Written by Leila Ergo. Twitter’s massive growth is undeniable. This tremendous growth has sparked unintended but welcomed side-effects for technology entrepreneurs in Latin America and the U.S. hispanic business community. The business side-effects of Twitter adoption is what we are going to touch upon in this post.
There’s no better way of doing this than sharing a success story that grew from Twitter and has blossomed into an energetic technology startup community in Buenos Aires and now is expanding and building a strong relationship with the Silicon Valley. But first let’s get to the basics to understand how Twitter’s growth helped ignite the entrepreneurial spirit in Latin America.
We are hoping that this post will provide background on why Argentina is tremendously fertile ground to build a global technology startup as well.
How Twitter gave birth to Palermo Valley?
Circa 2007, most people using Twitter in Buenos Aires were linked to the Internet and technology industries in one way or another. Santiago Siri –a Twitter user from Buenos Aires and Popego’s founder– realized that a large number of technology startups were concentrated in the neighborhood of Palermo in Buenos Aires. So, Santiago talked to Vanesa Kolodziej, a Buenos Aires based entrepreneur, and both decided to assemble a core group of people to be the center of gravity for what will be known as Palermo Valley. Before Twitter there was no simple and efficient way of bringing together this loosely tied web of entrepreneurs.
They had low expectations. That’s the best way to start things because if your expectations are low you will be pleasantly surprised when your idea is a smashing success, if that ever happens. Santiago and Vanesa were pleasantly surprised. They were expecting no more than 20 people for the first meetup but over 60 showed up. The second meeting was even better. Over 150 entrepreneurs, business and marketing people showed up. For the third meetup they blew over 400 attendees. This massive growth was driven by Twitter and a cultural propensity to easily adopt social tools like Twitter to complete the already strong social interaction.
Palermo Valley now organizes an event every two months which involves between 400 to 600 people, in addition to regular training events.
What is Palermo Valley’s Charter Today?
Palermo Valley is a non-profit venture which aims to gather and help the community of web entrepreneurs in Buenos Aires. Palermo Valley organizes periodic training events and informal gatherings such as the Valley Night, promoting spontaneous connections among the attendees. Palermo Valley is the framework that enhances these relationships by facilitating access to experienced entrepreneurs and fostering a culture of innovation and risk taking.
The expansion of Palermo Valley
There are now other “Valleys” in Argentina and in other Latin American countries which is contributing to forming a truly innovative community across Latin America. Currently, regular meetings are being held in Chile, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Argentina. The next steps for Palermo Valley are to visit Brazil and the Silicon Valley.
Tangelo is sponsoring Mar del Plata Valley. We will be reporting on how the event goes and about the next ventures in the startup world across Latin America and the U.S.