Start-Up Chile | Hacker News Reader

Start-Up Chile

corfo.cl

95 pointstswicegood37 comments

I studied in Chile, and it's a great country. The climate is similar to California, the people are great and the cost of living is pretty low. You'll need to know some Spanish to really get the most out of it, but most of the wealthy speak okay English.

On the business side, if you look at Chile's consumer websites (used cars, apartments, etc.) they're all pretty old-school 90's looking. There's definitely room for local and South American innovation.

Likewise, local software education is a little old school overall. This means that they need progressive devs and progressive devs can really benefit there. I see this program as trying to use this synergy.

What do you mean by old school?

http://www.contactchile.cl/en/news-chile.php :-)

As in, the look and feel of the page isn't very Web 2.0? I agree, but I don't think it has that much to do with the education itself, at least not the programmer's education.

I was thinking something related to the fact that the best universities in Chile don't have CS as a major - the most similar option is studying engineering with a mention in informatics. And though there have been efforts to shorten them, these majors are pretty long for American standards - at my university engineering has been shortened from six years to five.

Hans Rosling says in "1957 the United States had the same economy as Chile has today ... [in] 2002 the United States has the same health than Chile. Chile's catching up! Within some years Chile may have better child survival than the United States."

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_o...

So it looks like it might be a good place to live and start a business. Lots of opportunity and good healthcare.

This seems like a really cool opportunity for an entrepreneur who is looking to be immersed in another culture.

Any HN readers thinking of applying?

If I had a good idea, i would probably consider applying, at least

I'd be interested in working from somewhere interesting (Germany, Chile, New Zealand, etc.) for 6 months, but I'm not really that interested in being a beta tester for a new government program. I also don't speak any Spanish.

More interesting information about Chile:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1565375

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1570167

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1604896

Even more so than the program itself which provides nominal funding is the message this sends. Here is a country that welcomes entrepreneurs and will go out of their way to make their country a good place to do business. Their goals are also reasonable - they expect the company to do $100,000US in sales once running. They are not expecting $20 million US out of the gate like the fanciful schemes of other similar programs where those in power are subsequently disappointed and embark on a program of confiscation.

Chile seems like a really nice place in terms of geography. They have deserts, mountains, glaciers, and a Mediterranean climate zone.

And huge earthquakes.

Edit: for those downvoting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Chile_earthquake

Well, the trend has been for a large quake to hit every 10-15 years, so now is the best time to come.

So does California, although of course California probably has stricter building codes.

Sorry if this sounds like a dumb question but : are smartphones ( iPhone/Blackberry/Android...) popular in Chile ? It could be useful to know for entrepreneurs targeting mobile products.

My casual estimate as a Chilean: A lot of the more tech-savvy/well-off people have iphones. There's a handful of Blackberries out there and virtually no Androids. Most people have dumb-phones.

Chilean here. Smartphones are very popular already. Blackberries used to be popular only among executives, and the first iPhones where very expensive, but they're way more common nowadays. I don't have numbers, but I'd say that in Chile the Blackberries and iPhones have the most of the market, in that order.

iPhone and Blackberry have some market penetration. I can't say whether it's too low or enough to run a mobile business like to sell applications.

General Data: http://www.subtel.cl/prontus_subtel/site/artic/20100608/asoc...

Many google mobile apps are not available or come out late.

Via Startup-Chile blog.

> About AtakamaLabs

Atakama Labs is a developer, publisher and operator of social games, focused on meaningful games. We are making games that will make the world a better place, while entertaining and surprising our players. Our games tend to be free to play so that everyone can enjoy them. We develop primarily in Chile and publish our products across the globe, both directly and together with partners, depending on the platform and territory. Atakama is backed by Austral Capital and the COPEC-UC Fund, two venture capital funds.

http://www.atakamalabs.com/

The program seems to be underway:

http://startupchile.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/california-star...

"The next day we had a typical asado with other Chileans living in the Bay Area, and meanwhile acquainted them with the first of the program’s selected entrepreneurs: Israeli-born Stanford MBA Amit Aharoni, and Stanford Computer Scientist Nicolas Meunier from France."

Are HN entrepreneurs really so willing to mooch off of the unwilling capital of the Chilean taxpayers?

in exactly the same way yc companies "mooch off" ycombinator, of course they are.

what is the basis of the "unwilling", has there been a backlash to this program?

The original comment was snarky but it does raise a point. It sounds like they're specifically targeting foreigners (English language, don't have to be a Chilean native), so they must be betting that the increased exposure and business opportunities from this will offset the potential for money to flow out of country. Unfortunately, South American history favors outflow more than increased opportunity. Then again, the startup world will undoubtedly be better for this sort of thing than investment by large multinationals and political cronies.

It was not my intention to be snarky. I was genuinely surprised at the placid response. My sense has been that entrepreneurs take pride in creating something of value, finding others that are willing to invest their own capital to bring the idea to full fruition. That notion seemed at odds with the sort of unalloyed rent seeking described on the linked site.

as a chilean I don't like very much the idea, here we have to figth the banks for funding, and the state gives away tax money

It seems to me that it's sort of a 'picking winners' approach, in that someone in Chile is picking companies to give money to. More broad based approaches that simply make taxes/bureaucracy/financing etc... easier for everyone are something I would see as more favorable in some ways.

That said, it doesn't seem like a great deal of money, and in terms of a "publicity stunt", it certainly seems to be effective.

YC invests its own capital, capital accrued through voluntary exchange, and that capital will be freed to more productive ends should they make poor choices. The application says as much:

"The original motivation for Y Combinator was benevolent, but this is not a charity. If our investments pay off, we can invest in more startups, and if they don't, we can't keep doing this indefinitely."

Contrast that with this Chilean taxpayer-funded scheme.

My point wasnt that they were equivalent investments, just that they were investments and its pretty offensive to suggest that founders would be "mooching" because you dont happen to agree with the basis of the investment.

It's mooching precisely due to the nature of the inequivalence. One is the voluntary, contractual exchange of capital for equity; the other is glad-handing politicians giving away money taken from other people in order to foster a pro-business image through anti-market means. Participating in the former is commerce, participating in the latter is rent seeking. If this sort of consequence-free pay day doesn't count as mooching, then nothing does.

It sounds like Chile wants to build up their software industry. Sounds to me like a very good investment on their part, and a win-win for everyone concerned.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."

Does anybody else get ASP errors when trying to apply?

Weird... and here I thought Start-Up Chile was what Paul served at the Ycombinator get togethers...

anybody knows if they have property taxes down there?

On my way back from Santiago two months ago, I sat by an American who operated a group home / missionary.

He claimed he pays approximately $300 USD per year on a ~$600,000 property.

But I believe their VAT is fairly high (for US standards)

19%, actually

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