Translator: Matías Ninni
Reviewer: Ivana Korom One day in Córdoba,
like in any other Latin American city, on a hot Monday morning, as I arrived at the office I found out
that part of the staff was missing because of a public transport strike. Just one more of many we have already had. Thousands of people
that couldn't go to work. Thousands that couldn't go to college. Thousands that wouldn't
be able to fullfill their dreams. And just in that moment, I was also wondering
what to do with my future. I was into several projects,
some of them I liked, but I needed something more exciting, something that really thrilled me. So I started looking into
the advantages and disadvantages of different means of transport:
buses, cars, bikes... and then I realized
that the bike is the one with the brightest future. Why do I say this? Because it's one of the most efficient
and sustainable means of transport. Despite that, since it's been created,
almost 200 years ago, it remains the same, exactly the same as the ones
created 200 years ago. It isn't this way with others,
such us the car, the plane, etc, which indeed they had
an innovative quantum leap. I told myself, "Good. I'll do it, this is going to be
a market niche for innovation". The thing was, how do I start? I was broke, and being an economist I was an outsider to the technology world. Anyway, I decided to get along with it,
but other fears had been added up: How am I going to make it through
with all those big fishes in the market? Like BMW, Audi,
and like thouse huge companies that are also innovating
in the urban bicycles field? Another common question
that innovators are stalked by is: How to do this from Argentina, where the context
isn't perhaps the most suitable? So I remembered that time when I was 10 or 11 years old, and I was a tiny one-metre tall boy. Not that I have changed too much. I used to love cars. I still do. I was living in Posadas, Misiones,
when an auction took place in the city. I'd read in the newspaper
that there were cars at a price of zero. I said to myself, "This is it!
This is my chance, I'll buy a car!" I broke my piggy bank, took the coins,
tied my bike to a tree, entered, gave my ID and sat down,
sure that I was going to buy a car. The auction begins,
and the cars' parade start. Suddenly, the judge stops everything. Everything is quiet. "Who's got the number 58?
A so-called Lucas Toledo". Just imagine, I was very ashamed.
I didn't know wether to run or stay. Slowly, I raised my hand,
and everybody turned to look at me: "Sir, you are 10 or 11 years old,
you are underage. What are you doing in an auction?" I stood up, all flushed, and walked
across the place to give her my ID. In that moment,
a man roaring in the back said: "Well done, boy! Keep it up! Come on!" So I left joyfully after
all that encouragement. Then I said to myself, I'm an economist,
I dont't belong to the technology world, there are other giants
operating in the same field, it isn't the best scenerio. My mother used to tell me,
"Honey, you're an economist, you should be working in a bank
instead of doing this". Anyway, I decided to get down to it. I chose to follow my instinct, I had the feeling
that something would come up. The thing was: Where to begin?
With the main part, the work team. I brought in two beautiful minds,
Agustín Agustinoy and Eric Sevilla, who are the other co-founders
of the project. So we begun with the first designs
of what was going to be our dream. We had ideas, we had enthusiasm. We had paper and color pencils
to start to do the layouts. Our goal was to make a prototype. To make a product that we could show and see if it had a good reputation
in the market and among the public. The prototype it's just a sample
of the final product with few details in it. That helps you to save a lot of time
and also a thing we didn't have: money. We didn't have a coin,
so we started looking for any kind of financing:
friends, girlfriends, the State, banks. My mother expected me
to give loans in a bank instead of asking for them. Family also helped and supported us a lot. While I was looking for those loans,
I made the second big decition: to focus, and by this I mean: "I'm only doing this project". In that moment I had
other ones that I also liked, but I had to choose,
Gi Bike wasn't going as I wanted. As soon as I decided to do this and nothing else, when I finally focused,
when I concentrated the energies, the project started to move forward
and to get a whole new scope. After two years of development,
we came to the final prototype. We had already obtained the resources,
we had the inspiration; we were very drawn by what we were doing; we were focused; but we had never imagined
all the technical and cost issues that we would have to face. Imagine this: we were very close
to the final prototype, the aluminium one, with which
we were going to do the videos and the testing. To make the aluminium parts, first we had to buy the moulds in which the aluminium parts were made. When we asked for the quotation
it was far beyond our budget. They wouldn't lend us no more money,
and my familiy was skeptical. So I asked myself, "What to do?" We had the great idea
of buying a domestic 3D printer, needless to say, the cheapest one, that can print even a plastic pizza. Perfect, thus we would print the parts
and make the foundry moulds. Problem solved. That would be it. We had the inspiration, the focus,
the 3D printer, everything. We never imagined
it would take us two months to calibrate the printer. And each time we printed a part,
we had to calibrate it all over again. That caused us huge delays. I remembered that ten days
before we travelled to E.E.U.U. because we'd already bought
the tickets five or six months earlier, as a self-imposed deadline:
"Now we can't back down". We hadn't still finished
the videos and the photos. The name Gi Bike
was still being discussed. We didn't sleep for three days,
we almost died. Until we made the journey. We finally had the prototype
ready to show. How we would do it? We thought a good idea would be, being our aim to show it
but not having the resources to build it, to make a colective financing campaign. It was a fashionable way
of getting the resources we needed. We sent dozens of mails to the press
telling them about our project. meeting all the implied requirements. Until we could finally
publish our product on Kickstarter, a platform in which it was
published for 30 days. We had a great impact. We received thousands
of e-mails from people willing to buy it, and also showing their support. We gave hundreds of interviews
in more than 300 international media. We were even offered to give a TEDx talk. We raised 116,000 dollars. You may say, "Isn't it wonderful?"
Well, no. As we didn't reach the $400,000
that Kickstarter demanded, although 180 people had supported
the project with their money, we hadn't achieved our goal. Nevertheless, we achieved other goals
that we had also been set. Like showing our product to see what the impact would be. We had set the demand,
now we had thounsands of people who wanted our bike,
hundreds of distributors in the world wanted to import it
into their respective markets, which would help us
to face the next stage, that is the round of investment,
to raise the necessary funds in order to start the production
and make it affordable. If I think in my last years
as an entrepreneur, I realized it's a long way,
a way full of meanders. There are my own fears:
How to learn about technology? What to do with all the big fish?
How to do it from Argentina? There are also other kinds of fears:
the fears of the people that surround us. "Stop wasting your time!" Or the challenge
of being in a Latin American city where the conditions aren't the best ones
to compete with the world. Each one of those fears is a "no". Some of these "nos"
wouldn't let us even start, leaving us just dreaming
how it would have been, and so we never begin. Some "nos" show up
in the way and make us quit, make us give up, not wanting to go on. Yet more important are the ones
that make us stop from dreaming, trapped by fears of our own
and from outside... It is then when we wonder,
How we're going to do it? Where do we start? To tell the truth,
the entrepreneur's life is very lonely. The self-motivation, that inner
engine we all have inside is what saves us from despair, makes us go on, makes us keep trying. Like in the story of the auction that man cheered me up with his "yes", the entrepreneurs, sometimes we do that: we cling to a "yes" as castaways cling to their raft in the sea. Those words of kindness,
those pats on the shoulder, those "yes" that come
from the visionaries, the entrepreneurs, but above all,
the ones that really lift us up are the "yes" from
the life's entrepreneurs, that in my case were my parents. My parents have been
my true source of inspiration. They had a really tough life
but they managed to move forward. They taught me
that the limits are inside us. And I'm sure that if each one of us
closes our eyes we'll find out that there's always someone encouraging us, lifting us up. Or just people
inspiring with their example. Like Bernardo de Chartres used to say, "If I have seen further, it is by
standing on the shoulders of giants." We can see far beyond,
there in the forth. Not because of our eyes,
neither for our height, but for the greatness of our giants. I'm not talking of the giants
from the movies or tales, I'm talking about the everyday giants,
about our mentors, the life's entrepreneurs that everyday show us that we can make it. When I have those
everyday fears or obstacles, I always say to myself,
"I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. On the ones who supported
and inspired us, the visionaries,
or the fools who ventured". Thank you. (Applause)
