Laura González-Estéfani – Growing in local markets by trusting local people

My guest today is Laura Gonzalez-Estefani.  Laura is founder and CEO of TheVentureCity, a new business acceleration, investment, and growth model that helps diverse founders achieve global impact. Their portfolio includes outstanding global companies like Cabify, Optimus Ride, Spotahome, and Returnly.  The firm has campuses in Madrid and Miami, as well as offices in San Francisco, São Paulo and El Salvador. The bulk of our conversation focuses on Laura’s incredible run at Facebook, where spent nearly nine years in a number of key roles spearheading international expansion for the company. She was Facebook’s first executive in southern Europe, leading expansion into Spain and Portugal. She then led the Growth, Mobile & Partnerships team for Latin America. We cover some fascinating ground in this episode. From Facebook’s approach to international growth in the early days, how leaders in new markets should think about building culture internally, to some very specific expansion strategies used by companies in TheVentureCity portfolio. I want to give a shoutout to one of my favorite writers, Sari Azout for the intro to Laura.  Laura is truly a connector across the European, Latin American and U.S. innovation ecosystems and am so excited to share our discussion with you. Here is a quick rundown on everything we touched on during our conversation: 2:20 – A quick primer on TheVentureCity, the firm Laura founded  4:16 – The importance of trusting local people in local markets 7:19 – International growth stories from TheVentureCity's portfolio (Rocket, Glamping Hub, 1Doc3) 13:19 – Being laid off from eBay while pregnant and Laura's tranisition to international growth at Facebook. 18:32 – How Laura built her team in Southern Europe 26:11 – The shift to mobile and Facebook's growth in Latin America  31:10 – Sequencing international growth in Latin America 35:30 – The importance of speed and trust in international growth 36:36 – Laura's role on the European Innovation Council 46:13 – Product led growth and international expansion