Start-Up Chile

Start-Up Chile — No Comments
20
Aug 11

First Meetup in Viña del Mar

I spoke at a meetup last week. To clarify, a meetup in Chile is considered more of a presentation by one person or group on a specific topic. Back in Canada and the rest of North America I think we consider meetups more of a social gathering around a shared interest in anything from Twitter to Feminism.

Start-Up Chile asked me to speak about my project and entrepreneurship. I figured I could do this. Talk about my background, how I got to Chile, give some good no bullshit advice on being an entrepreneur. Heaven knows there’s enough patting on the back and good-for-you’s going around.

Several things went wrong. Continue reading →

Build Off / Start-Up Chile — No Comments
5
Aug 11

Why I’m in Chile

A friend of mine, Sean Collins, as me this morning about why I chose to apply for Start-Up Chile. He asks

“I’m messaging because I’d love to pick your brain a bit about SUP as I’m smack dab in the middle of the fence on applying. I’ve got a few questions that I’d appreciate you taking the time to answer as there really is no other way to get clarity on the situation than to talk to someone on the inside, actually living it.

As with every time I ask for people’s opinions, the most blunt and honest you can be, the better. Continue reading →

Start-Up Chile — 3 Comments
4
Aug 11

On Reimbursements and Tear Gas

We journeyed back to Santiago today. The long distance bus system here in Chile is very good, and very cheap. 1.5 hour round-trip only costs about $10 CDN. Not too shabby :) That same trip is over $50 in Canada.

Arriving in Santiago the conductor on the metro line was telling people that several stations were closed… or rather, under siege. We, however, didn’t speak enough Spanish to interpret this and we got off at our regular stop at the University de Chile, to go to the CORFO Start-Up Chile offices. The second we got off the train we thought we could smell someone welding, or something burning. Turns out that smell was tear gas, and the burning was our lungs! Continue reading →

Build Off / Mesh Canada / Start-Up Chile — 1 Comment
27
Jul 11

Arrival at Start-Up Chile

Some background: We’ve been running Mesh Canada for a little over two years. Our company realized that we would rather be writing the software tools to manage wireless hotspots rather than physically deploying them. There’s simply too much red tape to cut, hoops to jump through, and truck rolls to pay for when it comes to running a company based around physical hardware management. Software as a service, however, is relatively painless since we can manage everything from wherever we are and our potential market broadens to almost every country on the planet.

We mashed together our own minimally viable product for a client and when I heard about Start-Up Chile (SUP) we decided to apply. The next iteration of our product, Surreal, was somewhat planned and we thought it would be a great opportunity to focus if we were in a foreign incubator. Continue reading →

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