Author: Greg Mitchell

Q4 2018 in the Peru startup community

It has a been a big year for the Peru startup community, highlighted by founders’ achievements, the PVCC and the Techstars Assessment. Our startup community is maintaining the pace throughout the last quarter of the year with multiple events for both founders and investors. Continue reading “Q4 2018 in the Peru startup community”

Storytelling 101: Anson Tou

Anson Tou, founder of Qempo, demonstrated what it takes to have a successful startup meetup:

  • Meeting space
  • Food
  • Presentation about a recent experience with key takeaways

That’s it!

IMAGE 2018-09-04 14_39_20
Anson sharing about his experience at Blackbox

Anson recently participated in the BlackBox acceleration program in the U.S., joining the ranks of Peru founders who have participated in acceleration programs outside the country. He returned to Peru and invited friends and founders to hear about his experience last Sunday afternoon in the common area of his office building.

Guess what? 50 people showed up.

This type of organic informal meeting are what Chris Heivly talks about in the Lima Startup Ecosystem Assessment as a key to building a more dynamic community: founders and ecosystem actors getting together to share their stories.

IMAGE 2018-09-04 14_39_41
Attendees at the Qempo Meetup

Qempo strives to democratize logistics and empower Peruvian entrepreneurs by providing access to international markets. Anson recently raised an investment round from friends and family investors.

Anson was nice enough to share his presentation. A few takeaways he had for fellow founders were:

  • Build empathy for customers by meeting with them frequently to understand their problems.
  • When raising capital ask investors “what three things do you want to learn?” prior to the meeting.
  • Investors in the U.S. focus on the market opportunity and want to invest behind founders with “Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goals”

Pedro Neira, the first Peru founder to participate in the program also attended the meeting. He is now a BlackBox ambassador in Latin America and is happy to share is experience with founders considering applying. Anson said that after talking to Pedro, we debating attending the two-week program due to its cost but after coming back he feels the future pay back will make it more that worth it. You can learn more and sign up for the program here.

 

9 places founders go for tech talent in Lima

Lima tech talent was a key issue mentioned in the Techstars Lima Startup Community Assessment, which recommended that we “greatly expand the entrepreneur funnel” by holding informal events, formal workshops and broadening the media coverage of the startup community.

Here is a list of places founders are looking for tech talent:
  1. GetOnBoard: Fernando Langschwager of Aprendiendo.la used GetOnBoard to find a CTO and two other people on his team. BlazingDB and AmigoCloud, two startups based outside of Lima, have also looked to find candidates in Lima on this platform.
  2. PagePersonnel: Ximena Caballero entered Page Group to lead a talent acquisition role for startups. She has helped Culqi look for experts in database administration, Java developers, and frontend developers. PagePersonnel also helps startups with other functions outside of technology. Ximena helped find a head of finance for Karaoke Smart. Here is a link to the PagePersonnel corporate presentation.
  3. Social Media: There are many groups on social media for developers, often divided by functional expertise and programming language.
  4. Accelerator programs: A great way to mix with other teams, compare notes on talent and build a team is at an accelerator programs. Especially programs like UTEC Ventures or EmprendeUP that are part of universities
  5. Teach: Teaching is a great way to share ideas and identify talented students that may want to work for you as interns or full-time professionals. Jaime Chiarella, a founder at Riqra, teaches at Kurios, a startup founded by Carlos Lau.
  6. Tech Founders: Tech-savvy founders like Ragi Burham, Eddie Wong, Rodrigo López are great at identifying talent. Reaching out to people like them to ask for ideas and vet potential candidates can help point you in the right direction.
  7. CTOs: Good CTOs know how to identify and cultivate talent. Julio Canares of Riqra, recently held a CTO Meetup event to share best practices and foster a community among his peers.
  8. Arequipa: There are great universities in Arequipa. Get on a plane and go see for yourself! Kenny Lazo is a great resource there who is part of a local group of tech-savvy people in the city
  9. Co-working, co-living spaces: Comunal and WeWork are top co-working destinations in Lima. Tap into these coworking communities to find people. Tekton Labs, led by Kenneth Lopez, and Endeavor Entrepreneur, works out of WeWork and has an entire team of top tech talent. Selina, a destination for digital nomads, is coming to Lima and will add an extra boost to our ecosystem. Pretty exciting!
Takeaway:

Founders who have success finding talent try more than one of the above channels to build their teams. I hope the above list is a good start to broaden your search and find the right people. How to hire and retain them is a subject for another post!