Los japoneses lo saben hace siglos: en su particular idioma, la palabra “crisis” está compuesta por dos caracteres, uno que significa “peligro” y otro que se traduce como “oportunidad”. Pero esta idea, que viajó por todos los rincones del mundo y desde entonces ha sido repetida hasta el hartazgo como una máxima de la vida y de los negocios, nunca se puso tan en evidencia como con la pandemia del Covid-19.

Suddenly, that they had been crushing the motivational speakers in their talks and the authors of Bestsellers in their management books became meat.In Argentina, local entrepreneurs say that, in some way, a country like ours, marked by swings and uncertainties, was the perfect school for this extreme and unparalleled test. Sin embargo, también admiten que nada de lo que vivieron antes de 2020 los pudo preparar para lo que se vino.

Some of them quarantine them with already mature, established companies that had to rethink and update so as not to die at the attempt.To others, he surprised them in the middle of the launching stage of his project, and they were forced to reinvent on the march so as not to lose the race before running out to run it.There were also those who, instead of falling into widespread frustration or despair, felt like creating something new, in tune with pandemic times. En todos los casos, hubo miedo e incertidumbre y adrenalina y coraje.But, above all, a passion to innovate that, against viruses and tide, he triumphed.

Mamotest

When Covid-19 broke up, Mamotest had been trying to revolutionize health with telemedicine for eight years.Company B founded by Guillermo Pepe focuses on detecting breast cancer, offering ultra -low cost telemographies to women without geographical and/or economical possibilities of having quality medical attention.How?Carrying digital mammograms to the provinces of Norte Argentino and generating a network of professionals who, from anywhere in the country - or the images and make their diagnosis in real time.Thus, a woman from the impenetrable Chaco can be attended remotely by an experienced doctor and with the same technology of the best hospital in New York. Por esta innovación, Mamotest ha sido reconocida por las Naciones Unidas y la Universidad de Harvard.

“Quarantine left us legs up, like the entire health system.The priorities changed and our 14 centers closed, without opening perspectives.But we do not paralyze.We realized that this technology that we had fully developed for another application could meet new needs, ”recalls Camila de Pamphilis, Mamotest's COO and outstanding last February as one of the 100 health visionaries by the International Forum for Advances in Healthof the United States.

Mamotest set up a solidarity network of images diagnosis for chest and lung radiographs, which worked 24-7 and gave the results in 30 minutes."At that time, there was neither PCR and, although our system did not confirm the COVID-19, it served as a triage to detect pneumonia, a disease associated with the presence of the virus".More than 300 isolated radiologists in their homes were scheduled as volunteers for this initiative, which helped hospitals in Spain and Latin America (even one in the middle of the Amazon) to accelerate times, lower costs and avoid collapses.

“We have known for years the value that the diagnosis for remote images has, but its adoption was very slow.Pandemia caused the health centers to be forced to digitize and innovate ”, reflects the COO, who also tells that, with an artificial intelligence company, they created an algorithm to analyze the data collected and, in the future, this will help to understandBetter what the coronavirus for humanity's health meant. “Pudimos usar esta crisis como oportunidad para demostrar lo que podemos hacer y cómo pensamos la medicina: el paciente tiene que ser el centro, y eso nos lleva a buscar soluciones que usen la tecnología para escalar y acelerar los ritmos, pero siempre con un enfoque humano”.

The company, anyway, did not change its focus.As soon as Mamotest could reopen his centers, he managed. Además, acaba de recibir US$ 1,6 millones de inversión por parte del laboratorio estadounidense Merck & Co.and launched its operation in Mexico."Breast cancer does not expect and pandemic cannot be a stand by," he concludes from Pamchilis.

Stream in

“I dedicated myself to selling shirts of shirts all my life.Before the pandemic, some of the best clothing brands in the country bought us about 120.000 meters of fabric per month.It was like filling a River stadium 12 times a year, ”says Damián Schuchner about the textile company of his family, and finishes:“ Who buys a dress shirt now?No one.That generated the discomfort - and, too, freedom - to seek something different ”.

This was how, at 48, Damián found himself with the desire to undertake something new, while dealing with the particular dynamic imposed by him, his partner and his children: work, study and leisure, allTogether, all together, at all times. El caos de grupos de WhatsApp (uno con los padres del colegio, otro con los docentes, también chats con el apoyo escolar y el profesor de karate de su hijo) le hizo notar que no existía una forma de resolver de manera sencilla y “en un solo click” toda la logística de tomar una clase virtual, desde elegir al profesional y agendar una fecha hasta hacer el pago online.

That was the germ of stream in, which was launched in early July as "the first marketplace that allows you to share services and experiences in a quick and safe way live to everyone".Damián thought this project with inclusive look: “What one knows, the rest of the world can serve him.On our platform, a wheelchair math master can give the same or a better class as another.Or an Argentine psychologist can serve a patient in Spain or wherever.Or a mother who spent a month in intensive care with her hospitalized son in a hospital can share her experience with another that is about to happen, ”he gets excited.

But Damián lacked someone who could develop the technological leg.Through a friend, he met Gonzalo Agüero.The first meeting they had was by video call.When they associated, they had not yet seen face to face.Gonzalo confesses: “The initial approach was:‘ Well, we are seeing, let's not agree so because perhaps in two weeks we don't like it anymore, but in the time we spend together we will have learned from each other ’”.

Until now, they were personally five times, although they have been 24-7 and countless hours of shared video calls for almost a year of work 24-7.In addition, less than a month after its launch, stream in already had more than 550 services available.Damián closes: “I think, with pandemia, we learned to need less.And there you can allow things that you would not have encouraged to do before.Just as we transform ourselves, the idea is that Stream in provides the possibility of a second chance ".

INTUITIVE

If Tomás Manzitti and Nicolás Parziale had told him in July 2019, when they founded intuitive, that the first launch of their company would be in Brazil, during the worst peak of the 2020 Coronavirus, without being able to travel to verify by themselves the operation of themselvesHis novel system and working at a distance with a supplier with whom they had never worked before to put it ready, they would have believed that this was a difficult odyssey to execute, but impossible? Never.

It is that both have been undertaking in different projects more than a decade and if something taught them the experience is that everything is summarized to "adapt or die".The COVID-19 returned that maximum in excess real and threatening.“It is said that undertaking is an emotional roller coaster, but the pandemic was a bucket.We were in full stage of research and development when quarantine arrived.First, uncertainty.Then, the brake of that month and a half initial that, for an incipient startup like ours, was a matter of life or death.But, relatively fast, companies globally began to look for projects that aim for direct sale, and that is the heart of our technology ”.

Así resume Tomás los primeros meses post marzo 2020 para la startup argentina que desarrolló una solución grab & go para que marcas como Coca-Cola y Arcor tengan puntos autónomos de venta en la calle en los que el usuario, con solo mostrar su teléfono con un medio de pago digital habilitado mediante QR, puede tomar el producto que quiere e irse con él sin más. Y es que la tecnología de Computer Vision de Intuitivo hace que una cámara de seguridad pueda reconocer movimientos y productos, indicando al sistema qué se llevó la persona y cuánto debe debitar automáticamente de su billetera virtual.

It would be the evolution of vending machines (which, in Latin America, never became a furor as in the United States, Europe or Japan), adding the same innovation that Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, for his "supermarkets without boxes" applies to their "supermarkets without boxes".However, Argentine entrepreneurs realized that a more twist was necessary. Por eso, en lugar de apostar a gran escala e invertir en un hipermercado, arrancaron por puntos de venta uno a uno. “El retail físico se va a transformar fuerte con este tipo de tecnologías, que además nos van a permitir conocer los patrones de compra de la gente.There goes our technology, but we start with this more limited model that, in addition, there is not practically any other side of the world.And we are already landing in the United States, ”reveals Manzitti.

Kitchenita

As in love, when it is about, timing is a crucial factor.French Alex Boccara and Belgian Gaspard Hambückers collided against this reality in March 2020.In February, they had gathered US $ 500.000 To launch Kitchenita, its concept of Dark Kitchens (secret kitchens) that tried to revolutionize the way restaurants offered delivery. Pre cuarentena, estos extranjeros que se conocieron en Buenos Aires aseguraban que había una gran oportunidad para los gastronómicos porteños: desarrollar una unidad de negocio específica para las apps de comida, en lugar de pensar el envío a domicilio como una operación secundaria a la de la experiencia in situ.

Through a Dark Kitchen that worked outside the premises, a successful restaurant in Recolet.Kitchenita, in the best coworking style, would offer the possibility of renting compartmentalized kitchen spaces in a large fully equipped complex.

It was a great idea, until the coronavirus arrived and all the restaurants in the world necessarily became Dark Kitchens: Kitchenita no longer had reason to be.For Alex and Gaspard, the feeling of playing background lasted less than 24 hours: “We realized something incredible: that delivery is a very different business from traditional gastronomy in terms of the production process and its optimization.With the confinement, more and more people asked for food, but I had to wait.The opportunity was to create native gastronomic marks for delivery, with orders that arrive in 20 minutes and an impeccable packaging, ”explains Boccara.

Kitchenita put process engineers and specialists in Data Science in their secret kitchens, and the result was impressive: they already created 35 brands (from a 100% Plant based to another of Salta empanadas next to Fernando Trocca), which are offered in different neighborhoods according toWhat crosses apps such as Rappi and Google Maps indicates that it is missing (for example, "there are no pizzerias with five stars in Almagro"). “Nuestro enfoque es lo contrario a lo que se viene haciendo en la gastronomía desde el principio de la humanidad: lanzamos una marca sin invertir mucho y no forzamos al mercado a que le guste.If any does not work, we leave it within a few weeks without losing reputation and develop a new one ”.

Of 47 pitches, only 12 brands were discharged and, to the two founders, 35 employees have already joined.Now, Kitchenita prepares her landing in Santiago, Chile.In the end, it turned out to be the perfect timing.

Oh!Wear

"We are pandemic proof".That is the conclusion of Sebastián Prado after more than a year of new normality with OH!Wear, the company he founded with his friend and dentist Joile Álvarez Castro in 2009.Ten years ago, when they came up with the original idea of creating a brand that fused the fashion world with that of health and offered both design (with striking models, more comfortable fabrics, different colors and prints), they thought that thegreater innovation was already made. Con el Covid-19, se dieron cuenta de que tendrían que reinventarse casi a diario.

“The coronavirus was the greatest challenge we had.In Argentina, the context always changes and that is otherwise complicated, but 2020 put everything to the test.As soon as the quarantine started, we suffered a total closure for two weeks, without information from anything, with 30 employees in their homes and enormous uncertainty.The doctors wrote us because they both needed and nightly.Today it seems of science fiction, but we could not dispatch even an order until we realized that we were essential and we started.The employees who were encouraged to come to the office were heroes ".

Oh!Wear had to establish protocols and extreme collections at a very initial moment of the pandemic, when information and experience were missing.“I lost account of how many meetings we had about how to take care of our employees.We had to keep working and make difficult decisions ”.In parallel, online sales exploded and the times and quality of deliveries had to be improved, understanding that what they sold was much more than a “with wave” uniform: they were an essential part of the daily work of the increasingly demanded medical staff. “De repente, la demanda de camisolines se disparó y tuvimos que hacer más variedad de talles y modelos. También lanzamos Biotec, una línea de ambos confeccionados con una tela argentina antibacterial, diseñada para inhibir al virus SARS-Cov 2 con un 99,83% de eficiencia en tres minutos”, cuenta Sebastián.

The textile workshops could not always operate normally.When products were missing, Sebastián had no qualms about going out for Instagram stories to explain what was happening.Besides, oh!Wear implemented discounts for health professionals who had to change clothes several times a day and, when they had enough stock, they donated it to public health centers. “La pandemia nos sirvió para redefinir prácticas, rever procesos y ser más eficientes y productivos.We learned not to give anything for granted.But, also, we gain empathy. Hoy, si un proveedor nuestro se atrasa, no es cuestión de pararse desde el ‘solucionalo o fuiste’.You have to understand that the vast majority of business is fighting it, and that tomorrow I may touch another banking you.We cannot turn our backs on this that happened to us all ”.

Alpretam

"We did something that did not exist.We are like a supermarket of financial products.The person enters our platform, enters a few personal data and in 30 seconds we tell you what loans the banks can give.And, if everything goes well, in a maximum hour you can have that amount in your account.In short, we change the way to ask for money ".Who speaks is Julián sancomente, co -founder of Alprestamo, Argentine company that now also operates in Uruguay, Mexico and Spain.

Alprestamo existed before the pandemic, but the context generated by the COVID-19 accelerated it exponentially, both because there were many more people who needed short-term money to reach the end of the month and because of the fact that-with the circulationrestricted and banks attending limitedly - online procedures shot. De marzo de 2020 a junio de 2021, el marketplace creció más de un 500% en cantidad de clientes y sumó 15 empleados (que fueron contratados, claro está, por Zoom).

“We duplicate the staff and it was a pretty feeling to feel that we could give people work at such a hard time.Anyway, leading on the screen was a challenge.The uncertainty of undertaking in Argentina is huge and, with pandemia, much greater.There is no other than even more flexible.We are living a moment that we never live before, ”he reflects sanclemente, and adds:“ For us, all this was a gasoline that motivated us and led us to believe even more in us and what we come to offer.Because, with everyone against, we explode.Now, we feel that we can continue betting and we don't have a roof ".

TREGGO

If the pandemic meant the explosion of the e-commerce (because all the premises and brands were forced to sell online), then what the logistics companies of the last mile experienced (that is, those that offer the service sending those products soldonline) was directly a supernova.And there may be no more prominent case in our country than that of Treggo, founded by Matías Lonardi, Nicolás Torchio and Joaquín Wagner.Is that its app, launched in 2016, had been growing in a sustained way, but they never imagined that it could quintuplicate their income in less than a year.And much less that they would become a strategic partner of MercadoLibre.

“When the pandemic started, we already had about 300 clients of items such as electronics, clothing and pharmacy.The latter was key to remain active, but we were not sure to circulate: we read the DNU and it was not entirely clear if we were considered essential.We got to make financial simulations that said we could only endure two months if no weight entered, ”confesses Lonardi.

Fortunately, a few weeks after the announcement of the quarantine, the messaging was enabled.When online sales began to grow and other more established and traditional logistics companies began to saturate.His logic of connecting customers directly with free distributors at that time, guaranteed shipments on the same day."I would lie if I didn't say we don't feel fear.We asked ourselves: are we going to be able to take all this volume or are we going to get into a problem that we never imagine?In parallel, go to work each at home and expand the team virtually was a huge cultural challenge, ”follows the entrepreneur, whose CEO role was completely transformed.“Before, I listened to other leaders to say that the most important thing was the team and did not stop looking like a phrase made.Deep down, I thought that, as owners, we three could solve anything. Este último año y medio me demostró que, aunque suene cliché, es así: el talento es clave y hoy mi foco está en buscar personas que sean mucho mejores que yo, para poder delegar y confiar”.

The strategy worked: the staff tripled, the annual deliveries grew 600% and the app launched in Uruguay, Mexico and Colombia."It was a pretty madness that changed our business.Innovar has to do with transforming, and pandemic forced us all to travel on this path.For us, it was key to breathe and feel technology.Without it, we couldn't operate ".