SBDC Collaborations

Founded in 2020, general manager Miguel López Rojas, described the business as service that offers digital solutions to copper mining companies. ABM provides tools that companies can integrate into their current systems and receive business intelligent reports that will further the optimization of the operations. They work with mining companies in Peru, Panama, Mexico and Spain, according to López Rojas. A year after they started the company, Miguel and John Rojas, the owner, connected with Sercotec, the Chilean SBDC, who gave them guidance and introduced them to the COB program.

Gaining access to U.S. markets has always been a goal for the company, Rojas said. “We thought this wouldn’t happen until five years after we opened. For it to happen within two years of us being open, that was the most helpful thing that could have happened to us,” he said.

During the program students created reports for ABM, they also provided assistance like scheduling meetings with a tax expert, giving guidance with IRS forms and other legal documents that would green light the company into the U.S.

“It didn’t feel like we were working with college students. They treated every meeting with professionalism, so it never felt like they were just doing a task for a grade,” Rojas said. “Their work gave us about a six-month advantage in terms of the paperwork needed to operate in the states.” The client admitted that the students went beyond the assigned tasks and this offered valuable insight and clarity for the client in considering Florida as a potential market for his Chilean company.

Founded in 2012, Octeto Studios is a game development studio that makes original games with unique artistic and narrative direction for PC and Consoles.

Julio Marambio, CEO has developed projects for Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon but while they’ve had international exposure, Marambio admits that marketing his company had its challenges. “Doing business only in Chile was hard because it’s a very small market,” he says.

During working with the CoB, Marambio worked with students who provided competitive analysis reports, given status updates and suggested professional changes to the Octeto Studio website layout and social media presence.

They’ve also compared how Octeto Studio compares competitively to similar specific U.S. companies, which was, “very useful for use because the students were in a sense completing the role of a customers that fit into our demographic so it was great to have like this honest feedback from them as a consultant, but also as a potential consumer,” Marambio said. “And the competitive analysis was interesting because it gave us some perspective on similar sized companies that we only knew but couldn’t see that kind of information until now.”

Since his initial meeting in the program, Marambio has already made changes to his website and given much thought onto how he wants to continue marketing new features he is providing in the company.

“The main value from working with the students was that we received a consultation from inside the market that reinforces what we are doing but also gives us clarity into our next steps of working internationally,” he said.

Victor Olave Sandoval, Founder and CEO of Café La Finca is excited to bring Chilean coffee to U.S. markets.

More than a cup of joe, Sandoval opened his coffee roasting company in 2015 to be a platform to also educate entrepreneurs about coffee and provide coffee machines for companies to rent.

“We wanted to educate new entrepreneurs which is why we have courses on how to start a cafeteria, the basics of being a barista, an introduction into the world of coffee and more. It’s the main value I believe that we provide to this industry,” Sandoval said.

Joining the COB and SBDC program, and meeting with U.S. companies is a first for Café La Finca. His business model Sandoval says he hopes to scale and expand into other markets. Through the student collaboration he gained information on taxation, the best distribution channels, the fees for applying for permits and more.

“Yes, you can read and learn information on the internet but there is something more tangible about talking to the people who live and work in the places you want to be,” he said.

Sandoval’s biggest takeaways from the program included, gaining a focus on which location in the U.S. to land, specifically five different spots in Mami to open the coffee roasting shop where his ideal audiences reside. He was also able to connect with coffee suppliers in the states to learn the differences and similarities of his own business.

“They helped open the door to the industry which meant a lot because through that I learned that the process to open a business in the U.S. isn’t as hard as I originally assumed. It gave me the green light to take the next steps,” Sandoval said.

Cristian Rivadeneira began Rivadeneira Y Collao Limitada in Chile in 2012 with a focus to manufacture and industrialization Metalpol panels, which is a dry modular construction system.

Rivadeneira wanted his materials to be more economical, thermal, acoustic, fast, with the greatest resistance in the shortest possible time, compared to traditional systems, he says.

While they’ve had working operations in Ecuador since 2019, and materials being used in Argentina, Columbia and Panama, his main goal is to expand operations to Florida.

Joining the SBDC and COB program allowed him to gain industry reports, and study the U.S. market. “We saw how the economic status for our materials would be, the taxes we would need and most importantly which states we could operate in,” Rivadeneira said. “It gave us a sense of what coming to the U.S. could mean for the company.”

As the owner of Comex GYP, Alexis Guevara Fuentes, says he’s excited to enter into the U. S. market because his products are very similar and expanding only seems fitting. The company sells fabrics and linen from home and furniture to sports and fitness.

His interaction with the COB students gave him clarity into how he should operate logistically and who his competitors would be.

“The most value part of the report was how they explained the structure of the business could work the U.S.,” Guevara Fuentes said. “And now towards the end of 2023, my goal is to begin moving operations and expanding services to the states. There are many possibilities to grow the business and I’m looking forward to it.”

The sweets, treats and chocolates of Productos Artesanales Dlilis Spa are making their way to the states. Owner and CEO, Liliana Maier, joined the COB program right when he began connecting with the Food and Drug Administration to export into the country.

Handmade from in the family since the 198, Maier currently works with one of the biggest supermarket chains here in Chile, but he says he was excited and ready to expand to a larger market.

“We were ready to export but we knew we had things to work on since it was our first-time doing business outside of Chile,” Maier said. “The most valuable information for us was that the students had the direct contact with a supermarkets and other contacts. And the other was that they gave us a step-by-step process that we have to follow; they made everything very, very easy to understand and we right now know what to do.”

Since then, Maier has made changes to his packaging, built connections with Amazon and updated his expiration dates.

“The students had very good ideas and they gave us confirmation that what they were doing is right. The information was valuable because we now know that our products have a place in the country.” he said. “It’s a motivation to continue working to send our products out, to keep working with our new contacts and hopefully make more in Florida.”