Jose Arocha’s blog

I believe we do not figure out what it takes to be an entrepreneur and whether we like it unless we try ourselves.   Let me share some beliefs from my experience.

I believe that in the entrepreneurial route we learn much about ourselves. This leads us to realize which of the many roles fits better our personal making. Ours is not necessarily the role of the CEO, for example. I believe that part of the skill set for a founder involves having this type of honest realizations and in this particular case, let the ones with the making to perform the job. Then not only self-honesty but team building becomes critical. Not an easy job.

I heard once to Jacqueline Novogratz from the Acumen Fund talk about the phase-1 entrepreneurs and phase-2 entrepreneurs at one of the Stanford Breakfast Briefings last Spring.  Phase-1 being those visionaries that materialize the idea from concept to prove, an initial roll-out of the enterprise. And then phase-2 entrepreneurs those that are able to scale it. This is consistent with my knowledge of the evolution of technical systems. Every phase in the S-curve of a system requires a different and particular cast. My experience in start-ups confirm that. I saw a brilliant and visionary CEO being taken out by the BOD because year after year he was not able to take the company from phase 1 to phase 2. I lived the agony of VP after VP of sales trying to find the sweet sales model with no success. The company found its phase-2 CEO and the right model eventually. The last time I knew of them, they were doing great and in black. This does not undervalue the founder. The founder fulfilled a critical and exciting role as well. As I also believe the guy that came in for phase 2 would not have make it to engage the passionate and fun team we built during phase 1. I also assume that a few could perform both roles. But in general, I believe a successful entrepreneur should understand him or herself and recognize which role he or she should play in every phase of the enterprise for this one to be successful.

I currently perceive myself stronger as a phase-1 entrepreneur. I love inventing and making connections between the opportunities of new technologies and the demands and possibilities of the communities I care about. I love to be engaged with users and customers one on one and transfer my excitement and vision. I do not see myself much as a phase-2 entrepreneur replicating and scaling an organization and detaching myself from that vision-building and exploratory phase and the very human interface between the organization and the end beneficiaries. I enjoy the dynamics of small, creative organizations bringing a new solution to market. But that joy should not hold the company from its potential to reach far and wide. Phase-2 is also important for the enterprise and its scope and impact. And It will be part of my challenge to recognize when is the time for me to delegate the job into a more capable phase-2 entrepreneur when the time comes. I will love seeing my enterprises going through that phase successfully, even if executed by another team member. Whatever role I decide to play, it shall be the one where I have fun and can see my team thriving to bring a better future to the organization and all its stakeholders.

Do you agree with this view of entrepreneurship?  What is your making?

I resonated with Nita Goyal’s post on Brain Drain at the Digital Vision  program.    Let me convey my vision on the topic of the diaspora starting with three very close stories:

Sketch 1. Luisa left a small town to the capital to get the best education she was ready for.  Luisa discovered she was not alone.  Many other thought alike in this new environment.  They did great things together that impacted positively her country later on.  Imagine Luisa being restrained to stay in her home community college when she could aspire to go to the best schools of her country.  Now change levels: community with country, and country with the world.  Luisa is a novel prize.

Sketch 2. Maria and Paul got a 3 year-old.  They are both IT professionals that graduated from the university in a country with poor management and poor economic performance.  Maria barely found a job, Paul got a good one but needs to travel all the time out of the country for consulting engagements.  The income they make barely reaches the budget to affort a small house 3 hours from the main employment offices.  They get 6 hours of traffic everyday. In the top of that they  coordinate the care of their child with grandma in the other side of the capital.  Forget about having one of them working and the mother educating the child. Result: they leave.

Sketch 3.  Sofia is a single mother with 3 children.  Sofia left them to the grandma because the father did not committed himself.  Sofia has been in Venezuela for 20 years already. She has two daily jobs making as much money as possible as house keeper and restaurant cleaner to send money back to Colombia for the education and care of her darling family.  She gets home in the barrio at 1am in the morning and leave again at 7am. Her children finished high school.  Two of them are getting IT degrees. At her home town, there are para-military and drog mafias telling the mayor of the town and the communities how to live.

I know all these people.  They are my friends, the people I care about.  Tell me if VISAS, Taxes or anything else will stop them from migrating to get better opportunities.  Forget it!

Living this situation in Venezuela myself I have called this: the tragedy of underdeveloped countries when the media, transporation and networking hit to change the landscape forever.  Now everybody in Venezuela got access to a cable TV.  People see how others live in the world, they compare, make their numbers and things are so bad in their communities that they are willing to leave everything behind and take the risk.  I know this first hand over and over.  All my social network has desintegrated and is now around the world.   It hits me emotionally everytime a friend says "I am leaving."   People confined to their countries in the past.  More and more, it does not make sense to think of country boundaries in these scenarios anymore.  People migrate to survive and increase opportunities for themselves and their children.  There is no policy that will change that.  Taxes and visas are just another barriers for people who have already managed the worst of them.

Yes, we are loosing our middle and professional class, our talents, our brains, naturally.  They are looking for the spot where they resonate, where they thrive and have opportunities for their potential.  There is a new global reality that will continue favoring Sillicon Valleys and others.
Advances in transportation, Internet and the media hit to accelerate this brain drain. 

But in my view, the diaspora and the brain drain will become the platform for an emerging paradigm solution to the problem it created.  Stay tune and see what the diaspora in coordination with the home communities are now capable of.  Look at these two examples:  Indigo Financiera, an initiative by Margarita Quihuis pooling remittances to generate business opportunities back in Mexican communities, and FundVec, the brain child of América Soler-Everhart working form California in the USA to help neighbors build libraries in their home rural communities in Venezuela.  We can realize two perspective of this new development force emerging with these two examples.   The diaspora is closing the loop in the economic flow in which the wealth in the first world, likely earned in a global marketplace, is distributing itself back to the international communities.  People who migrated are now finding ways to give back and fulfill the needs of their home communities.

It takes more than taxes and visa.  It takes a particular heart, the sense of ownership and commitment with a community to give back.  This is the true force out there.  I believe progress created a problem and progress will solve it.  Like the bee in the flower, the Diaspora represents a blessing in disguise. 

Do you agree?  Why did you leave? Why did your friend leave?  Do they still care about their community? do you?