it's your legacy... Entrustet HIWI Blog

Back in early September, my co-founder Nathan Lustig stumbled upon this Forbes article about a program launched by the Chilean government that would give $40,000 to 25 U.S. startups to move down to Chile for 6 months.  Intrigued by the whole opportunity, we decided to apply.  We even made a Chilean cooking show to show why we deserved to win.

Fast forward to early last week, when Entrustet was officially accepted to the Startup Chile program.  We did a ton of research about Startup Chile and were really impressed.  We knew we wanted to go, but needed to make sure that it made sense for the company.  We talked to all of our advisers and investors and decided it did.

So in two weeks, Nathan and I will be heading down to Santiago, along with 24 other promising startups from the US and the rest of the world.  We’re still a U.S. company, and will continue to run operations through our Madison, WI headquarters.  Our team will still work our of our office and Nathan and I will be flying back as needed.

What we hope to accomplish

It will be business as usual while we’re in Santiago, only with the addition of a few Chile-specific goals:

1. Meet people. One of our biggest objectives while we’re in Santiago is to meet people that we wouldn’t have otherwise met here in Madison. The program gives us a unique opportunity to meet and work with 24 other like-minded IT startups and share ideas with one another. Additionally, Startup Chile has solidified a strong local network of potential business partners, investors, and service providers to connect us with.

2. Expose Entrustet to an international market. Since very early on, there has been some interest in Entrustet from consumers and investors around the globe. Being located in a strong overseas economy like Santiago is an exciting chance to gain firsthand experience exposing our service to the international marketplace.

3. Fostser local entrepreneurship. About 18 months ago, Nathan and I were two of the founding members of Capital Entrepreneurs, a Madison-based group of startup founders (mainly IT focused). What started as 10 companies has grown to over 60 in the short time we’ve been running it. We’re really interested in learning about the Chilean entrepreneurship community and if there is not a similar program, we’d like to help start one.

From articles we’ve read and people we’ve talked to, it appears that Santiago is ripe for an explosion of entrepreneurship. We plan to meet up with as many local entrepreneurs as possible and help out in any way we can to grow the seedling of a startup hotbed that is Santiago.

4. Connect Madison and Silicon and Santiago. Being located in the middle of the US has its advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, the Madison startup scene is growing, tight-knit community of founders. On the other hand, one disadvantage is that there isn’t much mingling with other startup cities going on. In fact, we often don’t even get a good chance to connect with other startup hotbeds within the state of Wisconsin! This Startup Chile program, however, offers us a great chance to make a lasting connection between Madison and Santiago. We’ll look to run live web chats between the two cities from down there with interesting people we meet along the way from Chile or the U.S. coast.

Nathan and I are both really excited to arrive in Santiago on the 15th.  We plan to keep updating the Entrustet blog with stories about digital assets, digital estate planning and digital afterlife issues, but we’re going to make sure to keep you all updated on what we find and learn as part of the Startup Chile program.  If you’re in Chile or are going to be in Santiago while we are there, we’d love to connect.  Shoot us an email or let us know in the comments and we’ll be sure to follow up!  And if you’ve got any tips or must see places, tell us too!

Tags:

entrustet chile · entrustet founders · entrustet santiago · startup chile