Let’s get this party started: Be part of the Chilean Pavilion at TechCrunch Disrupt New York 2013

Last year AndesBeat was in charge of organizing a chilean pavilion (the demo area for newly launched Chilean startups) at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco and promoting the opportunity within our local networks.

It was the first time that the chilean startups had the chance to attend a three-day conference, single-track conference and startup competition to discover which technology trends and companies will lead each industry in the upcoming months.

Amongst the speakers were Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Marc Benioff, Ron Conway, Mark Suster, Kevin Rose and more. Continue reading

AndesBeat ‘unconferences’ TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012 for South America

As most of you know, AndesBeat own Carlos Leiva aka (the ultimate co-founder boy) played an instrumental role in convincing TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012 organizers to approve a Chilean Startup Pavilion which is a dedicated area where startup teams from Chile will showcase their products and services to potential investors, partners, clients and media.

Driven by AndesBeat mission along with his innate goodwill and clear vision for South America’s startup community, Carlos has been working day and night to ‘just make it ALL happen.’ And as the big day arrives on 10 September, he has given up many late nights & weekends doing what he does best – hacking an environment that will allow South American founded startups to feel fully connected to the action, regardless of where they are in the world.

His pre-event efforts have included everything from negotiating group discounts for airline tickets to supporting Chilean startups with their U.S. Embassy interviews to secure their travel visa. After getting his hands really involved with the community to engage them before, during and after the event, he saw both the enthusiasm and need to expand on AndesBeat involvement.

The outcome of that vision is the AndesBeat unconference. Continue reading

Join the Chilean Pavilion at TechCrunch Disrupt SF, September 10-12, 2012

With ‘Radar Mode On’ as usual, Co-founder boy spotted a post on TechCrunch. It talked about all the Brasilian startups that had responded to a TechCrunch call for startups to participate in TechCrunch Startup Alley. They were hoping for at least 10 startups and received a response of 75+ startup teams that wanted to participate.

So TechCrunch decided to make a Pavillion for Brasil. Then they got requests from Argentina and decided to make a Pavillion for them….so yours truly, mr. co-founder boy himself wondered – WTF?

Why doesn’t Chile have a Startup Pavillion at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012??? Continue reading

Is there a doctor in YOUR STARTUP house?

How does your product or service differ from those currently offered in the marketplace?
It is one of the most understimated, yet, ‘revealing’ questions of an investor pitch.

Granted you could do the ‘research’ yourself with your best educated guess, the truth of the matter is, if you are building a technology based product and don’t have 3 letters behind your name,  better make sure someone on your team does! Continue reading

Eric Ries Speaks Out on Racism and Meritocracy in Silicon Valley

Disclaimer (as I am from Washington, DC, land of the lawyers): The opinions I state in this post are exclusively those of my own and do not reflect my partner(s) or our affiliated organizations.

Eric Ries from Lean Startups, who I just learned about a week ago from Elsa Chang and AndesBeat Co-Curator Carlos Leiva Burotto, contributed a guest post about race and meritocracy on TechCrunch. It’s a topic that has come up for me, having been a black woman working in entrepreneurship, wireless/technology since the early 1990’s. And of course it surfaces now being that I am based here in Chile (where in the 14 mos I have been here, I have only met 2 people of color from the U.S.). It is estimated that less than 1% of the people in Chile are people of color (overall). Continue reading