InVenture Interactions!

Goodbye to Mexico (for now)

After five wonderful weeks in Mexico City, we can’t believe it is already time to leave! Working with InVenture on this pilot and working first-hand with micro-entrepreneurs has been an out-of-the-world experience for us.

Our flight leaves tomorrow to arrive in DC. The Mexico pilot doesn’t just end in Mexico! We will be working hard to follow-up on Griselda’s, from mid-September (when we actually deliver the machine to Griselda!) and beyond. Simultaneoulsy, we will be starting more pilots in Mexico later this winter.  Stay tuned for more updates on our work as we continue with InVenture!

We thank you all for following our project thus far! Best Wishes!

Don’t forget to visit our website if you’d like to invest or learn more about Griselda’s progress:

www.inventurefund.org/invest

Expanding our Network

The last two days have been devoted to solidifying our partnerships. We plan to execute our second pilot with a consulting firm that focuses on micro-enterprises, Vinculo Communitario. Vinculo’s co-founders – Noe and Juan – are our closest friends in Mexico.

Thursday began bright and early. Noe and Juan had arranged a very packed itinerary for us, involving meetings with a corporate lawyer, a tax attorney, and a visit to Vinculo’s micro-business clients in the North of the city. We discussed intensely with the lawyers the legal implications of directing foreign investments to micro and small businesses in Mexico – a very stimulating conversation and lots of information overload!

In the evening, we stopped for dinner at a taco place owned by one of Vinculo’s most successful clients – Senor Juan. Senor Juan scaled his business from a tiny 2 sq m stand to a full restaurant through Vinculo’s guidance. Next, we visited Frances, a very strong-spirited women, who is planning to scale her snack stand to a full shop, where kids can come with their families to enjoy some food and play games. We were so impressed by both businesses and hope to evaluate their plans for funding in our next pilots.

Sometimes the experiences we have here really take us by surprise. Friday was one of those days! In the morning, we were invited by Mr. Mario Rechy, a policy advisor to the Senate, for breakfast to learn about his work in agricultural economics. Mario Rechy had invited various other organizations – an investment company, NGOs, Vinculo, and a representative from the Senate. The meeting turned out to be a very colorful discussion on how we could all invest in cooperatives to promote rural development. This was yet another opportunity for us to expand our network in Mexico.

Later that afternoon, we joined our friends Noe, Juan, and another old friend who is working with Vinculo and starting his own investing arm, Tomas. Over coffee, we talked endlessly about our work together and reflected on the morning’s meeting. Above, there’s us with our partners!

Our Last Visit to Griselda

Yesterday, we had our final meeting with Griselda at her clinic.  We feel like regulars now when we take the metro to Tasquena station and then the Tren Ligero to Xochimilco. The purpose of our final meeting was to have an extensive discussion with Griselda about what her ideal financial contract with InVenture would look like.  We will be buying her an ultrasound machine in mid-September that is valued at $8,800 USD.  We have decided that InVenture will put in $5,000 of this amount, while APROS will provide a flexible loan for the remainder of the money.

Our approach to this pilot is an experimental one.  In order to design the most beneficial financial contract for micro-enterpreneurs, the best thing is to talk to them directly about their financial needs.  What we learned from Griselda was that she would like longer payback periods (about 1 month), a longer-term loan (~24 months), and most importantly that a profit-sharing model would be beneficial for her.  Because of the cycles in her business, she would appreciate paying a portion of her profits each month as opposed to interest.  Taking all of these requests into account, we are now setting out to determine the exact terms of our equity contract.

          Tuesday turned into great day to be in Milpa Alta because it was the start of their annual town festival.  Around 3pm Griselda’s family, clinic staff, and the two of us went to the local community center for free food, mariachi music, and dancing. Later that evening, Griselda took us to the town church, beautifully decorated with flowers and artwork for the festival.

          The picture above is one we took with Griselda and her family outside the Los Angeles clinic! We are really going to miss her! We are looking forward to working with her in the coming months to start implementing her contract and growing her business! Our work with Griselda is our first step in expanding the InVenture model throughout Mexico!

A Fiesta and Some Touring

On Friday, after a really productive meeting with Carlos at APROS, we were invited to a goodbye party for two of APROS’s interns, Tiffany and Blandine, who are from France. They are our age and we have gotten to see them whenever we go to APROS for meetings and they also accompanied us to visit Griselda the first time that we met. The party was hosted by Claudia (photo below) at her apartment in Alvaro Obregon. The party was absolutely a blast and the food was delicious! It was nice to get a chance to meet with all of the APROS people in a social rather than work setting. In typical Mexican fashion, the event was a family affair. We got to meet Claudia’s mom, sisters, nieces and nephews. The best part of the night was the salsa dancing which started after dinner. We both loved the fact that everyone of all ages was able to dance together. We managed to get the basic steps down but when it came to the twirls we got pretty lost - luckily they were all really patient with teaching us!

Then on Saturday we set out to Parque Chapultapec and were really lucky that it was actually sunny outside! Parque Chapultapec is kind of like the “Central Park” of Mexico City; it is absolutely HUGE. Within the park there are multiple museums, playing grounds, and monuments like the one below.

We went to the “Castillo de Chapultapec”, also the National History Museum. There was an awesome exhibit on the Zapatista Movement and a really impressive mural of the Mexican Revolution by David Alfaro Siqueiros.

In addition there were really cool views of the city!

When the museum closed at 5pm, we went to an artisan market to buy some presents for our families! We didn’t like this market as much as the one in Coyoacan but we both bought handmade and painted bowls that are really pretty. We are hoping to return to Chapultapec Park next weekend to see the Anthropological Museum….so much to do, so little time!

Keeping Well

      The evening rain showers and occasional cold temperatures finally caught up with me when I (Manvi) fell sick Wednesday morning! I found to my surprise that I woke up with a terrible sore throat, a relentless cough, and a massive headache. Lozenges and tylenol just weren’t doing it. We realized quickly that our next step was to go find a doctor to get a sense of what was really going on with me.

Access to healthcare is not only highly privatized in Mexico City, but REALLY cheap. To get a doctor’s consultation, you only have to go so far as your local “Farmacias Similares”, a pharmacy chain in Mexico, similar to CVS or Rite-Aid in the US. What’s interesting is that right next to the checkout counter of the drug store is a doctor’s office. A doctor will receive you anytime from 7am – 8pm on weekdays for check-ups costing only 25 pesos per visit, that’s less than $2 USD! The doctor will perform an analysis of your symptoms and prescribe medicines that you can buy right next-door at the pharmacy. Our immediate reaction of course was that this was a pretty cool business model – a one-stop shop to recovery!

When I got sick that morning, one of our apartment mates told us specifically not to go through the trouble of getting to a hospital. Instead he told us to walk 10 min to the Farmacias Similares. The doctor took a look at my throat and diagnosed my condition as a bacterial infection. He recommended three medicines –antibiotic injections (which I had to take for six days, ouch!), a cough syrup, and anti-inflammatory pills for my throat – all costing me less than $15 USD! I felt almost instant relief after my first dose of meds but unfortunately because of the recovery process, most of our Wednesday work plans fell through.

We learned that day that some times you just have to bring it down a notch…

A Day in the Mercado

Yesterday we left our apartment at 6:30am to get out to Milpa Alta and do further field research on Griselda’s business and her community. The first thing we did when we got there was grab some breakfast and walk around the area where Griselda’s clinic is, close to the center of the town in barrio Los Angeles. The Milpa Alta city center is built around the “mercado”, where residents come to buy almost anything, from locally grown vegetables, fresh bread, to even clothing and housing supplies. We were again amazed by the stark difference between La Condesa and Milpa Alta (both communities within Mexico City). Milpa Alta has much more of a “small-town” feel where everyone seems to know each other and most items are locally produced, quite different from all the cafes and international cuisine in La Condesa.

The purpose of our visit to Griselda’s clinic yesterday was to observe her patients, how the clinic services them, and what their needs are. During the two hours that we were observing, three families came in for different services. Two of them had small children who needed blood tests for their school documents, and one was an older woman who requested her yearly test for cervical cancer. Griselda was able to perform all of these tests herself and it also became clear that she formed a personal relationship with each of her clients and that they felt comfortable coming to her clinic. Griselda says that her clinic serves an average of 12 patients a day. Her clinic is open for about 12 hours a day so this would mean about 1 person per hour, and based on our morning drop-in yesterday, we got to observe that this was true. We also believe that this number will dramatically increase (by at least 50%) once she has her own ultrasound machine. Another nice part about the clinic was that it was truly a family place. During the day her three sons and her mother all came to visit at various points; Griselda’s eldest son, who is studying to be a nutritionist, even helps take samples and do computer work in the clinic.

Our next task was to find out about the other health clinics in the area. It turns out that there are three clinics similar to Griselda’s in Milpa Alta. We went to all three of these clinics to ask about their services, their medical resources, the prices that they charge, and more. We wanted to find out how Griselda’s clinic compared to the rest. First, we found that Griselda’s clinic offers all the same basic lab services as the other clinics but her’s charges equal or lower prices. All of the other clinics besides Griselda’s do own their own ultrasound machine, so we validated that not having one is putting her at a major disadvantage. If she does receive the ultrasound machine, she will still be charging equal or lower prices for the ultrasound services. One might ask why four different clinics are needed with ultrasound services in the same area. What we noticed, and later validated by speaking to Griselda and observing her patients, is that her clinic services the most rural clientele of Milpa Alta as opposed to richer ones that live near the city center. Griselda’s is the only clinic that has a “ventania”, or outlet, located higher up in the mountainous farming area from where it is difficult for people to reach the three other clinics. Griselda is dedicated to serving this portion of the population with good treatment and fair prices.

We are starting to narrow in on exactly what type of ultrasound machine we would like to help Griselda invest in. In the process we are both learning much more than we ever thought we would know about medical equipment! It turns out that the machine is fairly complicated – various tests require different types of transducers, and also, there is a huge difference in diagnosis between a gray-scale or color Doppler machine. We have to decide which studies are most important for Griselda’s clientele, which functional components will give her an advantage over her competition, and how she will price each study. Based on predicted future cash flows we can determine which type of machine will be a worthy investment. During the day, we even got to speak to two different ultrasonografists in Milpa Alta to gain a better understanding of the machine specs. We will be doing much more research on ultrasound in the coming days and are hoping to purchase the machine soon!

Griselda spent the day with us and we were able to converse with her at great length about her plans after receiving the ultrasound machine. This project is really interesting to both of us because it is essentially a mini-consulting project, which will ultimately benefit the health services of a small community. We have also designed a community survey to gauge the demands and health needs of the community at large, which we are hoping to distribute next week.

In the middle of the day we had a true Mexican meal of tomales (which we both love!), in the central mercado. Check out the pictures of the mercado! It is a very busy place throughout the day, especially at lunch time when everyone congregates to socialize and eat all kinds of delicious Mexican food.

Fin de Semana

This past weekend was awesome for the two of us, especially this Saturday! We started off the afternoon with a very productive meeting with Noe and Juan (Co-Founders of Vinculo Comunitario); in fact, this was our third meeting with them since we’ve been in Mexico! We discussed the details of our partnership with them in future Inventure pilots. After our meeting, Noe and Juan invited us to dinner at the home of Mr. Mario Rechy – a federal politician in Mexico and mentor to Vinculo Communitario!

Mr. Rechy has worked in the Mexican government for 30 years. In his current position, he serves as an adviser to several sections of the Senate, specifically committees related to social economy and agriculture. Much of his recent work concerns agricultural cooperatives in rural areas of Mexico.  Our friend Noe is currently working with Mr. Rechy on a project to help organize a milk cooperative in Amecameca, a rural community outside Mexico City. The purpose of the cooperative is to bring over 300 rural farmers together to work under the same government-constructed plant to make better quality dairy products with cheaper prices. However, forming this collaboration has been a difficult task – as Noe and Mario Rechy expressed over dinner, even though farmers know its best to share information, they find it hard to trust that many individuals and be willing to share profits. A lot of work on this front still remains for Vinculo.

Mr. Rechy’s house was unbelievable! It was made in the old Mexican style and filled with more books than you can imagine, covering topics from world literature to political economy to famous Mexican biographies.  First, we sat down and began asking Mr. Rechy about his life and his work.  He was able to share some very valuable information with us about Mexican social and political history and his unique views on the hybrid “capitalism” in Mexico.  We were able to use what he shared to reflect on our work.  Following the discussion we were surprised to know that Mr. Rechy himself had cooked an INDIAN meal for us!  It was delicious and we topped it off with a traditional Mexican dessert, toasted sweet bread with fresh cream! 

The end of the night was perhaps the most special part.  Noe had brought his guitar with him and began to play some traditional Latin American music (some from Mexico and some from Cuba).  We all gravitated into the living room where there was a piano and listened to all of them play songs and sing old tunes for hours.  It was truly a memorable experience, and we were touched by how much they were sharing about their culture.  Mr. Rechy has invited us to accompany him to Amecameca to see the cooperatives he works with - I hope we will have time to take him up on this!

Getting Down to the Numbers

Yesterday was an extremely productive day for us here in Mexico.  We went back out to Milpa Alta to visit the entrepreneur we are working with, Griselda Flores. The purpose of our meeting was to follow-up with Griselda about our investment in her business.  We really want to target an investment that will help her business grow and serve the community at the same time.  Our analysis has led us to conclude that what her clinic really needs right now is an ultrasound machine.  Yesterday’s meeting was about acquiring some quantitative data from Griselda to support our investment.

From our work and with speaking to Griselda, we found some striking results.  It turns out that Griselda attends to 12 patients each day, half of which ask for ultrasound services.  Right now, Griselda hires a doctor who comes in three times a week for 1.5 hours each time with his own ultrasound machine to provide the service. When people come to her clinic for ultrasound on days when the doctor is not there, she has to turn them down and ask them to come another day.  Of the roughly 42 people that come to Griselda’s office each week for ultrasound, the doctor is only able to help 6 to 8 given his time constraints. If Griselda had her own machine, she could help all 42 clients and more per week!

We also talked to Griselda in detail about how she will price her services once she owns the machine, what her operating costs will be like, and how she will use her profits to support and maintain her services.  Again, she is planning to keep her prices lower than the two other clinics in the area and she is also hoping to acquire an ultrasound machine with more capabilities than the competition.  We did not realize that ultrasound machines are used to diagnose health issues throughout the body - not just pregnancy.

We were impressed by the fact that Griselda herself works at the clinic 7 days a week.  And on weekdays she is there from 7am to 8pm every day!  We are inspired to keep working hard to help Griselda meet her goals – right now, we’re at our favorite cafe in La Condesa with our laptops open!   It is a two-floor bookstore/cafe with live music on Sunday brunch.  Check it out below (with Manvi hard at work)!

After returning here for a second time, Manvi and I have quickly decided that Mexico D.F. is one of our favorite cities in the world (next to Washington, D.C. of course).  Living in La Condesa is awesome because everything we need is pretty much in walking distance from restaurants to Starbucks, grocery store, Mexican marketplace, Parque Mexico, and much more.  And on the weekends, we have time to travel to different parts of this huge city.  The really cool thing is that each “delegacion” of Mexico City has a totally different vibe…you hardly feel like you are in the same city!

Last Saturday, we went to Coyoacan with a friend from MIT and her friend from Cuernavaca.  Coyoacan is home to the “Casa Azul” which was the home in which Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera lived together as famous artists.  It was BEAUTIFUL!  The home is Frida’s family home and is filled with paintings done by both artists as well as letters and photos taken by both of them.  The house itself is a site to behold….



Afterward we walked around the huge artisans market place in Coyoacan.  It is filled with some awesome handmade crafts and we bought some jewelry and decorative items.  Even though it was rainy that day, we walked around the central park of the area and ate at an awesome restaurant.  Even though I am vegetarian, I am finding plenty to eat when it comes to Mexican food!



Another trip that we took was to see the “trajineros”, which are the boats on the canals in the area called Xochimilco.  We went on the trip with some people from ARPOS and with a few of their clients.  It was so sweet of them to take us out.  We started off with lunch at the client’s home (the best Mole I have ever had!).  Afterward, about 20 people packed onto 1 boat and we had sodas and ice cream as well.  The boat ride was about 2 hours long and it was so peaceful just being on the water surrounded by Mariachi bands and flower greenhouses (which Xochimilco is famous for).  The day was clear and beautiful…we could not have asked for more!

Back to work tomorrow, please don’t forget that you can still invest in our pilot by visiting www.inventurefund.org/invest.  Your donation really does go a long way.