Mx Challenge

There are numerous startups at Geekdom founded by Mexican entrepreneurs, all of which are becoming incredibly successful. SMSGate is one such startup that has recently filed a patent on a new technology that allows people to make international phone calls...for free. This exciting development was featured on Univision. Watch the video and like SMSGate's new company on Facebook!

During our last trips to Mexico, we found the need of visiting and learning more from the ecosystem in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, (the city of mountains).  For all the people that do not know, Monterrey is one of the biggest cities in Mexico and has the biggest and most important international and national companies in each industry. In a few words it is a pretty developed city amongst other Mexican cities. Something that is important to consider is its accessibility to the US market - it is just a 2.5 hour drive from the border.

Our agenda was planned with meetings with top organizations and leaders of the tech industry in Monterrey. All this was possible due to the huge support Casa San Antonio and the Cluster of Software offered to us.

So our first day started with a meeting at the Club Ejecutivo de Monterrey with the Cluster of Software of Monterrey and Casa San Antonio, where they introduced us to some facts and data about Monterrey’s IT industry.

After having an “excelente” and lovely Mexican breakfast we went straight to meetings with universities such as UDEM, Tecnologico de Monterrey and U-Erre (Universidad Regiomontana).

We talked with these universities about ways to connect their students with universities and students from San Antonio. An idea came up about having an internship program where Mexican students can come to Geekdom to work as interns in their startups for two months.

One university is actually starting to develop a co-working space in Monterrey based on other co-working places located in different parts of the world.

We also met with organizations such as Softek Innoventures and talked about how the San Antonio Mx Challenge could help their Innoventures startups to globalize in a friendly and riskless environment such as San Antonio along with help from government organizations such as I2T2, Instituto de Inovacion y Transferencia Tecnologica de Nuevo Leon. We learned that they currently have 48 startups under acceleration with seed funds of up to $200,000 USD. We also learned that they even have dedicated funds for US entrepreneurs wanting to expand into Mexico (Monterrey). I think that there are many people not aware of these programs, so we decided to exchange information so our entrepreneurs can become more aware of programs happening “on the other side of the border”.

We were impressed about how cool the places of Naranya and the Monterrey IT Park are. We held our meeting in there and it was hard to focus on the meeting because of being in such cool and sophisticated places. It is amazing how everybody is working on something - on one side we have Naranya working on their own challenges gathering entrepreneurs and turning those entrepreneurs into startups, and on the other side we have the Monterrey IT Park, creating their own incubator and gathering its own seed fund.

At the end of the trip we found that Monterrey is a land of opportunities and people there are serial entrepreneurs looking for creative ways to succeed. At some of our meetings we had the opportunity to meet some young entrepreneurs that are working on super cool technology and when we talked about all the technology deals that are happening in San Antonio, they were excited to go and visit Geekdom as a first step for a future expansion. We are excited to come back to several events that we got invited to with different organizations, so see you soon, Monterrey entrepreneurs!

A study released by the University of Texas shows that Hispanic immigrants are the most likely Americans to be entrepreneurs. This should come as no surprise to those residing in San Antonio, and is just one of the reasons why we're so excited about the MXChallenge bridging entrepreneurs in Mexico and San Antonio. Check out the study here and Geekdom Director Lorenzo Gomez's comments here!

The April/May issue of Empresarios features an article on the San Antonio MX Challenge and an interview with Project Manager Jesús Salas. Click here to read the article - both in Spanish and English, and learn more about the details of the challenge and why San Antonio is such a unique city for entrepreneurs.

There have been questions from certain people that are not related to San Antonio, whether if it is a city that offers opportunities to Mexican entrepreneurs. As a Mexican, my answer to that has always been, of course. San Antonio is the northernmost Mexican city in the USA. I believe that San Antonio has several competitive advantages among all cities in the USA.

First is the city's strategic location for anyone, either Mexican entrepreneurs looking to expand into the US market or US entrepreneurs looking to expand into the Latin American market.  Let me put it this way, here in San Antonio you have half of the people talking in Spanish, practicing their Mexican cultures and habits (time of eating, driving manners, and night lifestyle – my expertise) and the other half of the people with all the American habits, culture and manners. That gives you an opportunity to test the other market you are new to without being in the unknown land.

Second, it is a city where the cost of living is very low for being in a such an economically prosperous state. If Texas were an independent economy it would be the 14th largest economy worldwide. Can you imagine all the opportunities that come with you being in the 14th largest economy in the world and having a very low cost of living?

There are plenty of reasons that explain why San Antonio is the ideal place to set up your startup as a Mexican looking to cover the US market or as an American looking to understand the Hispanic world. However, this last weekend an event was held that put San Antonio in the eyes of a lot of people, not just me, as the place where the American and Mexican entrepreneurship worlds merge. For all the people that are not related to the entrepreneurship ecosystem in San Antonio, last week a huge bi-national 3-day event was organized here in several places in San Antonio involving key people from the MUSEIC - the Mexico-United States Entrepreneurship and Innovation Council. This backs up the fact that San Antonio is the city in the United States where all the bi-national entrepreneurship happens. In other words, San Antonio is the place where Mexican entrepreneurs have the biggest chance of success.

So the event started last Wednesday, April 23rd, at UTSA where we had an iCluster meeting where members from the MUSEIC, INADEM, Instituto Nacional del Emprendedor, Cali-Baja Cluster, Green Momentum, the Small Business Administration of the US, Small Business Development Center at UTSA, Asociacion de Empresarios Mexicanos, Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores of Mexico, Mexican Technological Platform and Geekdom came together to brainstorm on activities that would foster the collaboration of entrepreneurship and innovation between Texas (San Antonio) and Mexico.

It continued the following day, Thursday 24th of April, with the launch event of MUSEIC and the signing of an MOU between MUSEIC and the Small Business Development Center at UTSA. Since we, Geekdom and the San Antonio Mx Challenge,take very seriously the collaboration between Mexican and American entrepreneurs in San Antonio we sponsored the event. Now you might be asking yourself what is the San Antonio Mx Challenge? Well let me explain it to you: it is a super cool challenge that Geekdom is funding that has a prize of $500,000 USD to incentivize heroes to build a bridge that will connect the tech activity that is happening in San Antonio with the tech and entrepreneurial activity happening in Mexico.

Back to the event, since we sponsored the event we had the opportunity of having two booths at the launch event at the Pearl Stable. We used one table to explain about Geekdom and the San Antonio Mx Challenge and other table for our Geekdom member champion Mexican startup, BioVideo. At the event we had the chance of speaking to people in the Government of Mexico and US, and I cannot tell you because it's confidential, but important dealings went through.

The following day, Friday 25th of April, since most of the MUSEIC members were very interested in learning more about Geekdom the MUSEIC organized a tour to the new Geekdom facilities at 110 E Houston 7th floor, they were so impressed that Geekdom might be going to Mexico soon!!

After looking and experiencing what happened that week I am convinced that San Antonio is the city that offers the most advantages to Mexican entrepreneurs that are trying to internationalize their activities. We are that confident that San Antonio is the next step for Mexican entrepreneurs that we even put the $500,000 USD prize for some savvy to connect the final two pieces of the puzzle and take the check for granted. The timing could not being more convenient for the people competing for the price since both nations USA and Mexico are supporting and funding activities that foster the entrepreneurial collaboration between both countries with organizations such as INADEM, SBA, MUSEIC. Therefore, my advice to you is if you ever thought of expanding you activities to a new market, opening a new business in another market than the one you are, or just connect with foreign entrepreneurs this is your time to do so, so take advantage of the platform that has been being built and do it before opportunities run out.

Lets make history together and turn San Antonio the city out of Mexico with the highest number of Mexican entrepreneurs per capita.

What is the MUSEIC?

MUSEIC stands for the Mexico-United States Entrepreneurship and Innovation Council, it is a council signed by President Obama and Peña Nieto and formed by public and private sector representatives who promote entrepreneurship and innovation between both countries.

More info about MUSEIC.

http://www.state.gov/e/eb/cba/entrepreneurship/museic/rpts/221245.htm