The stories of those who undertake are usually plagued with pitfalls, failures and setbacks. But also of opportunities, coincidences and successful growth. This is the case of Ariana Onega, founder of Empretienda. The young businesswoman visited Neuquén to participate in the Endeavor Experience, and in a dialogue with PULSO she recounted her journey until she became the current e-commerce product manager for Ualá.
QUESTION: How did you start your entrepreneurial journey?
ANSWER: Due to my training in commercial engineering and as a result of contact with a civil association of women entrepreneurs in the social economy, and given the opportunity to undertake, I began to be interested in electronic commerce and digital media. I started a training path with these women offering tools in marketing and social networks, and I detected that none of them sold online. The focus of these women was face-to-face, mainly at fairs. We are talking about women who, if they did not sell, did not have enough to feed their children.
P: There arose the need that had to be satisfied…
R: Exact. What I started to wonder is ‘why these women don’t have an online store’. How come they don’t use mercadolibre or Tienda Nube. And their stories indicated that it was too expensive, that they did not have enough knowledge, or that their brand was too small to have an online store. At that time, together with my partner, the idea arose to create a platform so that women entrepreneurs could set up a simple, fast and accessible online store. This is how Empretienda was born, in which anyone can put their business on the web.
Q: How did the start-up process of the project follow?
R: By September 2017, we already had a minimum viable product (MVP), which is equivalent to having the product ready to go to market and test it. But we never released it. We were terrified of the competition with giants like Mercadolibre or Tienda Nube. Just in August 2019, we decided to leave our respective jobs, and focus on Empretienda to prove to ourselves that the project was possible. We decided to launch in February 2020, and it did. In March 2020 the pandemic arrived. And we found that 300 stores were being created per day, and it was my partner and I alone, in a 25 m2 single room.
One of the main challenges in Argentina is, when starting to sell, how to operate with all the cards. A small entrepreneur cannot turn around and talk to Visa, Master or Amex to obtain a license for him. That’s where the payment groupers like Ualá come in.
Q: It was the takeoff…
R: Growth was exponential during 2020, due to a clear market need: there was nothing else to do but sell online. And in that context, we had the simplest platform. We were the first to hit the market with a plan that does not charge commission for sales. It was very disruptive in the market, because one of the main barriers for entrepreneurs is the amount of commissions they have to pay in order to work.
Q: What was it like to handle such growth?
R: In mid-2021 we reached a ceiling. We were a team of about 15 people and we could no longer make an exponential leap, so we started looking for financing. We made a series of investment rounds, and in the midst of that search, offers began to arrive to buy Empretienda, to which I flatly refused. But given the number of offers, and having received advice, we detected that it was a good time to sell. Someone asked me ‘if you had to sell yes or yes, who would you like to sell Empretienda to?’. And my immediate response was ‘I would sell it to Ualá’.
Q: Why Ualá?
R: I was one of the first 100,000 users of Ualá. I always liked the platform, its versatility, its simplicity. What’s more, I always recommended it, even before creating my own platform. When I taught in Rosario, I gave my students the task of registering in Ualá, to venture into e-commerce.
In Neuquen. Ariana Onega recounted her entrepreneurial journey in Experiencia Endeavor.
Q: How was the meeting with Ualá?
R: We had no contact with Ualá, but I was sure that our idea was going to ‘match’ perfectly. A person from the team had a WhatsApp contact from someone from Ualá, and sent a message saying ‘Hello, are you interested in buying Empretienda?’. And to our surprise the answer was ‘Yes, we are interested’. Justo Ualá was starting with its entire collection vertical to process card payments, which today is called Ualá Bis, and Empretienda works very well in that ecosystem. In April 2022 the sale was completed, and as a team we joined the Ualá universe. In my case, I continue to run Empretienda, and I am the e-commerce product manager within Ualá Bis.
Q: What is Ualá Bis’
R: Historically, Ualá focused on consumers who need a card and manage payment for services. With Ualá Bis, it begins to focus instead on the needs of entrepreneurs, businesses and businesses. One of the main challenges in Argentina is, when starting to sell, how to operate with all the cards. A small entrepreneur cannot turn around and talk to Visa, Master or Amex to obtain a license for him. That is where the payment groupers come in, where the giant is Mercadopago. In this universe, Ualá Bis facilitates the operation for the entrepreneur to be able to collect, with the cheapest commissions in the market. For example, it offers different types of payment devices, based on the size and scope of the business. And as the business grows, it also offers other types of solutions, such as being able to charge in the online store, integrating with platforms such as Tienda Nube.
PROFILE
Ariana Onega is 27 years old and has a degree in Business Engineering (Interamerican Open University).
CEO and co-Founder of Empretienda, an online platform that allows you to create and manage e-Commerce stores.
Since April 2022, he is the e-commerce product manager of Ualá Bis, from where management and collection solutions are offered for entrepreneurs, SMEs and businesses.