The sole reason we initially wanted to go to your country for was to renew our visa for LaOficina, and maybe to get out of hectic Buenos Aires for a while. We were told there isn’t much of a startup/freelancer scene in Montevideo.
Now, 10 days later, driving through the Pampa Argentina, with “El Bolson” set as destination in our GPS, we have our backpacks stuffed with amazing memories and a hard drive full of great video footage. Not much of a scene? Bulls$$t!
It started by contacting Carolina Banales, Co-founder of GlamST, a startup with the goal of changing the way women buy beauty products online.
Helpful as she was, she connected us with Eli Tuyaré who interviewed us for the “Café & Negocios Emprendedores” section of uruguayan newspaper El Observador. Carolina hooked us up with María Elia, manager of Co-Work Uruguay, who provided us with a space to work, gave us a tour through the shared office and connected us with literaly everyone working there. It was exciting to witness how Maria Elias really lives her role as a collaboration manager, keeping a close eye on the challenges and needs of every team and individual working at the Co-Work while also helping us out where she could; something I missed in Berliner co-works.
We interviewed Sergio Delgado Coto from davinci.uy, one of Uruguay’s incubators, who passed us a signed copy of his book Fundadores.uy, examining the success of 12 young Uruguayan internet entrepreneurs. Thanks Sergio, I’m sure Donimic will learn a lot of Spanish with it!
Fabian Fernandez, CEO of kzsoftworks.com, invited us to their backyard office and we had a nice chat about the scene in Montevideo over cola and sandwiches while Dominic used the WIFI to get some work done.
Fortune continued to be on our side: Someone in Co-Work Montevideo mentioned we’re in town on twitter, José Manuel Blanco read the tweet and interviewd us for the “Hoja de Router”, the technology news section of the spainish digital magazine eldiario.es
The highlight of our trip: visiting and working at the most awesome co-working space I ever saw – Sinergia Cowork
First off, we need to thank Macarena for giving us the awesome tour. What we found while passing small offices and open spaces where people building their own self cloning 3D printers, others building drones and designers changing the way we view branding. The interview that was definitly the most fun and inspiring was the mate drinking code wizards from 13floor.org who believe in the power of free software and got a real let’s-change-the-world attitude. Thanks for that guys, you really inspired us!
Sinergia is a role model of a cork working space: a diverse and creative place promoting collaboration.
Thank yous also go out to the Black Jack dealers at the Casino in Montevideo. Vin made half a fortune and then dissapeared for 3 days, god knows what he was doing
Last but not least, a big warm thank you to Andrea for showing me beautiful Punta del Diablo and to Mirna, our wonderful AirBNB host who provided us with a peaceful place near the beach. When asking what she did she told us that she’s a psychologist and started to do therapy sessions via Skype when leaving for 10 years to Mallorca. By doing videoconferencing she was able to keep her patients based in Uruguay and now has clients from all over the globe.
This was an awesome start, we can’t possible feel more welcome here!
We’ll miss you Uruguay, see you in about 6 months, we wish you the best, may you never run out of mate
Yours,
startupdiaries.org
