I saw the future. You're not there

The only way to predict the future is to build it

What do the former leaders of Mercado Libre and Amazon Stelleo Tolda and Alex Szapiro have in common? Besides being the rulers of the e-commerce growth in LatAm over the last 2 decades, of course.

They both love effective processes that sustain a long-term vision 🤜🤛

From the early days of Mercado Libre –that’s 1999, youngsters– Stelleo Tolda knew they had to build something that would last. Twenty years later, he can confidently say it was all about building the blocks brick by brick.

First, you gotta prove the model

How do you convince customers and investors that your idea works? For Mercado Libre, this meant explaining to business owners how they could receive money over something called the internet. Say whaaat?

Then, you start monetizing

You know your model works and already have people on board.

Now it’s time to build a sustainable way of charging for that thang.

Next challenge: growth

How can you attract more buyers, or sellers, and generate more transactions?

How can you improve the customer experience?

💡 Every block got them one step further up. They began by building the structure and, only then, thinking about money and accelerating growth.

But how on earth do you get through the simplest of blocks?

Because yes, jumping up blocks sounds AWESOME, but what if you can't get past your Monday meeting? Especially if you need to move FAST?

For Alex Szapiro, it’s all about building processes to leverage people's ideas and ability to follow through with them.

We all want to monetize, grow the biz, and add achievements to our LinkedIn profiles. We are all full of good intentions, says Alex–an optimistic fellow.

But let’s face it, people are busy, and once we leave a meeting, bye-bye hot ideas.

How do we solve this? Enter: the Amazon 6-pager.

💡 TL;DR: make every meeting a reading meeting with a doc that’s up to six pages.

Here’s what you can write down BEFORE you even think of checking your calendar:

• Describe the problem you are trying to solve in the simplest way possible.
• Make it a team doc and allow every member to edit it, so everybody is in sync.
• Add data to support your ideas.
• Build a FAQ section and answer it.

To build a process for meetings is to have more effective execution in the long run.

This way, you spend 30 minutes making impactful decisions for the next 30 weeks. How are you going to be alive a decade from now, otherwise?

Liked what you read? 😎 There’s plenty more where that came from!

Check Stelleo and Alex’s episodes on the Latitud podcast and discover how to:

May I interest you in other e-commerce podcasts? 🍸

Ep#81 - Building the e-commerce landscape in Venezuela

Vicente Zavarce, from Yummy, discusses:

• Seizing a time-sensitive business opportunity
• Smart ways to go about B2C user acquisition
• The challenges of building a business in Venezuela

Ep#90 - Creating a business expansion playbook

Jose Jair Bonilla from Chiper covers:

• Opportunities for disruption in the retail industry
• The digital transformation landscape in Latin America
• And the key components of a good go-to-market strategy

Ep#33 - The digitalization of all grocery retailers

Gabriel Monteiro, from Newtail, talks about:

• How Newtail came to life and how it works
• Opportunities to close gaps across e-commerce in Brazil

Hot news ahoy! ⛵

Cargo for Mexico 🗳️

After raising a US$1.1 million seed round last May, Cargo Produce, a management system platform for import and export, will expand its business to Mexico.

Hitch: specialist in HR 🤝

The Mexican HRTech Hitch, which uses artificial intelligence for recruitment, raised US$1.5 million in a pre-seed round. The funds will be used for technology and product development.

Your Treggo is here 📱

Last-mile delivery Treggo got an extra US$1.7 million in funding. This gives the Argentina-based startup a total of US$2.8 million in funding that’ll be used to target Mexico and pave the road for future expansion.

Mudafy moves 👊

Mudafy, the tech-enabled real estate broker, has raised US$10 million in a Series A round of funding. With this new capital, they intend to generate US$500 million in annualized sales by year’s end.

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