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Jesse Martinez is a Co-founder, Tech Entrepreneur, Philanthropist. He is originally from Houston, Texas, he found his way to San Francisco in March 1997 where he first experienced what it meant to work for a startup. He was employee 27, of a Silicon Valley company (funded by Sequoia Capital) that ultimately grew into a thousand employee+ Corporation in less than a year and was acquired for $180 million by Frontier Communications.
That experience and access to his new mentors/advisors, led him to cofound along with his brother in 1998 one of the first U.S. online bilingual Latino communities (Picosito.com) which was recognized by a U.S. Congressional Record by the House of Representatives for their efforts around technology in Latino Community. They raised $2.3 million in seed capital and had two acquisition offers in less than six months.
After the dot com era, he went back to Corporate America; spending over 10 years working with industry leaders such as Xerox Global Services, IKON, & Kofax as a Business Development Manager. Since then he emerged into the tech scene again and is the cofounder of his third startup – Relevance and as the country director for Brasil. He also spends the rest of his time as Cofounder/Co-chair on his personal passion, Latino Startup Alliance , a non-profit supporting global Latino Tech Entrepreneurs and startup ecosystems.
He is also very honored and proud to be co-founder of Youth Startups and AVION, team leader for the U.S. White House Team on Tech Inclusion, board Member for MEDA (Mission Economic Development Agency), 2014 Clinton Global Initiative Attendee, and advisor to several tech companies.
In his free time, he likes participating in hackathons, outdoors sports, triathlons, and most importantly, supporting other entrepreneurs.
What you’ll learn
- Jesse’s American Dream and his journey to pursue it
- Why we need to show more Latino success stories
- Why it is critical to create new Latino role models that can pay it forward to the community
- How his mentor influenced him to attend a great college
- How he walked away from $1 million dollars to pursue his entrepreneurial passion
- The biggest lessons he learned from his startup experience
- What he learned from his experience in corporate America
- How timing can sometimes make or break your startup
- How the Latino Startup Alliance is raising awareness and is providing Latino entrepreneurs access to the ecosystems, resources and capital they need to accelerate and make their startups successful
- How the Latino Startup Alliance is growing the pipeline of future Latino entrepreneurs
- Why there is a lack of capital for Latino entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, and what we can do about it
- The number of Latino VCs in the US
- Why Latinos working in corporate America are less likely to make the leap to work at a startup
- The Avion and the Spark SF Accelerator
- Jesse’s formula for success
Resources & Links
- The Latino Startup Alliance
- Avion Ventures
- Start-up Nation book by Dan Senor
- The Lean Startup book by Eric Ries
- info@latinostartupalliance.org
- Latino Startup Alliance
