Juliana Sarmiento always knew she wanted to create value for her community by starting her own company. Raised in a family of entrepreneurs, she knew what she would be getting herself into by choosing this path. Along with the challenges that come with starting a business, she had also been exposed to the positive impact that entrepreneurship could have on society.
Today, Juliana is co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Envíoclick, a Mexico City-based logistics platform that connects freight and courier companies with businesses in Latin America. Their clients range from leading e-commerce companies like Mercado Libre to small and medium-sized businesses that need help in running more efficient operations.
I sat down with Juliana to talk about how Envíoclick’s solution is transforming the logistics and delivery industry in Mexico and Latin America. We also discuss how the e-commerce landscape has changed since 2014 and Envíoclick’s decision to expand to Colombia.
Educating the market about logtech
Although Latin America presented a huge opportunity for logistics companies, Juliana explains that couriers and delivery companies were skeptical about the value that new technologies could bring. It took a lot of conversations about the logistics gap that exists in the region for their future clients to understand that Juliana’s solution was key to helping the market develop faster.
Listen to this episode of Crossing Borders to learn more about Latin America’s broken logistics industry.
The entrepreneurial experience at Linio
Early on in her career, Juliana had the foresight to know that tech would soon take Latin America by storm. So when she was contacted to work at the first pure e-commerce company in Latin America, she immediately accepted and stayed on for five years. As one of Linio’s early employees, she describes the experience to be like that of an entrepreneur. She had the freedom to make her own decisions while she educated the market about this new way of buying products.
Check out this episode of Crossing Borders to find out how Juliana’s experience at Linio inspired her to dive deeper into the logistics industry.
An organic partnership
Juliana explains that choosing a business partner was an easy decision for her. As the Commercial Regional Managing Director for Linio, she worked closely with Rosa who was Regional Head of CRM for the company. They both realized that logistics in LatAm needed to evolve. After forming a strong work relationship at Linio, it only made sense for them to take the leap together.
Find out how Juliana and Rosa overcame their hesitations and thrived as female founders with Envíoclick in this episode of Crossing Borders.
Juliana believes that starting Envíoclick was one of the best decisions in her life. The logistics startup has since expanded into two countries and boasts over 600 clients. With this solution, Juliana is helping bridge the gap between businesses and logistics for more efficient and scalable companies in Latin America.
Outline of this episode:
- [1:38] – About Envíoclick
- [3:05] – Reality of logistics in LatAm
- [5:56] – Choosing to become an entrepreneur
- [7:12] – Jumping into tech
- [10:33] – E-commerce in LatAm in 2014
- [13:09] – Changes in logistics
- [15:47] – Choosing a business partner
- [18:25] – The ups and downs of the business
- [21:42] – Advice to other female entrepreneurs
- [23:49] – Decision to expand to Colombia
- [26:42] – Envíoclick’s response to COVID-19
- [29:05] – Books, blogs, & podcast recommendations
- [31:03] – Advice to Juliana’s younger self
Resources & people mentioned: