Changing Locations Could Be the Best Thing for your Startup (It Was for Us)

The lure of doing business in the US, and in NYC particularly, is unyielding; the opportunities for international growth, partnerships and venture capital investment are hard to match in any other place. Pablo Rivera, one of the three co-founders of TopList, an iPhone app for shopping recommendations, shares how an unwavering desire for success lead him and his team to move their startup from the “City of Places” to the “City of Dreams”. I started my career in banking having spent two years doing equity research while a student at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. At the same time, I was interested in entrepreneurship and knew that I really wanted to dive into the tech scene. So just before I graduated I switched gears, leaving the financial world to start my own company.Two of my classmates and I became business partners and began coming up with ideas for a great e-commerce product. We had been brainstorming about how we could improve online shopping and figured there had to be a way to personalize the experience through product reviews from the people you know.

"...As we expanded it become obvious that we needed to be in a city with more opportunities to grow our business on a global scale. We felt that New York City was the answer."

Our idea finally came to fruition in early 2013 when we founded Toplist. The application allows you to know what your friends like before you buy it. No more recommendations from complete strangers!We established the company in Mexico City, our hometown, which worked well for us initially. However, as we expanded it became obvious that we needed to be in a city with more opportunities to grow our business on a global scale. We felt that New York City was the answer.

Moving to New York City

Though our ultimate goal is to take the company global, we felt that for the first stage we had to focus our efforts in one market. We analyzed our entire business—from the products we show on the app to the type of customers we support—and all of these elements seemed to be perfectly suited for New York City. To make sure this would be the right move, we spent the summer of 2013 in the city. Once the summer ended we moved back to Mexico City for six months, and after careful deliberation, returned to NYC as a fully developed tech startup headquartered in SoHo. When we moved to NYC we did it with our own money, which was a big risk. Fortunately we’ve been able to attract different angel investors, helping with cash flow and bringing our product to market. Our investors have not put any restrictions on how we run our business and we’ve been able to maintain control.

Lessons and Success Since Moving to New York City

It was a risk to come to New York City, but by taking chances we’ve been able to experience great success. We announced our soft launch two months ago and after the first two weeks we had more than 7,000 products saved on TopList profiles. Our download vs. sign up rate is really high, currently at 75%. This is an optimistic figure considering that people can only sign in through Facebook. Our big launch is coming soon!Additionally, we have partnered with Free People, UncommonGoods, Hammacher Schlemmer and many Etsy stores to offer the greatest assortment of products to our users. We expect to have 100K products on our database by 2015 and hope to reach 500K by the end of 2016.

"We’ve learned to take advantage of the opportunities around us; being in the middle of a thriving tech hub has helped us build our company much faster and with better objectives."

It has been hard work and making it in New York City has been no easy feat. We’ve learned to take advantage of the opportunities around us; being in the middle of a thriving tech hub has helped us build our company much faster and with better objectives. We’ve found it to be pretty easy to get a sit down meeting with people that can help us grow. The fact that we are international gives diversity to the tech scene and adds depth to our story, which we think has generated more interest in our company. Being here has also enhanced opportunities for media attention, networking and personal contact with users. We’re really enjoying our time here and so far the risk was definitely worth it.  

How TopList works, as told by Pablo Rivera: Log in with your Facebook account and you'll be asked to select some interests. After that, you'll get to a feed where you see images of products we have selected for you. You can scroll down infinitely, browsing through amazing products. Everything can be bought right on the spot. The best part of the app is that as soon as you start following your friends, you can see what products they like so when you look at a product, you know instantly if it's something your social network approves.