Puentes

Ever since I got involved in the SF ecosystem, I’ve been really impressed with how committed and hardworking people are, and how this mindset just isn’t present anywhere else in the world.

Not so long ago, after leaving the startup I was working at, I was wondering what to do next. I knew I wanted to go to the US, as the cost of opportunity of staying in Argentina is just too high. If I wanted to work with a great team on a great project, it would require some sacrifice.

In comes Puentes, recommended to me by a close friend.

“You should apply,” he said.

“Why not,” was my response. It’s not like I had anything better to do.

I must admit that at first I was unimpressed by the proposal: fly to SF and meet with some people, that’s it. Spoiler alert: I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I applied to the program. I had to complete a form with my past experiences and why I wanted to go to SF. As the last step, I had to record a two-minute video about a project I was proud of, not difficult or challenging, not interesting or jaw-dropping, just something I was proud of.

I decided to present this open-source project about a (excuse the word) fuckass project that is a rebuild of an old and forgotten Garry’s Mod gamemode about building sleds and sliding down a bobsled track. It’s not popular, it’s not useful, and many people don’t even find it fun. But for me, that project was about giving back to a small community I once was part of and that brought me many moments of joy.

Fast forward a week, and Gadi notified me that I would continue with the interview process. Given the project I chose, it was honestly a surprise.

Fast forward once again (after some more rounds of interviews), and I’m flying to SF with two other Argentinians who got selected as well. We arrived in SF at midnight. The first night we stayed at a random three-star hotel and had ice cream for dinner. It was fun.

The following day was the big one, the day Puentes officially started. We met Gadi and the rest of the fellows for the first time over breakfast, and we kicked off Puentes Cohort #2.

I won’t bore you with the details of what happened every single day, maybe another time. But what followed was a week of meeting some of the most interesting and talented people, companies, and startups, nonstop, every day, all day.

From 19-year-olds running million-dollar startups to CTOs of some of the most recognized companies in the technology world. And they weren’t just intros, we got the opportunity to actually talk with them. For them to tell us their stories, and for us to tell them ours. Every breakfast, lunch, and dinner was packed with conversations about drive, dreams, and goals. It was perfect.

When I applied to Puentes, I was expecting this to be more of an “informative” trip, more like “come to SF, see what it’s like, meet some people, then go home.” What I didn’t expect was to receive so much attention and so many opportunities from the people we were meeting, to the point where we didn’t have time to properly meet everyone. There were lots and lots of opportunities left on the table, and many conversations left to be had.

What I can say now with absolute confidence is that if you come to Puentes, you will have the opportunity to meet great teams and stay here to work with them. It just boils down to how prepared you are to take those opportunities. But that’s not all there is to the trip.

Even if you don’t get into a startup or a company in the one week you are there (which, when phrased like that, sounds insane), you will better understand how the SF ecosystem works, how people move and what makes them different from you. And hopefully, you will reach the conclusion that they are, in fact, not different from you at all, and that it is not impossible to be there and work with them.

At the end of the day, it’s just a matter of luck, and the fact that you were probably born in a place (like me) where startups, ownership, urgency, VCs, funding, equity, and IPOs are not normal topics of conversation, so you were never exposed to them. But even then, as long as you bring your passion and skills to the table, the rest can be learned.

The next Puentes Cohort by Antigravity is happening soon, and if you are still doubting whether to go or not, let me help you with that:

Apply. Right. Now.

Thank me later.

I may keep revisiting and updating this post over time, so treat it as a living write-up rather than something set in stone.