Latin America Rising

I have been interested in Latin America for more than 15 years, although my involvement with business in the region started only in 2007, when I visited Buenos Aires for a client engagement. Since then, I have closely followed the ever-growing reach of MercadoLibre, Latin America’s e-commerce leader, in the form of an interview with founder

Read Full Article »

Seven Tech Stocks For Long-Term Hold

One of the best ways to make money in the stock market is to identify high caliber companies early on in their history, and hold on to them through the long term (I mean years, not quarters). I particularly like companies that have large market forces driving them. In some cases, these may not be

Read Full Article »

eBay of Latin America: Mercado Libre CEO Marcos Galperin (Part 8)

SM: How does the entrepreneur network in Latin America work? Are there many entrepreneurs in Latin America now? MG: Yes, there is a foundation called Endeavor Foundation. They select entrepreneurs in their region and then supports them. This foundation was founded by Linda Rosenburg and Peter Kelner, two Harvard graduates. They got the big private

Read Full Article »

eBay of Latin America: Mercado Libre CEO Marcos Galperin (Part 7)

SM: Does PayPal operate in South America? MG: You can withdraw money but you cannot fund a PayPal account. They do not have a Spanish speaking site either. SM: What is your dynamic with eBay today? Competitive or collaborative?

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

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)

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)

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)

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 »