If CTO, then roots

🚨 Cornershop CTO & co-founder Dani Undurraga, Latitud CTO & co-founder Yuri Danilchenko, and Latitud Principal Engineer Jared Schaber WILL HAVE A CHAT next February 6th.

If you do not need any more information because it's obvious that great engineers will talk about great engineering stuff and the sole presence of these 3 men is enough for you to join and listen to WHAT'S GOOD, click the button below. 😎

If you do need more context, please keep reading <3

Where are you, latin Steve Wozniak?

CTOs are KEY for building successful startups. They also are still a minority in the LatAm ecosystem – shame! (But honestly, why are you so hard to find? 🫠)

Even if tech peeps always reply 2 days later because they claim to be in the zone coding all the time, you'll find yourself desperately needing the best of them to find new solutions while resisting the cold weather as the economy slows down.

🍇 Remember our founders' letter at the beginning of the year? ​​

"At times like these, startups need to pay less attention to their canopies and more to their roots."

Curiously, Dani Undurraga, CTO & co-founder of Cornershop, also believes that the region's tech talent will shift to that mindset due to the scarcity of capital.

💡 In a conversation he had with our friends at Startupeable last year, he recalled that what motivated his generation, long before big investors had their eyes on LatAm, was the hacker culture: the intellectual challenge of building a product and trying to take it to the next stage.

"Twenty years ago, a lot of people became entrepreneurs solely because of their interest in building a product. Nobody was thinking of retiring one year from now with a yacht.

As everything starts cooling down, we will go back to the roots: to the people who actually like to build products and who understand that this is not easy and takes a lot of effort."

Basically:

These roots, however, come with some non-negotiable assets 🙅, and engineers in the room won't let us lie. According to Daniel Pink, author of Drive, there are 3 key motivations for anyone doing creative work – and yes, our CTO says software engineering is an art, k?

• Mastery, to continuously learn new things.
• Autonomy, to get things done without anybody breathing on your neck.
• And purpose, to contribute to something meaningful and impactful with your work.

That being said, to become a top-tier CTO and possess the power to make everyone fight over you, aka slaaay 💅, you need to do something else besides watering your roots. You need to run the extra mile on leadership, product development, and tech chops.

And so, dear John who's pro roots, we'd like to set you up to win.

📌 Next February 6th we'll launch the first edition of Tech Talks by Latitud, a series of webinars where we'll not only invite guest speakers to share their knowledge but will also have our own Engineering team talking about their experiences.

👉 This time, Cornershop co-founder & CTO Daniel Undurraga will share lessons learned in the early days of building one of the most valuable products in LatAm, and Latitud Principal Software Engineer Jared Schaber will let you in on secrets to applying functional programming concepts with the language you use today.

And they'll be joined by the one and only Yuri Danilchenko, CTO & co-founder of Latitud. *team clapping in the back 👏👏👏*

Wanna come?

And note 🚨: these events are for engineers made by engineers talking engineering stuff. If you don't have the background you are also welcome, but we do not commit to you understanding what in the mother of Python they are talking about.

💡 The tech fellows ask

As we start hiring our tech team, should we think only of people with the technical skills we need or should we prioritize people with more management skills?

If you don't have a budget, you'll most likely want to hire junior engineers. They are easier to hire and find. The thing with this is that it generates more management tasks for the leader of the project.

If you are a good manager and can cope with that extra work, go for it. But if you're not and you need somebody that can handle themselves and know how the business works, you might want to reconsider prioritizing the technological skill only.

What's the outcome at the end? To generate value. You, as the leader, must decide if you're willing to take on the number of additional management tasks that a junior engineer might generate for you. Which hire will make you more or less effective as the leader, and which will bring the best results to the project in the long term?

📌 This question was answered live in the session The DOs and DON'Ts of CTOs, with Camilo Jimenez, CTO at Littio.

Session? What session?

The ones from our Explore Fellowship program, of course!

You can also be part of our community of kick-ass LatAm founders and soon-to-be founders.

All you have to do is apply before February 24th to be considered for the upcoming cohort. 🏃

🎁 To care is to rec

🎯 The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change

Managing people is difficult wherever you work. But in the tech industry, the learning curve can be brutal. In this practical guide, author Camille Fournier (tech lead turned CTO) takes you through each stage in the journey from engineer to technical manager with actionable advice for approaching various obstacles in your path.

👉 Get it here.

🤖 Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love

In Inspired, technology product management thought leader Marty Cagan provides readers with a master class in how to structure and staff a vibrant and successful product organization, and how to discover and deliver technology products that your customers will love.

👉 Get it here.

💾 The Pragmatic Programmer: Your Journey to Mastery

The Pragmatic Programmer is one of those rare tech books you'll read, re-read, and read again over the years. This new edition re-examines what it means to be a modern programmer, touching on topics from personal responsibility and career development to architectural techniques for keeping your code flexible and easy to adapt and reuse.

👉 Get it here.

⛵ Hot News Ahoy!

👏 FJ Labs closes two new funds

FJ Labs has garnered US$260M in capital commitments across a pre-Seed fund and an opportunity-style “Series B and beyond” fund, with backing from family offices, institutional investors, and a wide array of founders. Shoutout to Fabrice Grinda, who's part of our investors and mentors community!

🍒 Diferente is the way to go!

Brazilian online grocery deliverer Diferente secured US$3M in a seed round led by Caravela Capital that also included Collaborative Fund and two new funds: South Ventures and Valor Siren Ventures. This gives Diferente, part of the Latitud portfolio, US$7.4M in total funding since it was founded.

💽 Big bets on Newtail

Newtail, a startup that helps retailers connect with the industry through access to their data, has raised US$1.4M on a new round led by Big Bets. The round also included Verve Capital, Prodígio Capital, Norte Ventures, and some angel investors, including Softbank's Alex Szapiro. They also are part of the Latitud portfolio!

😳 We had a US$100M TYPO!

Last week we shared that Dila Capital had just closed its fourth fund for US$15M. Welp, we obviously miss a 1 there. Dila's fund is actually worth US$115M. No wonder why this news got so many clicks, we're sorry for the oh f*ck where did all the money go and panic generated.

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