#194 - Tono Mandly, Riogrande: Taking on the $100B LATAM DTC Market

August 17, 2022

1

MIN

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Guest Name:

Tono Mandly

Role:

CEO & Co-Founder

Category:

Software

Speciality:

Marketplace

Company Name:

Riogrande

Revenue Stage:

10-50M

Following:

10-50M

Guest Bio

Tono Mandly is the co-founder of Riogrande, a Y-Combinator startup building local e-commerce brands, through acquisition and incubation, for the emerging middle class of Latin American consumers. But Mandly's entrepreneurial story begins in his hometown of Spain where he started his first e-commerce business at 16 years old selling men's suspenders and apparel. Mandly graduated from University and briefly worked as an investment analyst at Lazard. Realizing investment banking wasn't for him, Mandly hopped into the startup scene working as Head of Expansion at Grin Scooters and angel investing on the side. He then applied to Y-Combinator where he came up with the idea for Riogrande.

EPISODE NOTES

Tono Mandly stopped by DTC Pod's Miami studio to discuss the current consumer landscape in Latin America and how Riogrande is filling a gap in the consumer market, the startup scene in LatAm, the challenges of building DTC Brands in Latin America, and the incredible potential for this $100 billion e-commerce market.

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TIMESTAMPS

3:47 - 10:22 Tono's background

10:36 - 14:22 Ecommerce landscape in LatAm

14:28 - 16:47 Challenges in LatAm Ecommerce

17:03 - 21:18 What is Riogrande

21:21 - 23:46 Consumer landscape in LatAm

26:22 - 29:12 Operating in different countries

30:07 - 33:59 Startup scene in LatAm

34:17 - 36:12 Fixing the lack of trust between consumers and businesses

38:12 - 40:10 Opportunity in LatAm

40:12 - 41:53 VCs in LatAM

41:55 - 43:07 Who should join YC

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Episode Transcript & Castmagic Chat

Ramon Berrios

Founder and CEO at Trend

Ramon has Co-Founded Trend. It is a curated marketplace of creators and brands. We help brands source high quality custom content. We love working with new, innovative companies that are changing the game.

Blaine

Co-Founded Seated,COO at Omnipanel

Blaine Bolus is the Co-Founder of OmniPanel, the first software platform connecting CX & Internal teams.OmniPanel, backed by top Silicon Valley VCs, is building software infrastructure that powers cross-functional work, in an industry projected to be a $641 Billion Market in 2022.