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The "How to establish a Colombian technology company in Silicon Valley" seminar served as an introduction for the 40 Colombian exporters in the services sector that will participate in a business round with 175 buyers in the U.S., in the well renowned world center for technological innovation.
There were several conferences held at the San Francisco Regency Hotel on key elements and on how not to make mistakes when exporting services, including software, video games, digital animation and mobile applications. This same venue will hold the business round organized by PROCOLOMBIA and the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications. "Evidently, its necessary to be more analytical when deciding to enter the U.S. market, this is not something that should be a result of any random decision but rather a properly planned project", stated Nicolás Rivera, from Softvalores, one of the participating companies.
"Evidently, its necessary to be more analytical when deciding to enter the U.S. market, this is not something that should be the result of any random decision but rather a properly planned project" stated Nicolás Rivera, from Softvalores, one of the participating companies.
He also mentioned "there are things we ignore or underestimate, such as legal matters, visas and investment".
The seminar therefore dealt with legal, tax, and immigration implications that must be considered, as well as funding options that provide angel investor capital and risk capital in that country.
"It's very important to be assisted around legal and tax matters, and advisory in general, to establish in the U.S." confirmed Andrés García, from Bioanywhere.
Other participants stated that they were aware of this being a "complex process, but it has to be done because there are opportunities we should not miss".
Daniel García from Asesoftware, was one of them. "I see that the Colombian offering is very competitive because we share our same time zones and the culture is more similar if we compare it to that of China and India, our main competitors. We must focus more, as they said at the seminar, on competing with elements other than price, such as quality, short lead time and using more and better practices".
Paula Hoyos from Adfeel Digital shared her opinion and added that she "did not imagine that there were so many entrepreneurs seeking these opportunities, I think that Colombia taking its first steps is a very good thing and I believe we're doing our homework".
This Colombian mission is the second that PROCOLOMBIA assists at Silicon Valley, after its first edition in 2011. This year, in addition to the conferences on how to establish within the California area, there will also be visits to some of the most representative companies such as Salesforce, Oracle, Paypal, Intel, Gree, Tinyco and the Academy of Art University. The participants will have business rounds with U.S. companies from industries such as software, banking, capital funds, video games, mobile applications, digital marketing, consultancy and universities, among others.
