The concept
CBF2019 was the first event of its kind organized by CUTI. The goal was to bring people and companies that connect, contact and help Uruguayan companies to do business in the US.
For this they arranged talks on a central stage, with world class speakers, these were at the beginning and end and then every one or two hours.
This was the agenda: https://www.cuti.org.uy/public/documentoscuti/AGENDA%20CBF_parcial.pdf.
In addition to these talks on the central stage, in the free time between them, there were two small stages open for talks with local and international speakers talking about different topics or dynamic type questions to various experts in doing business with US.
In addition, there were 4 spaces for workshops on related topics, legal, financial, etc.
The event
It took place in the LATU events room. The reception was a little slow because there were many people. It is estimated that there were more than 900 people, with invited universities and poles of companies from the interior. When you arrived, you were accredited and they gave you a budge.
In the entrance hall there were several stands, including CUTI giving away bags with materials. There was Starbucks giving away coffees (more than 2000 coffees were given away), GoodLife giving away fruits (current supplier of fruits in Nexa) and then other companies of the local market (BakerTilly, Mordezki & Asociados, HSBC, Segalerba & Asociados and Antel among others).
Hard Rock Café also had a stand giving away water and offered us the after party.
Once we entered the central hall, we found a large room, with distributed livings of different sponsoring companies, including Pyxis, Overactive, RootStrap, Light-it, Quanam, LoopStudio, OneTree, CodigoDelSur (main sponsor), MVD Consulting, Perceptiva, BanTotal and IDATHA.
Then there were two small side stages for local and some international talks and the 4 rooms for workshops. Then there was the central stage with a lot of chairs. The central stage was sponsored by CodigoDelSur.
Of the main talks I liked the ones listed below, the others were probably very good but I was probably networking and missed them:
Ryan Williams
Summary of the talk:
- Go Big... or stay home (the concept is not about becoming a billionaire or not, but about the way to approach entrepreneurship, although becoming a millionaire along the way is not a bad idea).
- Disrupt 1 thing at a time
- Know your buyer
- Don't just hire a VP of Sales (this has to be done by the founders)
- Don't sell to everyone
- Differentiate
- Experiment first
- Make something you -others- want to sell
Noah Mamet
He was Ambassador to Argentina. He told a bit of everything he managed to do from his place as ambassador of entrepreneurial ecosystems and making public-private complement to bring companies to the US.
Mike Hennessey
In particular he talked about investors and their situation in LATAM. He particularly likes to invest, among other things, in cybersecurity companies!
From the side talks, I listened to only a few but I liked the following:
- Tony Duckett, spoke mainly about Canada and its incredible benefits for startups that want to immigrate to Canada.
- Martin Alcalá, presented a very concrete and concise talk with very concrete information, super interesting. In particular he gave a lot of focus and showed how TryoLabs prepare their segments of target companies, how they do marketing and, in his vision, the hourly values by type of company/service.
Then there was the round of Carlos Acle of OneTree, Jorge Corral of Arkano and two other people, who sell to US which was also good.
The event was ideal for networking and reconnecting with many acquaintances and friends I hadn't seen in a while.
Summary
In summary, thinking about when Nexa starts to take its steps abroad, I keep the following concepts:
- Know your target market. Define it. Correctly establish what kind of companies what I am doing or offering is useful for. What kind of companies will be our best clients, what size, what do they have to comply with?
- Conoce tu cliente. Defínelo. Tenemos que tener bien claro y definido quién es nuestro «Customer persona». ¿Qué rol tiene en la empresa? ¿Qué edad?, ¿Qué intereses? ¿Qué ingreso?.
- Don't look for a Sales from the beginning. The founders of the company must live the exploratory process of opening markets, understand it and know it.
- Don't sell to everyone. Don't go after every potential client or take as a client what is not for you out of desperation (sometimes it's hard when the belt is tight).
After the event there was an After party outside, quiet because there were few people left, but it was good, great pizzas and black beer. Oh, and drinks bar.
Something really interesting that I leave as a reference are some books recommended by Mike Hennessey:
- The Power of Myth (On Netflix there is a special: Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth)
- Tools of Titans
- Winnie The Pooh 🙂
- The Sales Acceleration Formula
- Zero to One
- High Growth Handbook
- Antifragile
- Sapiens A Brief History of Humandkind (I'm reading this one, it's very good!!)
- Venture deals
As part of the Forum we were offered one-on-one meetings with key people from both the US and Canadian markets. I leave for another post next week the post event experience.
Author: Facundo Garat
CEO of Nexa
Connect