Recently, my friend Cesar (@cesarsalazar) representing Santiago (@dfect), Paulina (@pauarreola) and the rest of the Mexican.VC crew were featured in a really cool article that named him one of 20’s tech most underrated founders.
But here is what the article doesn’t tell you because Mexican.VC is too humble to say it, so I’ll put it on the record!
A few months ago I met with Cesar over coffee, knowing little to nothing about programming and web development or the hacking community in Mexico. For reasons I did not understand then, he talked to me about WordPress, Ruby, JavaScript, etc… and invited me to learn more about the community.
Now, a few months later I have been hacking on HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. Santiago even sat down with me over Skype for an hour and showed me how to use different tricks with Python. I was literally technology star-struck, because here I was thinking, “This is an amazing programmer/entrepreneur who is taking time off of his busy schedule in San Fran to help a normal girl out…plus he is making me hungry with all these ice cream examples.”
But it didn’t end there…
My first time at the Mexican.VC offices, I was greeted by the office mascot, el Gran Kun…
…As well as curiously friendly faces. I was introduced to the different startups Mexican.VC funds/coaches and they were all memorable characters (special shout out to German, Angel and OZ from Garage Coders @garagecoders who let me sit at their table!).
I was amazed to see that their companies show the exact same energy and passion for learning that Cesar and Santiago had. I felt like we were in a modern-day School of Athens, where everyone shared their different levels of experience over computers and ping pong.
The technology world has a reputation for not being as girl-friendly, but I can say my experiences with them have been a testament to the opposite. I consider myself lucky to know them, just as I consider Mexico lucky to have them.