Boosting Emerging Market Entrepreneurs
BusinessWeek:
In 1997, CORE, an Argentinian computer-systems security company, was contracted to develop software for Secure Networks, a Canadian security company that made tools to scan networks for security holes. When that company sold for $25 million to Network Associates, CORE co-founder Jonatan Altszul and his 5 partners, who had developed almost 50% of Secure Networks’s software, only received $150,000 from the deal. Though happy to get a cut, Altszul couldn’t help thinking his company should be the one making the big bucks.
Altszul realized that developing software on a contract basis alone wasn’t the way to build a company with legs. But he says he and his partners lacked the connections and the business know-how to get started doing what he thought would lead to sustainable growth: developing new products and selling them internationally. ‘There were no companies in Argentina I could use as models,’ says Altszul.
So when Endeavor, a non-profit with an unusual approach to international economic development, contacted Altszul to interview him for its development program, he agreed. Soon a team of MBA students was helping the company rethink strategy, businesspeople in Argentina and the U.S. were providing advice for free, and the company formed a management team in Boston. In the process, Altszul raised rounds of angel investing and venture capital.
Few Make the Cut… read full article.
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