Migue Morkin, Sirena | From Founder to CEO, Exiting a Startup, and Raising Outside LatAm [Ep. 7]

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

We use more and more SaaS tools in our daily work: Zoom, Google Drive, Slack, among others that, for the most part, were created outside Latin America. However, there are problems for which it is hard to find foreign solutions and that, ultimately, have to be solved by Latin American startups. To talk about this, the story of his exit, and balance as a CEO, we invited Migue Morkin, cofounder and CEO of Sirena.

Latin America is one of the continents with the highest use of Whatsapp, which has become a key tool in companies’ sales processes. In response to this opportunity, Sirena was born, the first CRM that helps merchants in our region sell to and serve their customers via Whatsapp.

Sirena raised venture capital from funds such as Dalus Capital, NXTP, and Mercado Libre, and in 2020 it was acquired by Zenvia, the largest communications software company in Brazil.

What You Can Learn Today

Lessons from the CEO experience
Mental health recommendations for entrepreneurs
Fundraising process in Silicon Valley

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From Founder to CEO

[2:08] - How did Migue arrive at the world of startups?
- The first steps of his work experience before starting a company
[2:55] - What is Rodati and how did it evolve into Sirena?
- The origin of Sirena as an internal tool
- The pivot to Sirena
[4:10] - Why did Kavak succeed as a car marketplace and Rodati did not?
- An idea that was very early for its time
- The business model: marketplace of 0-kilometer cars vs. semi-new cars
[7:20] - The day to day of an entrepreneur on Instagram
[8:27] - The WhatsApp trend in LatAm businesses
- The big market opportunity: Mexico
[11:31] - How do you tell who is worth listening to and who is not?
- Credibility: who is more credible in each field
- Filtering recommendations and talking with founders and VCs
[14:09] - Enjoying the process of building a company and separating it from the outcome
- The importance of having prior experiences in order to fail and learn
- Exposing yourself to the worst in order to reduce fear
[16:50] - Migue’s impact on his team and Sirena’s culture
[19:40] - Migue’s learnings as CEO
- Failing in order to internalize concepts and succeed
[23:39] - Mental health recommendations for entrepreneurs
- Setting personal OKRs
- Defining 2 to 3 non-negotiable healthy personal habits
[27:56] - Sirena’s tools and management style
- EOS: Entrepreneurial Operating System
- Migue’s CEO role after the Zenvia acquisition

Sirena’s Exit and Fundraising Outside LatAm

[30:25] - The story of Sirena’s exit
- The investors’ support to continue with the startup’s exit
[37:54] - The difficult fundraising process in Silicon Valley
- The relationship between VCs and social proof in order to raise capital
[42:50] - The opportunity of SaaS as a remote tool to solve problems at a local and global scale

Tweet Round

[57:02] -
- Recommended books: Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile
- The investor who has helped the most to build Sirena: Santiago Bilinkis
- A change in the world of startups: more standardized processes in the Venture Capital industry in LatAm and for them to operate with more of a Silicon Valley mindset
- The best entrepreneur in LatAm: Mateo Cavasotto (Emi Labs)

Episode Mentions

You can follow Migue on Instagram.

Books: Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile

From Founder to CEO

Sirena’s Exit and Fundraising Outside LatAm

Tweet Round

Episode Mentions

Watch the episode