There’s always melancholy with endings. But as the expression goes, endings are just the end of a beginning. By the time this journey would wrap up in Bogota, that would become exceedingly clear.
This was the last stop. Dom had returned home already, Vin was heading home, and Fab was going to pack up La Oficina and get on a plane bag to Berlin as well.
Before shipping La Oficina home though, Fab had one last bucket list item to check off.
After spending a month in Peru, it was time to head up north to Ecuador. The drive there had the usual – working on the sides of dirt roads, the car breaking down and waking up besides the ocean.
Well that’s been pretty usual on this trip.
What wasn’t as usual were the entrepreneurs and nomads we’d meet, including the “Steve Jobs” of Ecuador who would share his ideas on what work is, should, and can be.
Oh yea, Fabian gets a good whipping and also exposes the scam at the “Mitad del Mundo”.
After a really long drive across Chile and into Peru – the team arrived in Lima exhausted and it wasn’t getting better. Endless interviews, new business, and keeping up with Startup Diaries – it all became almost unbearable.
To relieve the stress, the team took a business incentive, a retreat, deep into the Peruvian jungle to escape the day-to-day and reset with the help of a shaman and his substances.
When you think about startup scenes, few people think of cities in South America. Even fewer would think of Santiago.
But that is changing quickly.
Here are a few numbers on Startup Chile, a government backed program to build a world class startup scene.
Here are some numbers (as of March 2015):
17930 Startups have applied to SUP program
1058 Startups have been admitted to the program
2330 Entrepreneurs given funding
75 Countries represented
We had the incredible opportunity to talk to the executive director of SUP, Sebastian Vidal, as well as 3 brilliant entrepreneurs about their projects.
In this episode you will meet:
Startup Chile
Startup Chile
Andres Pinochet – General Manager of Urban Station Chile
Urban Station Chile
Sebastian Vidal – Executive Manager of Startup Chile
Sebastian Vidal on LinkedIn
Pancho Troncoso – Co-Founder of uanbai.com
uanbai.com
Bianca Wilk
Bianca on Twitter
Ben Kneppers – Founder of bureoskateboards.com
bureoskateboards.com
About a 1000 km south of Santiago is the Llanquihue region, an area known for it’s perfect volcanoes, emerald lakes, excellent fishing and beautiful ports.
It is also the last place we expected to find a co-working space.
Though, in retrospect, the people were kind, friendly and ready to use Sprite to cool an overheated engine – innovative.
And yes, car troubles, though not with the Land Rover!
Inspiration is everywhere.
In this episode you will meet:
COWO Puerto Montt
COWO Puerto Montt
Alejandro Javier Velazquez
Pablo Joost
When it comes to redefining how we work, Val Figallo is an inspiration to us at Startup Diaries. A self taught developer from the age of 14, she made the choice on her own to drop out of school. Every kid in the world would jump at that opportunity and perhaps rightfully be denied, but not Val. She made such a strong case, that her parents weren’t able to deny her search for an alternative life path.
And she quickly proved to them that she had made the right choice.
A textbook example of those people who inspire us, this is why we are travelling across South America on our search for the people redefining work. It follows a path that is unexplored, where most people may rightfully call you crazy but you prove them wrong.
Val is a trailblazer. She spoke to Fab in La Oficina as they drove around the streets of Lima. And she explained how a model from the USA and a Western Union payment, changed her life forever. Check out the video on our Youtube channel and don’t forget to subscribe.
