Victor Cortés, Contxto - Tracción | The Contxto Story: Lessons on Startups and Content Marketing [Ep. 46]

The audio and video are in Spanish. These notes are a translation.

A couple of years ago, it was very hard to stay informed about what was happening in the fascinating world of startups in Latin America, because there were no specialized outlets covering the progress of startups in our region, such as the latest investment rounds, product launches, partnerships, and more. In this context, and pardon the play on words, Contxto was born, one of the main online news outlets of the Latin American startup ecosystem.

Contxto’s story had the ups and downs of a startup, and in less than 2 years it went from becoming the leading outlet to stopping operations at the end of 2020. Luckily for us, a couple of months ago, Contxto came back. And today we spoke with Victor Cortés, its cofounder and former CEO, to learn more about the story, why he decided to step aside, and the lessons in entrepreneurship and content marketing that he took from this process. Today, Victor is also Director of Content at Tribal Credit and the creator of the Tracción podcast.

What You Can Learn Today

Recommendations for people who are starting to build a company
Challenges in the digital media sector in Latin America
Recommendations on content marketing for startups

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Youtube Timestamps*

The Story of Contxto

[1:33] - How did Victor get into the world of startups?
- An app for the gas station industry in college
- Time at Redwood Ventures
[3:15] - What is Contxto, and why does Victor believe it became the leading news outlet of the Latin American startup ecosystem?
- An outlet for the entire Latin American ecosystem of startups, venture capital, and technology
- Good timing: the start of large rounds in the region
- Bilingualism: available in English and Spanish
- Opportunity: the need for a reliable outlet and reliable data
- All-in: leaving Redwood Capital to work full-time on Contxto
[6:27] - What led Victor to decide to leave the CEO role at Contxto?
- COVID and burn-out
- Pressure to generate revenue and daily, original content
- Differences between founders regarding the vision and the operation of the business
[10:39] - Recommendations for people who are starting or thinking about starting a company
- Start building relationships long before you start a company, and get to know them
- Have a good vesting plan
- Have the uncomfortable conversations as early as possible
- Do not tie your identity to the venture
- Keep things in perspective
- Do not monetize your hobbies
[14:31] - What does he believe are the biggest challenges digital media will face in scaling at a regional level?
- The industry’s vicious circle
- Difficulty raising capital and generating profits
- Monetizing in a scalable way as the main challenge
[17:00] - Contxto’s return and what is next for the company
- Better content thanks to financing from a partner
- Tracción as a content creation agency for Contxto

The Content Marketing Opportunity Based on Experience at Contxto, Tracción, and Tribal

[19:38] - From Contxto’s experience, why have so few startups in Latin America succeeded at scaling through organic growth strategies?
- Audience-first vs Product-first
- The impact of content marketing
- Thinking about the medium term (hockey stick)
[23:51] - Recommendations for early-stage startups, with scarce time and money, about content marketing
- A strategy that is mainly medium term
- Content testing (Minimum Viable Channel)
- An SEO strategy and short-term results with low investment
- Tropicalizing distribution
- A big opportunity for content in Spanish
[28:46] - Are there other low-hanging fruits that a seed-stage startup can work on with little investment?
- Document the journey of starting a company with your cofounders
- Talk about the industry and topics that interest your end audience
- Launch and iterate an MVP of a podcast or another type of content
- Replicate several pieces from a single piece of content (repurposing)
- Automate the processes of creating and distributing content
[31:43] - Startups in Latin America that are successful at content marketing
- Platzi for B2C and Belvo for B2B
- The cases of Flink and Oddzero
[33:42] - What do the stories of the startups that get the most organic news coverage have in common, based on his experience at Contxto?
- No “transactional” approach from the founders
- Building relationships over time
- Focusing on what interests the audience of the outlet you are pitching
- Clarity about the style and the type of content and news the outlet covers
[37:52] - Press Releases and recommendations for pitching a funding-round news story
- The importance of sharing newsworthy, relevant, and insightful content
- Putting yourself in the journalist’s shoes when creating a Press Release

Tweet Round

[40:04] -
- Recommended book: Sobre la brevedad de la vida, by Lucio Anneo Seneca
- Changes in the Latin American startup ecosystem: dropping the herd mentality and exploring global industries or ones that tackle deep local problems
- Founder to interview: Pamela Valdes, of Beek

Episode Mentions

You can find Victor on LinkedIn and all of his content on growth on Twitter as @cortesvictorh and @traccion_

The Story of Contxto

The Content Marketing Opportunity Based on Experience at Contxto, Tracción, and Tribal

Tweet Round

Episode Mentions

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