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Start-Up Chile is OK. Nothing more.

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Re: Start-Up Chile is OK. Nothing more.

#41

Post by tvaughan »

amix wrote: post #31

I don't agree with her list of companies that should apply to Startup Chile. For example, Startup Chile is great for bootstrapping companies. You get 6 months and $40.000 USD to test out your idea. You visit an amazing country and another culture. You can learn another language. Startup Chile is a great choice for people that are ready to make the jump from a boring job to starting their own thing. And even if you ar…

What he said.

Chile is an excellent place to test/bootstrap an idea. The $40K USD Start-Up Chile money makes it nearly risk free. This is the only promise of the program. Any other expectations are misplaced.

However, the reimbursement process is awful, does make for a considerable distraction from "real work," and should just be eliminated entirely.

Re: Start-Up Chile is OK. Nothing more.

#42

Post by trevelyan »

amix wrote: post #31

I don't agree with her list of companies that should apply to Startup Chile. For example, Startup Chile is great for bootstrapping companies. You get 6 months and $40.000 USD to test out your idea. You visit an amazing country and another culture. You can learn another language. Startup Chile is a great choice for people that are ready to make the jump from a boring job to starting their own thing. And even if you ar…

Amen! Although the blogger also misses the most important benefit Startup Chile offers teams that are serious about fund-raising. Any fundable business coming out of the program is going to raise capital on much better terms than it would have been able to get previously. Those savings can easily amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It's always a risk that a company might fail to demonstrate enough growth or traction to attract further investment before its cash runs out, but that happens with every kind of outside investment. And the issue is with the business as it then exists, not with Startup Chile for funding an earlier version of it.

Re: Start-Up Chile is OK. Nothing more.

#43

Post by peterjancelis »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #24
prateekdayal wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nobody is thinking about getting rich expcept the foreign entrepreneurs. What makes you think the foreign entrepreneurs are better than the local ones? I have not seen any such pattern in Startup Chile. In fact some of the best products (and teams) are Chilean.

I was under the impression that Startup Chile gives some preference/reservations to local teams. In any selection process, any group that gets a boost due to irrelevant factors needs to meet a lower standard. Typically, a group of people meeting a lower standard will be inferior to a group of people meeting a higher standard. Of course, if I'm wrong about Startup Chile boosting local teams, this reasoning wouldn't ap…

In the first round no Chilean teams were allowed, second round they opened it up and now the rumor is they are moving towards more and more Chileans because, frankly, some foreign teams scam the system and go on a 6 month $40K holiday.

Re: Start-Up Chile is OK. Nothing more.

#45

Post by theycallmemorty »

amix wrote: post #31

I don't agree with her list of companies that should apply to Startup Chile. For example, Startup Chile is great for bootstrapping companies. You get 6 months and $40.000 USD to test out your idea. You visit an amazing country and another culture. You can learn another language. Startup Chile is a great choice for people that are ready to make the jump from a boring job to starting their own thing. And even if you ar…

Don't you have to promise to hire people to get the $40K?

Re: Start-Up Chile is OK. Nothing more.

#46

Post by hercule »

pawelwentpawel wrote: post #36
amix wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had my laptop stolen at the Startup Chile office and the Startup Chile team helped me get it back because of surveillance cameras. I am the only person this has happened to (at least from what I know). I think you can get things stolen in any co-work environment and there is no way Startup Chile can control this (other than doing what they already do). If you are uncomfortable with the security aspect you can get a…

The office spaces don’t have decent lighting and it’s not safe - you can’t leave your stuff on the table even for 5 minutes, a lot of it might get stolen - This sounds kind of crazy to be honest. As I'm front some deep places in eastern europe I wouldn't leave any of my stuff in any places. Especially considering the fact that the work on the laptop is probably more valuable than the machine itself. But this is a sha…

Yeah, this is something I'd expect at the joint co-working offices more than the Start-Up Chile office itself. However, they do leave the doors wide open while people are working there. Anyone can wave at the doorman and take the elevator up to the office for a rummage around. The reception desk doesn't have a good view of who is coming and going from 60% of the office space.

Re: Start-Up Chile is OK. Nothing more.

#47

Post by hercule »

theycallmemorty wrote: post #45
amix wrote: post #31

I don't agree with her list of companies that should apply to Startup Chile. For example, Startup Chile is great for bootstrapping companies. You get 6 months and $40.000 USD to test out your idea. You visit an amazing country and another culture. You can learn another language. Startup Chile is a great choice for people that are ready to make the jump from a boring job to starting their own thing. And even if you ar…

Don't you have to promise to hire people to get the $40K?

Nope. Of course they'd like you to incorporate in Chile and hire Chileans, but it's far from a requirement. In fact, it's not even something they explicitly encourage you to do.

Re: Start-Up Chile is OK. Nothing more.

#48

Post by personlurking »

arnoldoMuller wrote: post #34
Kilimanjaro wrote: post #17

I went to Japan 20 yrs ago on a scholarship and the moment I set foot on the campus I was handed an ATM card with ¥100k ready to use (~$1k), auto refillable every month. I love Japan.

I went as a Monbusho scholar in the period 2004 - 2009 and this is not the case anymore. Nowadays you spend a lot of time filling forms and getting access to basic services like cellphones or Internet. They do give you around ¥160K these days...

A few years back, I was to go to Brazil on scholarship. Last minute, the US university mentioned they paid the money one month in...yet one has to pay at the start and Brazilian uni starts one month earlier than in US. Catch-22. Four months of prep, crossing T's and dotting I's and it all went down the drain.

Re: Start-Up Chile is OK. Nothing more.

#49

Post by peterjancelis »

theycallmemorty wrote: post #45
amix wrote: post #31

I don't agree with her list of companies that should apply to Startup Chile. For example, Startup Chile is great for bootstrapping companies. You get 6 months and $40.000 USD to test out your idea. You visit an amazing country and another culture. You can learn another language. Startup Chile is a great choice for people that are ready to make the jump from a boring job to starting their own thing. And even if you ar…

Don't you have to promise to hire people to get the $40K?

No, in the pilot round you got RVA points for hiring locals but they dropped that in later rounds so it is not even explicitly encouraged right now.

Re: Start-Up Chile is OK. Nothing more.

#50

Post by anewguy »

What kind of startup is willing to move to Chile for $40K? Two answers: startups that will benefit from being located in South America, and bad startups that have a really hard time raising a few thousand dollars and/or haven't thought through how moving several thousand miles increases their execution risk.
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