What to Expect from Startup Chile

If you are looking for the version in Spanish, click here

I’m going to try to tell you what is Startup Chile like. We participated in Ignite 1, 2021 with eskuad, we were selected for Startup Chile’s Demo Day and won the “Most Innovative Solution” award. (Read more here: Diario Financiero, Emol, sadly, they are only in Spanish). I’m not going to talk about specific persons, I’m going to talk about the roles.

What to expect, and what to not expect?

First of all, I questioned myself if the time and effort that we should commit to the program would be worth it, for the level of results expected.

Due to my previous experience in other startups, as a mentor, founder or even as an accelerator’s CEO, I’d always thought that Startup Chile, despite being the best medal you can get within the early stage startup’s ecosystem in Chile, it was too intensive and time consuming. This wasn’t that way, at least for me. Ignite 1, in spite of offering a lot of workshops, they are optional, I assisted to most of them because they were good opportunities to learn. But, when I couldn’t assist, someone from the team showed up, and it wasn’t a big deal, as it is in other programs, where if you don’t assist to each and everyone of the workshops, you are out.

In that sense , I feel that the Startup Chile’s team offers a plan that you can customize to your company’s needs.

Mandatory Activities

The mandatory activities, include some related to the bureaucracy required for being a program from the Government -it should comply with a bunch or regulations to be sure that the taxpayers are not being scammed- but they are not that much, they were set up for the first week and allowed us to know what we were able to pay and how, I think this is good, because it sets the rules of the game.

Other mandatory activities are the 3 boards with mentors that are done on a monthly basis. The outcome of this depends on how each startup face them and if they have a nice fit or not with the mentors. I our case, the mentors assigned, 3 rockstars, with different personalities, but all of them really cool, direct and tough when they must be. That kind of mentors remind me of my old school basketball coaches, yes, the ones that might even hurt you if you are weak of mind, but if you know how to take advantage, you can improve faster, and that’s what happened to us.

This mandatory activity is the one that, I think, incentive us the most to accelerate, you have to get better and better, because mentors encourage you to do it, and you don’t want to disappoint them (or yourself).

The meetings with your Bizdev are another mandatory activities, we had a really good one, it was easy and natural to talk with her, and as I am a self-demanding person, I believe I bothered her more than expected, but that allowed us to always keep her in the loop with everything we were doing, and that helped her recommend us more and better helps/connections with the Startup Chile’s team, their network and her own wise recommendations.

The financial meetings, they are part of the bureaucracy, but the way they do it is super organized and direct, my first meeting was set up to learn how to pay, back up the payments and incorporate the documents so they can be sure everything was in order. After that, is just a matter of being organized and they make everything easy for you. In my case, our financial executive was great, every doubt, no matter how stupid it was, he was always there to answer over email with the links and documentation needed.

How to take advantage of Ignite 1?

We took advantage of the things that are available, but not necessarily everyone uses. We ask the experts of the Startup Chile team for help:

Investment Manager: Key man to improve your pitch, pitch deck, to know what documents are needed for the VC funds, discuss strategies and, in addition, he is very direct and cool, so he is a great asset for founders who are not sure how to raise capital. Not least important, he is super well contacted with the VCs.

Talent Manager: She made us realize several things that we didn’t know we had, that we could offer, she taught us how to attract, select, intrigue and retain talent. One of the most important things we did with her was to understand our own organization from the point of view of our talents, strengths, limitations, etc. And, based on that analysis, we went out to look for new, complementary talents. I think the introspection we achieved thanks to her was key.

Corporate Networks Manager: She was super key in generating new opportunities for partnerships and leads. We used the corporate network to ask for opinions, feelings and feedback to refine our value proposition and how we communicate it. But many of the people we contacted were willing to try the solution. I think that if you don’t force it and try to sell it, there is a great opportunity to grow based on these networks.

Scouting Manager: He was key, especially at the beginning, to know in which program we fit best, understanding the general operation and also, giving a lot of feedback.

I think that the rest of the Marketing, Acceleration and Internationalization team can fulfill super similar roles, but we did not get to ask for their support because we were solving other things, perhaps with more people we could have asked them for more help, my time only allowed me to ask from 4.

What did we miss?

Asking for more support from the marketing team, in the final stages of the project, after winning the award, we ended up realizing that our sales machine depends on more direct marketing, with better quality, and teaching potential customers about the technology, because this helps us have better qualified leads, reduce the sales cycle and improve conversion.
The Startup Chile marketing team has very good networks and connections, we saw it when they managed to publish notes, that had a lot of impact. Using that tremendous machine to your advantage is something we didn’t do and perhaps it would have brought a huge change.

What did we get?

Being selected for Startup Chile is like being selected to play the national startup’s championship. Being selected to pitch at Demo Day is like qualifying for the playoffs. And winning an award is like wining the national championship. So, you could say that we are national champions and that medal helped us do some marketing.

The money allowed us to build, test a team and improve as a company.

But, by far, the most important thing is the people who are there to help you, that team is almost part of your own team and with that talent and experience you can grow much faster.

Is Startup Chile worth it?

Answering to my initial concern, the answer is a resounding Yes. You get a lot of value, if you take the time. How much time? is up to you, according to your needs. The mandatory activities are worth it. But, like everything, it depends on how you take advantage of it.