Checkin El Futuro in VH

So my time in VH was well spent through diferent things including hanging out with a friend from Cancun that was visiting my hometown. So I was in charge of being his tour guide, and was able to check out the city and also realize how much it has changed throught he last year. I was well surprised seen some new things going on in the city but also a bit let down by the many issues that the many problems that the city has been a victim off, including the danger of being flooded once again by the river. 

An event was done during this week which included the tours of many developers from different parts of the country and the US. We were able to party and also chat with many developers about code and open source. Most of the guests were portraid around entrepreneurship for this event, but once we start talking many of the american guys were al about the code including ex-developers from Gnome and other FLOSS projects. 

Most guys were very well rounded Unix guys that knew about code, business developments and enterprising new events. However some clear gaps happened between the american and the Mexican ones, and like one of my rants was the lack of addressing some of the more structural things that need to happen to put startups afloat. 

I didnt attend many of the meetings because I wasnt able to assist during the morning, but some I attended virtually through the livestream channel. With talks from people from Microsoft and some twitstars that were widely critisized. I was able to attend a panel which was extremiley boring and somewhat weak. 

Another lack of mention was the absense of code discussions, not just languages but also technologies and oportunities from these technologies for new markets. I would have like to see more code and howto discussion on how to create the apps and bring the ideas to a functional stance. 

Of course there was many good things as well, the community seems to be more efficient as they work together and also bring more people into this movement. There was a good coordination of multiple activities including the hackspedition, the super happy dev house, a project evaluation and idea workshops. 

Also hanging out with some old friends as well as new was very enjoyable and also be able to see them as an evolution from years before. Some new ones including Dennis and John from the US were great party buddies and help to add more adventurous spirit to the evenings. 

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Financial engineering your way to startup your business

Ok one topic that I seldomly aboard during my interventions at some of my geek meetings I have down here in cancun is the topic about fund raising for enterprising. And here is a topic that I am usually appealed but really never confronted or at least be able to debate. The topic lies on the lack of knowledge and over simplification on the way of getting money.

Like I said in the past, most people here reffer to their government for everything. Entrepreneurial topics are full of governemnt funded as a valid and almost unique way of getting capital. Most mexicans believe that their government will take care of them and they are in the obligation of providing the means to encourage prosperity.

I usually I am dettached from these talks maybe for cultural reasons. However also for susteinability reasoning. Most of the times, liberalistic U.S. mentality of self sustainability, avoid any contact if possible with governments as they are just a way to stumble and delay things from happening thanks to their infinite ammount of bureacracy.

But comming back to the topic, financial engineering is basically the term that I have used to categorize topics related to capital raising for business development. Financial engineering will try to refine these efforts into “out of the box” systems that allow the company or rather entrepeneur to get a way with cheap money to build infrastructure.

One of the blame that I put on traditional way of doing business is that people don’t pay much mind about how to work with money. Money is seen some times as the goal but very little time is spent on understanding money as a tool. From credit, to venture capital, to investments to financials are topics that most people in general entrpeneurs or else avoid at all cost. There is these feeling of finance is about math and for that we don’t want to deal with it because is very scary.

However financial engineering really deals with processes and ways to build cash flow pipes and techniques to acquire resources.

I would be the first one to say that I don’t know about these processes but this is why I want to raise the topic everywhere I go and I am facinated by it. Because of the potentials that these practices gives to people is why we want to have some kind of experiences and case studies and test it in a regional context. To be honest most of these “out of the box” models are also seen as “out of the law”, and a risky business. Lack of understanding also big failures on money laundry and such have given people even less interest to understand it.

So this is why engineering word comes through, because is not just about understanding and master it, but also to modify them, refine them and adapt them to each social structure.

Here are some of the models that I have seen in the past:

• Angel investments, yes they do exist, but how to find it is the big variable here.
• MLM, also known as piramid marketing is widely used but also very bad seen.
• Poncey scheme models, also very risky business, borrow petter to pay john, is something that might not work in the long term, but it does provide some quick capital to at least get yourself started.
• P2P credit systems, this is a new one, and is a form of angel investment but distributed, this is also what kickstarter have inspired so many people before
• Asset protection, not really a financial engineer topic more than a asset protection startegy
• Freemium models, also not a financial engineer topic but a business development strategy and case study nonetheless

I am still in a early search and to be honest I havent really asked google except a few times, but these type  of topics is something that I would love to exchange with people that know a bit more about them.

#CPMX startup conferences

I want to share some of the conferences and panels that took place at the 3rd edition of Campus Party in Mexico city. Great conferences were delivered althought it wasn’t the greatest ever there is definitely an improvement in the way they were documented and also some of the dynamics that were given. One of the things that I have seen failed and failed again is the lack of startups and this session seemed to be more focus on entrepreneurship. The same could be said about social media. However development has been less atractive and some might say that there was small to no development going on.

The need for creating digital assets such as development is something that we consider important to the goals of the digital economy. Creating systems and software that can indeed improve the stance of the current lifestyle.

Here are some of the conferences that stood out on the topic of devleopment:

 

First one was a conference more focused on the eduction of entrepreneurship and using FLOSS as tool to entrepreneurship than FLOSS itself. I didn’t really got what I was expecting which was more of the tools that every entrepreneur most have and pay attention to. Nor was about opportunities in FLOSS world to innovate and build startups which was also another thing I was very interested. However the talk did focused a lot of enterprising something in Mexico and the unique challenges and how to handle them. The valuable bits were about social entrepreneurship, getting to know people but implement systems to process and manage the company and how to quickly act upon.

Another talk on entrepreneurship was also the struggles that entrepreneurs usually face and some of the lessons that have been learned through out the experiences on the panelists. Some of these we have already shared in our weekly geek meetups. Things like, understand capital, think globally and innovate fixing things that others haven’t done so. Also think on a more pro-active way on supplying and addressing the issues that everyone might have. Think in english and relate yourself with people world wide, not just on your national or regional language.

Other panels also talk about the issue of funding and the resources available nationally and internationally. How many of these fundings are for the right kind of startup and who can actually reach them. Not just the classic, look how much funding there is, but also how hard and unreal is such funding for the digital startups and most of the innovation comes through. Conference starts on minute 21.

Finally there was another entrepreneurial talk “off-campus” but that goes more close to home in my hometown. About entrpreneurship about not overcomplicate too much with our ideas and how to treat them.

The thing I recomend was about trying to broad the conversation with other entpreneurs as well as how to watch the innovation from other companies. Researching lots of startups and reading books on startup as well as podcast channels such as This week in Startup where you can learn how to evaluate ideas and how to know what are the parameters on think about startups.

Como motivar el emprendurismo

Durante esta semana, tuve una platica con unas personas que estan muy involucrados con estimular el emprendurismo local. Sin embargo despues de la reflexion que tuve en varias platicas, y tambien de podcasts que he escuchado, como emprende.la y this week in startup. Algo que veo comunmente es muchas personas piensan en las universidades como el detonador unico de lo que se quiera. Sin embargo cada vez las universidades van perdiendo reelevancia y la verdad es que es muy disruptivo el mundo en que vivimos, creo que solo hay que resolver dos factores.

Como presentamos la opcion, y como la documentamos. El ir tras las universidades no es mala idea, puede ser una gran plataforma, sin embargo, si nos presentamos via la universidad tenemos el riesgo que se vea como parte del trabajo y quitar ese sentido de “diversion” que hace que la gente se interese por si misma mas que porque es parte de la tarea.

Cuales son los sentimientos del emprendedor? Para poder tener un buen sentido del emprendimiento quizas debamos analizar los factores fundamentales que motivan al emprendedor. En otras palabras, que es lo que crea la visión. Cuando vemos a una persona haciendo una empresa, erroneamente la llamamos emprendedor. Sin embargo esto no es del todo cierto, por lo menos no es del tipo que nos interesa necesariamente. Por que? Por que pueden haber emprendedores por necesidad, por ejemplo nadie lo quizo contratar asi que puso su changarro.

Existe el emprendedor por que quiere ser su propio jefe, este emprendedor ha tenido empleos en el pasado, pero se quemo tanto que ahora quiere ser su propio jefe. Con que el sea el manda mas, y pueda vender, todo esta bien. Este emprendedor, no es malo tampoco, de hecho muchos emprendedores estan en este rango, sin embargo ellos estan enfocados en sobrevivir. La motivación mas grande es crear dinero y la ruta de como lo generen quizas es el segundo paso. Aquí la innovación no es demasiado investigada, realmente lo que se quiere es tener mas clientes, y el producto sea el que se espera pero nada mas ni nada menos. A menos que un cambio fuerte lo forze esta empresa hara siempre lo mismo por siempre.

La clase que nos interesa es la clase que tenemos de emprendimiento por innovación, y en esta la empresa no es el foco de atención. La empresa es una parte del proceso de ejecutar la visión. Cual es esta visión? Es la de resolver un problema.  Muchas veces estos emprendedores se catalogan como obsesionados con resolver el problema, y la empresa es un facilitador que permita operar y generar recursos para resolver este problema. Esta clase de emprendimiento realmente es de la mejor clase ya que el espiritu de emprendimiento es potenciado por un sentimiento que va mas aya de supervivencia (alias temor a morirse de hambre) y aplica a conseguir algo que el quiere (ambisión y deseo).

El 2ndo tipo de emprendimiento, es un deseo a tener cosas que garantizen su supervivencia. El tercer tipo es el deseo a obtener algo, donde es solo el gusto y la tesonería de ver su meta completada. Pensemos en ser un fan de un equipo de deportes, y la ambición de ver tu equipo ganar puede mas que muchas otras cosas que normalmente no contemplarias.

Como motivamos a este tipo de emprendimiento. Quizas la pregunta mas dificil de contemplar, y desafortunadamente aun no tengo una respuesta, pero tengo ciertas ideas. Quizas mas personas puedan opinar desde un punto de vista mas experimentado como psicología humana, y comportamientos predominantes de este caracter.

Realmente es importante entender que estamos estimulando un sentimiento, así que es muy importante el mensaje “no verbal” como la presentación del mensaje.

Las escuelas de mercadotecnia usualmente se conoce como comportamiento del consumidor. Analisis psicologicos apuntan a metas emocionales mas que un mensaje directo. Relacionar la marca con un momento feliz en su vida es mas importante quizas que vean la marca diciendoles por que deben comprar sus productos.

Recordar el perfume que llevava tu novia en esa primera cita versus, ver un super espectacular en la calle de la marca del perfume es quizas un ejemplo mas claro donde se dirige este mensaje.

Pero, como seducimos al sujeto a tener este tipo de reacción. Usualmente la respuesta es que — tiene que venir de el. Posicionarnos en lugares donde pueda despertar la curiosidad del individuo. Spokesman o voceros con un renombre que puedan despertar una aspiración por parte del sujeto es critico, el segundo paso es la accesibilidad a la información.

Muchas veces podemos despertar el sentimiento de curiosidad, pero si no hay un segundo paso, esta curiosidad muere. Usualmente en los eventos, esto pasa asi. Los eventos pueden capturar la atención del individuo, tambien despertar sus deseos, sin embargo la falta de seguimiento, o de accesibilidad a la información hacen que estos deseos desaparescan.

Podemos medir cuantas veces debemos tener interacciones con el sujeto para poder inspirarlo a hacer algo? Bueno ese algo depende del grado de que tan convencido este que esto funciona, que le beneficie y que pueda palpar su efectividad. Este paso es una prueba de vida. Una garantia que pueda sentir que vale la pena lunchar por esta. El tour por una fabrica quizas sea suficiente para convencer a los sujetos que esto existe, que esta produciendo y que puede ser suyo si se apegan. Sin embargo, debemos cuidar que este mensaje no este desvirtuado por el dinero, o el estatus, sino por el deseo de querer algo. Esto me recuerda a un comercial de Michael Jordan donde el se hecha la culpa de haber ganado todos esos campeonatos. Veanlo aquí.

Quizas es mi culpa. Quizas es mi culpa que te hize pensar que esto era facil cuando no lo era. Quizas te hice pensar que mi carrera empezo en la linea de castigo y no en el gimnasio. … Quizas te hice pensar que basketball era un don de dios y no algo que tuve que trabajar todos los dias de mi vida. Quizas destrui el juego, o quizas solo estas poniendo excusas.

Al final creo que es un reto de venta, como podemos vender el sueño del entrepreneur sin desvirtuar la visión. Como podemos hacer para entregar información de calidad y empujar la conversación a incluir a estas nuevas personas. Pero tu que piensas? Que crees que puede haber de aquí para motivar el emprendurismo?