The Next Web (TNW) Latin America, Day 2

* Original Post in August 2013 *

The second day at the conference was noticeably slower than the first.  On top of some significant internet problems (and by that I mean there was no wifi for most of the day), there were less people stopping by the booth, and just less people in general.  Regardless, we spent most of the day printing The Next Web logo (thanks Lorena!), which was given as a prize to Senseta for winning the startup rally.

With more free time than the day before, I had more opportunities to hop next door and watch the presenters.  Kei Shimada kicked things off with a great quote by Albert Einstein: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”  I took this advice to heart, explaining our 3D printer to bewildered onlookers with the simple one-word explanation: “Magic.”

The investor panel on stage – among them Startup Chile’s very own Horacio Melo – offered some sound advice regarding startups in Latin America.  They urged the crowd to look to solve Latin America’s problems, rather than rushing to build the first thing they see on Tech Crunch and thinking it will work in the LatAm market.  These solutions they said, will not be sexy.  Think: B2B, software as a service companies.  Horacio added: “Please no more social networks.”

My favorite speaker of the day was Paulo Veras from 99 Taxis.  His talk was about how to scale your startup to a full-fledged business, but he also spent a lot of time talking about how to be a successfulstartup.  A lot of his advice was very pertinent to re:3D’s current stage.  Veras stressed the importance of hiring exceptional people.  Startups need to take the time to seek out A players, and fix mistakes quickly when they arise.  One of his other main points was about laser focus – a piece of advice re:3D hears a lot.  Unfocused startups fail, he said.  Have one product and nail it – then, when you become really good at that one thing, you can diversify.

On top of listening to some very interesting talks, we got to speak with more new people at the booth.  Some brief points from the day:

  1. We can’t escape it – no matter what country we’re in we get the inevitable weapons question.  Brazil is no exception – there was a notable fascination among the Brazilians with printing guns.  One guy even went so far as to say, “Well, when you can print a gun, I’ll buy [a Gigabot].”
  2. There was some strong interest from several attendees (one disappointed Brazilian who wanted to walk out of the conference with our STGO MakerSpace-destined Gigabot), but mostly just a lot of entrepreneurs curious to see a 3D printer, but with no practical use for one.
  3. I tried Google Glass.  I’ve seen a handful of people wearing them in the States, but I’ve never had the opportunity to hound them with questions like, “What do they do?”, “Do you use them everyday?”, and “Do you feel like a total idiot when you wear them?”. Today, I finally got the chance to ask all these questions and more.  And – bonus! – I got to try them on and give them a spin myself.

Tomorrow is our final day in São Paulo – Matthew heads to Santiago to play musical chairs with some Gigabots while I head back to San Francisco.  I get most of the day tomorrow to explore the city and I plan on making a 2nd, hopefully more successful than my first experience, stop at a Churrascaria.

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author

The Next Web (TNW) Latin America, Day 1

* Original Post from August 2013 *

As expected, it was an action-packed first day at The Next Web conference in São Paulo, Brazil.  After accidentally eating until the point of pain the night before at traditional Brazilian Churrasco restaurant (I clearly did not understand the process at this kind of establishment), it was an early start this morning to get set up. Matthew zipped through Gigabot assembly, with only minimal visible envy of the surrounding software companies whose setup procedure was opening their laptops.

The first talk of the day was Luis von Ahn, who humorously explained his past accomplishments: “How many have you have ever filled out [a captcha form]?  How many of you found it extremely annoying?  Yeah, I invented that.”  The human being-verification inventor went on to describe his latest venture, a language-learning startup called duolingo (www.duolingo.com).  The idea behind it is that users learn a new language while simultaneously translating the web.  The service is free – duolingo makes their money by selling the translations that their users create for them.  The same thinking went into both captchas and duolingo: recycle the energy that people are already expending on the web.  This mentality can be traced back to von Ahn’s childhood idea of creating a gym where the people exercising on machines create electricity which is then sold back to electric companies.  Take an action that people are already doing, and figure out how to make use of it.

On top of this, duolingo is simultaneously essentially doing one giant A/B test of language-learning.  von Ahn asks, “Do we teach students adjectives first, or plurals first?”  Now they have a definitive answer to that question, after splitting up users between the two different options and tracking their progress.  And with research showing that after using the service for 34 hours, users have the same amount of knowledge as the equivalent of a semester of a university course, it seems they have the right idea.

Other takeaways from the day:

Many Brazilians expressed interest in 3D printing, and they see the value in having such a tool for prototyping.  However, they warn of potential problems getting Gigabot through Brazilian customs.  Not only are the taxes high, they say some imports just never make it through.  More investigation is needed into this, but it seems like the best option for interested Brazilians might be to come to the states and bring Gigabot back with them.

Some Brazilians suggested we manufacture the machines down here, thus circumventing the complicated customs process.  But the Brazilian market is notoriously difficult to break into, so the conundrum is how to test the popularity of Gigabot in the country if we can’t sell it here.  The Brazilians we talked to stressed the importance of targeting the massive Brazilian market, so it’s something we need to explore as a company.

I can apparently pass for Brazilian.  In Chile, my blonde hair and face in general was a dead giveaway that I was an outsider, but I cannot tell you how many times I was asked today where in Brazil I was from.  The game is over when I can’t reply to them in Portuguese.

We’re looking forward to what Day 2 brings.  We’ve got some exciting prints planned!

Boa noite,

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author