Five tips from the creator of Ualá to do in Argentina

At 34 years old, Pierpaolo Barbieri founded Ualá less than 5 years ago, a fintech with the ambition to be real financial ecosystem for the entire region. Recently, he launched the 17 Sigma investment fund so that other entrepreneurs like him can find enough support to grow their ideas.

In the dialogue with Clarion, assured the creator of one of the last Argentine companies to achieve the unicorn category: “To perform the key is to talent“.

And with an eye towards a younger audience, he explained: “For talent you need train and educate you. This is important don’t jump too early to perform, but wait a bit to do it. baka meron one or two work experience and to understand what is enticing. “

“Entrepreneurship is very hard and nine out of 10 days is hard: so very few do it. In this context, you have to be quite convinced of the idea you have, you have to fall in love with the idea, “said Barbieri, who stressed that “make a team” This is key for these ideas to come true. “It’s important to know how to surround yourself with a great team and only hire people who are better than you“.

Regarding the opportunities and challenges posed by entrepreneurship in a country as poor as Argentina, the CEO of Ualá assured that the country “has become one of the great pioneers, and to this day, of the entire digital economy. We have talent, there is a ecosystem, because people train in companies like Globant, like Ualá or like Mercado Libre and tomorrow they will build their own companies. “

In this sense, for Barbieri the growth opportunity for the sector of the local knowledge economy crosses borders: “Argentina has the best ecosystem in all of Latin America and can create products and services not only for our market, but thinking for larger markets and for the entire region. “

For no reason

Among the challenges for local entrepreneurs, the ups and downs of the economy can be a major hurdle, however Barbieri said: “No need to be afraid of macrosbecause the macro always gives you reasons: there’s always bad news that will lead you not to perform or not to risk it. ”

In a message of resilience, Barberi taught that “it is important that as a society we help demystify what to do and let us be once one he is not well. We have a society that destroys you if you make a mistake. In America, when you fail to do a project, they force you to try again. “

For the historian as well, “the high priority that Argentina has after two years of pandemic is grow up“.

“We need to grow, create more private jobs to have more investment and attract more capital from the world to invest in different sectors of the economy where there are good opportunities now: from agrowhere we can double our production, because of what is happening in Europe, in Energy, where the whole world is looking for new energies like lithium. But I’m not just talking about natural resources: technology is there too“, he claims.

Without speaking about politics, he acknowledged that one of the country’s pending debts is “know how to attract more private investment and risk capital, who came from around the world to invest in Argentina. We have our own capital, but insufficient. That’s why we made a vehicle like 17 Sigma to promote challenging new entrepreneurs ”, he commented and added:“ We need more and better growth ”.

NE