With the help of a couple of students, I began some early R&D exercises to explore various technology options. We also started brainstorming about what a proof-of-concept might look like and what we needed to accomplish in order to validate the concept to ourselves. The students were only available for 15-20 hours a week until the end of school session so I was still hoping to get more help.
I continued to pursue networking in parallel, spending all my available time outside with people. I was challenged with establishing any kind of credibility or confidence in a country where I was a complete stranger. My only option was to network as much as possible and use my passion and energy to get people to become believers in my vision.
Sometime late in the second week of my visit, I received a call from one of my new found friends -- Carlos Osorio. I had met Carlos earlier in San Francisco in late September when he was traveling with the members of Fundación Chile. At the time, he was wrapping up his PhD at MIT. Coincidentally, he was also in Chile when I arrived. He had been very instrumental in helping me build a network and meet people that may be able to help me move forward. On this day, Carlos had called to tell me that a journalist from quépasa may be calling to interview me about my visit to Chile. quépasa, as I found out, was one of Chile's leading weekly publications, primarily focused on politics and business -- their equivalent of Newsweek or Time. The context of the interview was not clear but I agreed to meet with them anyway. I do not have much experience with media and marketing but I felt that I had a very good story to tell so there was little or no risk in meeting them.
So I met with Josefina Rios from quépasa at Starbucks on a hot afternoon on Tuesday November 28th. I had spent the early part of the day looking for long-term apartment rentals. Yes, by now, I was convinced that rather than a 2-3 week due-diligence, I was going to need to stay much longer. Things had moved at a much slower pace than I had planned or desired. But I still felt quite optimistic that I would get some value out of the trip.
Josefina had obviously come prepared, having done the necessary due-diligence on my background. While I was all prepped to talk about zAgile, her questions were mostly about me. We spent an hour and a half talking. It was a rare moment for me as I tried to deflect questions about myself to take the opportunity to talk about zAgile. That does not happen often. But curiously, her interest was only in my background. The overall spirit of the interview was very positive. After the interview, we drove around the neighborhood with their staff photographer to find a place where they could take some pictures of myself. At one point, I found myself standing in front of a railing with the sun in my face, barely able to open my eyes, melting in the heat, as the photographer took a few dozen shots.
The article titled El sueño tech de Sanjiva (sanjiva's tech dream) was published and the issue hit the newsstands three days later. I had walked into the BlueCompany offices on Friday morning to continue our working sessions when one of the managers, Alvaro Portugal, gave me the latest copy. Since it was written in Spanish, I obviously could not understand any of it so I didn't quite know how to react. The full-page shot looked impressive. The contents were another story. Rather than indulging into the details, I thought it best to just hope that the article could give me some credibility and generate needed interest in Chile for my venture.
PS -- over time, as I began to learn Spanish, I found myself occasionally going back to read the article and try to see what of it I could understand. And often, I would discover some subtleties or nuances that Josefina had captured about my professional life and my spirit. I realized that she had been very generous in portraying both. And often, I felt very flattered. In chronicling the zAgile story, I have used snippets from her article as titles of the entries as a tribute to her generosity and efforts. Whether or not anyone else read it, it proved to be a motivation for me in my continued efforts to make zAgile a success.
At Starbucks with Josefina Rios
quépasa!
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