#493 Brian Requarth on Startups in Latin America

Brian Requarth is the co-founder and former CEO of Viva Real, the leading real estate marketplace in Brazil. He recently wrote a book titled “Viva the Entrepreneur: Founding, Scaling, and Raising Venture Capital in Latin America.” In this conversation, we discuss entrepreneurship in Latin America, why the region is seeing an explosion of startups, global competition for resources, and where investors and founders should look for opportunity. ======================= OKCoin.com is the leading crypto exchange for both beginners and experienced users. You can fund your account in under 2 minutes, and get access to the most advanced trading engine, all while paying the lowest trading fees in the industry (0.1%). Visit www.okcoin.com/pomp and open your account today. ======================= Own crypto in multiple exchanges and wallets? Sync them to CoinStats so you track and manage them from one place. Track 8000+ coins and 300+ exchanges all from the Coinstats platform. Try it for free or go to coinstats.app/pomp and get 40% off your premium subscription. ======================= Remote makes it easy for companies of all sizes to employ global full-time employees and contractors. We take care of international payroll, benefits, taxes and local compliance, so you can focus on growing your business. Learn more about Remote and their new Remote for Startups program at https://www.remote.com.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off. Brian Recorth is the co-founder and former CEO of Viva Real, the leading real estate marketplace in Brazil. He recently wrote a book titled "Viva the Entrepreneur: Founding, Scaling, and Raising Venture Capital in Latin America." In this conversation, we discuss entrepreneurship in Latin America, why the region is seeing an explosion of startups, global competition for resources, and where investors and founders should look for opportunity in Latin America. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Brian just as much as I did. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors.

• 0:47Anthony Pompliano?

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• 1:27Anthony Pompliano?

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• 2:11Anthony Pompliano?

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• 2:23Anthony Pompliano?

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• 3:08Anthony Pompliano?

  and so should you. Remote is funded by Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and a host of other top-tier investors. Learn more about Remote and their new Remote for Startups program at remote.com. Again, go check them out at remote.com. All right, let's get into this episode with Brian. I hope you guys enjoy this one. Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy,

• 3:50Anthony Pompliano?

  but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 4:00Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. I've got Brian here with me. Thank you so much for doing this, sir.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Hey, it's always a pleasure, man. Thank you.

• 4:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. Let's just jump right into your background. You've got a really unique perspective on the world based on some things that you've done and then also where you're spending time today. But maybe just walk us through, where'd you grow up and kind of how did you get into technology, both as a builder and an investor?

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Sure. I'm from the Bay Area originally, a small town. Called Sebastian Poole and you know, I ended up getting my car, drove from California to Costa Rica, bought a one-way ticket to Bogota, Colombia. You know, there's a lot of times a woman behind these stories. I'd met my wife and my girlfriend in San Diego. She likes to say she imported me to Colombia. And so I ended up moving to Colombia, you know, chasing the girl and we ended up getting married. And then three months, you know, planned to make it down to Patagonia. Three months in Bogota, Colombia turned into six and a half years. And I basically ended up getting into tech and entrepreneurship out of necessity to kind of continue my, my journey down south. And so that's kind of the genesis of, you know, how I got into, to building companies in the region.

• 5:06Anthony Pompliano?

  It's amazing. And the, the good part is that your story ends well because she ends up becoming your wife. So that's a positive development to the, to the story. Uh, let's talk about kind of you as an operator, uh, in Latin America. Maybe just walk through a little bit as to what you've done there. Obviously you've got a, a highly successful business that you built, uh, but kind of just walk us through it.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Sure. I mean, you know, it was a long journey, right? And, and it was, this wasn't a straight line to kind of get to successes as we all know, right? And so, uh, you know, I did everything in the early days. I mean, just to pay the bills, I would literally, I bought this like business book or for business English because no one would hire me, right? And so I literally walked the streets of Bogota, Colombia, knocking on, you know, office buildings and selling my English classes, um, because I needed, you know, pay my rent. And so that was kind of how I started off and, uh, you know, that, the ideas kept kind of increasing in size over time, but I did that in the first kind of year and a half, two years. I hired a teacher because I was like, I'm a terrible teacher. And so, uh, you know, then I started, uh, you know, getting into kind of, uh, you know,

• 6:10Speaker 01

  I actually met my co-founder paying a fine at immigration services because we both overstayed our visas. He was from Germany. I had a student that wanted to learn German. And so I basically saw him in line paying this fine. I'm like, hey, you got a German passport. Do you want to teach German classes? Uh, the guy, you know, he's, he wanted to keep his trip going. So he ended up, uh, you know, we didn't end up doing the German classes, but he And I both had an interest in tech and we both kind of came up with our first business, which was more like websites and, you know, not high-tech entrepreneurship, but just like, you know, websites and translation services. And then that kind of evolved eventually into

• 6:51Speaker 01

  building my, you know, kind of the main startup that worked out for me, which is called Viva Real, a real estate marketplace, kind of like Zillow of Brazil is the way I would describe it.

• 7:01Anthony Pompliano?

  And talk about that business a little bit because you're being incredibly humble, but you raised tens of millions of dollars for it. It's been incredibly successful. So talk to us, kind of what was the impetus for the idea, why that specific market, and then kind of how you guys executed on the business?

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a funny story. When I kind of had the idea for the business, I think it was two major factors. One, I was living in a piece of crap, you know, hotel motel. You know, by the way, motel is different in Colombia that I didn't realize when I first got in. I thought it was like a motel aid, but it was not a great place to be. Let's just say that. And when I ended up, you know, wanting to move out of there because frankly, my wife's family, you know, girlfriend at the time dropped me off and they were, you know, they were like scolding her for letting me stay in this very, very kind of dumpy place. And so I, you know, ended up trying to find a place. I went into the classifieds. That's how long ago this was in 2005, six. And I ended

• 7:59Speaker 01

  up talking to a real estate agent and the real estate agent said, I got the perfect property for you. You know, they were, they were, you know, all confident on the phone. We sat down in a cafe. The agent pulls out a piece of paper from their briefcase and says, I've got the perfect property you're looking for. That'll be 10,000 pesos, which sounds like a lot of money, but you know, that was only a few dollars at the time. And I reluctantly, you know, I need to get out of this place. I reluctantly paid the agent just to see the information and spent the whole day. First property already rented, second property too big, third property too expensive, wasted the entire day, money, time. And I'm like, there's got to be a better way. And so around the same time, I read a case study for MercadoLibre. For the audience that doesn't know Mercado-

• 8:44Speaker 01

  It's one of the biggest internet companies in the world. It just kind of touched the $100 billion market cap company. And I came across a Stanford case study that I, you know, that I read at an internet cafe. And I thought, you know, kind of putting those two experiences together. Crappy experience, largest asset class in the world. And, you know, amazing business that kind of touched upon real estate, but was more classified in general. That was the, the kind of the genesis for the idea of wanting to start more of a real estate classified marketplace business. Got it. And so, once you start the business, does it take off right away? Do you guys kind of have to tinker with it and kind of really find product market fit? How do you eventually get it to where it starts to scale?

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Well, Pomp, there was no Pomp investors, you know, back then in Colombia. You know, I didn't have access to capital. So, you know, I like to say I bootstrapped, but really, you know, that makes it sound fancy that I decided to bootstrap. There's just no money, right? So, you know, we had to get the customers first. We had to, you know, we had to, you know, get, create revenue initially because I got rejected by 30 investors when we were trying to raise money. This is 2009 when we actually started the business. I had the idea in kind of 2000, 2008, seven, and then we deployed the website in 2009. But, you know, we all know what happened in 2009, right? 2008, this is the, you know, the backdrop of the financial crisis.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  So, coupled with the fact that like Latin America is not exactly the hotspot in around that time. The aura of Colombia isn't, the first thing you don't think of is like tech innovation, right? We all know kind of the first thing that happens in the minds of most people when they think about Colombia. The image is changing in the country, but back then it was, you know, it was a little bit more dangerous and not as traveled to. And so, we struggled then. I mean, we had two and a half years, you know, just bootstrapping, kind of hustling, you know, selling, you know, selling websites and marketing services and kind of anything we could to eventually evolve the business into more pure play marketplace kind of classified site. It took us, yeah, two and a half years to raise our first capital and, you know, 30 no's. And really, the breakthrough moment for me was

• 10:54Speaker 01

  When I ended up connecting with two different investors, they were angel investors. One of them had been the former CEO of a company called REA Group, which is a $10 billion market cap company in Australia. And he was the CEO during a time of extreme growth. And he, along with another guy by the name of Greg Waldorf, who used to be the CEO of eHarmony and was an early, I think he was the first investor in Trulia, you know, the real estate marketplace in the US that was acquired by Zillow. The two of them ended up investing early on. And so I had zero signals. I didn't go to Stanford. I didn't go to Harvard. You know, didn't have a network and no one thought Latin America was kind of a place to be investing.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  And so when they invested, you know, Greg was a CEO in residence at Excel. All of a sudden, it just popped in this network that I was unfamiliar with and kind of, you know, became accepted as, oh, this entrepreneur might be on to something. And then the trajectory of the company changed immediately after that.

• 11:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's absolutely fascinating, kind of how, you know, once you start to hit an inflection point and momentum build, it's like, here we go. Talk a little bit about as you guys scaled the business. I know there were some transactions along the way, but kind of where did the business eventually get to? Why did the transactions and kind of how does the business look today?

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the, you know, the 2011s, we raised our first kind of institutional capital. We raised from two local investors. The founders of MercadoLib raised, spun off and created a fund. And so Kazakh and then another top tier fund called Monashis kind of led our Series A. And then we piled on some additional growth capital. Spark, you know, Spark invested, Lead Edge and a handful of other, Dragon Year, Valiant, a couple of hedge funds. So we raised about $74 million of venture, scaled the business. It was quite competitive. We went against a tiger backed competitor. And to, you know, in the early days, you know, they were, you know, they had raised much more money than us and were well funded, had, you know, years of kind of ahead of us.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  So that was a real struggle to kind of go head to head with them. And then our other competitor was the, you know, the largest media company in Latin America. And I'm not joking when I say that. They basically own the media in Brazil. Um, it's, you know, I remember when we were competing and I was in a cafe one day and, you know, they have these telas novelas, which are soap operas and they get Super Bowl audiences like every week like this is. And I remember inside the, the, the soap opera, they did a plug for their products. Are competing like they're like, you know, João, you gotta go to, you know, Zap, the real estate place, you know? And it's like organically in the, the soap opera. So

• 13:34Speaker 01

  that was terrifying as an underfunded, scrappy entrepreneur going against this media giant. Um, we, we were very scrappy. We bootstrapped hard in the early days. So we were very good with managing our money. And so we were much more efficient in our growth and we grew organically while everyone else was spending big dollars in media. And so that enabled us to kind of, you know, go toe to toe with these larger companies. And one thing that I really knew, Pomp, was that, you know, there'd be consolidation at some point, right? That's inevitable in a market like this. So I, I kind of had the realization that either you're at the table or you're on the menu. And so my goal was to make sure hustling to get at the table and make sure that we, we have our, our deserved spot there.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  What ended up happening is there was consolidation. Um, you know, we had approached a larger incumbent to try to do a deal. It kind of got laughed off, uh, for, for, for a couple of years because we were so tiny. As we kind of started, you know, uh, you know, clicking away at, at them at their heels, we, we ended up, uh, doing a deal. It was essentially a more or less a merger of equals where we did equity swap, created a new company. And I became the chairman of the combined company. Um, and so we, we put kind of two 600 person teams together. Um, you know, and became the, the market leader, uh, the kind of the undisputed market leader. Um, that, after that merger, we, we then, uh, ended up

• 14:59Speaker 01

  uh, getting an acquisition offer from a, a company, a joint venture of a South African and Norwegian, uh, listed company. Uh, that was an all cash deal, uh, that was approved by the antitrust authorities at the end of November, uh, in 2020. So we're fresh off the, the, the acquisition there and, uh, you know, I'm, I'm kind of done, uh, you know, and, uh, and now, you know, I'm, I'm on to my next thing, basically.

• 15:24Anthony Pompliano?

  So I want to zoom out a little bit and just look at Latin America in general. You're probably one of the people who understands this best that I know. Talk a little bit just about the technology scene there and kind of how that has grown over the last couple of years, even the last decade or so, as you were operating in the ecosystem.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, things really have hit an inflection point over the last couple of years. It's not a region that got a lot of attention. In fact, I think it was an, it's an under-invested region. You know, when you look at India, the, you know, the GDP of Latin America as a whole is twice as large as India, yet it receives half of the venture funding. So, you know, this is, it's a relatively nascent market. I think over the last kind of four or five years, you know, there's been a handful of large, you know, SoftBank dropping in in 2019 with their, you know, their innovation fund, $5 billion, you know, Marcelo and the team there saying, you know, okay, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna invest in the future of the region. I think leading up to that, there was a handful of

• 16:23Speaker 01

  interesting opportunities. But we've seen, you know, in Brazil, there's the public markets are starting to heat up, you know, more companies are going public, we're starting to see liquidity happen. And that's something that, you know, it was kind of like, you know, Brazil and Latin America is the market of the future, and it's always going to be that way. That's the kind of the joke about the region. But I think that, you know, with the recent mega funding with, you know, companies like New Bank, you know, New Bank, for those that don't know, I'm sure most people know, is the largest, you know, largest, one of the largest neo-banks in the world. And, you know, they just recently raised at a $25 billion market cap. That company started in 2013. So incredible value created, you know, Sequoia

• 17:06Speaker 01

  was an early investor, I think, wrote the first check along with Kazek. So that tends to kind of reshape the region, right? And all of a sudden, it's not seen as kind of a market that, oh, it might be interesting in the future. You know, Rappi is another example of a company that's, you know, been incredibly successful, you know, with their kind of billion-dollar landmark kind of funding round, you know, in the last year and a half, a year and a half ago. So I think- All these things have really, you know, helped to put Latin America on the global stage, where it's seen as, you know, as an opportunity that it can can compete on the on a global stage with, you know, the top kind of mark emerging markets. And so that's something that is a recent advancement.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  But, uh, you know, the the level of sophistication of investors, more angel investor, angel operators reinvesting back in the ecosystem. These are all kind of, you know, rising tide type things that are lifting all ships. Is when you talk about the global stage, is it a thing where, let's say, Latin America is competing with India or China or some other non-US market? Or do you feel like, well, that's a cute narrative that might not be necessarily as true as as people think? Yeah, I think that, you know, I think the one thing that we're going to see over the next years is that, you know, there's a lot of big companies that are expanding into the region, right? Like Stripe, you know, Stripe is now like looking at, you know, poking around with their operations in in Brazil and in Latin America.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Um, and so I think that, given the proximity to the US and the kind of the the time zone, you know, it's only, you know, it's only a few hours, you know, it's one hour ahead in, you know, from New York, right? Or two hours ahead from from New York, depending on where you are in, in, you know, or so it's it's has a lot of kind of connection with the US. Um, and so I think that, you know, I don't think it'll necessarily compete. In fact, I think China has been an early entrant in the region. Um, you know, with the the recent investment, it's not so recent now, but a couple of years ago, Dee Dee came in and bought, uh, one of the right right-hailing, you know, companies 99. And that minted the first, uh, Latin American unicorn of a tech startup. And that was only a couple of years ago. Since then, it's been a huge catalyst for the region.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  There's been, you know, a lot more activity. So I think that, you know, we look at these markets around the world. I think Southeast Asia is a very interesting market. You know, I I still think the region in Latin America is still a bit earlier even than than Southeast Asia. So I don't think it'll necessarily fight for dollars, um, you know, or or, you know, or Bitcoins. But I think it's definitely an opportunity for, you know, for, uh, you know, a lot of global investors to start looking at the region, given that, you know, it's it's a 700-person population. Uh, it's a, you know, a a growing middle class. And, you know, the the income per capita is higher than a lot of places in emerging markets. So I think those are all variables that will result in massive interest in the region. And we've seen that over the last couple of years.

• 19:59Anthony Pompliano?

  You're talking a little bit about venture capitals, interest and why they should be looking. Talk a little bit about some of the success stories or the size of the funds. And just, you know, I think there's kind of safety in numbers to some VCs, whether they should act that way or not. I just think that's true. And so how do you kind of think about the success stories that you can point to that give them confidence? That not only are the demographics great, not only is there kind of a large market, but also there are companies that have been successful and can continue to do that and drive returns for their funds?

• 20:31Speaker 01

  The last couple of years, we've seen, you know, dozen, now more than a dozen, you know, billion plus companies, you know, be created in the region. And so, you know, VC dollars is a good sign. Exits is better, right? So I think we're still early on the exits, but we've seen a handful of activity there. And I think that, you know, when you look at the, you know, the fact that, you know, Andreessen has been doing more deals in the region and you look at the top tier, Excel has been there early, you know, you look at those kind of top tier venture funds. You know, I think that, you know, it's kind of like, you know, don't ask me where you think, you know, let me see where you're putting your money.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  And so when you see those companies, those investors, you know, starting to put more money into the, into the region, I think that's a strong signal, but you know, there's been dozens of companies that are, you know, raising hundred million dollar plus rounds. And I think that, you know, secondary transactions are starting to happen, things like that, where those generate liquidity for early investors. And I think that kind of kicks off the cycle. And so, you know, in terms of numbers, the numbers are still relatively small. I think last year it was a little over five billion went into VC, but it doubled, right? And so when you've got 2X growth, you know, that, that's something that is a strong indicator of, you know, of kind of directionally where things are headed.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  And when you couple that with the size of the market, you know, and, you know, and kind of the recent success stories, those are strong indicators that, you know, probably some comfort in numbers there.

• 22:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. You've got a whole bunch of stuff going on. And so you've got this really unique kind of understanding of both the North American market and the Latin American market. Is it a thing where the Latin American companies are simply taking ideas from North America and then replicating them and localizing from the local market? Or there are companies that are actually saying, no, we have unique problems here. And so we need to build unique solutions that don't kind of, you know, sort of copycats of, let's say, North American ideas or companies?

• 22:35Speaker 01

  You know, it's a great question, and I get that question sometimes. And I like, I like the question because there's a couple of things that allows me to address. So first of all, the first wave of companies were like similar to mine, right? Like, my company was a tropicalized version of Zillow, right? Which is, it's kind of a no brainer. And it's, it's, it's an obvious one where it's like, okay, this works. Why don't we kind of take this and, and, and drop it into this large market that's underserved, right? What I think that we're seeing now is a new iteration of companies that are solving intrinsic problems in the region. And, you know, I'll come up with another company that I actually invested in. It was the same, in the same space as real estate. There's two companies that I would like to mention in, in real estate, given that I'm pretty familiar with it with

• 23:19Speaker 01

  the sector. You know, the first one is Quinto Andar. Quinto Andar, you know, they recently raised a $250 million round led by SoftBank. GA was a, an investor in their kind of Series B or Series C, I don't remember. And that company, they solved a very specific problem. When you're renting an apartment, and I had this specific problem. So I was able to see the problem early. And that's why I wrote an early check in this company. You know, when you want to get an apartment, in order for you to rent an apartment, you need a cosigner. The cosigner needs to own real estate in order for you to get an apartment. I remember this problem because it was extremely embarrassing when I had to go to my wife's family and say, hey, you know, can, can, can your dad help me get an apartment? Because I'm, you

• 24:03Speaker 01

  know, this person that doesn't have the independence to be able to get an apartment. So that's a massive pain point, right? I mean, think about how large the asset class is rentals across the region. And so, you know, we've seen that Model, they came in and they they built a kind of an insurance, you know, play where they could kind of assess the risk. And they basically just made it much easier to reduce the friction for those that wanted to rent. Um, the same kind of on the sale side, you've got a company like La House. Uh, they just raised a thirty five million dollar round from Greenspring. Um, and growing incredibly fast. And they're kind of combining a bit more of like, not just a traditional kind of, you know, for sale, you know, compass or a Zillow model in the U.S.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  They're actually combining a little bit more inspired in a Chinese company called Beike, uh, B I, B E I K E. This is a seventy billion dollar market cap in China company. It's it's an enormous company. And it kind of combines a marketplace, a verticalized solution for those, you know, looking to sell, you know, buy and sell real estate. And so what starts in tropicalization ends up becoming innovation. And that's something that I think the best entrepreneurs do. Because all the best companies solve real local problems. And so I think we're starting to see a level of maturity of the startups. Uh, it's not just, you know, MBAs that are, you know, coming down from Harvard and and, you know, in copying an idea, which is more than welcome.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Um, and but but there's more innovation happening, uh, you know, where they're solving local problems and attacking enormous markets that way.

• 25:36Anthony Pompliano?

  So you've got a whole bunch of stuff going on, um, and you've got a book, uh, that you've written, uh, you're doing a bunch of investing. Maybe let's start with the investing and then we'll get to the book. Uh, tell a little bit about the investing activity that you're doing. Um, are you doing this personally? Do you have a fund and and kind of how you're you're looking, uh, to deploy capital in the region?

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Pop, uh, it's funny, like last year I was sitting there waiting for the antitrust to approve our deal, right? And as an entrepreneur, this is nerve wracking, right? Zero control, like, what the hell is gonna happen? Like, you know, one of my buddies in Mexico got, his, his deal got blocked by, you know, in Mexico. And I'm like, he's in my ear, like, oh, man, I hope it, I hope it works. And so, uh, I was like, okay, I gotta do something, right? I gotta get distracted. So I basically just like opened up, you know, my DMs on Twitter. I opened up like, you know, all the messages and I'm like, If you're an entrepreneur in Latin America and you've got a problem you're trying to solve, let me know and I'm gonna provide kind of some free advisory work, no strings attached. And it was kind of wild, right? I got like a lot of people interested because I had some degree of success in the region.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  And, and so I took 150 phone calls from, from founders, basically just, you know, Zoom. Uh, and this was during the pandemic, right? So like, you know, uh, there was a lot of interest and a lot of uncertainty. And what happened after that was, you know, I ended up connecting with two other co-founders who Gina Gotthil ran growth at Duolingo. She was an early person there that took them from three to 200 million users globally. And then another friend of mine who ran tech at a, at a venture-backed company in Sao Paulo. And the three of us, you know, formed kind of a small team and we basically just started helping these founders. Um, no kind of strings attached. We didn't take any equity. Um, I ended up cutting a bunch of checks in these companies because, you know, we were organizing all these sessions.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  I wanted to tap my mentor network because I was very fortunate to have amazing advisors that helped me over the years, that I couldn't have done it without them. And it's a lonely journey as an entrepreneur. And so we wanted to bring all this expertise globally, help these, you know, very bright-eyed, bushy-tailed founders that are trying to build incredible, you know, companies to transform the region. And what we, we ended up happening is we hosted sessions on everything from fundraising, sales, marketing, products, PR. And kind of magic happened. All of a sudden we had, you know, 40 companies, they're all helping each other. Mentors are helping them. And so we essentially built a community is what we built. And I ended up writing 10 checks and then I'm like, okay,

• 28:06Speaker 01

  how am I going to let people know about these companies? You know, these are really interesting companies. So these are just angel checks. So I'm like, I gotta call all my friends and let them know about these companies. And so given that, here we are on Zoom, I basically hosted a, an event, uh, you know, called a demo day or whatever it is. And we had 17 entrepreneurs pitch four minutes back to back. And we had, uh, you know, originally it was going to be a few of my friends, 97 investors from all around the world. Um, you know, listened in, asked questions. And then, you know, some funding kicked off after that. So it was a good way to mark up some of my angel investments. Uh, and a great opportunity to source the best deals, uh, given that I have a pretty strong network in the region.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  So that kind of organically happens. And then we ended up like, this sounds like it could be a business. Uh, we haven't really decided what the business model is going to be yet. We're really focused on building the social capital first. Um, but we're basically, we do have a fund that's a rolling funds. Uh, you can go to fund dot latitude dot com. It's latitude without the E because it's in Spanish. So funds dot latitude, uh, with no E dot com. And that describes the, the funds. We're really looking for, uh, operator people, you know, similar to kind of, you know, you know, what, what you've got going and people that can add value. Um, and are interested in the region. So, uh, it's a great way for a little R and D, throw a small check in.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  You know, get, you know, free R and D, uh, hopefully, you know, that it generates some returns for you and, uh, and learn about the market. So that's something we just launched. In fact, this is the first time I'm publicly speaking about it. So, um, you know, uh, I guess, uh, now is a good, good time as any, right?

• 29:46Anthony Pompliano?

  We will, uh, we'll make sure to drive a couple of people there. Just don't yell at me if, uh, if there's too much traffic.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  I heard you know a few people, Pop.

• 29:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Let's talk about your book, uh, that you've recently written as well. Uh, what, what is kind of the idea going on there? And then where's that at?

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the book, uh, you know, it's, it's called Viva the Entrepreneur. My company was Viva Real. Uh, and it's, you know, founding, scaling and raising venture capital in Latin America. And we launched last week. Uh, we hit number one bestseller, um, in the U S in the venture category, which kind of blew me away because when I saw it passing venture deals from Brad Feld, uh, the book that I literally read on the way to visit all the VCs on San Hill Road, like, you know, that kind of blew my mind. Uh, but it just shows that there's more interest in the region. Um, and so that book, yeah, is live on Amazon, um, you know, and, uh, you know, it's, it's really the book that I wish I had when I started. I would say, uh, Linda Rottenberg, who is the founder of Endeavor. Endeavor is a global organization.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Forty countries, you know, they're, they're, they've all the, a lot of the largest companies around the world that are in tech outside of the valley are part of this network, two, 2,500 entrepreneurs, you know, billions of dollars of value created and their, the support network for that. Um, you know, she, she was kind enough to write my foreword and, uh, her, her description was it was the hard thing about hard things for Latin America. I think it was a bit of an overstatement and I, and any, anytime I'm being in, in the senses of Ben, Ben Horowitz is a, it's pretty kind of a humbling, uh, humbling statement, but, uh, you know, I, when I read that book, it also kind of really affected me because I felt, you know, the loneliness, uh, being on the journey as an entrepreneur. And so I've tried to write the book that I wish I had when I started.

• 31:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Talk a little bit, um, and I think you cover some of this in the book, just around how important the people are, uh, in the region. Uh, and now that there's been more and more folks who've been successful, uh, I know there's Wences and a couple of others. Maybe talk just about how important, uh, that network is and how that's growing, uh, from kind of a people perspective.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, you know, this is an important part of the region, right? And I mean, it's something that we take for granted in like, you know, hotbeds, like, you know, like the Bay Area or New York where there's like this ecosystem, right? And it's like, you've got success and they, people reinvest back in the ecosystem and like, that stuff is at its early days. Like, we're in diapers in, in Latin America. It's just like, this is, this is day one, right? And so when you've got people like, you know, success stories, I mentioned Endeavor, Endeavor, um, Wences was one of the first Endeavor entrepreneurs, actually. Um, and so, you know, Linda was, you know, they call her the chica loca, uh, the crazy girl, because she's from, you know, from New York and she's like, I think that there's incredible entrepreneurs outside of, you know, Silicon Valley. And so she went down to Argentina, she discovered Wences. Uh,

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Wences at the time was launching, he, he launched the first ISP, internet service provider in Latin America from Argentina when he was like 24. Um, and then soon after, you know, that didn't work out. He kind of got, kind of moved out of that and he ended up, you know, starting Patagonia, the first kind of bank for the region and. You know, she was trying to raise money to like support these entrepreneurs and everyone was like Latin America, like there's no entrepreneurs in Latin America, like that's that's absurd, you know, like that's not going to work. And, you know, they ended up helping Wentz's, Linda actually kind of helped her find, you know, find a COO. In fact, her assistant ended up getting married to, you know, to Wentz's, Belle, and Wentz's ended up getting

• 33:19Speaker 01

  married from Endeavor. And so, you know, 18 months later, Wentz's sold, Patagonia for $750 million in an all cash deal to Banco Santander. And this is like, you know, a month or two before the dot com crash. Investors obviously made a pile of money. And all of a sudden, they're like, hey, do you got any more 26 year olds or 27 year olds that are that are doing any interesting stuff? And so that, I tell that story, you know, and Wentz's ended up being becoming an angel investor in our company. And if only I listened to him back in the day when he was, you know, talking about Bitcoin and bringing that to, you know, to the masses, you know, I, you know, so I think that we need more success stories like that. And we need more people reinvesting in the ecosystem. And so I think

• 34:04Speaker 01

  that, you know, that's kind of where it's an inflection point there, because now there's more companies. And so I, you know, I'm very grateful for Wentz's and other people like him, you know, Mickey Malka from, you know, from Ribbit Capital, people like that, that, you know, they paved the way in the region and they became advisors and mentors to me and investors. And so I kind of look at this as an opportunity to pay it forward. You know, I feel almost a responsibility to, you know, reach back and kind of pull up the next generation of iconic, you know, founders that are building incredible businesses in a market that is enormous with a lot of friction points.

• 34:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. And it feels a lot like, you know, once you are kind of in this together, right? And you're building a new region when it comes from a technology landscape, and somebody makes it, they feel very obligated and loyal to turn around, not only say thank you to the people who helped them, but also to kind of help the next generation of entrepreneurs. And it feels like that kind of community is definitely present in Silicon Valley and is now kind of becoming present throughout Latin America as well.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  I think that's a perfectly said and you know it's it's part of my conviction that over the next decade, this is what I want to do. I want to help elevate the ecosystem and I think there's incredible talent and an incredible opportunity. And so it's something that I feel is part of my responsibility and I think it's an incredible opportunity, obviously. It's not charity work at all.

• 35:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Before we get into the rapid fire questions to wrap up, the big, you know, kind of development, if you will, over the last 12, 18 months was COVID and this whole idea of now everyone is sitting at home. I used to do all of these interviews in person. Now I do them all remotely. You as well, rather than go and meet people in person, you now sit at home and do a lot of this. How has that helped Latin America, right? Is it something where now it isn't as important for investors to get on a plane and travel there? They can kind of do things through the internet. And so that's actually kind of increased accessibility to the region. Entrepreneurs and investors both get more comfortable kind of fundraising online. Just

• 36:10Anthony Pompliano?

  what have you seen kind of post-COVID really hitting in terms of it being a beneficial thing for the Latin American ecosystem?

• 36:18Speaker 01

  I would say I can think of three things. First of all, the fundraising, no doubt. You know, this is opening up a world, you know, just like when we did our demo day and we had 97 investors. Our last one, we had 180 something investors from all over the world, particularly at pre-seed, right? And seed and pre-seed, where it's just like you're betting on the team, you're betting on the market opportunity. You know, those are, that's opened up a wide array of opportunities, kind of connected to that, but a separate point. You know, we look at the, you know, kind of the network of people that are available to help and advise. And, you know, so you can get an early angel investor that's located anywhere. And then they can also add value to what you're doing. You know, I was very fortunate to find those two early investors that not only they bring money, more importantly,

• 37:02Speaker 01

  they, you know, they added value and could help me with kind of the strategy fundraising, you know, and, you know, ideas on execution because they had experience. So we're seeing this right now with Lattice Studio where we built this amazing mentor network and we have You know mentors in London, we have mentors in, you know, across Europe and in, you know, in, in, in, in the States. That people that actually think of all the incredible talented, incredibly talented people that, you know, have gone through places like Facebook or Google or, you know, Amazon. That, you know, uh, you know, Luis, one of our mentors is at Zillow, he runs product at Zillow. He's from, you know, Argentina, grew up in Venezuela. And now he's a mentor, sharing all of his experience in product management at a, at a company like Zillow, right?

• 37:45Speaker 01

  So, and, and these people have an intrinsic interest to like, you know, they, they had an opportunity to come to the States. They made it big time a lot, a lot of ways. And they wanna, they wanna lift up their, you know, the ecosystem. So I think that that is kind of the second point of, you know, there's a connection there. The last thing I'll say is that talent is anywhere now, right? I mean, I, I, I'm building this next thing. There's, there's seven of us, half of the team, you know, the three of the seven, I haven't actually met in person on my team, right? And, you know, I feel like I know them, we're working seven months with them and we're, we're just as close we would be in an office. So wherever you stand on the kind of remote versus office, you know, debate.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  I, I think it's incontrovertible that we're in a position now where like companies are being built and, and to add to that, you know, there's big companies in the valley that are starting to hire engineering talent. Uh, because it's, it's flat now, the world's flat, you know, I remember reading that book, you know, from, from, you know, uh, Freeman, uh, you know, Friedman back in, you know, two thousand and four, and I'm like, the world is flat and, and that is, it couldn't be more true today. And so you're seeing, you know, engineering talent from Argentina, Buenos Aires, building products, you know, for companies in the States. And that's just, I think, you know, we're seeing a decentralization of the Silicon Valley. And the Silicon Valley now is in the cloud, right?

• 39:04Anthony Pompliano?

  I, uh, I, I love it and I think you're dead on. Uh, and the people who recognized this earlier rather than later will, will greatly benefit for sure. Um, I'll ask the same three questions to everyone to, uh, to finish up and then you'll get to ask me one, uh, to take us home. Uh, the first is what's the most important book that you've ever read and you cannot say your own?

• 39:24Speaker 01

  Um, you know, I guess I'm gonna say business book like the most influential book on my kind of trajectory is like, I remember walking the streets of Bogota, Colombia. You know, I was an English teacher, you know, like didn't have much going on, but I knew I wanted to do something. Um, you know, in real estate, I would look up at these big skyscrapers in Bogota. And I had it on my iPod at the time, I had the book, uh, The Long Tail, um, you know, by Chris Anderson. And it was just like, boom, like, oh, this, this whole concept of like, you know, the long tail, the head, like, you know, and that was when I had to kind of that, that contributed the idea

• 40:05Speaker 01

  of real estate, getting all the inventory. Like when I started, no one had inventory. Like it was like, you know, they were just marketed a limited number of properties. And so I went in and I got all the listings. And then all of a sudden, we built the largest marketplace with the most liquidity. And I wouldn't have done it if I didn't read that book. So I would have to, I would have to give a nod to Chris Anderson in that book. Um, and so that's, that's probably a lot of other books. It's a tough question, but uh, that would be the one that probably had the most impact on my career.

• 40:33Anthony Pompliano?

  That's a great answer. Uh, second question is more personal, uh, sleep. Um, this comes from our friends over at Eight Sleep. Uh, I used to be five, six hour sleeper, uh, now more like eight or nine hours. And they've got these thermo-regulated beds that essentially you can make it hot or cold. Uh, I basically sleep like I am in Antarctica at this point. And, uh, and it's much, much better for me from a sleep perspective. Uh, what's your sleep schedule? And how has that changed over the years, especially, uh, when you were running a business to, uh, to today, not running, um, kind of that, that fast growing technology company?

• 41:06Speaker 01

  Oh, it's a, it's a great question. It's something that I, I have an internal struggle with. Uh, like I think a lot of entrepreneurs do where there's the, you know, the, it's just so, it's so, building a company is daunting, it's exciting. I like to say that your best day and your worst day is the same day. And so it's just an emotional roller coaster. And so I think that I'm not the poster child for this. Uh, I wish I was better at, at sleep and I'm, I'm, it's a something that's a priority. So I need to. Maybe check out the product that you mentioned because I'm working on that on my own. I think that I go through kind of, you know, swings here with, you know, with my sleep patterns. I try to get, you know, a good chunk of sleep and I try to get to bed relatively early.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  I find that when I'm going through an exciting moment like with this book, I'm, we're talking on a few hours of sleep. And it's because I'm, it's because I'm, I'm excited about what's going on. But I am trying to rein in the kind of hyperactivity of my mind and the excitement of everything that's going on. And actually I wrote about this a little bit in my book. So, you know, and I'm not, I'm not the expert on it, but I have, I strive to do what you've been able to accomplish there. Because I just know how, how important it is as, as, you know, someone to be productive.

• 42:21Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm a convert, man. I'm a convert of the sleep religion. I know that it's, it's kind of like CrossFit or intermittent fasting or something else, right? If you do it, you gotta talk about it. But I gotta say that, especially for somebody who, who, you know, was flying all over the place and doing all this crazy stuff. Now all of a sudden, if I don't get eight hours, I feel it. Like it feels weird. It's one of those things you're like, how did I ever live like this? So I'll send you some links to eight sleep and everything.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  Please do, please do, man. I'm, I'm, I'm like, it's an important one. And like, it's kind of like the people that I envy, like that meditate. And I'm just like, damn, I know it's so good. I gotta, you know? And, and I'm like here on the sidelines, like, you know, once in a while I'll dip in and I'll like kind of get a hit of it. And then, you know, I'm, but I'm not, I'm not fully there yet, but I'm just a work in progress, man. I still got some years left and I'm one percent every day, hopefully.

• 43:15Anthony Pompliano?

  I hear you. I hear you. All right. Last question that you get to ask me, one is aliens. Are you a believer or a non-believer?

• 43:23Speaker 01

  Man, hearing Elon on Clubhouse the other day, you know, with his statements around, you know, if, if there was, he would know about it. If we, you know, but that being said, I think I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to go with the Drake equation here. And, and, you know, I'm not talking about the, I'm not talking about the hip hop star here. We're, we're, well, you know, you know, the number of civilizations in our galaxy with, you know, which communication might be possible is too enormous for me to deny. And so, you know, I'm going to have to go with, yeah, they exist and, you know, it's a big place. So I'm on that, I'm on that train. I'm on that intergalactic train.

• 44:03Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm right there with you. I don't know if we'll come in contact, but I definitely think they exist. What one question you have for me to wrap this up?

• 44:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, I would love to know one, what was your, I got, if I can be selfish here and ask two questions.

• 44:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Of course.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  What was your first investment that you made ever? And why did you make it?

• 44:28Anthony Pompliano?

  I mean, the very first investment I ever made was definitely in myself, which is kind of a cheesy shitty answer.

• 44:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Was just buying books and all that kind of stuff. The first financial investment I ever made, this guy sound really bad.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  We can, we can count, we can count, you know, baseball cards. That also counts.

• 44:51Anthony Pompliano?

  To be honest, I don't remember like a financial investment in terms of like a stock or anything like that. I don't think it was stocks. The first thing I can remember, this is wild, but after I came back from Iraq, I was 21 years old. And in the spring after I came back, somehow I got into foreign currency trading. And I had a hot hand for about six months. And it turned like, you know, like 9K to $72,000. I was like, well, who needs a job? I'm gonna do this when I leave college. Like, this is amazing. And then got cocky over the summer. I went and did it a, an internship in New York City.

• 45:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Was trading on my phone like an idiot and, you know, kind of the classic, you know, day trading nonsense. And so very quickly realized like, hey, let me take my, take my measly profits that are left and get the hell out of this thing. But that's the first time that like, I remember like really taking like capital and saying, hey, I'm gonna go and, and, and risk it to, to get a gain. And frankly, I'm thankful for it, right? It's like, it taught me all the good things and the bad things all in a condensed period of time. And I haven't done too much trading ever since then.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  I hear you, man. You gotta, you gotta, gotta be long. The currency, currency game, it's like that first taste of blackjack and then, and then you're, and you don't want to make a living out of that.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  My second question is, so Pomp, I started a podcast, you know, I think you're a big inspiration and all the content you put out and you know, I'm trying to take a page out of your book. So I started a podcast and I, after listening to a lot of your episodes, I want to know what the story is on, what's the origin story on Bang Bang?

• 46:40Anthony Pompliano?

  I got a bad memory, I guess, because I don't remember.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  You just, you just, you just, you just knew that it would, it would hit. I, you know, I'd love to, you know, if you don't have one, that's okay, but it is.

• 46:53Anthony Pompliano?

  It was a story, it's a consistency thing. Like I knew that if I started it every time with the same thing, like it would eventually just get, you know, like basically seared into people's minds. And I think that part of it is just like, you know, other people are like, hello, welcome to, you know, whatever thing. And like, that's just not me. So I was like, how are we going to start this thing? And so I'll actually tell you a good story, not to do specifically with Bang Bang, but for people who listen to the podcast, when it was off the chain, now if you listen to the intro, the very first intro I ever recorded was one shot. So the guys started helping me with it. They basically were like, hey, here's the music. And if I remember correctly, I think I had the, I had headphones in, I was listening to

• 47:35Anthony Pompliano?

  the music. And as it was going, I had a microphone in front of me. And so I just, one shot was like, you know, what's up guys? Uh, blah, blah, whatever. And in it, I was like, the best podcast in crypto. And so when I got done, they, they were like, dude, we haven't even recorded a single episode yet. And I was like, yeah, but we're the best, obviously, like, kind of like joking. But they were like, uh, should we like roll with this? And I was like, if we say we're the best, we're going to be the best, like, we're going to run with it. And so like, I think it's just this element of, you gotta have, you gotta have some like line or element of confidence and like when you're going to go do things. At the same time, you don't want to be arrogant. And so like, that

• 48:18Anthony Pompliano?

  one kind of toes the line between arrogance and confidence. But I do think that there's this thing of like, Bang Bang, I'm going to make it a thing. Right? And so I just. Did it a couple of times. The next thing you know, people started leaving comments, you know, bang, bang, whatever. And it's like, okay, like, this is gonna work. The, uh, the crazy thing, though, is there's a couple of other people who have been like, I've say, I say that. I'm like, look, man, we must all be family or something. Then, because I guess, well, you know, we all arrived at the same thing, but I'm not, I'm not stopping. So, uh, so.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. You, you, you own that. You own that. Um, yeah, I, I, after my first season, I just finished my first season. I was like, man, I need a bang, bang. What's my bang, bang? And so my, mine, I started my second season and it's, uh, it's super like, you know, for me, right? Like my, my audience is vamos la tam. That's my, that's my, you know, vamos la tam, like, let's go Latin America, vamos la tam.

• 49:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Ah, I like that.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  So, so that's my bang, bang, man.

• 49:13Anthony Pompliano?

  I, I love it. And, and the whole podcast is in, uh, Spanish.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  Well, actually, I started off doing it in Portuguese, um, because I was in Brazil and, uh, and then I, I, I changed over to English. So, but all of my audience is basically connected to Latin America or interested in Latin America. So it's Spanish and Portuguese, you know, I, I, I speak Spanish and Portuguese, but we do it in English because obviously that's the, the audience you want to reach anyway, right?

• 49:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it makes, uh, makes a ton of sense. So.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Nice, man. Bang, bang. I like it.

• 49:43Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Listen, I really, really appreciate you taking the, uh, the time to do this, Brian. Uh, where can we send people to find the book or find you on the internet?

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Sure, sure. So, uh, the book is on Amazon. Uh, it's Viva the Entrepreneur. Uh, so you can, you know, look for that. Um, and Audible's coming out, the audiobook coming out in the next month or two, um, which I read, which is a long period, a long process. So I'm on Twitter. You can find me on Twitter, um, LinkedIn and Clubhouse are the kind of the main, the main areas where I, uh, I'm, I'm on the social, social web. So, uh, yeah, man, this is fun. I really appreciate the conversation and, uh, it's, it's an honor to be on here, man.

• 50:21Anthony Pompliano?

  I appreciate you taking the time to do it. You've, you've absolutely been killing it. And I think it's important for people to understand, uh, kind of Latin America and the startup and investing scene there. So thank you so much for taking the time to do this. Uh, and we will definitely have to do it again in the future.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Absolutely, man. Thanks a lot.