I am currently participating in Startup Chile and I am very happy to be here.
It is important to note, however, that there are some things that have surprised many participants that I think should be made clearer.
This is not an accelerator program like Y Combinator or TechStars. There is less structure and support, for example no "Demo Day" to work towards. You also don't get a check made payable to your startup to relieve your short term cashflow concerns and allow you to focus completely on your product.
Startup Chile is more like what I imagine taking a government job as an "Entrepreneur in Residence" might be like. We earn points by actively working to give back to the community, each team is expected to earn a minimum number over the 6 months. In return we get fast tracked through the admin of moving to a new country (getting visas and social security numbers) and are given access to a $40K budget to reimburse most, but not all, of our expenses.
You should expect to spend a couple of days a month working through the (bureaucratic) government reimbursement process and organizing / participating in community activities.
A few notes on the reimbursement process:
1) You have to spend money on things before you can get it back, and have to pay off any payments made by credit card before you get reimbursed.
2) You will probably need to put in around $10K so you have cashflow allowing you to spend the $40K within the 6 months allowed.
3) There are lots of rules restricting what can and can't be reimbursed. You need to make sure you understand all the terms and conditions before you spend any cash.
4) There are limitations on some forms of spending, for example:
a) You will need to get 3 competing quotes before spending more than $5K.
b) You will need to ask permission in advance of booking travel / events and they won't be reimbursed until after you have taken the trip / attended the event.
5) You will only ever get 90% of what you spend reimbursed. So $44k = $40k.
6) The complexity of the system means that there are inconsistencies between startups on what gets reimbursed and what does not.
It saddens me to say this but you shouldn't expect to have your mind blown by the quality of the startups here. There's lots of talking and not enough shipping. Unless contacts in Latin America are critical to your business, Startup Chile will not accelerate your startup any more than other forms of cash.
tl;dr: Apply to Startup Chile for the experience of living in another country amongst a community of ambitious people from around the world. Bring lots of money with you.
I've talked extensively to a number of people that run Startup Chile. They are very interested in getting early startups that are too early to even go into an incubator. That was a conscious choice. So, it stands to reason that you're not going to be astounded by the quality of the startups.
Catalina, their director of HR/Culture is coming to Silicon Valley in two weeks to learn more about what Silicon Valley is, and does. I'm going to try and communicate what we think works at Hackers & Founders to help get startups ready for incubation / launch. We're trying to get her talking to a number of people that we think can be really helpful.
Anything that you think would really help down there? Ping me: jonathan@hackersandfounders.com
Success from a few will show how to ship. This is just another (but exciting) form of cultural learning. Looking forward to seeing how many generations it takes to grow a hub. If there's broadband in Patagonia I'll be moving soon!
suphappy - thanks for sharing your experience. Some of this was news to me. I wanted to kindly ask if it would it be possible to ask you a few other questions offline about your experience with the program. Any chance you could drop me a line at artsumo.com/about/contact?
One of the areas that they are least clear on in their FAQs, etc, is how you do the community outreach projects. What are some of the different things you can do to earn these points? Do all of them involve public speaking? (I'd rather meat with 40 chileans who want to do startups one on one than give a presentation in front of all 40 of them at once, for instance.)
How tied are you to Santiago? I've been to Santiago and it's a wonderful city, but I was wondering if locating in Valparaiso, or Vino del mar, or even Punta Arenas was viable? I know they want to support entrepreneurs across chile, so locating elsewhere is seemingly a valued goal, but I'm not sure how much of the program presumes you're in santiago. In fact, is it possible to earn your entrepreneur in residence points outside of santiago?
How difficult did you find the visa situation? What all did you need to do in advance of finding out if you got in? (I've heard that getting FBI's background check can take up to 4 months, but that it is only accepted by the chileans for 3 months after being issued. This means you could apply, not get it back from the FBI until after you should be in Chile... or get it far enough in advance to be sure you got it by the time you needed to be in chile, and have it come quickly and then be out of date....)
Have you learned spanish? It turns out I know a lot more spanish than I thought I did, but my memory is that not many chileans know english.
I see they have a nice new office. We tend to get an apartment and each live/work in a bedroom, and save on office expenses. How much of the program is tied towards being in the office every day, vs, working in the apartment? How are the nice/upscale apartments in santiago in comparison to the stipend you can pay for housing out of the reimbursement money? Is there an apartment building that is popular with startup chile businesses? Is doing a 6 month lease very difficult?
We've not got a lot of connections in latin america, is that really important to getting in, or is it more important to be a quality startup? I think we've got the quality startup thing nailed, hopefully, but our network of entrepreneurs is small, and very lacking south of central america.
Also, we really just started the company a month ago, but we're going to have a MVP out next month, and plan to do a launch in January-February timeframe. Will this make us too developed for Startup Chile? Or do you think that having giving them a product to talk up right off the bat would be good for our chances of being accepted? (Hopefully from our MVP, we'll even have some traction...)
I'm living in Viña del Mar with a collection of other Start-Up Chile teams. You need to return to Santiago for reimbursements but you'll earn points for moving out to a region.
Almost any project you can justify as being beneficial to the community will qualify for the points. If you meet with 40 chileans for one-to-one mentoring you'll likely exceed the minimum requirement with ease.
The visa gets fast tracked, most people got theirs within a month using a basic police check. You can't start the programme or arrive in Chile without the visa, and entering with a tourist visa is not an option.
I took a few Spanish lessons before arriving and really need to start doing more. It's not easy but you can just about get by with English.
The programme isn't tied to the office, it's an extra benefit if you want it. I mostly work from my apartment. The stipend is enough to get a good apartment in Santiago, you'll need to find a Spanish speaking friend to help you find a good value one. There are clusters of Start-Up Chile teams living in "aparthotels" that have very flexible short term leases.
We had no connections in Latin America before getting here. It's more important that you have a quality startup and your application meets the other criteria detailed in the process.
There are teams here at all stages, some had launched before arriving, don't worry about it.
It is important to note, however, that there are some things that have surprised many participants that I think should be made clearer.
This is not an accelerator program like Y Combinator or TechStars. There is less structure and support, for example no "Demo Day" to work towards. You also don't get a check made payable to your startup to relieve your short term cashflow concerns and allow you to focus completely on your product.
Startup Chile is more like what I imagine taking a government job as an "Entrepreneur in Residence" might be like. We earn points by actively working to give back to the community, each team is expected to earn a minimum number over the 6 months. In return we get fast tracked through the admin of moving to a new country (getting visas and social security numbers) and are given access to a $40K budget to reimburse most, but not all, of our expenses.
You should expect to spend a couple of days a month working through the (bureaucratic) government reimbursement process and organizing / participating in community activities.
A few notes on the reimbursement process:
1) You have to spend money on things before you can get it back, and have to pay off any payments made by credit card before you get reimbursed.
2) You will probably need to put in around $10K so you have cashflow allowing you to spend the $40K within the 6 months allowed.
3) There are lots of rules restricting what can and can't be reimbursed. You need to make sure you understand all the terms and conditions before you spend any cash.
4) There are limitations on some forms of spending, for example: a) You will need to get 3 competing quotes before spending more than $5K. b) You will need to ask permission in advance of booking travel / events and they won't be reimbursed until after you have taken the trip / attended the event.
5) You will only ever get 90% of what you spend reimbursed. So $44k = $40k.
6) The complexity of the system means that there are inconsistencies between startups on what gets reimbursed and what does not.
It saddens me to say this but you shouldn't expect to have your mind blown by the quality of the startups here. There's lots of talking and not enough shipping. Unless contacts in Latin America are critical to your business, Startup Chile will not accelerate your startup any more than other forms of cash.
tl;dr: Apply to Startup Chile for the experience of living in another country amongst a community of ambitious people from around the world. Bring lots of money with you.