This is a goodbye

Are we leaving you, Rogerio?

Yes, we are.

It's not you, it's us, the Latitud Team, taking a break from this healthy relationship for a well-deserved holiday break.

Relax, we are coming back to business on January 3rd – we all need time to digest 2022, finish last-minute shopping, show #gratitud, and recharge for 2023.

If we take extra days to reply, this is why :)

Have a Merry Christmas 🎄 and a Happy New Year 🥂, Latitud community! You rock 🪨

2022 wasn't an easy year

And 2023 is not looking like the promised land either, we know…

(But hey, at least the World Cup stayed in LatAm, right? Vamo' vamooo' Argentinaaa 🇦🇷🏆)

The end of the year is the best season to review how things went. What worked, what didn't, and how you can improve as an early-stage founder to strengthen your GOAT position in 2023 🐐

We'd like to help you with the last part.

As you know, on the Latitud's Podcast we've interviewed AMAZING people from the startup ecosystem, such as Pierpaolo Barbieri (Ualá), Stelleo Tolda (Mercado Livre), and Marlene Garayzar (Stori).

Week after week, they've shared insights about their journeys as founders. And, as a founder yourself, we have some must-read lessons for you.

📌 Here are 3 goals to add to your list and become a better startup leader in 2023.

1. Find the right community for you

Just as companies think about which network effects leverage to help them grow, you also need to select the right network for your objectives.

James Currier, a partner at the venture capital firm NFX, shared with us that choosing the right cities to live in, the right industries to be in, and the right people to join your party has a huge impact on your trajectory.

Good news? You don't have to move to Silicon Valley to find all of this. Great networks might be closer than you think 👀

2. Look for employees with an ownership mentality

A part of the network is the people you choose.

Getting the right employees when you're just starting and need a few people to handle a lot of challenges is KEY to succeed. And founders agree: you need to look for people with an ownership mentality.

But how to identify them?
For José Jair Bonilla, from the e-commerce platform Chiper, it sums up to 2 things:

• They are always questioning the business and how it works.
• They are committed to dedicating time to people and making them better.

3. Fewer benchmarks, more internal improvements

It's only human to compare our results with our peers. But in 2023, look less to the outside and more to the inside. Stelleo Tolda did just that in the early days of the giant Mercado Libre while tracking the success of their strategy.

📌 "Many days we weren't the number one player. Often we were the second player, sometimes third, never fourth. I think the most important thing for me was that every day we were selling more than the previous day. The feeling of becoming a true believer came from seeing how these numbers were increased day after day, week after week, month after month."

👉 From finding a community to building resilience, we have 4 more teachings for you from the top LatAm founders we've had on our podcast. You can check which lessons you've already mastered and which ones will be a part of your to-do list for next year. 📝

The fellows ask

Q: What is the role of the marketing department when your B2B SaaS startup is in pre-Seed stage?

Let's face it, if you are at pre-Seed, there's not a lot of budget.

So how to run your marketing tactics?

First, you gotta understand who are the customers you are selling to. Why are they buying things, what do they like, what do they value, and learn who that internal champion would be for you.

Then, benchmark your competition and discover the existing ways there are to sell them products similar to yours. This way, you can see what you are up against and how bad they are :P

👉 This question was asked at the Latitud Nights session on how to Nail User Acquisition with Courtney McColgan, founder of Runa.

Would you like your questions to be answered?

⛵ Hot News Ahoy!

🚀 Welbe cares for you

Mexico-based Welbe, a healthtech that offers companies and their employees a health membership, secured a US$4.1M Seed round led by Volpe Capital and Nazca, with the participation of SVLC, Kortex, and GreenRock.

👑 Venture Capital 2023

Our founder Brian Requarth shared his thoughts with Bloomberg Línea about what startups should expect for next year. The venture capital market is cooling and has not yet bottomed out. After the first half of 2023, a recovery could be seen.

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-> Every time one of your friends subscribes to our Newsletter, one of your 2023 wishes comes true ✨ So ask them to subscribe!

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