Plus: AndesWines soon to debut expat networking group
By Erin Becker, Research and Innovation
Start-Up Chile has been in the news lately thanks to Vivek Wadhwa of Harvard and Duke. Wadhwa had initially thought that growing Chile’s tech start-up industry so rapidly was impossible, due to cultural and economic constraints. But now he is pleased with the rapid transformation that this country has been able to make, due to what he praises as “an open economy and a vibrant democracy.”
Start-Up Chile is a government program here in Santiago that sponsors foreign and Chilean entrepreneurs who want to start their companies in Chile. It’s designed after the philosophy of former minister of economy Juan Andrés Fontaine: “Instead of changing the world through revolution, we can change it through innovation.” The idea is that entrepreneurs use Chile’s business-friendly economy as a platform to “go global,” which is both good for Chile and good for the start-ups. The ones who make it through the admissions process received $40,000, a work visa, and access to key business and social networks in Santiago. The program hopes to have 1,000 participants by 2014.
Wadwha is especially pleased with Start-Up Chile’s focus on the innovators rather than just the innovation. He makes a good point: “buildings and industry don’t make innovation happen—people do.” Though he acknowledges it is “too early to declare success,” Wadhwa is pleased with the people-centric aspect of the program.
The story was picked up by US radio station NPR (National Public Radio) and re-broadcast by at least six other local US radio stations. Rather than just praising Chile, NPR focused on Wadhwa’s not-quite-implicit critique of US immigration policy that came along with his kind words for the start-up program:
“Chile has been taking advantage of American stupidity,” says Vivek Wadhwa, a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studies the economic impact of immigrant entrepreneurs.
The articles all report that Chile’s economic climate and open-arms attitude to international entrepreneurs make it a perfect place and time for a program like Start-Up Chile. According to the World Bank, Chile’s economy grew by 5.5 percent between 1985 and 2009. The World Economic Forum ranks it the most competitive economy in Latin America, Portfolio.com reports.
Of course, all these media accolades don’t mean the program can count its chickens before they’re hatched—and of course they won’t. Well-connected, well-respected, well-funded and with an awesome website to boot, Start-Up Chile knows that in the end the true measure of a program like this is ultimately how many of the start-ups become more than just that. Yet it’s nice to get the buzz going—and keeping it going will be key.
AndesWines plans to stoke this culture of networking and entrepreneurial chatter by launching an expat-networking group. The group will meet monthly or more often for good wine, good conversation, and to make connections with other foreign entrepreneurs, expats working in Chile, permanent travelers and all others who have found themselves living in Santiago.
Check back into AndesWines.com and AndesOne.com soon for more information as the expat group gets under way. We’ll also be featuring a continued conversation about entrepreneurship in Chile.
The international buzz on Start-Up Chile:
National Public Radio says:
Andrew Nicol is a young entrepreneur who was born in Australia and attended law school in the U.S. After graduation, he got an employer-sponsored visa that allowed him to work in New York. But when Nicol wanted to leave his day job and start a company, he was stymied. Leaving his job meant losing his visa.
So Nicol decided to go to Chile.
“I’m basically leaving New York to come to Santiago to start a business that targets New York consumers — just because it’s so much easier to do it from here, and there is so much more support from the government here,” he says.
Portfolio.com says:
Some facts to consider: According to the World Bank, Chile’s economy grew by 5.5 percent between between 1985 and 2009. The World Economic Forum ranks it the most competitive economy in Latin America. And Chile’s corporate income tax rate is normally 17 percent, but has risen 20 percent in 2011 (it will lower to 18.5 in 2012 as part of the country’s earthquake reconstruction program), one of the lowest corporate income tax rates worldwide.
Washington Post says:
“When I arrived in Santiago, I found that Start-Up Chile entrepreneurs were holding nightly meetings to review one another’s business plans and product ideas. They were teaching one another skills, and were building the friendships and global networks that stand to increase their chances of success. The gatherings could easily have been mistaken for ones in Silicon Valley.”
Nearshore Americas Blog says:
Three months later, Wadhwa’s perception has undergone an incredible change. Tweeting from a Start-Up Chile meetup this week, the professor was decidedly glowing in his remarks. He told us that “When I advised the Chilean government to try something like this, I was optimistic that we could do a pure “people play”—in other words, focus the entire investment in people rather than infrastructure and industry as is the norm for regions. I am totally blown away—as are the Chileans—with its success.”
Erin Becker, Research and Innovation for Andes Wines, graduated with a degree in literature and creative writing from the University of North Carolina, where she was also co-founder and editor-in-chief of Campus BluePrint magazine and co-founder of an Arts and Cultural Policy think tank.
Andes Wines
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