
Start-Up Chile is a Great Experience But Be Careful Too - vamsee
http://nextmontreal.com/start-up-chile-is-a-great-experience-but-be-careful-too/
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trevelyan
As someone who went through the program:

(1) it's not technically true that you HAVE to spend the money before you get
it reimbursed. We were given the option of purchasing insurance from the
private sector to cover the government in the event of the funds being
misallocated. None of the teams decided this was worth doing since it takes
time to arrange the insurance and you end up paying the bank for holding the
risk. Why waste that money?

(2) My understanding is that the $750 monthly salary mentioned here is the no-
questions-asked limit on personal compensation for the individual whose name
is on the contract. It was introduced to avoid having people need to keep
track of all of their receipts. I believe you can justify more if you're
willing to collect and submit those receipts (not worth the time), and you can
always pay coworkers more by simply issuing a legal receipt for services
rendered by them to your company. I didn't take salary myself but had no
problems paying individual staff up to 2500 USD per month.

(3) It costs about 6000-8000 USD for a team to take advantage of the program
since there are some things you can't get receipts for (housing deposits,
miscellaneous cash expenses). Those expenses end up being front-loaded, but
you are still looking at a 7x money multiplier on your matching funds (the
funding works out to over 42000 USD once the exchange rate is figured in).
Expecting teams to contribute 1000 of their own capital per month while
pursuing their own business is not a high bar.

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mituljain
hey, since you've been through the program and we recently got selected I had
a few questions - that I hope you'd answer:

1) Can you stay on there longer after the 6 months? What are the permit
restrictions etc?

2) How many people actually came there with little or no product ready and
actually built up while in Chile itself?

3) What are the odds that people who fall under the category of 2) got funding
there itself?

What I am trying to understand is - is this something more worthwhile for
those who already have something running and are maybe already talking to
investors? Or is it also an equally good opportunity for people who've been
playing with an idea and will have maybe 60% ready by the time they get there
- but have no other investment other than their own money ?

Thanks a lot!

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mituljain
and in that case what are the odds of actually finding investors during the
program? (do they have serious investors visiting etc?)

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trevelyan
We got serious inbound inquiries just from taking part.

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mituljain
thanks for the quick answers! can I contact you in any other way with more
questions please?

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trevelyan
absolutely -- contact info through profile. It's a brilliant program though --
if you've been accepted, by all means go. :)

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andrewcooke
i was surprised by "agent fee for finding your apartment" - apartments are
listed in el mercurio. just go to
<http://www.propiedades.emol.com/_portada/index.aspx> and do the clicky. also,
i imagine you can't claim for housing deposits because it's a _deposit_ \- you
get it back.

[i'm a software engineer that lives in santiago and i'm in the middle of
buying an appt as an investment and would be happy to rent it to someone in
the business, so can i ask some questions? are people looking for furnished or
unfurnished? does it need to be central or is anywhere with access to the
metro ok? what kind of rents are people paying?

and finally, i imagine you're already inundated with help and contacts, but if
anyone does need someone local who speaks english just drop me a line.]

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capken
Using an agent is a good idea when you have no lay of the land. There are safe
and less safe areas here, knowing the difference is what an agent does for
you. Also, if you do not speak the language negotiating can be extremely
difficult, a local agent can iron all those out. For me the fee was only
around $125 USD, which is reasonable for the work they do upfront and the
ongoing support they can give you on the backend.

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andrewcooke
for $125 i agree it's not worth arguing about, and also support is reassuring.
but if someone does want to save some money it's worth knowing that you don't
find apts at that price in unsafe areas. santiago is very divided (physically)
by class.

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eccp
BTW ... do you keep the job offers up to date? I'm Chilean and interested on
joining a startup but I'm not sure if the offers published on
www.startupchile.org/joinastartup/ are up to date or not.

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bloury
Yes, they're up to date and constantly changing.

