Miguel Torres is an Ecuadorian entrepreneur who knew he wanted to start businesses when he saw needs that were unmet. After starting his entrepreneurial career in the food and drink industry and building the business to a successful exit, Miguel built out a daily deal site in Ecuador and other countries in Latin America.
The daily deals business morphed into Escapes With You, a travel and experience daily deals business, where he ended up in the Start-Up Chile program. After building the business, he realized that he was shipping items to guests from the travel experience business and decided to build a new business to solve the last-mile problem he was experiencing himself.
Shippify is a shipping and logistics API that allows easy integration of delivery services into any E-commerce store and mobile app by adding a few lines of code.
Miguel hopped on a plane to Brazil without knowing any Portuguese and built the business ever since, expanding across the region and raising money from investors in Latin America, the US, and the Middle East.
Show Notes
- 01:33 – Estonia and its ecosystem
- 03:21 – Shipify overview
- 04:17 – How Shippify is different from current shipping solutions
- 05:27 – Overview of Miguel’s native Ecuador
- 06:31 – Start-Up Chile experience
- 08:17 – How Miguel got into Shippify
- 11:13 – Miguel’s previous startup experience and acquisition
- 14:01 – Growing up in Ecuador and doing business there
- 18:18 – Miguel’s first experience outside of Ecuador
- 20:48 – How Miguel decided to do EscapesWithYou
- 28:29 – How Miguel validated Shippify
- 31:15 – Why Miguel launched Shippify in Brazil
- 34:21 – The inflection point
- 37:41 – Advice to other entrepreneurs about doing business in Brazil
- 40:35 – Raising money from around the world
- 47:37 – Reaction to Falabella acquiring Linio
- 50:11 – What’s next for Miguel and Shippify
- 52:11 – Advice for other entrepreneurs just getting started
