Santiago Zavala 500 Startups Podcast
Published in
2 min readAug 7, 2017
Santiago Zavala is a Mexican entrepreneur turned investor who now runs 500 Startups in Mexico City. He has a very cool story and sheds light into the Mexican startup scene.
Outline of This Episode
- [0:09] Introduction to today’s guest Santiago Zavala.
- [1:22] The track companies have to follow to get help from Santiago’s company.
- [3:15] Santiago’s background, growing up on the front end of tech in Mexico.
- [5:20] The first online venture: a guitar oriented forum and community.
- [12:04] Becoming known for rescuing floundering projects — as a high schooler.
- [21:30] Leaving university and connecting with a new startup in Silicon Valley.
- [26:49] How Santiago got into the investment side of startups.
- [30:21] The first companies the VC came alongside — all from Santiago’s apartment.
- [34:17] Lessons-learned in working with failing and successful startups.
- [35:40] How Santiago connected with 500 Startups.
- [38:02] Opening the application process to all of Spanish speaking Latin America.
- [41:22] The changes Santiago has seen in the startup process in Latin America.
- [45:08] Surprising things about a 500 startups demo day.
- [49:03] Advice to Latin American founders trying to raise money.
- [54:15] Santiago’s advice to governments and investors for supporting startups.
- [58:22] What’s on the horizon for 500 Startups and Santiago?
Resources & People Mentioned
- https://500.co — 500 Startups
- Santiago’s website — http://dfect.co/
- Santiago on Twitter
- Santiago on Facebook
- Santiago on LinkedIn
- Santiago on YouTube
- AngelList
- Square
- Stripe
- Uber
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