Living in Chile while bootstrapping an awesome a year about drinking, running, travel, and startup culture
When I turned 21, I celebrated with my friend, Guy, in a French-Japanese restaurant in the East Village of Manhattan. There was a blizzard that night, so no one wanted to go out and everyone else that normally wouldn’t care about crap weather were out of town. It’s probably worth a mention that I was oddly sincere about my decision to not drink before my 21st birthday. I travelled to two of the best countries for beer – Belgium and England – and didn’t bother trying them even though I was of legal age when I was there. So when I turned 21, I was pretty excited about the whole thing!
Honestly, I can’t even remember what that first drink was. I’ll tell you though.. it wasn’t beer. Guy eventually took me to a proper bar where I did have my first beer, which ended up being Delirium Tremens. To date, it still holds a very special place in my heart. Not to mention, it has a cute pink elephant as a logo. And over the years (5 years to be exact), I must’ve discovered hundreds upon hundreds of other ones… you can start with this list of 99 beers from Grub Street.
Anyway, the reason I mention the drinking is because I attended a bunch of “going away” parties this past year, which is something I’ve never really had to do before. I guess, moving from country to country necessitates it 
My friend, Kateryna, was pretty much my drinking buddy in Australia and when she left, we had some stiff belgian ales before tackling korean bbq. When I decided to leave my job at Capital IQ, it was yet another round of farewell drinks. When I moved back to New York, it was a series of welcome drinks. When we applied to Start-Up Chile (SUP) and realized we were moving to Santiago – yet another going away party. Because Start-Up Chile is a 6-month program, people come and go. More drinking! Lesson learned? Apparently, I can handle my alcohol quite well. Why? Because I’m a runner.
Two and half years ago, I started running again. In high school, it was my sport of choice. It didn’t require much “gear,” it didn’t require a special place to train, and I didn’t have to deal with being on a team where there’s always inevitably at least one person I could never get along with. I read The Nike Experiment and fell in love with the idea of tracking my running data. But it wasn’t until this past year that I realized I’m actually a runner.
I ran at every city I visited in Australia. I ran when I first visited Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Thailand. I ran along the beach in the Philippines. So far, I’ve run in the three cities I’ve visited in Chile (Santiago, Valparaiso, and Puerto Varas). And I run everyday. This past summer, I wanted to run 100 days in a row. I got sick three times during that period and I pushed through it. I ran 64 days in a row before missing a day. This isn’t a big deal to many runners, but it means a lot to me. It’s a different kind of discipline. So I’m doing it again. Today is day 38. I ran 6.31 miles today. I also registered for Maratón de Santiago – and you know what? Day 100 is 7 days after the marathon. How’s that for a challenge?
And this makes for a perfect segue into travel… I’ve recently become interested in destination running. I’ve found that there’s no better way to explore a new city or a small town than on foot. I traveled the most when I was 19 – I went to London, Brussels, Athens, and Madrid in less than a year. Then there was a lull and I stayed in NYC for a while. Until I was transferred to Sydney. Then it was Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Phuket, Manila, Sabang, and some random small town along the border of Burma (here’s my old travel blog: Brooklyn Abroad). Not bad for a 25-year old 
And recently, I’ve moved to Santiago. It’s not hard to imagine that I’ll soon be backpacking my way around South America.
In Santiago, I’ve developed a real appreciation for the startup culture. It was different in New York – there was just more of a tech culture. It was crazy competitive. The environment for some of the incubator meetups were almost hostile. And everything was almost always about money. It was rare to find someone talk about something passionately just because they cared about it and not because they could make a ton of money by turning it around on a sale. Here: I’ve met my core group of entrepreneurs who “live and breathe” their startups. The first and last thing I think about each day is related to running. I blog about it, I research the hell out of it, I geek out over running tech and other things you can do with accelerometers, and then I use all of that to help Smashrun. I fucking love it.
I’m broke, I’m ripping right through my savings, I’ve got no clue where I’ll be after Start-Up Chile, I’m learning 3 different programming languages simultaneously which might not get me anywhere, and I’m happy. Totally happy. 25 was a good year. And now that I’m 26? I’ve got some serious work to do. I’ve set the bar pretty high.
Puerto Varas and the Llanquihue region
Puerto Varas – “a city of roses and volcanoes”. This town is one of those places you’re just meant to fall in love with. A city bounded by lakes and national parks, near grand canyons and waterfalls. There are signs everywhere hinting that you’re at the gateway to Patagonia, and there’s no shortage of stores for hiking gear. You could pick up everything here given the number of top brand stores for outdoor clothing and equipment: Patagonia, North Face, RKF, Columbia Sportswear – really, they’re just missing a Kathmandu store. Just keep in mind that it’s not cheap.
The town itself is a prototypical lakeside town. Small, quaint, quiet. You should definitely visit Barista while you’re here. It’s hands down the best coffee, food, and service I’ve had so far in Chile. I’ve gone there three times in the four days I’ve been here. You should also visit Bravo Cabrera. They had a pretty damn good beer menu and it’s cheap. Don’t miss the pizza either – try the pizza carciofi for 4,800CLP. It’ll make you happy.
nom nommm
You can probably see most of the town on foot in a day. It’s tiny. Most visitors stop by Museo Fierro where Puerto Varas is thoroughly documented by paintings, newspaper clippings, street artifacts, and an array of odds and ends. Entry is free, but you can also donate You might even luck out and meet Pablo Fierro himself! We paid a visit one morning to break our daily run into two parts – it was pretty empty before 11am.
among the many odds and ends
on the balcony of the museum's 2nd floor
The town feels a bit boring after two days. Luckily, you’ll find tour operators on every street advertising trips out to Saltos del Petrohué or Lagos de Todo Los Santos. Remember: a micro to most locations will cost you between 400-2,000CLP (80 cents-$4) and tour operators will charge you anywhere between 22,000-48,000CLP ($44-$96) to take you to the same places. The national parks are free – you can go to Saltos del Petrohué and Lagos de Todo Los Santos for less than $10. That’s kind of amazing.
Osorno Volcano
along the windy shore of Lago de Todos Los Santos
Lakeside by Puerto Varas
Petrohué's Sendero Paso Desolacion
And now it’s time for my uncensored rant: it might just be a crap idea to plan your hikes around January or early February. The area is notoriously well-known to entertain its fair share of tabanos. And, if you ask locals about them – everyone just sort of shrugs and acknowledges its existence. You ever watch the Survivorman episode when he went to the Australian Outback? Here’s the transcript. Search for the keyword “flies” and you’ll see what I mean. At least, those flies didn’t bite. Tabanos in Petrohué? Oh, they do.
You get so preoccupied about keeping them off you that it’s almost easy to forget the spectacular things that surround you. These fuckers travel in packs and they don’t let off. We dealt with them for at least 12km and, at one point, while walking by the beach where the wind turned stagnant, there must’ve been about 20 of them! And they’re fucking huge! Look!
scaptia lata - horsefly from Patagonia
And so follows a series of photos with me trying to fight them off… haha.. I can’t help but laugh now when I look at these. It really was that bad! Arrrrrgh.. lesson learned.
they follow you everywhere
volcano? there's a volcano? where?
not a dance move - still trying to get rid of them
running towards chris to share the misery
Maybe it wasn’t so bad. When the flies weren’t making us so miserable, that trail really was quite stunning. Not a soul in sight. I’m sure, for a good reason. And if you’re not into beating horseflies with your windbreaker (or spending an afternoon running away from them) – there’s also Frutillar.
A short 30-minute micro ride north of Puerto Varas is a sleepy (even smaller) town with an even stronger German influence. It felt like a very New England seaside town. The bus ride is 900CLP one-way, but you can also rent a mountain bike and do the trip along the shoreline from Puerto Varas – I hear it’s awesome. We didn’t take the chance with the bikes because it was on and off hard rain on the day that we went.
Chris decided to climb a tree at Frutillar
typical style of houses around the area
Tomorrow: we’re thinking a lazy Sunday. Chill out before heading back to Santiago. I kind of miss my apartment. Mostly my terrace. I also have to think about this whole feeling old thing. Turning 26 on Sunday, the 5th. Oy. Life needs to slow down just a little bit more.
Valparaíso y Viña del Mar: lleno de carácter, lleno de vida
Arriving at the bus terminal on a cloudy day, you wouldn’t guess that Valparaíso is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Once nicknamed the “jewel of the Pacific,” much of the city’s architecture still firmly holds on to the Victorian era and many of its hills boasts of unmatched vistas overlooking an incongruous sea of colorful homes and remnants of its industrialized past. Ship containers line the port of Valpo next to a local train track that was unfortunately developed along its coastline – so much more can be done to this city if they made use of its long shore, but Valparaíso is beautiful.
There’s no comparison to a city like this: narrow winding streets, intricate alleys, walkways, cobbled paths, steep staircases, funiculars, urban murals, and graffiti that would rival Brooklyn’s 5Pointz. It’s poetic, really. Even the produce market is absolutely incredible. Truckloads of vegetables line a small square, 2-3 kilos of fruits for about $2US, the occasional driver passing through yelling out, “¿cuánto para la lechuga?” and one very funny guy who walks back and forth screaming “mi melon, melon, muy rico! rico!” haha
Visit La Sebastiana (one of Neruda’s many homes) – I’ve always been a fan of Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada… then take a local bus to Paseo 21 de Mayo where you can ride the Ascensor Artilleria to the top. There’s not much up there aside from a fantastic view of Valpo and Viña’s coastline, but it’s still worth a stop especially if you’re keen to visit the naval museum. A short troleybus from there is Cerro Concepción - quite possibly, one of the more beautiful walks in the city. There are several B&B’s, cafes, restaurants, streets performers, and craft stands. Spend an afternoon in one of the restaurant terraces (like the Brighton) and just watch the day go by.
Good times roaming these streets
And we discovered Reñaca (technically still part of Viña del Mar)… people-watching that would make Bondi jealous. It’s a 40-minute bus ride from Valparaíso and it’ll cost you a mere 450 CLP on a micro - 90 cents! For a beach this nice? I think I’ve found my easy weekend go-to spot. Prep yourself for neon-colored bikinis, string bikinis, and somewhat non-existent bikinis. Think big families, couples, and singles intermingling. Foreigners, backpackers, and locals. Cheap beers and too many helados. It’s pretty awesome.
thanks to Michael for such an awesome photo!
working on Illustrator and Photoshop
I’m a big fan of pre-Photoshop photography. I wish I could spend more time with my SLR and just get everything right just by adjusting exposure, ISO, aperture, and/or shutter speed. I’ve had my camera for more than 2 years now and I still haven’t figured out all the controls of my D90. One day, I will. I use it mostly for food photography. I cook a lot. And I really enjoy my food. Almost as much as I enjoy my running. No, wait… I enjoy food more.
But to get to my point.. so I recently discovered a series of Adobe tutorials walking me through how to edit photos and make them look all pretty. This weekend, Chris and I are heading out to Valparaíso with a few friends. I’m thinking scenic beach photos, trenes antiguos, Neruda’s House, Paseo 21 de Mayo, among other things. I’m gonna put Photoshop to the test – as opposed to my photography skills
Ahhh.. so the point of this entry – I created my first recorded action in Illustrator today! Umm.. yeah, no – I know it’s not that big of a deal, but it was pretty darn cool watching my computer just do the work for me. I needed to convert 42 psd files into 168 png files (4 different sets: 160 x 160, 120 x 120, 90 x 90, and 28 x 28). I can be pretty meticulous and I really didn’t want to rely on a macro to just do the work for me, but it was just so easy: Open the Actions window > Create New Set > Create new action > and start recording the steps!
You can then perform batch processing by going to File > Automate > Batch > and just follow the steps for which folder to perform the action on, where to transfer the new files, and how to format the name of each file.
So happy I discovered that. Just thought I’d share And, speaking of sharing… this was my favorite badge that I worked on today. I kept going back and forth on the contrast and levels until I settled on it… I should note though that the person who drew it is Kelly Meissner – awesome tattoo artist by day, bad ass illustrator by night.
Oh! And did you know that you can’t perform image crops in Illustrator. Well… not really. You can create clipping masks, which can kind of do the trick, but if you wanted to crop a circular badge so that it’s just the image and no excess “canvas” present… good luck. Although, if you do have a neat trick that can do this in an easy way – I’d buy you a beer if you tell me! My solution was to take the .ai file into photoshop and do the cropping there. Worked pretty well for me.
finding work-life balance
iCal scheduling doesn’t do squat for me. It’s nice to have a calendar with dates filled in, have some sense of structure, and be able to tell myself “look! I did lots of things this week!” Except, the stuff that goes on my calendar usually take a lot of time. I’ve had to really buckle down and learn when to move on. Otherwise, I’m stuck googling my way through a list of potential leads and sending follow-up emails well past c.o.b. and quickly forget that I have better things to do with my evenings (like embrace my inner nerd)
Or, occasionally, cook my version of an epic dinner:
you've never craved chicken parm w/ zucchini pasta??
It’s a good thing I love what I do. The first and last thing I think about every day involves running. I obsess over fitness tech, Health 2.0, and the Quantified Self movement. I dream about having a gps watch that’s smart enough to tell me about changes in my performance while I’m running (like Garmin’s FR 610) and then have nightmares about trying to come up with an even better algorithm to track my fitness. You can get an idea how my week has gone by checking my running stats on Smashrun. I’ve found that there’s a strong correlation between my happiness and the number of miles I log on a weekly basis – I’m sure that’s a jacklyn-specific oddity.
When Chris and I left Brooklyn, we were really convinced that it would mean the end of the 80-hour work weeks. Haha. I laugh to think that really did happen. Not much has really changed since (in terms of work schedule) – although, now, we’ve got a nicer place that’s conducive for even longer work hours. Yikes. An apartment surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows w/ lots of light does that to you.
My ideal work day (most consistent with my Fridays) goes something like this:
7:00am: run anywhere btw a 5K and 7.5 miles
8:45am: catch up on RSS feeds/ Google Currents
9:30am – noon: follow-ups, social networking, content-curation, find new/maintain existing channels of comm.
1:00-2:30pm: Spanish break (because it’s awesome.. not as awesome as running)
3:00-6:00pm: resume what I was doing/ have planned prior to Spanish break
6:30-midnight: WP Dev, mockups, design
post-midnight: review the editorial calendar (existing social media campaigns and new ones for tomorrow)
It doesn’t sound that exciting, but as Emerson put it “life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.” Word.
So, don’t get me wrong, I feel productive as hell. I’m learning a lot about what makes things work, what kills my productivity, and I’m much better at dealing with the peaks and troughs. Sort of (might require a separate blog entry). We tried to conduct somewhat of a press launch that was a real let-down. I’m still looking through my notes and trying to figure out where it fell through. I was pretty miserable about it, until I realized that I’m still just “laying the groundwork.”
I’m getting there. In the meantime… I’ll need to make sure Smashrun has a weekend every once in a while that involves a bit of fun – even if it means hanging out with fellow over-worked and moderately stressed out entrepreneurs
car-friendly city, people-friendly trails
It won’t take you long to realize that cars rule the streets of Santiago. Even when you’ve got the walk sign, they’re not exactly slowing down as they make that curb… they’ll stop, sure, but it’s pretty obvious they’d rather not. So it’s such a nice discovery to find that there are trails within the city and just along the outskirts where the only things you’ll come across are a handful of hikers, bushes, and trees.
This past weekend, we rounded up a small group of 8 and decided to hike a trail at Parque Natural Aguas de Ramón. It was a pretty easy commute (take the red line to Baquedano, then transfer in the direction of Plaza de Puente Alto – get off at metro Cristóbal Colón – take the D08 or D08c outside the metro station in the direction of Plaza de Reina). There’s about a mile and half walk from the bus stop to the park entrance. Detailed directions are on the park’s website
We got there around 10:30am and were promptly informed that we probably shouldn’t attempt the Salto de Apoquindo trail (~9 hours return). You wouldn’t be able to make the entire trip after 9am because the park closes at 6pm. So we settled on Los Peumos.
The trail is quite steep on the initial climb. It’s very dry and hardly any shade. Although, it doesn’t take long to get an amazing view of the city at the top, along with the mountains surrounding the entire hike.
And you should definitely cool off when you get to the mini-falls… the water’s frigid, but you’ll warm up pretty quickly on the hike back, so might as well enjoy it.
By the way.. don’t forget to sign out when you finish. You wouldn’t want park security wandering around and looking for you because you forgot to check out
Networkin’ … the SUP way
One of the first things you quickly realize as a SUP participant is that assertive networking will become part of your day-to-day tasks. You could have your head down, buried in code and Photoshop and still manage to network. There’s at least 5 different active Facebook groups for Start-up Chile, there’s the different SUP “tribes”, there’s internal meetups, external Return Value Agenda (RVA) meetups and, of course, you also have to make time for your newfound friends in Santiago.
In New York, people pass in and out of each other’s lives all the time. You meet someone at a bar, discover that they also went to NYU, they’d like to catch-up sometime … at a pub … but people don’t generally discuss work outside of work. Here? “So, tell me about your project” – next thing you know they start telling you about someone they graduated with a decade ago who previously worked as an executive at Nike. Now, that’s pretty cool.
The internal talks we have are pretty informative, but it would be awesome if we had industry experts come in to talk shop about topics like UX/Design, Capital Raising, or Building Traction… or even just some of the practical things that we read about in books like “Art of the Start”, “Hackers and Painters”, and “Founders at Work.” There’s a shortage of those types of resources in Start-Up Chile, but the team here is so unbelievably good at making all sorts of other things happen that I almost don’t mind.
Girls in Tech
In the last 10 days, I’ve gone to a User Acquisition talk, a “Girls in Tech” meetup with local Chileans, gave a talk on Legal Agreements, and met the Governor of Massachusetts….. in Santiago. And guess what? On Monday, Andrew Mason will be at the office to network with us – yup. Groupon CEO, Mason.
We also sat down with our Account Executive yesterday and started talking RVA – basically, how we’re planning to link up with locals to give back. Luckily, Health & Fitness is a surprisingly new topic in Chile so that presents a really big opportunity for us down here. I don’t even think there’s ever been a type of health and fitness fair for entrepreneurs in this country. We’re gonna make one happen.
the intern search continues…
Hiring university interns in New York City was a lot easier. Even with all the career services paperwork involved and Worker’s Comp thrown in, it’s not quite as challenging as trying to find an intern in a city where English is not widely spoken. SUP is pretty good at creating opportunities to network, but you have to be proactive if you want something to happen.
There was a designer meetup about a week and a half ago where 5 students showed up and a little more than 10 SUP folks looking to hire. There was another meetup this morning at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and the turn out was about the same. If you’re looking to hire once you’re in the program, you should start posting your job descriptions sooner rather than later. Here’s a few sites that might help. If you’re fluent in Spanish, you might do significantly better:
Get on Board - mostly tech
Trabajando
Laborum
There’s also the SUP job board, which is pretty sweet. A lot of other SUP participants have mentioned that outsourcing is the way to go – I’ll have to ask around and get the details together.
la luz del sol por lo tanto, solamente en Providencia
I wouldn’t have guessed it, but it took us less than a week to find an apartment; an awesome 1 BR duplex off Los Leones in Providencia. It’s about a 10 minute ride to Baquedano and a little longer to Universidad de Chile. We’ve already decided that we’re probably gonna work every once in a while at La Casa de Vidrio - it’s much nicer than the office at Moneda 975 and there’s free coffee and croissants in the morning… not to mention, Rockband on Friday afternoons during the SUPdate.
Chris and I had a brief walking tour of Providencia when we looked for a Wireless N Router. We had VTR hooked up on day 1 at the new place, but Steve quickly determined that their modem was issuing out a new public IP address to each user that tried to access the internet. It pretty much boxed out one of us if three people tried to access the wireless and we were not happy with that. The NAT router did its thing (with lots of tweaking from Steve) and by evening we were streaming videos from 3 different laptops and an iPad without any problems.
We’re thinking party in da house soon. Gotta pick up a grill for a proper asado. Still waiting for the terrace furniture. Need plants, two desks, two chairs, and a whole list of other little things. But it’s sure starting to feel a heck of a lot like home each day.
Paid a short visit to Las Condes this afternoon in search for the aforementioned desks – discovered that Home Center is exactly like Home Depot. Fell in love with some sleek expensive minimalist desks from Arteknia but settled on something more practical from Muebles Sur (it’s surprisingly way more awesome than it looks online).
Trying to start some kind of work-related groove. Perhaps, my newly acquired Sony PIIQ Marqii MDR-PQ1 headphones will do me some good (or, at least, convince me to rebuild my badass music library).
las primeras días en Santiago: lomitos y pisco
Our flight to Santiago from NYC was surprisingly quick. The Pudahuel Airport was easy to navigate and going through customs? Such a breeze. We didn’t have to pay the reciprocity fee, went straight to the International Police (Chile’s immigration officials), and exchanged our customs papers from the consulate for a sello de entrada. You keep the white paper they give you to register with your local police station and to get your RUT (Rol Único Tributario) – it’s like a taxpayer’s number.
Once you grab your luggage, you go through the same process as most other international airports and run it through x-ray machines before exiting. Chris decided to bring his desktop to Santiago, which prompted a few questions from the customs officer but, after mentioning that it’s for a job, they didn’t mind it at all. We were told that taxis from Pudahuel to downtown Santiago ranged between CLP$25,000-30,000 (US$50-60) depending on your taxi driver and exact location. We took the Transvip and paid CLP$20,000 (US$40) for both of us. Oh, and remember that when you take taxis, tip is already included in the price.
We opted for an apart-hotel along Alonso Ovalle near La Alameda, but we also looked at Melablu and Aji Hostel. For the most part, it looks like finding permanent accommodation isn’t that difficult. We’re still pretty new at this, but we’re using Home Chile and it already looks like we might have something by this weekend!
Day 1 mostly consisted of wandering around and getting acclimated to our new home city. We saw Barrio Londres, la Plaza de Armas, Bellavista, Bellas Artes, and Lastarria.
street art
Food here? Not exactly good for you. Chris spent much of the first two days choosing between variations of lomitos in sandwich form or platos completos. I’ve never seen so many ridiculous options for hotdogs, burgers, and fries. And someone still needs to explain to me why there’s so much mayonnaise in everything. There’s a whole aisle dedicated to mayonnaise in supermarkets! Not to mention, a very comprehensive section for hotdogs.
Cost of common goods? Not so cheap. Pretty comparable to Manhattan or, bodega prices for certain produce. Apartments? Cheap, by NYC standards. 1BR apartments we’ve seen are between US$650-750/month and 2BR apartments are around US$800-1,200/month and that’s fully furnished, all bills, plus WiFi or internet and a gym. Oh, did I mention a view of the Andes? I could get used to this.
Best discovery yet: cheap pisco. Like US$4-5 a bottle. Haha. US$2.60 for pisco drinks at bars (2 for 1). Vodka? Don’t even bother.