The founders of Globant, a software development company based in Argentina, are featured in a new report released by the World Economic Forum called “Global Entrepreneurship and Successful Growth Strategies of Early-Stage Companies.”

The report, produced in collaboration with Endeavor Global and Stanford University, focuses on the importance of high-impact entrepreneurship in driving economies forward. From Endeavor’s blog, here’s an excerpt from the section on Globant:

Globant was formed in 2003 by four founders (Martin Migoya, Martin Umaran, Nestor Nocetti and Guibert Englebienne) to combine the technology skills of LatinAmericans (initially Argentineans) with the IT needs of global companies. The aspiration was to be the leading Latin America outsourcing company. The Latin America advantages Globant promotes include real-time communication, geographic proximity and integrated teams. The ‘Day 0’ focus on software development includes design and innovation to meet scaling as well as engineering and infrastructure needs. Products are built using a combination of open source technologies and proprietary software. In July 2005, Globant was selected as an Endeavor company by meeting criteria of being an emerging entrepreneur-driven market leader with high potential and a passion to excel.

Martin Migoya, co-founder and CEO, has an engineering degree from National University of La Plata and an MBA from the University of CEMA, both in Buenos Aires. Prior to Globant, he was Director of Business Development and Regional Business Manager for Latin America at a large consulting and technology company. He has worked in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

Guibert Englebienne, co-founder and CTO, has a computer science/software engineering education from UNICEN University in Buenos Aires. He previously worked as a scientific researcher at IBM and later headed technology for CallNow.com. He has worked in Argentina, Venezuela, the United Kingdom and the US.

 

What was the initial growth vision or aspiration of the founding team? Was there a sizeable change in this growth vision or aspiration over time? If a change, please describe.

Migoya: “We wanted to change the status quo of the software industry in terms of how to design and build software, and we wanted to build a company for the long term. We always wanted to be the leader in what we did outside of Latin America. From the beginning, we operated differently than most Argentine IT companies that tend to hire contractors and extract dividends immediately. We hired everyone as direct employees and re-invested 100% of everything we earned.”

 

Describe the strategy or business model that enabled your company to achieve its high rate of growth.

Migoya: “We create innovative software products that appeal to global audiences. That’s what we do. But the key concept was to change how this was done to create more intellectual property for our customers. Software creation has been driven by an engineering approach. We brought more innovation in design to the industry because this is something we (Argentineans) have a unique sensibility for. We also leveraged our expertise in both Open Source software and commercial, proprietary software and blended them in a very smart way to get the lowest cost of ownership for our customers. To service big global customers, we created the concept of a software service company where robust engineering, innovation and design meets scale, and that’s how we sell ourselves. Our development methodology is also unique. We use a methodology called ‘Agile’ which breaks down large design, development and implementation projects into smaller pieces that we call ‘sprints.’ It is very efficient, allows for more flexibility and the customer gets to see results at every step.”

 

What were the major growth accelerators for your company in its high-growth years?

Migoya: “Part of our growth has been due to geopolitical or cultural differentiators in that we have exploited a huge talent pool for software creation in Argentina and Latin America. We are also working on the same time zone as our US and European customers for the bulk of the day, unlike in India or China. But there are other Globant-specific reasons for our growth:

1. Engineering: We base a lot of what we do on open source technologies whereas most companies are not doing that because they are restricted in their partnerships with big commercial companies. We have partnerships with big commercial software companies, too, but from the outset we blended both open source and proprietary technologies to create better software at a lower cost. This is key.

2. Design: The Argentinean creativity and taste, when applied to software design, has resulted in better interfaces. We have excellent art and design teams at Globant.

3. Innovation: We are constantly innovating and challenging and have structured the company to foster those traits. Therefore, instead of having a centralized team of innovators to solve specific customer challenges, we send the challenges out company-wide. We choose the best handful of solutions and then work through them. This approach to problem solving has won us big projects like Nike and many others and is very important to our growth.

4. Infrastructure: We know that our applications must be up and running 24/7, so we have a team of experts working to enable high availability and security of our products.

5. Signature customers: We grew with the likes of EMC, Google, Sabre and Electronic Arts. After we got Google, we didn’t have to explain ourselves anymore.”

Englebienne: “We learn fast. Like any organization, we make mistakes but at Globant we put a huge premium on learning from them.”

 

Give examples of dark moments or negative periods that your company or you faced as part of your journey as an executive with this company.

Migoya: “The global financial crisis (October 2008) was a painful hit. We had been growing at 100% per year since 2003. Then, in 2008, it was 15% in terms of revenue. We had grown to more than 500 employees. This changed the dynamics of the company and we worked very hard to get through it. We turned it around by exploiting customers’ need for value-added services at a lower cost, which is what we can deliver using Latin American talent for software services…. Another dark moment was a failed attempt at a spin-off. We started a small spin-off company for VOIP. We thought we could be successful in everything we started, but the people we placed to operate it were not very good and it failed. We suffered because of that. We found we were not as good as we thought.”

Englebienne: “There have been many dark moments, but our ability to learn fast has meant we have been able to leave those moments behind without regretting so much. We learned a lot from the 2008 global financial crisis, including the need to remain close to our customers. We also learned to run a tighter ship and trim our sails to survive the rocky seas.”

 

What are the key lessons about entrepreneurship and successful growth strategies you’ve taken from your company experience?

Migoya: “We are trying to continually teach and inspire new rounds of entrepreneurs in Latin America. There are several key lessons we try to convey:

1. Think Big. I think if you want to be a successful entrepreneur you can’t afford not to. You need to really believe that you can alter your environment with what you are doing.

2. Money will follow. Don’t pursue entrepreneurship for money alone. You need to pursue your convictions and your passion instead of just the money. It took us a long time to learn that. This is very important.

3. Serve others: if you are starting a company and you think that you are doing this just for you and your partners, then you are wrong. You are doing it for a lot more people. What you are doing will affect many, many families and people. You have to teach, learn and influence all the way.

4. Enjoy it. Because if you are not, then you will be suffering a very long time.”

 

Source: Endeavor Global