Thales Lab: Entrepreneur Meets Intrepreneur

“The Macintosh team was what is commonly known as intrepreneurship… a group of people going, in essence back to the garage, but in a large company,” states Steve Jobs, Former CEO of Apple in a 1985 Newsweek article. An intrepreneur is an employee that innovates within the confines of a company. The term intrepreneur isn’t new, but the power intrepreneurs can have in a corporation is something few recognize.

“Our niche is the intrepreneur,” says Sylvia Chebi, Director of Thales Lab – a Montevideo based company builder that supports technical startups by entrepreneurs and intrepreneurs. “We believe that by promoting intrepreneurs and their ideas within companies, it benefits both the organization and the intrepreneur. The organization has the ability to capitalize on an amazing new piece of innovation while keeping a talented engineer, and the intrepreneur gains access to resources and finances by the organization. It’s a win-win.”

One of Thale’s amazing intrepreneurial start-ups that is gaining recognition is Futbol X – a football (that’s soccer for us Americans) app with over 750,000+ downloads. By using Futbol X, soccer fanatics can watch live games and receive real time stats and updates on their favorite teams. “It’s the official soccer association app in Uruguay and Mexico.” Explains Sylvia. “They launched in February. The app is so awesome that Apple even called and requested that one be made available for the Apple Watch.”

Thales Lab offers $10,000 USD in exchange for 10% equity from intrepreneurs and entrepreneurs that join their program. But, “Even if we didn’t provide money, I believe our start ups would join regardless. The amazing thing about being part of Thales Lab is the connections and support we offer."

Trillonario: This idea hit the jackpot!

For Ariel Pfeffer, his latest entrepreneurial adventure began in the Miami International Airport. “I was wondering around, waiting for my connecting flight when I stumbled across a long line of people waiting to buy tickets for the Florida Jackpot.” He purchased a ticket and while he didn’t win the 40 million dollar cash prize, he may as well have. “That experience spurred my latest company: Trillonario,” say Ariel. Trillonario is a global service that allows people to purchase lottery tickets from around the world. Trillonario (Win Trillions is the US brand) is completely online, and functions by tacking on a small service fee onto each sale. 

Today, this ten year old company offers lottery tickets in 180 countries and has 20 offices located across the world. “Our biggest challenge is to have a marketing budget large enough to achieve our goals and tackle opportunities,” admits Ariel. “We see opportunities in many different countries, but we don’t have enough structure to go everywhere. At the moment, we are concentrating on Europe and Latin America.”

“Entrepreneurship has always been in my DNA,” says Ariel, two-time entrepreneur. “When I work on a new project, I’m constantly on the move, brainstorming ideas.”  The thing Ariel loves best about business is marketing strategy. “It’s my passion,” says Ariel who writes for Puromarketing - a Uruguayan paper.

Ariel Pfeffer poses at Piso 40 in Montevideo, Uruguay

Today, Ariel hasn’t stopped his entrepreneurial endeavor with Trillonario. Two weeks prior to this interview, Ariel opened Piso 40 – An Angel Investor Club located on the 40th floor of Uruguay’s World Trade Center. “One of the big things lacking in Uruguay’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is funding between 200,000 and 1 Million USD. I’m trying to close that gap by teaching investors the best practices at Piso 40.” At Piso 40, “we aren’t looking for projects that are copy and paste projects from The States. That’s about 90% of the projects we see. Instead, we are looking for NEW, FRESH ideas with innovation behind them.”

“Entrepreneurial spirit is on the rise in Uruguay. Many different things are coming to the market like investor clubs, government programs and accelerators,” explains Ariel. The government is also getting involved through the National Agency of Investigation and Innovation (ANII), providing technology startups with funding between 50,000 – 500,000 USD.

“It’s important that we continue to expand the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit of Uruguay,” says Ariel.

---

Ariel’s family ritual:

“I’m even getting my family involved in entrepreneurship,” says Ariel. His family will sit down once a week for an hour and discuss entrepreneurship or watch something on the subject. For example, he recently shared with his family the TED Talk featuring Simon Sinek entitled: “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.” 

---

da Vinci Labs: "Dreamers of the day are dangerous men"

“Our challenge is to turn local dreams into worldwide dreams and worldwide impacts. That is our main challenge. We empower Uruguayan companies to think globally,” Sergio Delgado exclaims when speaking about da Vinci Labs. Sergio is the co-founder and managing director for da Vinci Foundation and Director of da Vinci Labs, one of the up and coming incubators in Uruguay. “The world is our market” says Sergio, who pushes entrepreneurs to think and bet globally.

da Vinci Foundation began in 2008 to create a networking space of equality and to empower startups. It has since become a startup incubator with a focus on helping young companies develop their differential value and think globally. “People come to us with tons of ideas; we help turn those ideas into actions and to ultimately create value,” says Sergio. “Our mentors and advisors know when and how to look for money for our entrepreneurs.”

da Vinci editors division recently edited and published a book called Founders.UY, which contains stories featuring twelve young entrepreneurs in the internet space. From this book, da Vinci hopes to tell their audience of the innovations these entrepreneurs have created and the positive ecosystem they have established for Uruguay. A free preview is available from www.Founders.UY

In the prologue of the book, CEO of Collokia and previous board member of Endeavor Uruguay, Pablo Brenner, discusses the vast improvements Uruguay has seen in its entrepreneurial movement. He points out the effect one entrepreneur can have on another in the community, which leads to exponential growth. “Knowing that this new generation of entrepreneurs has adopted this pay it forward philosophy is the best indicator of a bright future,” says Pablo.

da Vinci uses a quote by Thomas Edward Lawrence, the renowned British archaeologist, diplomat and military officer, to describe the passion of these twelve entrepreneurs and the many others found in Uruguay:

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream at night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”

Sinergia Co-Work: “You Are Crazy!”

“You are crazy” that’s what my grandmother loves to say of me for starting a company in Uruguay,” says Macarena Botta, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Sinergia Co-Work in Montevideo, Uruguay. “But I’m doing what I love. What else could I ask for?”

At Sinergia, their mission is to democratize entrepreneurship for the Uruguayan entrepreneurial community. “Before co-working spaces arrived to Montevideo (Sinergia was the first!), the entrepreneurial ecosystem was a bit elitist,” explains Macarena. “You had to know certain contacts to get into the community. With Sinergia, we wanted to create a space where we could democratize entrepreneurship. We wanted to create a place where entrepreneurs and freelancers could come together as a community.”  

In order to develop a sense of community, the co-working space has been developed to encourage networking among the members. “From yoga classes to workshops on accounting and sales, we provide activities each day that encourage networking between entrepreneurs.” Sinergia also has spaces where members come together to socialize like a terrace for asados, chill zones, ping pong tables, and an inside café where entrepreneurs can chat.

Macarena and Kaity pose for a photo

“The cool thing about co-working spaces, especially Sinergia, is that they shorten the entrepreneurial learning path because you share stories and experiences with other entrepreneurs,” explains Macarena. “It’s about learning from other’s mistakes and successes. It also makes being an entrepreneur feel a lot less lonely.”

While Sinergia only began a year ago, they have already added an incubator to their list of services and have plans to open a second co-working space geared towards the tech and robotics industry in the next couple months. “We hope to have five additional co-working spaces in Uruguay within the next five years.” Luckily, Marcena just might be crazy enough to make it all happen.