It has been a while since I post in this blog. And although having been very busy is just an excuse, it is the reason behind not doing it. Over a year ago I started an entrepreneurship effort in Colombia. I came all the way from Australia, started a company and began trying to build-up something worthwhile. And I went into it not having a clue about what I was doing.
I started by trying to replicate my last few jobs as an employee. And I, obviously, failed miserably at it. More by luck than anything else I sold a couple of projects, aimed at anything and everything, and at the end didn't achieve much. Through the months I spent on that route I realized I didn't have any idea about entrepreneurship. However, I was lucky to count with great people around that believed in me. And that is when I decided to actually create something. I pivoted, and started to try and build a product to solve a corporate need I knew existed. A product based on my experience abroad. And when I started knocking doors to hire a company to build it, I ran onto one of the biggest disappointments I have had: out of 15 companies I talked to, I could only come out with a single proposal.
As it turned out, this took me all the way to the end of the year and given how things slow down in Latin America in Christmas, I decided to put the plans on hold. That gave me space to rethink the process, change the idea a bit, and decided I had to develop it myself. And while on this process, the Founder Institute came about. An incubator based in Silicon Valley, brought to Colombia by Alan Colmenares, it opened a chapter in Bogota, and it helped me focus in a way I couldn't have done on my own. Not long ago, seven companies graduated after a intensive, hard, challenging but worthwhile process. I did write a post about it about it (in Spanish) and here is the pitch done at the end of the process (Spanish as well):
The best outcome of this process, is that it is just beginning. The company has just started, but with a strength and momentum that on my own (and here I should mention Andres Cifuentes, cofounder) I would have never achieved. And something else: I have realized I will no turn back from being an entrepreneur. It makes all the sense to me. It is wonderful.
