By Doreen Hemlock
Tech founders, don’t rush to hire a sales team. Sell directly first to meet potential customers and tweak your offering to best serve market needs.
That’s one lesson that the leaders of human-resources platform Nala learned from three top accelerators: Endeavor and eMerge Americas in Miami and ultra-competitive Techstars in Silicon Valley. Co-founders Ximena Paul from Chile and Maria Fernanda Castillo from Colombia are now applying those learnings to grow Nala, which piloted in South America and set up in Miami in 2022.
The co-founders say the U.S. accelerators have been crucial for Nala to forge a support system of mentors and peers to share ideas, advice and contacts in a new market. First, Endeavor’s program for early-stage companies built a network of fellow entrepreneurs in the Miami area. Then, eMerge Americas’ bootcamp and showcase added contacts across Florida and beyond. And most recently, Techstars Silicon Valley honed the team’s financial skills to boost chances for success. Techstars Silicon Valley took a small stake in Nala to become what CEO Paul calls another “co-founder.”
“You go into these sessions at accelerators, and you’re validated and empowered. They’re like your cheerleaders, not only during the program but after. Then, you’re part of a community,” says Paul, an engineer with an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School in Illinois. “For people coming from outside the US, learning how to insert yourself in the right communities for your company is super important.”
Here are five more lessons from the accelerators that the duo are bringing to Nala, which now has dozens of corporate clients in eight countries and a staff of seven across the Americas.
Keep a long financial runway and measure indicators carefully.
At Techstars, Castillo says she learned to think of funding not as money to spend but rather to invest, requiring measurable returns. She says Nala’s team now is more purposeful with funds, diligently measuring financials from profit margins to specific gains from different types of sales approaches.
CEO Paul long has been prudent with Nala’s cash – borrowing equipment for a recent conference instead of buying, for example. But since Techstars, she says she’s extended Nala’s financial runway further to now cover 16 months of its expected budget.
“You don’t make good decisions in life when you’re hungry, hot or tired,” says Paul. ”A founder doesn’t make good decisions with only one month’s financial runway.”
Helping extend the runway: founders handling sales. “We learned the No. 1 mistake startups make,” Paul says, “is hiring too soon ahead of sales.”
Read the market and learn how to pivot.
Paul says the programs emphasized the need to keep a pulse on market shifts and respond. Nala adapted fast. The startup came to Miami in 2022, expecting to sell its HR software mainly to tech ventures scaling up from the US. But with funding for tech slowing, it shifted sales focus. Now, it targets larger, more traditional companies in a wide range of countries in the Americas, including large banks and food conglomerates.
“We have a multinational piloting with us in South America’s southern cone that could deploy Nala’s platform across Latin America,” says Paul. “And we’re partnering with management consulting firms that have reached out to us to take our product to their clients.”
Mobilize AI and new technologies to your advantage.
Nala also is adapting to new technologies. By sharpening its sales focus and adding more AI into administration, the company has trimmed staff from 13 people two years ago.
“How crazy is it that our sales are higher, we have a better product, and we’re half the team,” says Paul.
Don’t assume the US tech landscape is similar to Latin America’s.
Paul says in Latin America, Endeavor’s accelerator programs tend to focus on later-stage companies. She was surprised to find Endeavor Miami had cohorts for early-stage ventures and applied. The three-month EndeavorLab in 2022 provided “a very safe environment,” with no equity involved, where founders could ask wide-ranging questions and share real numbers with mentors and peers, she says. Big US tech conferences full of potential investors don’t offer that safety amid rivalry for funds, she says.
“If you’re from Latin America, you can get very excited about going to lots of big tech conferences in the US, especially for B2B companies. But in Latin America, big conferences are more for social networking. In the US, they’re more for business,” says Paul. “So, if you’re going to a US conference, be prepared to mobilize resources. Otherwise, you’re going to be the crappy booth next to Microsoft.”
Research accelerators that take equity to choose your best partner.
For Latin American companies new to the US, it can be tempting to jump at an offer of aid for equity. But choose partners wisely: Some take smaller stakes and provide stronger networks, says Paul.
Nala opted to work first with accelerators that don’t take equity, aiming to build its US support network. Paul later sought out Techstars, which takes a minority stake, attracted by that group’s long and proven track record. She specifically applied for Techstars’ Silicon Valley cohort in Nala’s Business-to-Business niche, earning one of 12 spots among some 1,500 startups seeking entry. That three-month program required at least 30 hours of work each week, including some sessions in person in California, Paul says.
“It was intense and worth it. Everything you learn, you have to apply immediately to your business, and they hold you accountable,” says Paul. “They teach you what to focus on: how to build a good financial model, how to assess product-market fit, where you should invest and not, and they’re very blunt… You literally have to go on stage, and they ask: Where is that income coming from? Is it recurring?… They make you put KPIs [Key Performance Indicators] on everything.”
Those lessons already are paying off, says Paul, with higher recurring revenues and more multinational clients in Latin America with US operations where Nala’s platform can be deployed later.
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