Alfonso de los Ríos, Nowports | The Future of International Logistics and Competing in Global Markets [Ep. 38]

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

Do you remember the shortage of several essential products at the start of the pandemic? Above all, the ones imported from other countries were in short supply. It is incredible how our daily life can depend so much on an industry like international logistics, without us really being aware of it. In fact, most of the objects you see around you have probably been traveling in a container at some point. To talk about this and the future of international logistics, today we have Alfonso de los Ríos, CEO and cofounder of Nowports.

Nowports is the first digital freight forwarder in Latin America and, to date, has raised almost 25 million dollars from venture capital funds such as Mouro Capital, monashees, and Base 10. We talk with Alfonso about the opportunity to use technology to solve the challenges of international logistics and how a startup can build its competitive advantage in a global market.

What You Can Learn Today

A startup’s ideation process and recommendations
Problems and opportunities in the international logistics sector
Advantages of having a local product versus global competitors

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Youtube Timestamps*

Introduction and Startup Ideation: The Nowports Experience

[1:15] - How did Alfonso arrive at the world of startups?
- A reverse entry through programming
- Internship at a startup
[2:55] - Nowports and how it is changing international logistics
- Impact of the international logistics industry on daily life
- State of the industry and opportunities for improvement
- What Nowports is
- Software and features of the solution
[6:25] - How did they arrive at the problem?
- A family with a traditional logistics company
- A cofounder with a background in logistics
- A traditional and manual industry
[7:31] - What was Nowports’ ideation process like?
- (Lack of) knowledge of the industry
- Hypothesis validation and market segmentation
- Full-time commitment and a trip to CDMX
- A sales process in parallel with software development
[9:12] - How did they decide it was an idea worth pursuing?
- An intuitively large market
- A product that certain companies would like, not all of them
[10:26] - Recommendations for the ideation process
- Moving from building to talking with users
- Deep knowledge of the specific user

The Future of International Logistics

[12:00] - What were the main logistics problems that were already evident before the pandemic, but are now impossible to ignore?
- Communication by phone and printed documents
- A 600% increase in adoption in one month at the start of the pandemic
- Remote mode and cultural challenges
[13:33] - Why does Alfonso think there has been so little innovation in the industry?
- An industry with many people
- Progressive adoption of technology
- Priorities of logistics teams
[14:46] - Beyond Nowports, what opportunities are there to keep automating and digitizing the international logistics industry?
- IoT for tracking, transparency in customs, last-mile visibility
- Startups in each section of the logistics process
[16:06] - How does Alfonso think the building and management of international supply chains will evolve as a result of the pandemic?
- The case of face masks at the start of the pandemic
- Diversification of suppliers
- Digitization of processes at traditional companies

Nowports’ Competitive Advantages in a Global Market

[18:19] - Nowports’ competitive advantage
- Turning manual processes into self-driving
- A varied customer base
- Increase in the product’s value after each day of use
[19:41] - How have they handled the sales process?
- Progressive adoption of technology in the company’s processes
- Turning an operational team into a strategic one
- Showing numbers to the logistics team
[22:07] - Are there advantages to being a local Latin American player versus other global players?
- Latin America as the second-largest market
- Specific needs of the region
- Global competitors with 1% of the market in their regions
[23:52] - Opportunity for complementary services in logistics
- Current customers’ need
- Embedded Finance and reception of Nowports’ new product
[25:34] - Advantages of the data and the connections with many logistics processes
- Network effects inside and outside the customer company
- Nowports as one of the main players between Asia and Latin America
- Being proactive about optimizing customers’ processes
- Recommendations and referrals from other players in the industry

Tweet Round

[28:11] -
- Recommended book: Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds, by David Goggins
- Changes in Latin America’s startup ecosystem: access to capital, solving problems that affect day-to-day life
- Founder to interview: Manolo Atala of Fairplay