Hernan Kazah, co-founder of Mercado Libre and Kaszek Ventures, explains how rapid secular internet adoption drove unbroken month-over-month growth during the company's first decade.
“Transactions never, ever stopped growing. We didn't have anything like seasonality for like, I don't know, 10 years. You know, Christmas season is the peak, but then January was higher. You know, because more people were joining the wave of the internet, the wave of e-commerce, and we were somehow serving them well.”
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More from Hernan Kazah
Opinion
AI's Lack of New Distribution Channels May Favor Incumbents Over Startups
“So I think it's transformational, but that, the fact that there's no
A new distribution might give an edge to incumbents versus, versus the new folk.”
Hernan KazahJun 23, 2025▶ 54:56How $100B Mercado Libre got started—& why it almost went bankrupt after 9 months. | Hernan Kazah,... · PMF Show
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Goldman Sachs Attempted to Pull Mercado Libre's March 2000 Term Sheet
“Goldman Sachs, that was the one that was leading that round, said, you know what, I'm not investing in, in you guys, and, you know, well, we didn't know what was going to happen, but luckily Susan Seager, who was leading Chase Capital Barn at the time, put lot…”
Hernan KazahJun 23, 2025▶ 17:14How $100B Mercado Libre got started—& why it almost went bankrupt after 9 months. | Hernan Kazah,... · PMF Show
AssertionPartly supported
Mercado Libre Still Grows 70% to 80% Annually 25 Years After Founding
“The company is still today, 25 years after its beginning, the company is growing at 80%, 70% year a year.”
Hernan KazahJun 23, 2025▶ 26:07How $100B Mercado Libre got started—& why it almost went bankrupt after 9 months. | Hernan Kazah,... · PMF Show
AssertionContradicted
Mercado Libre's Local Market Share Likely Exceeds Amazon's US Market Share
“The market share that Mercolibre has probably is larger than the market share of Amazon in the US.”
Hernan KazahJun 23, 2025▶ 28:25How $100B Mercado Libre got started—& why it almost went bankrupt after 9 months. | Hernan Kazah,... · PMF Show
AssertionSupported
Mercado Libre Cut Marketing 90% Post-Crash While Competitors Trimmed 20% and Died
“They did not reduce marketing 90% as we did. They reduced 80%, sorry, 20% marketing, so from a hundred to 80. So they were doing marginal adjustments and they all ended up dead.”
Hernan KazahJun 23, 2025▶ 39:10How $100B Mercado Libre got started—& why it almost went bankrupt after 9 months. | Hernan Kazah,... · PMF Show
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Kazah: Latin American Tech Funding Disappeared for Nearly a Decade After 2000
“And then in March, 2000, as you were saying, Nasdaq started to go down, down, down, down, and the market disappeared in the world for a few years in Latin America for almost a decade.”
Hernan KazahJun 23, 2025▶ 2:57How $100B Mercado Libre got started—& why it almost went bankrupt after 9 months. | Hernan Kazah,... · PMF Show
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