Paula Enei, Platanus Ventures | From Start-Up Chile to Platanus: Lessons in Accelerating Startups [Ep. 36]

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

Creating, nurturing, and accelerating an entrepreneurship ecosystem is not an easy task. And it is less easy when the effort is to promote it through government policy. That is why Startup Chile is a success story from which we can draw several lessons. For that, today we have Paula Enei, cofounder and partner at Platanus Ventures, one of the best startup accelerators in Latin America.

Before that, Paula was Director of Acceleration at Startup Chile. We talked about government policies and the challenges governments face in supporting entrepreneurship, and Paula’s lessons on ecosystem creation and startup acceleration, supporting hundreds of ventures over her career.

What You Can Learn Today

• Design and impact of policies to support entrepreneurship
• Platanus Ventures program inspired by Y Combinator
• Requirements to get into Platanus Ventures

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Youtube Timestamps*

About Startup Chile

• [1:02] - How did Paula get into the world of startups?
  • Vaso Medio Lleno venture after university
  • Time in the Startup Chile program
  • Process and lessons from applying to Y Combinator
  • Opportunity to work at Startup Chile
• [5:08] - Influence of psychology when founding and working with founders
  • Attention to what works and what does not work
  • Constant focus on problems to solve
  • Search for improvements
  • Working with people, not companies
• [7:08] - Experience at Startup Chile
  • Leadership of the communities
  • From scouting and internationalization to directing the acceleration program
• [8:45] - Government policies to support entrepreneurship
  • Long-term initiatives that survive changes in government
  • The case of Israel, the “startup nation”
  • Survival and impact of Startup Chile
  • Patience in determining the success or failure of a policy
• [13:30] - Recommendations for the designers of policies to support entrepreneurship
  • Having policies of state and not of government
  • Instruments with a multidisciplinary team that includes founders
  • Minimizing bureaucracy
• [16:30] - How do you measure the impact of public money invested in these initiatives?
  • Measurement according to the objective of each initiative
  • Importance of measurement for the success of public policies

About Platanus Ventures

• [18:40] - What is Platanus Ventures and what gap does it fill in the startup financing market?
  • Digital business accelerator for Spanish-speaking startups
  • Initial capital and connections with founders and investors
  • 3-month program: constant follow-up and the importance of choosing mentors
  • Focus on technology: a representative percentage for the CTO on the cap table
• [22:10] - Platanus Ventures as the “Y Combinator of Latin America”
  • Inspired by YC but not a replica
  • Associated startups: a common fund among startups
  • Founders’ focus on what matters most
• [25:15] - What aspects of Y Combinator can be adapted locally so it is more impactful for Latin American startups?
  • Y Combinator in Spanish
  • Specialization in the Latin market versus other markets
  • Challenges of access to capital and talent
• [28:00] - Importance of a techie on the founding team
  • Higher probability of success for the startup
  • Product in continuous iteration
  • The CTO as a draw for more techie talent
• [30:50] - How does Platanus Ventures see itself in the medium term?
  • Scaling the next generations to reach more founders
  • Having representation from more industries
  • Continuing with the techie founding partner requirement
• [33:09] - Lessons from Startup Chile applied to the Platanus Ventures program
  • Program requirements and design
  • Community among founders
  • Specific choice of advisors for each startup

Tweet Round

• [36:39] -
  • Recommended book: The Tyranny of Merit - Michael Sandel
  • Changes in the startup ecosystem: greater inclusion and diversity of class, gender, and ethnicity
  • Investor to interview: Gert Findel, angel investor

Episode Mentions

You can follow Paula on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Recommended book: The Tyranny of Merit - Michael Sandel

Investor to interview: Gert Findel

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