Latitud Podcast

There are a ton of bright shiny lights on the way to building a startup, and it's tempting to burn through cash for the sake of rapid growth. So after getting a big capital injection, for example, it's normal for founders to get excited. But how long can you keep this up before it becomes unsustainable?When you're playing the long term game, unit economics is something any operator should pay attention to. It not only helps you set priorities, but also build a path to profitability.Having met hundreds of founders in the past decade she's worked in VC, Mariana Donangelo has seen healthy unit economics as a common thread among successful businesses. She also experienced the power of this tool first hand at Invoice2go, where she lead growth for 4 years and made sure to understand and have better control of the levers that eventually made the company lucrative.Before Invoice2go, Mariana was an investor at Accel, helping close several deals in Latam. In 2020, she became a partner at Kaszek. Today, she talks to us about:The metrics you should look at to understand unit economicsHow they impact investment decisionsHer own initiatives at Invoice2Go to make it more sustainableAnd her views on how the VC ecosystem changed in the past 10 yearsBuilding good sh*t in Latin America? Learn about how Latitud can help you at latitud.com Discover and pitch Latitud Ventures, your partner from 0 to 1 and beyond Sign up for our weekly newsletter for founder insights and some tough love And follow us on Linkedin / Instagram / Spotify to stay in the loop

Alejandro Gomez de Greiff is a born and raised Cachaco (from Bogota) who you may find running in the streets of Colombia while listening to business and history audiobooks and podcasts. He studied industrial engineering and quickly joined the dark side, as he describes it, to become an investment banker. He was also the first employee at a Private Equity firm, where he worked for 6 years.After doing some corporate VC and angel investing, he started getting jealous of all the startup founding teams he was meeting and decided it was time to join them in the trenches. So he brought back to life an idea he had 8 years before with his friend Juan Martin, and together they launched Aptuno, a solution for seamless residential rentals.Find out how Aptuno works in this episode of Altitud, a segment of Latitud Podcast where we talk to the founders of the future high-flying companies connected to Latin America.Starting something new?Visit latitud.com to learn about the Latitud Fellowship program.Building good sh*t in Latin America? Learn about how Latitud can help you at latitud.com Discover and pitch Latitud Ventures, your partner from 0 to 1 and beyond Sign up for our weekly newsletter for founder insights and some tough love And follow us on Linkedin / Instagram / Spotify to stay in the loop

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” This powerful quote by Abraham Lincoln is often shared by our guest.Jason Yeh has spent a lot of time both fundraising and analyzing fundraisers. After working as an investor at Greycroft, starting a business and being acquired, he became Silicon Valley Bank's go-to Executive coach around fundraising. And too many times, he saw the negative impact that lack of preparation has – not only for the business, but for the founder's confidence and ability to deal with rejection. A lot of them needed more effective processes.That's why last year he launched Adamant Ventures, a firm dedicated to making fundraising easier and accessible. Today, he shares concepts like calendar density and purity of motivation, besides actionable tips to help you sharpen your axe.Stick around to learn:Some intricacies about investor psychologyGuidelines to develop your narrativeHow to rebalance the power dynamics between investors and foundersAnd his views on pre-money vs post-money SAFEsBuilding good sh*t in Latin America? Learn about how Latitud can help you at latitud.com Discover and pitch Latitud Ventures, your partner from 0 to 1 and beyond Sign up for our weekly newsletter for founder insights and some tough love And follow us on Linkedin / Instagram / Spotify to stay in the loop

Born in Iran, Yasaman Rajaee is a first-generation middle eastern immigrant woman. Besides having been a private tutor and teacher, she also has an impressive background as a student and researcher in Technology, Management, Computer Sciences and Engineering. At MIT, for example, she spent a few months investigating how Collective Intelligence can be used to improve the way organizations work. For the last 5 years, she has lived in 5 countries including Germany, Japan and the US. Now in the UK, she combines her experience in tech, education, product and community management to build Lernico, a new social learning platform, where expert can easily build and scale their online learning communities and monetize their knowledge through different types of premium content such as cohort-based courses.Find out how Lernico works in this episode of Altitud, a segment of Latitud Podcast where we talk to the founders of the future high-flying companies connected to Latin America.Starting something new?Visit latitud.com to learn about the Latitud Fellowship program.Building good sh*t in Latin America? Learn about how Latitud can help you at latitud.com Discover and pitch Latitud Ventures, your partner from 0 to 1 and beyond Sign up for our weekly newsletter for founder insights and some tough love And follow us on Linkedin / Instagram / Spotify to stay in the loop

Henrique Dubugras taught himself how to code as a teenager. He met his co-founder, Pedro Franceschi, over an argument on Twitter, which ended up turning them into best friends. The Brazilian tech duo went on to join teams at different startups and even start a few business projects. In 2013, they founded payments company Pagar.me — the Stripe of Brazil — when he was only sixteen years old.Pagar.me was sold in 2016, and Henrique enrolled at Stanford University. But he left after just a few months to follow his entrepreneurial instincts. In YC, him and Pedro started Brex, a B2B fintech that is an all-in-one finance for business, disrupting the century-old industry of banking small companies.Brex became a unicorn in record time. One year after its first product was released, it was valued at US$2.6Bn. Today, it's worth US$7Bn.In this episode, learn more about:Henrique's thoughts on fundraising and super high valuationsHow Henrique and Pedro make it work as co-CEOsAnd what is harder and easier about founding a company in the US vs in BrazilStarting something new?Visit latitud.com to learn about the Latitud Fellowship program.Building good sh*t in Latin America? Learn about how Latitud can help you at latitud.com Discover and pitch Latitud Ventures, your partner from 0 to 1 and beyond Sign up for our weekly newsletter for founder insights and some tough love And follow us on Linkedin / Instagram / Spotify to stay in the loop

Gabriel Monteiro is a second-time founder. His first company, Shopgram, was a fashion and decor marketplace, sold in 2015 to B2W, a leading digital commerce company in Latin America. Gabriel went on to work at B2W for 5 years, soon becoming the head of Submarino.com. That's where he met his co-founders and together they decided to start Newtail, an omnichannel platform that brings new capabilities to every brick-and-mortar grocery store, such as pickup in-store delivery, shipping from store, WhatsApp, and online marketplaces integrations.Gabriel is originally from Rio de Janeiro, where he lives with his wife. He's an Industrial Engineering graduate, a big Flamengo supporter, traveler, and videogame enthusiast.Find out how Newtail works in this episode of Altitud, a segment of Latitud Podcast where we talk to the founders of the future high-flying companies connected to Latin America.Starting something new?Visit latitud.com to learn about the Latitud Fellowship program.Building good sh*t in Latin America? Learn about how Latitud can help you at latitud.com Discover and pitch Latitud Ventures, your partner from 0 to 1 and beyond Sign up for our weekly newsletter for founder insights and some tough love And follow us on Linkedin / Instagram / Spotify to stay in the loop

It's hard to think about tech startups without thinking US and Israel, just like it's impossible for corporations to ignore digital transformation. In Brazil, there's one venture capital firm that is bundling all of that together, by investing in some of the most innovative companies abroad, bringing them to Latin America, and connecting them with big local companies to accelerate their adoption of technology.Mindset Ventures was co-founded by Camila Folkmann, one of the first Brazilian female founders of a Venture Capital firm. Camila started her career as a corporate lawyer, having worked for major law firms assisting Fortune 500 clients, but made a quick transition to startup and VC life after spending some time in the Bay Area. Back in Brazil, she was looking for opportunities to stay close to the ecosystem, which led her to join Acelera Partners, an investment holding spearheaded by Microsoft.There, she met her co-founder, Daniel Ibri, and they found out they had similar visions, eventually translated into Mindset Venture's thesis. Today, Camila shares not only what that is and how they invest, but also:Her insights into the Israeli entrepreneurial cultureThe biggest challenges for companies from Israel and the US to come to Latin AmericaAnd what to be aware of when accepting corporations to your cap tableStarting something new?Visit latitud.com to learn about the Latitud Fellowship program.Building good sh*t in Latin America? Learn about how Latitud can help you at latitud.com Discover and pitch Latitud Ventures, your partner from 0 to 1 and beyond Sign up for our weekly newsletter for founder insights and some tough love And follow us on Linkedin / Instagram / Spotify to stay in the loop

Demian Bellumio is the founder of Nue Life, a startup that is using technology and ketamin-assisted science-based treatments to make mental wellness scalable and cost-effective. Nue Life isn't based in Latin America, but it's situated in the gateway to the region, Miami.Father, immigrant and long-time entrepreneur, Demian was born in Argentina and started his first company right out of high school, selling marble flooring. After moving to Florida, he became an intern at Barclay Capital and convinced his boss to start a bank with him, Broadspan Capital. Demian went on to start a number of businesses in the Big Data and artificial intelligence space, and became a well-known name in the Miami tech scene.Find out how Nue Life works in the second episode of Altitud, a segment of Latitud Podcast where we talk to the founders of the future high-flying companies connected to Latin America.Building good sh*t in Latin America? Learn about how Latitud can help you at latitud.com Discover and pitch Latitud Ventures, your partner from 0 to 1 and beyond Sign up for our weekly newsletter for founder insights and some tough love And follow us on Linkedin / Instagram / Spotify to stay in the loop

For a long time, Loreanne Garcia and her brother, Carlos, had talked about building something together. Originally from Venezuela, they finally found the perfect opportunity in Mexico in 2016.That's when Lori, Carlos and their co-founder Roger started Kavak, an online platform for buying and selling secondhand cars. With a $4B valuation, Kavak became the first Mexican unicorn in 2020, right during the most unpredictable period most of us have experienced globally in our lifetime. Their fast response to the pandemic accelerated the company's growth, which is also operating in Argentina and expanding to Brazil.It was during her MBA at Stanford that Lori discovered she had a passion for people and culture and confirmed she wanted to be an entrepreneur. As Chief People Officer, she made sure they were very intentional about culture since day one and paid special attention to it as the business scaled to over 2,500 employees. Through this 5-year journey, Lori learned important lessons from taking the team to where they are, which she shares with us today.In this chat, find out:How Kavak measures and regulates its cultureHow they managed to create a mote from complexityAnd her advice on fundraising from the right investorsBuilding good sh*t in Latin America? Learn about how Latitud can help you at latitud.com Discover and pitch Latitud Ventures, your partner from 0 to 1 and beyond Sign up for our weekly newsletter for founder insights and some tough love And follow us on Linkedin / Instagram / Spotify to stay in the loop

Pomelo is the fintech as a service (FAAS) platform for Latin America, founded by former Mastercard, Mercado Pago and Naranja X executives. The startup took some of its first steps during the Latitud Fellowship program, where Gaston Irigoyen, Hernan Corral and Juan Fantoni joined the second cohort.Latitud had the privilege of being Pomelo's first check, later introducing the founders to over 25 funds globally. Now, they're raising $9M to build Latin America's fintech infrastructure, in one of the largest seed rounds in the history of LATAM’s tech ecosystem."We were looking for local flavor, global access, and lots of hustle", says Gaston – and they got it.Led by monashees and Index Ventures, the round also includes funds like QED and Scifi, as well as some of the most prominent angels and entrepreneurs in the region – Max Levchin (Paypal & Affirm), Biz Stone (Twitter), Angela Strange (a16z), Harry Stebbings (20VC), Martin Varsavski and the founders of Marqeta, Rappi, Auth0, Kavak, Loft and RecargaPay.Pomelo allows fintechs and embedded finance players to build digital accounts with compliant onboarding processes, as well as issue prepaid and credit cards throughout Latin America.In this chat:Pomelo's solution to a huge problemHow they put their team togetherHow the seed round played outNext steps after the fundingTheir experience at LatitudGaston's unconventional advice for foundersThis is the first episode of Altitud, a segment of Latitud Podcast where we talk to the founders of the future high-flying companies in Latin America, hosted by Brian Requarth and Tomas Roggio.#VamosLatamBuilding good sh*t in Latin America? Learn about how Latitud can help you at latitud.com Discover and pitch Latitud Ventures, your partner from 0 to 1 and beyond Sign up for our weekly newsletter for founder insights and some tough love And follow us on Linkedin / Instagram / Spotify to stay in the loop