categories

HOT TOPICS

eBay of Latin America: Mercado Libre CEO Marcos Galperin (Part 6)

Posted on Thursday, Dec 13th

SM: So you grew well through 2006, and in 2007 you went public. How was the IPO received in the investor community? MG: Very well. The stock went up quite a bit. We were quite unlucky in that we did our road show in the middle of the sub prime crisis. The day we priced,

Read Full Article »

eBay of Latin America: Mercado Libre CEO Marcos Galperin (Part 5)

Posted on Wednesday, Dec 12th

SM: What was Internet adoption like in 2003? MG: I do not remember year by year. I think the evolution was somewhere around 10% per year. SM: What type of revenues were you seeing in 2003? MG: I believe we had $4M in 2003. I would have to check that number, but 2006 was $52M,

Read Full Article »

eBay of Latin America: Mercado Libre CEO Marcos Galperin (Part 4)

Posted on Tuesday, Dec 11th

SM: What was your platform in those early days – an auction platform or a fixed price platform? MG: It was completely an auction platform, and today it is 90% a fixed priced platform. Another thing we did different is that we did not like the Buy It Now feature on eBay. We used it

Read Full Article »

eBay of Latin America: Mercado Libre CEO Marcos Galperin (Part 3)

Posted on Monday, Dec 10th

SM: Having just 3% Internet penetration must have been very frustrating! MG: Exactly! We tried to focus more on milestones which were operational but not necessarily revenue. We still remember the first time someone came and paid their bill at the office. We still have the PDF of the scanned check. We tried to focus

Read Full Article »

eBay of Latin America: Mercado Libre CEO Marcos Galperin (Part 2)

Posted on Sunday, Dec 9th

SM: Did you get the sense that eBay was not focused on Latin America at all yet? What was the Latin America Internet market at the time? What kind of Internet penetration? MG: It was very small. There was 3% penetration roughly. Today it is 20%, so it still can grow a lot. Out of

Read Full Article »

eBay of Latin America: Mercado Libre CEO Marcos Galperin (Part 1)

Posted on Saturday, Dec 8th

I did this interview in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during my recent trip consulting with Mercado Libre, Latin America’s largest online marketplace. I found the story fascinating, and wanted to capture it for my readers all over the world. SM: I would like to hear the story of how you built Mercado Libre. Let’s start with

Read Full Article »

Serial Entrepreneur Zack Rinat on Model N (Part 12)

Posted on Tuesday, Nov 20th

SM: What would you like to conclude with? It seems like you are at a place in your life where you are building this company to a significant size and this is your life’s effort a built to last company versus built to flip. What are your departing thoughts? ZR: A couple of things come

Read Full Article »

Serial Entrepreneur Zack Rinat on Model N (Part 11)

Posted on Monday, Nov 19th

SM: Listening to what you have said so far, you are going after businesses or segments which have a multi-channel dynamic. Not every industry has that. ZR: You are right about this, but a multi-channel is just one dimension. In areas where there are complexities of business, it can happen by multi-channel, complex pricing, globalization

Read Full Article »