What’s up, reader! How are you? My name is Javier Velásquez (“Javi”) and together with Juan Pablo Zorrilla (“Zorro”) a few years ago I founded Resuelve.mx. The purpose of this monthly column is to tell you stories (good, bad and scary) of our roller coaster being an entrepreneur.
At once I warn you that I am somewhat foul-mouthed and I am going to use profanity and a lot of sarcasm (as far as Emprendedor.com allows me…). I hope the final product ends up almost uncensored. I’m also given nicknames a lot, so they learn them assuming they become regular readers of my column and don’t cancel it. From time to time I will look for an enterprising lost soul who will talk to us about a topic that he thinks is relevant, hoping that his anecdote will be better than ours and, above all, that it will be more constructive.
Hopefully our successes, but even more so our blunders, will help them make better decisions if they are going to undertake. They are told by someone who together with his partner has not tired of watering it. Even so and with all my heart for those who are thinking of starting, cheer up! the jacuzzi is warm! We hope, rather than scare you, to paint you a complete and real picture of the good and bad things of starting a business in Mexico or “Latin Africa”, as “Chava”, my old college professor called it.
Now yes, we start with a little bit of context (a little so they don’t think I’m letting myself go with self-promotion). Resolve is a company fintech in which we are dedicated to consumer credit restructuring and digital accounting solutions for SMEs. In 9 years we have grown to 1,200 collaborators in Mexico, Colombia and Argentina. We have 50,000 active clients and we have restructured more than 1,000 million pesos of our clients’ debts. In short, if you have debt or accounting “farts” with your business, we will help you. If you want to know more, you can go to the page.
Fox and I founded Resolve in September 2009, coming off our MBA at Stanford University. If you think I’m presuming I went to Stanford, you’re right, but I assure you it’s not for the reasons you imagine. It is so that when in future columns they think “how cool is this guy”, they remember that I am not so dude.
I went for a master’s degree with the idea of graduating and getting a super job in the financial industry in the United States, specifically Private Equity. I already saw myself living the dream on Wall Street. I was very wrong! To my bad (or good) luck, our master’s degree coincided with the financial crisis, so my chances of success in getting a job in that sector were negative.
My plan B was to undertake (so what!). Before the MBA, I was an Investment Banker. The worst job in the world and with some of the most arrogant people around! (If there are bankers reading this column, I remind them: the billions of pesos they handle, ARE NOT THEIRS! IT IS SOMEONE ELSE’S MONEY, haha).
My closest example of an entrepreneur was my dad (nicknamed “Don Malo” by my childhood friends). Don Malo was a very traditional entrepreneur who had had several small businesses: some good and others regular. Thanks to these businesses we never lacked for anything and he had a lot of flexibility with his time. It seemed to me that he lived the whole life, without excluding some lean times in the house when some of the businesses stopped being good or regular.
Personally, I didn’t have any particularly innovative ideas and believed that starting a big business was for people with money. A life as a banker awaited me wannabe on a steady salary and climbing the corporate ladder. Being honest, my plan B was closer to an excuse for my married friends (“Zorro”, “Grandpa” and “Chichili”) to have permission from their wives to go have a drink and “talk about business”, rather than to a very serious attempt to undertake something. The only free spirit like me at that time was “Pantera”. Later I will tell you about each one.
In those business brainstorming “simulations” we explore many different things. The avalanche of mobile applications and solutions had not yet started, because the first iPhone (2007) had barely been launched, so our ideas were not very technological.
Idea number 7: Buy sugar mills in Mexico to produce ethanol. That sounded very much like “renewable energy”. However, in Mexico cars do not use ethanol (unlike countries like Brazil) and the price of sugar cane was set by the government.
Idea number 33: Medical tourism in the northern states of Mexico for patients from the United States. It seems to me that it has gained some traction lately, but when we analyzed it, the war against drugs was starting, so we said “No.”
Idea number 108: “Real” semi-prepared Mexican food for Latinos in the United States. The downside is that Latinos in the US have tastes that are more similar to gringos than to ours. they are more pa’allá that pa’ here (This explains something of why many countrymen voted for Donald Trump).
Idea number 199: Independent network of ATMs (we were not aware of the banking oligopoly in Mexico).
Idea number 226: Network of cafeterias with specific areas for young children. Imagine a Starbucks with a fish tank where you put the kids in so the moms can keep an eye on them while they throw their shawls.
That’s how visionary we were!
Resolve was not the product of this “sophisticated” process. So how did we come up with it? Due to space issues I will have to tell you about it in next month’s column. I will also explain why the title: The idea is worth zero . Although I know it’s quite cliché and I’m not teaching the black thread to anyone, I will give you my opinion on this concept.
We’ll see each other next month, if you have any comments, questions, complaints and suggestions, give me a nuisance on Twitter. they find me like @Javivelop .