Patrick McGinnis | Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own
Entrepreneurs: The next time you feel overwhelmed or frustrated, stop for a second and imagine what it would be like to build your company in Venezuela. Let me assure you that your daily challenges pale in comparison with a day in the life of a Venezuelan founder. According to the World Bank, it’s easier to operate a business in Syria.
I recently spent a week working with entrepreneurs in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital city. I traveled there with some trepidation, as the country is currently experiencing a full-blown humanitarian crisis. Basic goods, including critical medical supplies, are scarce, so most citizens line up for hours a day in order to get food, toothpaste, and many other necessities that are taken for granted in the rest of Latin America. Meanwhile, the currency has collapsed. In what can only be described as an echo of the Weimar Republic, you need a shopping bag to carry around the equivalent of a few hundred dollars.
Lifestyle challenges go beyond finding food and medicine. There are pervasive shortages of water and electricity, and perhaps worst of all, Caracas is now ranked as the world’s most violent city. Remember that unfinished skyscraper from Homeland? The one where Brody holed up while he came off his heroin addiction? Yes, that’s a real building and it’s found in central Caracas.
In the absence of a functioning economy, it’s not surprising that entrepreneurs face daunting challenges. Since a tremendous amount of wealth has fled the country, funding for startups is hard to come by. At the same time, potential end users are more focused on finding basic supplies for themselves than with testing new technologies. Still, the startup community perseveres, at times flourishing by targeting the country’s unique challenges head on.
Take CityWallet, a fintech startup whose app lets users make micropayments for services like parking and public transport that typically require cash. “Locally, we’re a solution to the daily problems of a Venezuelan, like the lack of paper money and the absence of payment alternatives,” says co-founder Atilana Piñón. It hasn’t been easy for Atilana and her team. “As Venezuelans, we face uncertain and adverse market conditions like an astronomical inflation rate (expected to hit 1640% in 2017!), daily protests, and the pervasive scarcity of food and medicine. We have to be very creative and try to stay positive.”
Given the inherent challenges in the local economy, many Venezuelan entrepreneurs wonder how they can ever build global businesses when the country’s global image is at an all-time low. All you have to do is Google the word Venezuela and you’ll find countless articles about the country’s woes. For investors and clients who are even mildly risk average, that can be a deal breaker.
Yet despite all of these headwinds, some Venezuelan startups still dare to dream big and seek to compete internationally. OnSpotMe is an app that allows people and companies to leave virtual messages for friends or customers at a variety of locations. While they currently operate in Venezuela, Spain, and Curaçao, and plan to expand throughout Latin America, executing internationally is tough when you’re based in a highly volatile country. “The bureaucracy, the limitations to exchanging money, and the difficulty of staying competitive with international companies,” are each daily battles for Ricardo Sanabria, CEO of OnSpotMe.
McGinnis is the author of The 10% Entrepreneur: Live Your Dream Without Quitting your Day Job
Bron: Forbes