#StartupsEverywhere Profile: Max Echeverria, Founder & CEO, Eskuad
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Digitalizing the Fieldwork Industry for More Efficient Data Management
Eskuad is a field data platform designed to work offline, allowing fieldworkers to easily manage their data without the hassle of trying to find and connect to a signal. Founder and CEO Max Echeverria spoke with us about his experience working with accelerators, raising capital, and how policymakers can better fill talent gaps.
Tell us about your background. What led you to create Eskuad?
I was born and raised in the south of Chile and I hold a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering. I was first introduced to the problem I’m now trying to solve with Eskuad when I became a tour guide for high school students visiting Patagonia, Argentina. In my role, I needed to regularly report back to the students' parents, but that task proved very difficult because the Internet service there was non-existent. I founded Gearbox to help create more startups and support the students behind them while working with the Enterprise Innovation Institute at Georgia Tech. That was my first professional connection with the U.S. startup ecosystem. I continued to work with with the university to help them develop their program. In 2020, I switched gears and decided to work on the Internet-accessing issue I recognized all those years ago as a tour guide. Today, my company Eskuad provides fieldworkers with forms that work without Internet service and sync opportunistically when they find a signal, so management can keep tabs on what’s happening in the field in realtime.
How does the Eskuad platform operate and what is the user experience like?
The platform functions similarly to every digital form solution but can operate in areas without Internet service. The algorithm we use enables a better user experience for fieldworkers because the application works natively and eliminates all the problems associated with trying to find a signal in remote areas. The fieldworker simply needs to input their data and the application will take care of signal syncing. Eskuad saves its users time, allows for more reliable data collection, and provides better field insights for management. This ultimately saves our customers a lot of operational costs, and makes fieldwork businesses more efficient. Oftentimes in the fieldwork industry, tasks are unnecessarily redone because of a lack of communication between workers and management. Eskuad allows managers to receive daily reports from their fieldworkers to maintain that line of communication.
What was it like building Eskuad’s infrastructure? Were you able to build using existing services as part of your tech stack? If so, how integral were these services to building Eskuad?
We're using MongoDB Atlas as a service for the database; in 2021, I actually applied to the MongoDB For Startups program. Instead of using one of the many other services out there, we went with MongoDB because it allows us to be more flexible from the product perspective, and lets us move from different servers as long as we use MongoDB as a database. So it has helped streamline costs quite a bit.
Can you tell us about your experience raising capital for your company?
I created Eskuad with the goal of selling the platform to companies in Chile and therefore started off trying to raise capital there. But none of the Chilean investors believed in our vision of outperforming the solutions of other providers in our field. That’s when I decided to apply to accelerators in the U.S. I applied to Tampa Bay Wave in Florida, which is an accelerator that gives you support without asking for equity. Through that award and my relationship with Tampa Bay Wave, I became immersed in the U.S. ecosystem, found a lot of potential users for Eskuad, and connected with mentors. My mentors helped me raise more capital and win competitions both in the U.S. and in Chile. We were accepted into Start-Up Chile, the government accelerator that provides grants for startups with one of the largest entrepreneurial communities in the world. Then, we won the Ignite program in 2021 and received an award for Most Innovative Solution. We won InterACTION BlueTech 2021 in New England and were accepted into Techstars. Without the funding and mentorship from the Americans, I don't think any of that would have happened. Two of my mentors also became board members at my company and helped me get my visa. Having a board full of my mentors allowed me to get my employment-based visa because I needed somebody to supervise me and I didn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars saved up to apply for one on my own. Once I received my visa, we started applying for more support. I was accepted by Google for Startups and received funding from the Latino Founders Fund, which has helped me gain more users and further develop the product.
How can policymakers better support businesses' ability to fill talent gaps by attracting talent from abroad?
Start-Up Chile is one great example of how government efforts help startups. The Chilean government also created a tech visa which allows founders accepted into top tier startup programs to stay in the country for a year while they complete their program. The founders can then extend their visa if they win an award. The idea behind the effort is to attract innovators to Chile by giving them a chance to grow their businesses. That's something I noticed was missing when I applied to programs in the U.S. For me, the visa process was very difficult. It would be useful if the U.S. government provided informational resources for immigrant founders to explain our options and the types of visas that are available. I had to talk to multiple lawyers to figure out which visa would be best for me and my situation. I decided to go with the O-1 visa, but it took me six months to state my case, and while I was doing that, raising capital became difficult because my investors wanted the guarantee that I would operate my business from within the U.S.. Once I received my visa approval, funding started moving forward really quickly. For founders in my situation, getting a visa is key, so having a roadmap to do that would be really beneficial.
Have there been any challenges for your platform in regards to Internet connectivity? What can policymakers do to help you and other startups in your space as they consider moving forward with expanding 5G?
Cells within 5G antennas require lots of information to be transferred. For this reason, you need optical fiber to be connected to the antennas. 5G cells also require a lot of energy because they transmit using a bigger frequency spectrum. The antennas in rural areas are spread out and probably don't all have optical fiber and rarely have a grid nearby to connect to the antennas. So, within these outdated antennas’ cells you still only have a lower frequency signal. 4G and 5G operate at higher frequencies. The problem is that I don't see a lot of 5G antennas being put in rural areas in the near future, but it would certainly be beneficial for users. If 5G was expanded into rural areas, we’d probably need to find another way to market ourselves, because with 5G everywhere, our customers can just use other digital forms, which is a more basic solution.
What are your goals for Eskuad moving forward?
We're fundraising to start developing some unique marketing and sales programs for our potential customer base, because they are not always plugged into LinkedIn or social media in general. Besides that, we're also developing new features into the product itself to leverage the communities that we're serving. We want to be able to consolidate information between different companies and allow workers to create their own forums, start automating their own jobs and invite more people to their teams. We’ve already developed this technology, but we need to add more product lead growth components into the product to enable it. Lastly, we're working towards better connectivity between team members’ phones so they can work together to sync data faster.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
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