Category Archives: Knowledge Management

Big data, big news from Chile’s InstaGIS…they’re headed to 500 startups!

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Chile’s InstaGIS cutting-edge big-data-geo-visualization-solution checks all the cool factor boxes. As a result they can now set their next destination as 500 startups. InstaGIS along with Floqq are two Chilean based startups that have been accepted into Batch 6 of the highly regarded accelerator.

InstaGIS is a geographic information system that allows retail stores to target their audiences. Translation they make super fancy interactive infographics that can be used by companies for market research and business intelligence to monitor what is happening in a specific geographic area.

And whether InstaGIS is used in a competitive retail environment such as Chile where there is not critical mass yet 2,500 people are waiting in line 24 hours for the doors of the newly launched H&M to open; or 5,000 miles away in Washington, DC which has a very affluent population but lacks high end retailers so Andi Joseph from the Golden Triangle BID is globetrotting trying to fill that void – obviously you can already see a few different ways companies could rock their software.

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Floqq joins 500 Startups

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Less than one week ago we published a post about Floqq, Latin America’s largest online Spanish language course catalog. And 3 weeks ago for our ‘AndesBeat Start-Up Chile Demo Day Picks‘, we identified Floqq as 1 of the 2 startups that were replicating a proven business model- referring to them as the ‘Udemy of South America’.

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Online education website Floqq launches in Latin America

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We all want to learn something new, don’t we? So why not learn from the best?

My mom and I have a deal: She teaches me how to cook the most delicious meals of all, and in return I teach her how to use the computer and create stunning PowerPoint presentations. This way, both of us learns from the other and teaches the things he can do best. But there is a limit of what my mom and I can teach each other. Neither of us knows how to speak Chinese, for example. But there are millions of people that can, the question is: How do you find them?

For all Spanish speakers, there is Floqq, an online platform that offers a great variety of educational courses in the form of high quality videos for anyone who wants to perfect or improve any professional or personal skill via the internet. The platform launched in Latin America on March 19th offers more than 600 courses, which have a price of US$10-20, to people from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru.

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FunPuntos acquired by Acid Labs

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With Latin American countries topping the ‘happiness’ global ranking report (2013), FunPuntos news that they have been acquired provides another step forward in their mission to see that the region’s customer retail experience will be the same.

Just 59 days after FunPuntos (Fun Points) announced its launch, today we bring news from an official company representative that FunPuntos has been acquired by Acid Labs for an undisclosed sum.

FunPuntos is a smartphone enabled customer loyalty app with backend merchant management system, that was created by Oxford University alumni Daliso Zuze and Nabil Meralli.
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Chile welcomes top email infrastructure provider, SendGrid

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Companies often spend tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars (and hours) preparing to launch new products, services and campaigns. Some of these launch expenditures may include market research, design, copywriting, marketing, analytics, staffing and other ancillary services.

Yet, a surprisingly overlooked and underestimated part of any launch is the necessity to reach your customers and subscribers via email. Drafting and sending an email message may not seem difficult, however, the notification and delivery part of the email equation is often challenging for many companies. So while your launch announcement, promotional or app notification email may have been successfully sent, the million dollar question is:

Was your email successfully delivered to the intended recipient’s inbox
or was it caught by a spam filter?

SendGrid, a cloud-based email delivery provider founded in the U.S., has been working hard to help companies successfully answer this question. SendGrid provides a scalable email delivery platform allowing companies to easily send and deliver transactional and marketing email to improve email deliverability and customer engagement.

Today Sendgrid announces Chile as one of the strategic markets in Latin America, along with Brazil.
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New pipeline technology seeks to bring water to remote areas in Chile/LatAm

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Innovative ideas come to exist in all places of the world basically every day, but this one caught my attention:

TOHL is a project conducted by Benjamin Cohen and his group of Tech grads from Atlanta, Georgia that deals with the installation of a disruptive pipeline technology.

It aims at revolutionizing disaster relief efforts as well as water delivery infrastructure to the most remote areas, especially in Chile and all of LatAm.

So far our imagine of pipeline has not been very positive. It has actually been quite the contrast, because we think of pipelines as very expensive, difficult to install and destructive to the environment. Not positive at all!

It is important to note that they don’t always carry oil, but they can carry essentials like water, power and information to “the end of the world”! After the earthquakes in Haiti, the team decided that we really need this solution now. Here is TOHL’s pipeline technology:

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Deal or no deal?! Know when the price is right!

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Imagine this:
You are sitting in the most comfy armchair in your living room, the sun is shining but still you are slowly but surely getting upset.

Just because you are trying to find the place where to get a certain product, let’s say a cell phone, for the least amount of money.

Easier said than done – we all know that!!

And of course we don’t want to end up paying much more money than you would have had to.

With regard to product search, LatAm is still a little bit behind Europe and the US, so this is the perfect time to start using the brandnew product search and comparison engine Compara.la, which was publicly launched 2 weeks ago.

Compara.la was founded by Jorge De Ossó and Josefina Concha and believe it or not, it is 100% bootstrapped.

Jorge admits that this was hard and they have been working on it for over a year now, but simultaneously running a small mobile software development shop it is possible to pay for all the expenses – and it is worth it!

Your life will become so much easier when it comes to online purchases!

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