Last week began the first session of Fledge Peru. To kick it off I spent the week in Lima, getting the team up to speed on the day to day operations of the program, meeting the teams, and learning about the local startup ecosystem. It’s always refreshing to relearn the lesson that business is business, whether in Seattle or Lima, or Oaxaca, Santiago, or Nairobi. People have problems. Startups...
Every SOCAP leaves me wondering what its like outside the West Coast, and specifically outside of San Francisco and Seattle, which seem to be leading the way into the world of impact investing and conscious companies.
How does your city compare?
You can tell when an industry is nascent, growing, or established by looking at how many different conferences and events there are in September and October, the size of those events, and the overlap of attendees. Impact investing have moved from nascent to growing, and seems to be growing rather fast. Yesterday was my fifth industry event of the month: 1. SOCAP is the biggest annual gathering...
Last month, sitting in a monthly gathering of impact investors, in the midst of a discussion on why so few investments get made, a fellow member made a comment that I can’t get out of my head, “It’s not about dealflow, it’s about investorflow.” The way startups usually get funded is not how entrepreneurs think. It’s not a meritocracy. It’s not like an...
