Florence Frech, Leal: Bringing Data-Driven Customer Engagement to Latin America, Ep 114

<p><span style="font-weight: 400; font-size: 24pt;">Florence Frech, Leal: Bringing Data-Driven Customer Engagement to Latin America, Ep 114</span></p> <p><span style= "font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;"> <br /> Despite coming from a family of entrepreneurs in El Salvador, Florence Frech hadn’t considered being one herself until she met her current co-founder while completing an MBA in Chicago. Up until that point, she had been building a stable career working at banks in the US and El Salvador. One startup competition later, Florence was hooked.</span></p> <p><span style= "font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;"> <br /> In Latin America, where 50% of credit card consumers are completely inactive, engaging with and retaining customers can be a challenge. That’s why Florence and her co-founder, Camilo Martinez, decided to start Leal, a customer engagement platform that helps B2C customers truly understand who their customers are through loyalty programs.</span></p> <p><span style= "font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;"> <br /> I sat down with Florence to talk about her upbringing in El Salvador and learning about entrepreneurship over the dinner table with her family, and how her first failure as a startup turned into a valuable life lesson. We also discuss why customer engagement is a huge opportunity in Latin America and Florence gives advice to entrepreneurs raising money as a seed-stage startup.</span></p> <h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Retailers in Latam have failed to prioritize understanding consumer needs”</span></h3> <p><span style= "font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;"> Florence did have one condition