Endeavor 2022. 4,500 people came to listen to those who had already set up their start ups.
Think big. This is the motto that was repeated like a mantra through the corridors of the Exhibition Center of the City of Buenos Aires this Thursday where the annual Endeavor meeting was held.
This is the first time the traditional event has been personally held after two years of pandemic and the call has exceeded expectations: more than 4,000 people gathered to hear “how its makers do it” within the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Argentina.
The majority of the public will not be older than 25 years and groups of boys from the school stood out, those under 17, who listened intently to the conversations of key referents of Argentine startups.
At the opening, Guibert Englebienne, president of Endeavor and co-founder of Globant, stressed the importance of a long-term vision when it comes to entrepreneurship: “We also need the support of the public sector and although they have an agenda that has changed. Every four years, our history has to be formed 100 years from now and that is what leads us to build with them all the time ”.
Englebienne stressed that “Buenos Aires is a great land of businessmen.” For his part, the head of the Buenos Aires Government, Horacio Rodriguez Larreta acknowledged that although the country has great talent, to performr in Argentina “talent is not enough, you need to have a strong flow of stability”.
Knowing precisely how to deal with the challenges and setbacks of building an innovative company in Argentina spoke to Borja Martel, the 25-year-old founder of the crypto app Lemon, who compared this activity on the climb to Kilimanjaro, one of the highest peaks from Africa. “Argentina is a great Kilimanjaro. They change the rules for us all the time. But we still have resilience and we know how to adapt, ”he said.
For his part, Daniel Rabinovich, COO of Mercado Libre, reviewed his journey of more than 20 years at one of the most important technology companies in the region and assured that: “To create something in the long run, you have to have the courage to take risks ”and said that to get investments that support activities“ the most important thing is the team ”.
Local talent and ways to promote it are other concepts that are repeated throughout the presentations. The founders shared three of Argentina’s newest unicorns in a panel and reviewed that step from start -up to big technology company.
Patricio Jutard, co-founder of Mural and Partner of Newtopia, a startup accelerator, highlighted: “All the funds in the world are looking at Latin America. The region is full of talent, but it’s also full of quilombo and there are thousands of opportunities for entrepreneurs. “
Meanwhile, Guillermo Rauch, founder of Vercel, stressed that local talent reaches a global scale: “Now Tik Tok works thanks to our technology.” Santiago Sosa, founder of Tienda Nube, one of the last Argentine companies to become a unicorn, thanks to one of the biggest rounds of investment for a local company, said: “We never focused on being a unicorn. We wanted to build of a massive high -impact ecosystem. ”
Luz Borchardt, co-founder of the Henry Technology Academy, explained the importance for Argentina and the region of talent training: “We seek to reach every corner of the region with an inclusive, quality, and accessible measure that can be reached by we are all investing in the talent of the future “.
Along these lines, Pierpaolo Barbieri, founder of fintech Ualá said: “A good leader is one who attracts, retains and empowers talent” and said: “We need to think of financial services from Argentina for the region , where everything remains done. “
In the end, the supportive influencer Santiago Maratea was applauded by the audience: “What I do is not charity,” he assured.
Source: Clarin
