Part II of Spring 2015 IBD Team Bocadio’s adventures working with Bocadio, an innovative, high-quality meal delivery startup in Latin America.
3 – On Getting a Phone
As we settled into our daily routine of data analytics and market sizing, it was clear that communicating with each other, and Diego, would require finding a dataplan. It was through this adventure that Christian and Steven discovered that Inventarte’s complex check-out process was perhaps simply indicative of a cultural difference we had missed: Peruvians enjoy processes. Indeed, as it turns out, securing a phone plan required no less than 12 steps:
The Twelve Labors of Claro
- Find the only store in Lima where you can purchase a SIM card for your phone from Claro, one of the major operators in Latin America
- Revisit the store a second time, as it is closed on the weekends
- Line up for a ticket, and explain purpose of visit in broken Spanish
- Realize you need your passport and the little immigration stub to accomplish most things in Peru
- Return to hotel to pick up passport
- Rush frantically back to the store, as it closes early
- Line up for a ticket, realize the person at the desk has changed, and explain again the purpose of visit in broken Spanish
- Wait to be called to a customer service counter and get a voucher for a SIM card
- Line up at cash register to pay for the SIM card itself
- Return to customer service counter to collect SIM card
- Line up at automated kiosk to add initial credit to phone
- Return to customer service counter, to activate phone
Claro – many phones but only one place to buy a SIM
In the hotel lobby, Kayo had already secured her own dataplan, and was happily browsing away when Steven and Christian, having triumphed over Claro, returned sweaty and disgusting, but with chests stuck out like proud warriors bringing back in their pockets the spoils of their war. “Actually,” Kayo said, “for me it was very fast. Japanese Guide told me everything I needed to bring.”
On the inside, Christian and Steven wept.
4 – On Our Travels Outside Lima
In Steven and Ben’s absence, Kayo and Christian opted to use their weekend alone to travel outside of the city and see some of the country’s favorite sights. While forewarned by Japanese Guide of the challenges that lay ahead of them, they embarked upon a perilous 8-hour bus and car journey to Nazca, sight of the world-famous Nazca lines. Of course, travelling around the country is much easier today that it would have been in the time of the Nazca people. Thousands of years ago, it would have taken months to get from Nazca to Lima by llama whereas today, thanks to the way people drive, you are lucky to get there at all.
Whatever they may have felt, however, Kayo and Christian had no real choice: humans are hard wired to travel. Indeed, we travel because no matter how content we are at home, we yearn take new tours, buy new souvenirs, introduce ravenous new bacteria to our intestines, learn new words for “explosive diarrhea,” and have all kinds of other unforgettable experiences that make us want to embrace our beds when we finally get home.
Of course, none of this mattered once Christian and Kayo finally found themselves on the tarmac of the Nazca Aerodrome (Motto: “The only way to fly. No really, we mean it, there is nothing for hundreds of miles.”) awaiting their turn in the back of a tiny Cessna, the preferred method of viewing the ancient lines. Thankful that the very hearty breakfast they had enjoyed that morning was helping to keep them warm in the frigid desert, Kayo and Christian listened to the pilot’s instructions as they were strapped into their seats. “Oh and I hope you skipped breakfast this morning,” he concluded, “things can get pretty bumpy.” Christian opened his mouth to make a witty remark, but before he could, the minuscule aircraft shot into the air.
Happiness…
…and a little bit of anxiety — just a bit
Meanwhile in Santiago, Steven and Ben were helping Diego add a real-world lens to his market research. The goal of the visit was to better understand the market conditions and viability for starting a Bocadio branch in Santiago, and begin building relationships with investors and local operators who could one day help grow the business.
Our first day in Santiago, a Haas alumnus, and old friend of Diego, Koichi Arimitsu, had a dinner to welcome Diego, Steven and Ben to Santiago. Koichi shared his experiences as an entrepreneur in Chile, starting one of the first large-scale solar plants in the northern desert. Koichi explained that Santiago’s start-up community is growing quickly, and is heavily supported by a strong government infrastructure. Koichi also complained about the lack of delicious food, despite the wealth of incredible, locally grown ingredients (Chile’s top exports include Wine, Salmon, Avocados, Grapes, Apples, Pears, and Pigs). As Koichi explained, “they’ve got amazing ingredients, but have no idea how to prepare them!” In fact, Chileans avoid “Chilean” cuisine at all costs. What are the two hottest restaurants in town? Peruvian exports: Gaston Acurio’s Le Mar, and Ciro Watanabe’s Osaka.
Diego, Ben, and Steven were excited to hear that the market opportunity in Santiago was prime for a new, high quality, low cost food delivery service – especially one backed Peruvian chefs that could meet the demand of a growing middle-class that lacked in-home help.
Koichi’s Texas-sized portion of Pork & Asparagus
The second day in Santiago, Steven, Ben and Diego had lined up a number of meetings with potential investors, including another solar entrepreneur (Haas ’07), a family office who was responsible for bringing Papa John’s to Chile, and the head of Fundacion Chile (Haas ’06). The first two meetings went incredibly well, each investor indicating that Bocadio would do well in Santiago, and they may be willing to contribute to help fund its expansion.
Diego discussing the Bocadio concept with Haas alum Christian Sjorgen
Steven, Ben and Diego were over the moon with this feedback. Hearing from real investors in the flesh of Bocadio’s market potential helped validate the months of market research they had been conducting on the ground in Berkeley. Further, they began to realize that the idolization of Peruvian cuisine and lack of local flavors was unique to Santiago, and perhaps made it a better market to begin expansion when compared to cities with similar profiles (such as Bogota).
The third day, Diego had arranged a tour of Aramark’s largest food processing facility in Santiago. This plant was responsible for cooking and delivering hundreds of thousands of meals a year to mines scattered across the north and south of Chile. The plant tour would provide Diego a window into a state-of-the-art food production facility, and the techniques required to optimize cooking food & then chilling it for delivery at scale.
Walking through the factory floor, Diego, Ben and Steven got to see first-hand the incredible technology that made this type of food production possible – including a laser-cutting machine that could quickly dice any type of meat into uniform cubes, identical in weight, and a giant skillet that could cook hundreds of pounds of spaghetti with meatballs by simply loading the ingredients. While adding to the future wish-list of equipment, Diego, Ben and Steven were also able to have an insight that could be applied immediately – adopting a bar code scanning system that could trace the origin of each meal, allowing for better insights throughout the supply chain.
Visiting Aramark’s Plant
Ben and Steven taking advantage of the weekend in Santiago on horseback through the Andes
Showing some school spirit
