Entrepreneurs shared their experiences on how to export a brand abroad and what not to do if it fails

Creating and maintaining a brand on the market, especially internationally, is not a process that takes place overnight. It takes several aspects, trust in talent, teamwork and strategies that go from the most basic, keeping profit and loss accounting. These are the guidelines of the Ecuadorian businessmen who participated in this Tuesday, April 25 virtual conversation called Internationalization of digital companies.

Daniela Santibanez, marketing managerr for Awana; Oswaldo Andrade, Vice President Sales engineering for Kushki globally; and Marcelo Albuja, co-founder of the defunct FastFarm and professor at IDE Business School – Technology & Operations Management, were guests at this webinarwhich is the first of several to be held, according to Juan Pablo Cuesta, commercial advisor of the Ecuadorian Trade Office in New York, United States.

The Ecuadorian company Kushki is already a technological giant, after conquering the capital market

Cuesta pointed out that these spaces are aimed at providing knowledge and experience to those Ecuadorian companies that want to export their digital services to markets in the same area, as well as bring foreign investment for their ventures.

The panelists agreed that the country has potential for exporting products or services, but it is also important to take into account that it is necessary to prepare for entering the international market, for which they suggested joint, allied, or team work. .

They shared not only success, but also what they learned after starting a venture that reached the top but eventually closed down, as in the case of FastFarm which, according to Albuja, only focused on growth and not profitability .. when they arrived in Mexico.

“To grow, you have to go to a bigger market, and we went to one without relatively solid numbers here in Ecuador, so one of the big lessons I learned after going through FastFarm is the advice I always give entrepreneurs: first have a business that unit economy to make sense, that is (to have) basic accounting, income statement…”, said Albuja.

The use of cash in the region is declining, while cards and other digital payments are growing

In this sense, Andrade added that it is important to study the basics of business, in order to then continue with growth, and that is what they did with Kushki in the country, to later open in Colombia and Chile.

“While it is true that a general product line can be desirable, there are certain peculiarities that can stop the massification of products, so understand them well, be able to tropicalize the product and at the same time accurately cover the market,” Andrade said.

The entrepreneur suggested to the entrepreneurs to take advantage of the opportunities that were previously identified and studied.

Kushki was born in 2016. It is a digital payment technology company connecting Latin America. In addition to Ecuador, it operates in Colombia, Chile, Peru and Mexico, and plans to enter the Brazilian market this year.

For his part, Santibáñez argued that Latin America has nothing to envy other regions of the world; however, the lack of unit search is what halts that progress. “Maybe we’re making the mistake of hiding, or we want to do something on our own, or we don’t trust enough, and that’s something we’ve heard all the time on other types of panels.”

He pointed out that cultural changes can be scary, but he believes that there is nothing that conversation cannot nurture.

Awana is a company whose mission is to connect and empower Latin American talent through remote work. Their main market is the United States, and they have also worked in Chile, Colombia and Peru.

A conversation moderated by Fernando Rivera, managing partner of BuenTrip Ventures, organized by the Ministry of Production, Foreign Trade, Investments and Fisheries, in coordination with the Trade Office of Ecuador in New York, in collaboration with the companies FastFarm, Awana, Kushiki and BuenTrip.

Macro business round table 2023

Before the intervention of the panelists, Juan Pablo Cuesta, Commercial Counselor of the Ecuadorian Commercial Office in New York, announced that the Business Macro-Round 2023 will be held in Guayaquil from May 29 to 31.

He said that among the invited buyers will be companies from Peru, Chile and Mexico, including a representative of the cluster of research and development and information and communication technology of the State of Mexico, who will use the space of the macro round to sign a memorandum of understanding with the cluster for digital transformation of Guayaquil, as and another with the public company Épico.

Participants will be able to networking with more than 300 Ecuadorian companies from the manufacturing sector, which will seek to digitally transform their institutions.