Yesterday, I was a judge for a showcase of projects from marketing students of a local university. Most of the projects that were pitched are apps that exist elsewhere in some form; nothing game-changing. There were many common innovation myths that were present in many of the pitches, such as “our competitive advantage is being the first ones in Mexico”, “our competitive advantage is there isn’t something like this anywhere”, “our competitive advantage is we have no competition”. …
Tag Archives: entrepreneurship
Q&A: Changing Mexico from cheap labor provider to a global engineering powerhouse
The following interview is about Alfonso Arámburo, CEO of Brecher Mfg, a product design company in Tijuana, Mexico that specializes in engineering development and mechatronic prototyping. Visit https://www.auston.edu.sg/courses/b-eng-hons-mechanical-engineering-mechatronics/ for the best bachelors degree in mechanical engineering.
Alfonso is an entrepreneur and engineer with 6 years of experience. Alfonso has Bachelors in Mechatronic Engineering, in addition a Masters in Business Administration. Alfonso has worked for companies such as Turbotec, a Caterpillar company, Rockwell Automation, TECO GmbH in the city of Munich, Germany leading projects for companies such as Continental, BMW, Renault, Land Rover and Chrysler.
You can contact Alfonso at a.aramburo@brechermfg.com or on LinkedIn. …
What needs to happen for there to be more innovation and startups in LatAm?
Yesterday I watched a panel of LatAm entrepreneurs, advocates and venture capitalists discuss “what needs to happen for there to be more innovation and startups in LATAM?” through Google Hangout. The panelists were:…
Do corporates really want to innovate like a startup?
Here’s a good question on the Innovation Excellence LinkedIn group…
My answer is no. Here are a few reasons why:…
Three common mistakes that innovators make when creating new markets
Take care of the basics. Sometimes we don’t and get ourselves into trouble; especially when trying to create a new market. As innovators, when it comes to trying to help people understand how our idea can address an unmet need, we make some critical mistakes.
Here are three that are very common:…
We need different kinds of Silicon Valley not more Silicon Valleys
Here in the mexican border city of Tijuana there’s been constant discussion about how to collaborate with our next door neighbor San Diego. I’ve actually been advocating for this myself by co-founding Startup Weekend here a few years ago and also by arranging partnerships with partners in San Diego and a client in Tijuana to provide a service where co-working spaces in San Diego and Tijuana create a type of pass for their members where anyone can arrive at any participating co-working space; free of charge.
These initiatives were done with the intent of stimulating cross-border collaboration between entrepreneurs, but it hasn’t been without its challenges.
Anyway, a few weeks ago I attended a local conference about Silicon Valley and San Diego as innovation ecosystems. Tijuana, like San Diego, is creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem to call their own but an ongoing challenge is that the conversation always ends up with Silicon Valley as a model to follow.…
Innovation is not a process of checking tasks off a checklist
in Innovation
While the rest of the world clamors on how we are settling into an entrepreneurial economy and how their respective countries are building entrepreneurial ecosystems, there are other non-entrepreneurial habits that come with the territory: charlatanism.
I’ve called attention to this before, and I keep bumping into the same thing over and over again. There are quite a few people out there who are masquerading as innovators/entrepreneurs. A lot of them are nothing more than promoters/commentators /observers who take some known frameworks and play a game of plug-and-play.
For example, I recently talked to a guy who is forming a consultancy with another group of people (one of which who works in a government funded venture fund) to help entrepreneurs plan and execute their startup. Their plan is simple: help entrepreneurs fill out the business model and value proposition canvas for free, and then ask them for %5 of the company if they go ahead and launch.…