Latitud Podcast

We do not always realize it, but we are living in two economies: digital and analog. In fact, depending on who you ask, 2020 was either the best year for business or the worst, and a lot has to do with how these two orders contrast and relate. Today, 9 out of the 10 largest companies in the world are in technology, and many began as small startups not very long ago. Meanwhile, new startup ecosystems are developing and causing a surge of fast-growing tech companies that illustrate a massive global economic transition. Arnobio Morelix is a Brazilian based in Silicon Valley. Formerly the Chief Innovation Officer at Startup Genome, he advised governments and private organizations across 35 countries. He has authored research and analysis with Stanford University, the World Economic Forum, and others, and has been widely featured in global publications like the New York Times and the Economist, to name a few. Now the Chief Data Scientist at Inc. Magazine, Arnobio also recently wrote "Rebooted", a book that dives into tons of future-looking topics including post-pandemic economies, the tech butterfly effect, and the unintended consequences of major technological change. In this chat, we talk about a few of these topics and other insights Arnobio has accumulated over years of studying startup ecosystems. You'll learn: How founders and tech creators can navigate the next decade. The two main common threads of successful companies in 2020. How local and global connectedness influence performance. And how to build more responsibly to catch up on what he calls the 'fairness debt.' Learn more: Entrepreneur's Guide to Depression & ADHD workshop @ SXSW Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship InitiativeBuilding 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

Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do. That’s true for companies, it’s true for products, and it's true for VCs too. Emergence Capital is known for a few superstar deals, like Crunchbase and Zoom, but also for their focus sourcing and selecting deals. They look at B2B software as a service companies, and nothing else. In the early 2000s, when the firm started, it wasn't an obvious space to place a bet. But it turns out that massive value is unlocked when you hone in and focus. Today we talk to General Partner Santiago Subotovsky, who just became one of the first investors from LatAm to make the prestigious Midas List. In this episode:The advantages of staying focused. How they assess patterns of successful entrepreneurs. What he's learned from the founder of Zoom, their biggest investment to date. Are the best deals really the ones where there's controversy? Check out Latam's first rolling fund at fund.latitud.com 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

Avlok Kohli, CEO of AngelList Venture, discusses the evolution of venture capital with initiatives like rolling funds and syndicates. He explores the benefits and differences between these models, best practices for engaging LPs, and the future of the VC industry.

With a Harvard MBA under his belt, after his role as co-CEO of Groupon, Lucas Vargas had a lot of options for his next step. But he didn't take a step: he took a leap of faith – and decided to join a small proptech startup in Brazil called Viva Real.As CEO, Brian hired Lucas to be the Vice-President of Sales. Just a couple of years later, Brian knew Lucas was going to be his replacement when he eventually stepped out.It was a process of intense self-discovery and challenges for Lucas that involved managing highly experienced executives and having to let go of about 400 people, as he led the company through the merger with ZAP and the acquisition by OLX.Once the deal was finalized, he packed up these lessons to embark on a new journey: Lucas is now leading Nomad, a global digital bank offering financial services and investments for the Brazilian mass affluent.In this episode:How vulnerability got integrated into his leadership styleHow they used the DISC framework to build cohesive teamsThe importance of speed in an early-stage startup environmentAnd the behind the scenes of our merger with ZAPStarting 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

Falling and getting back up is what makes the cycles of an entrepreneurial journey, but some people just enjoy to be constantly getting ideas off the ground, even if the previous ones are growing steady. Alex Torrenegra is an example of this.Alex has been a friend for 10 years, and I'm proud that his first ever angel investment was in my company, Viva Real. You may also know him as a tiburón in the tv show Shark Tank Colombia. But before all that, Alex bootstrapped a number of companies, including Voice 123 and Bunny Studio, both of which he started with his wife, Tania Zapata.Then in 2020, after years of being an investor and his own venture capitalist, Alex went out to raise capital for a business of his own for the first time. And while a lot of founders may prefer to not have too many people on their cap table, he intentionally went the opposite way. By design, Torre's first seed round had over 50 investors from more than 15 countries.In this episode:His experience fundraising during the pandemic and being rejectedSome of his lessons from 20 years of building remote companiesThe model behind Torrenegra AcceleratorWhat was the most memorable pitch he's heard on Shark Tank and why it stuckMentioned in this episode:Check out Remoter, the why-and-how guide to building remote teams: https://www.remoter.com/en/remoter Learn more about Torre: https://torre.co/ Pitch by Kiwi on Shark Tank Colombia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_KE4ShB3-M 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

In the startup world, it's becoming more common for founders to share mistakes they made when they were starting out, but we rarely get to know about early mistakes investors make.Well, today, Jonathan Lewy is gonna bring the challenges he faced from both sides.Jonathan moved from Belgium to Mexico right out of college, and built a food delivery app called MiOrden that was sold to SinDelantal in 2012. His experience fundraising until then had been so frustrating that, after the acquisition, he decided to give back. That's when he joined his co-founder Sergio Romo again and together they started a seed capital firm called Investo.One of their first bets was Rappi, before many had dreamed of it being a unicorn. Today, Investo's portfolio companies also include Unbabel, Cambly, Runa and many others.But that's not all. Jonathan and Sergio also co-founded Grin, a brand you may have seen on scooters around one of their many locations. By merging with Brazil-based Yellow, Grin went from 4 to 2,500 employees in one year and became Grow, a micromobility pioneer.In this episode, Jonathan tells us aboutThe hiccups in his journeyHis counterintuitive tips on crafting a good pitchPrecautions on building a company that depends on VCAnd how to deal with conflicting interestsStarting 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

While a lot of VCs may ironically be discouraged by turmoil in emerging markets, Shu Nyatta feels comfortable in messy places. In his own words, because he grew up in one. A Nairobi native, he's lived in the US as a young consultant, in the UK as an Anthropology student, and in Dubai as a company operator. He even had a brief career as a recording artist – if you noticed a soundtrack change today, that's his music in the opening of this episode! It was through this winding journey that he found where he wanted to place his intellectual energy: financing tech and underrepresented founders. Shu joined the investment team at SoftBank in Silicon Valley in 2015, before it started revealing itself to the world as the powerhouse it is today. Since then, he's helped direct roughly 2.5 billion in growth capital to startups in Latin America. He's also behind initiatives like Softbank's AI Academy and the Opportunity Fund. In this episode, Shu urges you to embrace the mess as he talks about: The myth of the pipeline problem. Why momentum trumps market size. And how complexity becomes opportunity.  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

As the CMO of Cabify, Courtney McColgan led the company's market expansion from series A through series D, across 120 cities. She had roughly 350 people that reported to her. And every month, without exception, she received complaints from team members about issues with their paycheck. Motivated by solving a familiar challenge, Courtney founded Runa, a startup that automates payroll for businesses in Latin America. By then, from the time she spent at Cabify, she knew a thing or two about building a unicorn in the region. So she was ready to build her own. That, of course, came with a lot of challenges she wasn't so familiar with. In this episode, she shares some of the main ones, including: Building a senior management team remotely as a solo founder. Scaling software between Latin American countries. How her pitch changes when she talks to US investors vs local ones. And adjusting personal roles to take care of a fast-growing company. 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

Kevin Efrusy is low-key. You won't find a lot of interviews with him, and that's by design. One of his reasons is that he believes entrepreneurs should be the ones taking all the credit, and that's a testament to what an outstanding investor he is. But truth be told: Kevin has done a lot for many founders, Brian included, both as an angel and as a partner at Accel, a top-tier global VC firm, which he joined in 2003. He has incredible experience as an operator, having worked with Elon Musk in his first company, in the late 90s, and then moving on to founding a couple of really successful startups. Kevin was also an early investor in Facebook, when no one wanted that deal, and a lead investor in pioneering companies such as Groupon, Couchbase, and Despegar. Because of his special connection with Latin America, which he'll explain in the episode, Kevin leads Accel’s initiatives in the region. It also got him involved with the creation of LALA, an amazing world-class leadership academy that finds, connects, and develops Latin America's most promising young leaders. This is a fun – and rare! – chat that covers tons of lessons and untold anecdotes, so stick around to hear about: The early days of his journey as an entrepreneur and how that shaped him as an investor. The story behind the early investment in Facebook. And his advice on building and managing boards. 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

Stop fishing in the sludge. There's a lot more healthy fish where people don't go as often. And while some investors care too much about other investors' signals and might see particular markets as small ponds, Claire Diaz-Ortiz uses that as an advantage by searching for overlooked big opportunities.Claire is a VC, angel investor, author, and speaker who was an early employee at Twitter. Named one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company and called “The Woman Who Got the Pope on Twitter” by Wired, she joined Magma Partners in 2020 as an investing partner in Latin America. There, she runs Brava, the first initiative of its kind to invest in female founders across the region.In this episode:Her journey at Twitter until she became a VCThe dynamics of leverage and signalingIdeas to shockwave change towards investments in underrepresented foundersAnd tips to get the right investor's attentionCome on in, the water's warm!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