The Author
Argentine born entrepreneur, passionate about technology and robots in particular. Pioneered the game development scene in Buenos Aires. Currently leading Popego, an innovative software company that's building meaning with code and guts.
Proud Of
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Popego
Founder & CEO - Building meaning with bytes in the semantic web. -
Meaningtool
Popego's flagship semantic engine for the masses and the businesses. -
The Whuffie Bank
Co-Founder - Changing money forever with optimal reputation algorithms. -
Three Melons
Former Creative Director - Crafted games that made brands engaging. -
Game Developers Association
Co-Founder - Explaining mothers in Argentina how games are art. -
Palermo Valley
Co-Founder - The entrepreneurial neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. -
Evoluxion
Founder - Made games for the football conoisseur.
Good Stuff
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Strange Knot
Emiliano Kargieman - Technologist and Venture Capitalist pursuing true change in this world. -
Cosas Que Te Pasan Si Estás Vivo
Liniers - My brother, responsible for most of my cultural background and world famous comic artist. -
Riesgo & Recompensa
Santiago Bilinkis - Great entrepreneur with a clear and sharp style for sharing experiences. -
Denken Uber
Mariano Amartino - Simple and elegant blog that covers the buzz of the tech scene. -
Ariel Arrieta
An authority in online marketing and advertising, making sense of all the wandering bits of the net. -
Psico Geek
Ismael Briasco - A very open and outspoken entrepreneur always sharing good tips from his experience.
Endeavor ‘09 - Innovation Means Risk
Written 2 years ago
These are the slides from the presentation I made last Wednesday on the Endeavor Conference 2009. A great conference that aims to inspire all the entrepreneurs out there that are working to make a change in countries like mine.
It was a privilege to be invited for a 2nd time on this prestigious event. Last year I was part of an interesting excercise were I had to pitch my company to a bunch of venture capitalists. And this year, I got to share some views about Innovation and Technology along with my colleagues Mariano Suarez Battán (CEO of Three Melons) and Gonzalo Alonso (COO of Globant).
About the slides:
It’s basically a collection of stories that I had previously wrote on this blog. And then I rant a little bit about how far away we are in Argentina, were we basically have 2 models for a software company:
- The Regional Formula — Startups seeking for investment on a risky country such as Argentina, try to mitigate the intrinsic risk of innovating by implementing an idea that already works on the developed world and import it to the region (Latin-America). Innovation on this kind of companies, usually has to do with how you tackle a market that’s different from the US or Europe. Example: In Lat-Am, people aren’t used to make online transactions with credit cards, so you must figure out a payment system innovative to the region.
- The Outsourcing Formula — If there’s no investment available at all, then you must build your startup by signing up clients and doing work-for-hire. If you’re good at it, you will end up doing the dirty work for the big projects that are cooked up in the US or other innovation centers. You won’t be producing intellectual property and the more clients you get, the more people you must hire. This model is the step that taught a lot of lessons in China and India, but unfortunately we don’t have billions in Argentina. I suggest that this kind of companies should start talking bigger risks, many of them already are.
We need to invest on ideas. Innovations. It’s too damn risky, but it’s absolutely worthwhile if 1 startup out of 10 makes it right. This is the investment model venture capital has in the US and other places like Israel. The beauty of this model, is that you’re not investing on the growth of a simple idea, but on the breakthrough of a revolution.
