Andrés Moreno se ha convertido en una reconocida figura del emprendimiento a nivel global por haber creado Open English, la empresa líder en la enseñanza del inglés en más de 20 países. Como Director General de su empresa, ha levantado más de US$120 millones de capital de inversión y ampliado sus operaciones de manera explosiva,sirviendo a casi 500.000 estudiantes.
Al mismo tiempo, Andrés es Fundador de Next University, institución de educación superior online, dirigida a la clase media emergente latinoamericana, para desarrollo de destrezas prácticas que permiten ingresar de inmediato al mercado de trabajo.
Andrés es un pionero en llevar proyectos latinoamericanos a Silicon Valley. A pesar de todos los obstáculos, demostró el potencial que tiene nuestra región para dar vida a empresas de alto crecimiento. Hoy en día invierte su tiempo en apoyar emprendedores a perseguir sus sueños, no solo como inversionista ángel sino también como mentor, y a través de su rol en la junta directiva de la Fundación Endeavor, dedicada a potenciar empresas de impacto global.
El crecimiento explosivo de Open English y el pujante rol de emprendedor de Andrés, ha sido ampliamente reseñado en los medios más importante de las Américas como el Wall Street Journal, CNN, El Mercurio, Miami Herald entre otros.
I'm Andres Moreno, founder and CEO of OpenEnglish.com. Growing up I lived in 8 different countries, from Slovenia to Chile, and I'm currently working to roll-out our online English school in over a dozen emerging markets. The following is an account of the people, experiences and ideas that spark along the way.
Friday, July 1, 2011 at 3:01PM Great story about Open English on the The Next Web. Many thanks to Anna Heim for taking the time to research the company and write such a thoughtful article: "A Latin American Success Story: Open English"
Sunday, June 12, 2011 at 10:31PM Some great press coverage for Open English after closing our Round B.
Open English on CNN with English Subtitles from OpenEnglish.com on Vimeo.
Saturday, May 28, 2011 at 11:09AM Last week I spoke at UCAB 2011, the first forum on entrepreneurship held at Universidad Catolica Andres Bello in Caracas. Over 500 business students packed the auditorium (see pics below) eager to get a few pointers on how to start their own companies.
When it came time for the Q&A session, the first person to raise their hand asked how were we able to get Open English off the ground without someone stealing our idea. The same question had come up a couple of weeks before at Universidad Simon Bolivar's annual job fair. A couple of young mechanical engineers in the audience confessed they didn't want to go out and raise money for fear of getting their idea stolen.
My answer on both occasions was that in my view, ideas aren't worth much without exceptional execution. I explained that had I not shared the concept for Open English with hundreds of people in the initial stages of the company, I wouldn't have been able to raise the money and recruit the talent necessary to build out our beta site and get some proof of concept. Perhaps more importantly, some of the people I shared our idea with gave me valuable feedback that helped shape our business model. (Open English was an ad-based model when we started!)
I searched around a bit and found a great blog post by Derek Sivers on the value of ideas vs. execution. Next time I get asked this question, I'm going to pull out a slide with Derek's formula!
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It's so funny when I hear people being so protective of ideas. (People who want me to sign an NDA to tell me the simplest idea.)
To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.
Explanation:
AWFUL IDEA = -1
WEAK IDEA = 1
SO-SO IDEA = 5
GOOD IDEA = 10
GREAT IDEA = 15
BRILLIANT IDEA = 20
NO EXECUTION = $1
WEAK EXECUTION = $1000
SO-SO EXECUTION = $10,000
GOOD EXECUTION = $100,000
GREAT EXECUTION = $1,000,000
BRILLIANT EXECUTION = $10,000,000
To make a business, you need to multiply the two.
The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20.
The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.
That's why I don't want to hear people's ideas.
I'm not interested until I see their execution.
Monday, May 23, 2011 at 11:14PM UPDATE- The date of the event was changed by the organizers to July 2nd, same place, same time.
Join me this Saturday May 28th at Social Medios, Venezuela's first forum on entreprenuership and social media. The event will be moderated by El Nacional's President and Chief Editor, Henrique Otero. I'll be presenting from 10:15am to 11:30am CCs time (see below invite for details). I'll also be broadcasting the presentation live in through an Adobe Connect classroom like the ones used by our students and teachers at Open English. You can join the forum by clicking on the following link and signing in as a guest: http://openenglish.adobeconnect.com/andres/
See you there!
Friday, May 13, 2011 at 5:41PM Last night a Chilean blogger posted this animated GIF on his blog Vitamina Calcium, getting over 500 comments about our commercials:
As I read the commentary, some people said they loved our ads while others said they hated them. But the comments that really caught my attention were the ones talking about how I had just pocketed $10 million dollars! (examples below)
hellomynameisross reblogged this from oolachinaoo and added:
WHAT??? Ese carajito dueño de OpenEnglish y ya millonario??????? Nawebonada de genial DDD:
oolachinaoo reblogged this from chiguire and added:
Let me clarify! Open English, the company that I started few years back, has now raised a total of over $10M. The funds will be used to continue improving our learning platform and to fund our expansion into new territories, such as Brazil. Over time, if we are able to get thousands of students to reach fluency with our program, THEN my shares in the company should be worth some money. But in the meantime, I’m living on a salary!
So to all the potential kidnappers across the Americas, my message to you is…you’re going to have to wait a few years… ;-)
