$100 Story
Entrepreneurship is like riding a roller coaster, is full of ups-and-downs. One day you are at the top and the next one you are in the ground. The secret to survive is never give up.
After spending almost 8 months trying to raise capital for Real Bridge, my personal savings were coming close to $0. The company’s capital decreased too because we couldn’t get the money to sustain the operations. And one rainy day (to be honest, it was a sunny day) we finally decided to close the doors and move forward.
At that time, all the capital that I had in the world was a $750 scooter. The good thing is that when you have nothing, you have nothing to lose so nothing tied you. And when nothing ties you, the deeper truth come to surface. That was when I had my Aha moment, and was very clear: it’s time to move to Silicon Valley.
I sold my scooter, bought a one-way ticket to SF and prepared my survival kit to start my 3rd adventure. My survival kit consisted of my mobile phone, my headset, a Jansport handbag, a notebook and $100 (my budget after buying the flight ticket).
I arrived to San-Francisco for the first-time on February 2015 with no-connections, no-place to stay and literally no-money. But instead, I had something better: the fervent desire to succeed.
An efficient management of resources is a must for any entrepreneur that wants to succeed but with $100 in the pocket, an efficient management of resources is a must for anyone that wants to survive!. The goal was clear: to squeeze the $100 until I find a source of income.
The next couple of weeks, were the hardest of my life. I slept in the lobby at Stanford University while searching in couchsurfing.com for someone that host me (luckily I found someone). I created a lunch budget of $3 per day and searched events on MeetUp that offered free food to have at least one decent meal per day. As source of income, I picked up every free stuff that I found on Craigslist and sold them on Craigslist too but in different areas and for a cheap price.
This method helped me survive for almost 4 weeks until I found my big opportunity. It was in a shabbat dinner in Palo Alto where I met one of the founders of TangoMe, a $1.5 billion dollar messaging startup. My first goal, surviving in Silicon Valley with $100 was achieved, now it was the time of achieving the second one: get a real income to rent my own apartment and eat real food.
After talking for 1 hour, I convinced him that there was a huge business opportunity in Latin America and that I was the right person to help him reaching that potential. The following Monday, I started working for Tango in the marketing department.
After 4 months, I was in charge of Tango’ growing strategy for Latin America. As a result, I managed to increase the user base by 130% with a very tiny budget.
Through all my entrepreneurial journey, I learned plenty of valuable lessons that made me grow in a personal and professional way. Build the best team possible, product is everything, always big markets, nail it, then scale it, etc.
But there is only one lesson that truly changed me forever, and I think is the only one that can make the difference between success and failure: never give up.
