Athlytics: A new connection between coaches and athletes

When we first met Dan Reardon, a recent University of Pennsylvania graduate, we all couldn’t help but note how strange our meeting was. Here we were, three recent college graduates from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, meeting for the first time at a café table in Santiago, Chile. 

Dan had come a long way from UPenn to give his fledgling start up, Athlytics, a shot thanks to Chile’s innovative government program: Start Up Chile. In return for living in Chile during the duration of the program and contributing back to the community, Dan was given a 30,000 USD grant (no equity) to help fund the business. What does Chile get out of the deal? The purpose of Start Up Chile is to ignite a spirit of entrepreneurship in Chile.

“A great benefit of Start Up Chile is that entrepreneurs receive six months of runway. We don’t have to show numbers to investors or anything like that. It really allows us to process the business model without any constraints.” At the end of the program, entrepreneurs pitch their product or service to a group of potential investors on Demo Day.

“Start Up Chile has given me the opportunity to best nurture my product and idea and best position myself for future growth.”

Dan’s start up - Athlytics is revolutionizing the way coaches and trainers communicate with their student athletes. Athlytics is an app that helps coaches and trainers work better with student athletes to improve their training programs, no matter their location (think summer break). 

Athletes can track fitness goals, communicate with coaches and trainers and manage their fitness programs with more control. “We are currently focused on providing the service to high school and university student athletes but may expand to personal trainers or physical therapists in the future.”

“Our differentiator is that we have superior user experience.” Dan saw that many fitness apps were either too complex with too many analytics and a high learning curve (these might be used by professional athletes), or too bare bones with not enough data given (think iHealth – Apple’s free fitness app on the iPhone). Athlytics sees itself in the middle, providing excellent software with high amounts of data in a simple, user-friendly platform.

Best Energy: Providing the energy of the future

“About 65% of homes in the center of Chile have limited or no access to hot water,” says Martin Vender Acevedo, CEO and Co-Founder of Best Energy, a B Corp start up in Santiago, Chile. “This year, we plan to tackle 3.3% of homes, installing solar panels in low income housing.” By installing solar panels, low-income communities are able to increase their overall health and gain extra cash through the sale of solar energy to the government. “The cool thing about being in this business is that we benefit the community in so many ways. At Best Energy, we measure the success of our company in the number of low-income housing installations, the amount of CO2 retained because of the use of solar energy over traditional means, and savings provided to low-income communities. We are truly making a difference.”

Today, Best Energy has installed solar panels on 3,000 houses with about 60-70% of their income coming from public housing. Each house saves 1 ton of CO2, and their revenue goals are directly linked to the tons of CO2 saved. By 2020, Best Energy hopes to have 50,000 clients, ultimately leading to 250,000 tons of CO2 retained and 65,500,000 USD in savings for low-income communities.

So if Best Energy is working with low-income communities, where exactly does the revenue come from? “The Chilean Government has incentive programs for low income communities which we utilize to create our installations,” explains Martin. For new houses, the government pays Best Energy to install the Project through developers. “These projects make up 60% of our revenues.” The rest of their revenues are from old houses in low-income communities. “For this type, the government pays us directly for each house we install a solar collector,” says Martin.

“My job as an entrepreneur and leader is to discuss the mission with my employees and customers. When my employees understand the impact each action makes on the community, it makes their jobs worthwhile,” says Martin. “They think I’m crazy because I don’t speak about money. For me, it’s all about the mission.” Martin grew up in a business-oriented family, and is an avid pilot and professional sailor. His B Corp score was 84 points in 2013 and scaled to 113 points during his recertification this year.

Co-Work LATAM: "It all started with a failure..."

It all started with one failure. A few years out of university with experience in the boutique investment-banking world, Sebastian O’Ryan got the entrepreneurial bug and launched a toy company in Chile with a couple partners. “We had huge success as a company, but in the end we had to shut the business down. We didn’t have the expertise or cash flow to run the business,” says Sebastian. “Looking back, we had made so many mistakes that were just so obvious.”

Sebastian and his partners decided to pass along their experiences, about both their failures and successes to the entrepreneurial community by creating co-work spaces. “If we can pass along our experiences to others, we can help them avoid the same mistakes we did, and in the end, develop their businesses more efficiently and successfully. That’s really cool.”

After four years, Sebastian now has six co-work spaces in Chile, Uruguay and Colombia. “We are currently opening the seventh and by the end of the year, we’d like to have a total of 10 co-work spaces up and running. At Co-Work LATAM, one of their defining principals is radical collaboration where you commit to helping your fellow co-workers while expecting nothing in return. “We have a 5 minute rule. When someone asks you for help, you have to agree to give him or her at least 5 minutes of your time. You never know where a connection or piece of advice will change the tables for a business. The 5 minute rule encourages the sharing of experiences.”

For Sebastian, one of the things that makes him happiest about the business is when he sees two people working together on a project that didn’t know one another previously. “We are making changes in people’s businesses and personal lives for the better.”

As Co-Work continues to expand, one of their biggest challenges is maintaining their culture throughout all locations, regardless of the country it’s located in. “I would love to have a co-work in each of the most important capitals around the world. That’s between 50 and 100 locations! By 2020, I hope we’ll be at 50 locations.”

At the end of the day, “if you think of all the risks an entrepreneur takes and analyze them, you wouldn’t be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs have to be “stupid enough” or “inspired enough” to ignore the risk and start their enterprise regardless of risk. But, at the end of the day if it wasn’t for these crazy, innovative entrepreneurs we wouldn’t be the same society we are today. They make the world of a difference.”

TOC: Keeping LATAM safe one fingerprint at a time

In Santiago, Chile, TOC is doing its part to increase security and privacy for consumers through its biometric security systems and electronic signatures. When wandering around Santiago, it isn’t unusual to find TOC hardware asking to capture your index of thumb finger and scan your identification card in exchange for signing a document and/or ensuring your identity. “Today, it’s easy to steal your information and assume a fake identity, but at the end of the day, these people could never steal who you truly are – and that’s recorded in your fingerprint,” states Ricardo Navarro – CEO, founder and inventor of TOC.

Identification cards are used in roughly 50% of the world (not in the USA). They carry a chip containing information on your identity including an image of your fingerprint, your national number, birthdate, address, etc. TOC reads identification cards and double checks information provided against fingerprints for security purposes. To ensure maximum security, TOC captures between 40 and 120 characteristic points that are unique to your finger. “We have never had a fraud or false positive identification, and our false rejection rate is the lowest on the market, lower than 0.8%” says Ricardo, “while our competition has a false rejection rate of 18-20%.” Watch the video below to learn more about TOC's technology (If video does not appear in email, click here.)

Their revenue model consists of three key points: the rental of their hardware with unlimited ID verifications, the number of electronic signatures, and their new development which works on smartphones and tablets with biometric sensors. Today, TOC is doing business in Chile and Peru. In 2014, they won the Innova BBVA contest, DigitalBank Latam contest in Santiago and recently the Digitalbank Latam contest in Lima.

TOC believes they have just started to unravel the future of technology. “We believe the progress we have made so far is just 10% of the potential we have as a team. I am always thinking of how to enhance people's lives through technology and continuously looking to improve technology.”

Evoluzion: Just say YES!

“We conducted research regarding tourism to indigenous communities, and discovered that for every $100USD spent in tourism, only $5USD stays in the indigenous community or developing country at large. It’s crazy!” Explains Marcelo Muñoz of Evoluzion. Evoluzion is a socially responsible tour operator company that focuses on providing experiences into the local indigenous communities of Chile. “With our tours we try to keep at least 70% of revenue in the community,” says Marcelo.

Before entering the tourism business, Marcelo had the opportunity to stay with a Mapuchue family in Chile, and see first hand the unique experience he could provide to tourists by bringing them to indigenous homes and teaching them local traditions. “I learned about their vision and their relationship with the land. The woman I stayed with became a second mother to me. She worked very hard for her family and to teach other tourists about her lifestyle with the Mapuchue.”

In addition to offering tours through the indigenous communities of Chile, Evoluzion collaborates and transfers skills to local people to become great tour guides while creating jobs and bringing more money to their villages. “We are partners with these local people from the beginning.”

Marcelo also offers consulting to other countries to promote responsible tourism within the indigenous communities of Latin America. A couple years ago he was invited to participate and consult as a coach with UNICEF Nicaragua and P-Lab. “Despite the fact that I had never left the country and was just piecing together my own responsible tourism company, when UNICEF and P-Lab asked me to help put together a responsible tourism program, I said yes straight away,” admits Marcelo. “Richard Branson probably said it best when he stated: “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!”

After two weeks of studying every tour guidebook he could get his hands on, Marcelo flew to Nicaragua. The UNICEF Nicaragua project became a huge success. “I remember after presenting the results of the program and returning to Chile, I got tons of Twitter and Facebook messages from people saying how much they loved the idea and support for Nicaragua.”

It is experiences like the one in Nicaragua that motivates Marcelo to put 100% of his effort and time into Evoluzion. “I know that if I only put 50% of my efforts into the company, I will only get 50% of the results back.”

Today, Evoluzion is focusing on spreading the world about their unique and responsible tour operations.

Check out the link to Evoluzion’s facebook and website to learn more about their life changing tours:

• https://www.facebook.com/EvoluzionChile
• Instagram www.instagram.com/evoluziontravel
• www.evoluziontravel.co

Ingenious Softworks: Design that leads to ACTION!

Looking to influence stakeholders on a psychological level? One way to do so is by positively affecting an individual’s behaviors/actions through behavioral science. Gabriel Camargo, CEO of Ingenious Softworks and his team are doing just that; by applying behavioral science through technology, they are able to solve business problems for clients. “We specialize in helping companies design and create digital and physical products that lead people to take action.”

For example, one product Ingenious Softworks created is an app that influences a smokers’ behavior, helping them quit through behavioral science. The app records how long a user goes without smoking. Each time the user feels an urge to smoke, they press a button on the app, signaling former smokers from across the world. The former smokers speak with the smoker, offering advice and motivation to stay clean. By the time the conversation is over, the behavior has been diverted and they’ve forgotten their urge to smoke. “Behaviors can not be removed, but they can be changed,” declares Gabriel. “We just figure out a way to trick the brain.”

“If we can help people make their life a little bit better, and multiply this by millions of people, that’s a huge change!” explains Gabriel. “These small, but important improvements on people’s lives are what drives our organization.”

Applying behavioral science through technology also helps companies sell more products, by affecting customer's behavior through triggering short and long-term rewards. For example, Ingenious Softworks recently created a coffee maker for a Dutch appliance manufacturer that is designed to take advantage of these influential decision factors. Ingenious Softworks studied the psychological profiles of a typical office person and their coffee consumption habits. From this information, Ingenious Softworks came up with the “half pot syndrome.” They noticed that during the workday, people who used the office coffee maker would dump out any remaining coffee in the pot, because they didn’t know whether or not it was fresh.

Ingenious Softworks implemented sensors to measure how much coffee remained in the pot and when it had last been brewed. Then using an algorithm, they calculate the health of the coffee and display the information on a “freshness meter” for users to see.

“This way people never waste good coffee again, allowing the customer to save up to 50% on water usage and 35% of energy in a year.” The savings and sustainability features on the coffee maker are long-term rewards for the buyer. But, the coffee maker was still missing a short-term reward; something that would make the customer decide to pick this coffee maker off the shelf over competitors. That’s why Ingenious Softworks implemented text and tweeting features on the coffee maker. Yes, that is right; this coffee maker has it’s own personal Twitter account and can tweet messages to office staff with updates regarding the freshness of the coffee. This gives a short-term reward to buy the coffee maker, because it is now “cool and following the online trend,” says Gabriel. “This factor ended up being the reason that people were buying this coffee machine left and right over others in the market.”

“Most people, subconsciously value short-term rewards over long-term rewards,” explains Gabriel. Each product designed by Ingenious Softworks contains both long-term and short-term benefits to trigger both sides of the brain. His unique team of engineers, software designers, psychologists, and others continue to push the boundaries on product design, while bringing new technologies to the market to positively impact lives.

Is your company delivering products and solutions that have both short term and long term rewards for your customers? If not, consider how you can add these triggers to reel in new customers. Check out the short video below to learn more about the power of behavioral design (may not show up for email subscribers).

Thales Lab: Entrepreneur Meets Intrepreneur

“The Macintosh team was what is commonly known as intrepreneurship… a group of people going, in essence back to the garage, but in a large company,” states Steve Jobs, Former CEO of Apple in a 1985 Newsweek article. An intrepreneur is an employee that innovates within the confines of a company. The term intrepreneur isn’t new, but the power intrepreneurs can have in a corporation is something few recognize.

“Our niche is the intrepreneur,” says Sylvia Chebi, Director of Thales Lab – a Montevideo based company builder that supports technical startups by entrepreneurs and intrepreneurs. “We believe that by promoting intrepreneurs and their ideas within companies, it benefits both the organization and the intrepreneur. The organization has the ability to capitalize on an amazing new piece of innovation while keeping a talented engineer, and the intrepreneur gains access to resources and finances by the organization. It’s a win-win.”

One of Thale’s amazing intrepreneurial start-ups that is gaining recognition is Futbol X – a football (that’s soccer for us Americans) app with over 750,000+ downloads. By using Futbol X, soccer fanatics can watch live games and receive real time stats and updates on their favorite teams. “It’s the official soccer association app in Uruguay and Mexico.” Explains Sylvia. “They launched in February. The app is so awesome that Apple even called and requested that one be made available for the Apple Watch.”

Thales Lab offers $10,000 USD in exchange for 10% equity from intrepreneurs and entrepreneurs that join their program. But, “Even if we didn’t provide money, I believe our start ups would join regardless. The amazing thing about being part of Thales Lab is the connections and support we offer."

Trillonario: This idea hit the jackpot!

For Ariel Pfeffer, his latest entrepreneurial adventure began in the Miami International Airport. “I was wondering around, waiting for my connecting flight when I stumbled across a long line of people waiting to buy tickets for the Florida Jackpot.” He purchased a ticket and while he didn’t win the 40 million dollar cash prize, he may as well have. “That experience spurred my latest company: Trillonario,” say Ariel. Trillonario is a global service that allows people to purchase lottery tickets from around the world. Trillonario (Win Trillions is the US brand) is completely online, and functions by tacking on a small service fee onto each sale. 

Today, this ten year old company offers lottery tickets in 180 countries and has 20 offices located across the world. “Our biggest challenge is to have a marketing budget large enough to achieve our goals and tackle opportunities,” admits Ariel. “We see opportunities in many different countries, but we don’t have enough structure to go everywhere. At the moment, we are concentrating on Europe and Latin America.”

“Entrepreneurship has always been in my DNA,” says Ariel, two-time entrepreneur. “When I work on a new project, I’m constantly on the move, brainstorming ideas.”  The thing Ariel loves best about business is marketing strategy. “It’s my passion,” says Ariel who writes for Puromarketing - a Uruguayan paper.

Ariel Pfeffer poses at Piso 40 in Montevideo, Uruguay

Today, Ariel hasn’t stopped his entrepreneurial endeavor with Trillonario. Two weeks prior to this interview, Ariel opened Piso 40 – An Angel Investor Club located on the 40th floor of Uruguay’s World Trade Center. “One of the big things lacking in Uruguay’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is funding between 200,000 and 1 Million USD. I’m trying to close that gap by teaching investors the best practices at Piso 40.” At Piso 40, “we aren’t looking for projects that are copy and paste projects from The States. That’s about 90% of the projects we see. Instead, we are looking for NEW, FRESH ideas with innovation behind them.”

“Entrepreneurial spirit is on the rise in Uruguay. Many different things are coming to the market like investor clubs, government programs and accelerators,” explains Ariel. The government is also getting involved through the National Agency of Investigation and Innovation (ANII), providing technology startups with funding between 50,000 – 500,000 USD.

“It’s important that we continue to expand the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit of Uruguay,” says Ariel.

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Ariel’s family ritual:

“I’m even getting my family involved in entrepreneurship,” says Ariel. His family will sit down once a week for an hour and discuss entrepreneurship or watch something on the subject. For example, he recently shared with his family the TED Talk featuring Simon Sinek entitled: “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.” 

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INICIA: “For Entrepreneurs by Entrepreneurs”

Once a year, Inicia, an Argentine entrepreneurial community, awards a prize to the entrepreneur with the business that has the greatest potential impact on society. The prize? An all expense paid trip to Europe, The States or any country of the winner’s choosing, to meet potential clients/alliances, build ideas and speak with advisors on the business. Last year’s winner was Totebag - a manufacturer of totebags with an environmental sustainability vision. Totebag entrepreneurs and sisters, Lorena and Natalia Nunez traveled to Paris where they had the opportunity to meet with and learn from top executives in the Paris fashion industry.

Inicia started twelve years ago during an Argentine Economic Crisis. “When the economy crashed,” says Patricio Sworn a board member of Inicia, “Argentines were laid off and turned to entrepreneurship as a way to create livelihoods. Inicia became a gathering of executives to help these forced entrepreneurs navigate the business environment.”

One of the things that separates Inicia from other organizations is that they push entrepreneurs to think in terms of social and environmental responsibility. “We love sustainable enterprises that contribute to economic, social, civic and environmental value for the community.” To further promote that value, they offer their entrepreneurs courses on sustainability and other important values and entrepreneurial skillsets. “Each course, little by little modifies the mentality of the entrepreneurs in Argentina,” says Patrico.

Inicia’s plan for the future? To be 100% run by entrepreneurs. “For entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs,” exclaimed Patricio. It will be exciting to see the impact inicia has on Argentina’s entrepreneurial community.

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The graph below was created by Patricio's consulting company. The graph depicts the frequency which the term "business plan" was searched on Google in five South American countries. 

da Vinci Labs: "Dreamers of the day are dangerous men"

“Our challenge is to turn local dreams into worldwide dreams and worldwide impacts. That is our main challenge. We empower Uruguayan companies to think globally,” Sergio Delgado exclaims when speaking about da Vinci Labs. Sergio is the co-founder and managing director for da Vinci Foundation and Director of da Vinci Labs, one of the up and coming incubators in Uruguay. “The world is our market” says Sergio, who pushes entrepreneurs to think and bet globally.

da Vinci Foundation began in 2008 to create a networking space of equality and to empower startups. It has since become a startup incubator with a focus on helping young companies develop their differential value and think globally. “People come to us with tons of ideas; we help turn those ideas into actions and to ultimately create value,” says Sergio. “Our mentors and advisors know when and how to look for money for our entrepreneurs.”

da Vinci editors division recently edited and published a book called Founders.UY, which contains stories featuring twelve young entrepreneurs in the internet space. From this book, da Vinci hopes to tell their audience of the innovations these entrepreneurs have created and the positive ecosystem they have established for Uruguay. A free preview is available from www.Founders.UY

In the prologue of the book, CEO of Collokia and previous board member of Endeavor Uruguay, Pablo Brenner, discusses the vast improvements Uruguay has seen in its entrepreneurial movement. He points out the effect one entrepreneur can have on another in the community, which leads to exponential growth. “Knowing that this new generation of entrepreneurs has adopted this pay it forward philosophy is the best indicator of a bright future,” says Pablo.

da Vinci uses a quote by Thomas Edward Lawrence, the renowned British archaeologist, diplomat and military officer, to describe the passion of these twelve entrepreneurs and the many others found in Uruguay:

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream at night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”