Miércoles, 16 de Abril

Wednesday we had lunch at a nice spot in Palermo Soho and then headed to a meeting with our second potential investor. This investor had not reviewed any of our material prior to our meeting. All he knew was what Jack told him – Jaspar was in Buenos Aires to start a business.

With in an hour we pitched the concept, start up costs and financial projections. The investor disputed our costs a little, noting that we would likely need more reserve capital. This he was right about. Then he said he liked the concept and thought it would work in Buenos Aires. But whether he would invest was an entirely different question. In this meeting we encountered one of the greatest challenges to raising capital in Argentina. While, there a plenty of wealthy people in the country, very few have the kind of official money or “white money” to single handedly back a start up.

Next we grabbed lunch and went to the most important meeting of our trip. Two American’s in there mid-twenties had come to Argentina a few years prior to start a business of there own. They had succeeded in a similar industry, and were the perfect people for us to turn to for advice. For two and a half hours they detailed every obstacle they had faced: from getting someone with a DNI to cosign on every contract signed by the business, to dealing with degenerate employees who were protected by Argentina’s socialist labor laws. Perhaps most importantly they pointed out the challenges that were inherent with the industry we had chosen and the fact that we would be earning the historically unstable Argentine peso.
They told us to be prepared to make no money for at least a year, and very little money for sometime after that. If we were lucky enough to be in business three years down the road we could expect a modest return, maybe. But the kind of money they were describing was nothing when compared to what we could be earning in entry-level positions in the U.S. It seemed the way most Argentine’s got rich was by not having to spend much money because of the countries low cost of living.

We left the meeting stunned. Neither one of us spoke for a while, and when we did it was mostly to reassure each other we hadn’t gone mute. After a silent work out at the Alvear we emerged form the hotel to find the city covered in a blanket of smoke. 70,000 hectares were in flames north of the city. Rumor had it that disgruntled farmers had lit the land ablaze in protest of the government’s recent increase in agricultural export tariffs. Classically Argentine.

That night we met Penny – Jaspar’s family friend – for dinner in San Telmo. La Brigada, is a classic old parilla (pronounced par-ee-ja by Portenos). Here we ate great lomo and bife de choizo and drank an awesome Argentine cabernet. After dinner we went to the mansion that Penny was staying in. San Telmo was a somewhat dodgy neighborhood so my expectations were low. Again, I was blown away. The mansion had all the glory of the Alvear, with charm reminiscent of some of the nicest New York brown stones I have seen. There was a garden in the back, complete with a pool, and a two level roof deck with views of the entire city. If this property were in Recoleta or Palermo, Ralph Lauren or Nike would have paid millions (of U.S. dollars) for it to house their Argentine flagship locations. But San Telmo, home of tango, is a some what lower class neighborhood of recent. The story goes that in the first half of the century San Telmo was one of the richest areas in Buenos Aires. But when a plague struck the area the people moved out to Recoleta and Belgrano, never coming back to glorious old mansions like this.

That night we went out with Tyler and a few of his friends to a cool restobar called Banglore, and an open-air bar in Palza Serano. El humo (the smoke) was so terrible by the time we left around 3 a.m. that my eyes and throat stung.