if it is not going to end all, we cannot stay in the middle as it could be done by an SME that has been in the market for years and has a healthy operation year after year and will never grow exponentially.

That’s what we can expect from the life of a Startup. So, the question is:

Can we be a Startup?

Can we invest in that Startup?

and how will your Startup grow that exponential?

Wait for the next blog. ?

What is the difference between a startup and a SME?

What happens around us is the entrepreneur and the investor, and the reality is that the entrepreneur is not seen like very important and the investor looks like someone too sophisticated where we cannot make connection. That is completely wrong, a Startup when it is born and an entrepreneur what it does is that it is starting to generate value and if its Startup really is valuable the investor is going to want a little of that value, if we begin to translate that in other words, the entrepreneur is also an investor because he invested his time and effort in generating value, and now he is going to go out and he will be an investor who sells and on the other side there will be an investor who buys, one delivers a piece of the company and the other delivery money. We must begin to generate value as an entrepreneur and as investors we must understand that entrepreneurs are also valuable.

So, what is a Startup?

Continue reading What is the difference between a startup and a SME?

Mexico, the new tech frontier?

The number of entrepreneurs with new ideas that can change our country increases every day, that is why today we have the great opportunity to make Mexico a global economic power, to achieve this we must encourage the creation of new companies by supporting and financing the new entrepreneurs

Mexico is the second largest economy in Latin America and is becoming the last mecca of technological start-up.

Continue reading Mexico, the new tech frontier?