Entrepreneurs: What is the hardest part of launching your own product?

Nutrition bars, having a bar code and registering a brand are often the points where startups in the region get stuck, since each of these requirements implies a cost for the new business.

Érick Escobedo García, director of Economic Development and Tourism at Gómez Palacio, explained that there are between 10 and 15 entrepreneurs who are currently in the program to be suppliers to Oxxo stores, so they are being supported with issues such as brand design, bar codes, among other aspects that are in process. This program was also done with Al Súper and two local brands managed to position themselves.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to hit it a little more now, since we only hit two of them at Al Súper and the others were returned to us due to missing details,” he said.

He mentioned that entrepreneurs face some problems in placing their products on the shelves due to the economic investment involved. For example, he pointed out that the state government promotes a program to register the brand for free, which usually costs around 2,800 to 3,000 pesos in taxes alone.

“It is difficult for an entrepreneur to invest 2,800 pesos in registering a normal trademark. If they do it through a management company, it ends up costing around 8,000 pesos. We can help them with their guidance, but in the end, the IMPI (Mexican Institute of Industrial Property) will always charge a percentage, which is what really slows us down,” he commented.

The official said that the program has statistics similar to those found in universities, where groups of 20 to 40 young people enter but only 4 or 5 graduate. He considered that today there is greater flexibility in bureaucratic matters and that they can be done via the Internet.

Another problem that entrepreneurs have detected is that the market is closed to the same product, for example, there are too many sauces.

Among the success stories, Escobedo García mentioned Noas cheese and Volcano charcoal, which have positioned themselves very well in self-service stores.

“This is not as far as we want to go. If the person has a national vision, we would be happy to support him from our municipality to be able to achieve the dream he has. Our recommendation to people who are thinking of creating a new product is to take risks. You have to lose too, you have to screw up, you have to learn. There is a statistic that out of every 20 doors you knock on, two will open, so if you have already failed three or four times, there is not much left,” he explained.