Rodrigo Sánchez-Ríos, La Haus: Helping Latin Americans Find their Ideal Homes, Ep 134

<p><span style="font-weight: 400; font-size: 24pt;">Rodrigo Sánchez-Ríos, La Haus: Helping Latin Americans Find their Ideal Homes, Ep 134</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rodrigo Sanchez Rios’ childhood dream was to be like Bruce Wayne. He grew up in Tijuana, Mexico surrounded by great role models in his family who instilled in him a strong sense of ambition and hunger for knowledge. After obtaining an engineering degree at MIT, working on Wall Street, and completing a Master’s in business at Stanford, Rodrigo decided his next step was to become an entrepreneur.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A trip to Colombia with his Stanford classmates Tomas and Jeronimo Uribe opened his eyes to the amazing business opportunities the Colombian market has to offer. Together, they founded Jaguar Capital, a real estate development and investment fund that currently has $350M in assets under management. As Rodrigo learned more about Colombia’s challenging real estate industry, he realized that there was an opportunity to disrupt the market and decided to start La Haus, a proptech that is helping Latin Americans find their ideal home.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I sat down with Rodrigo to learn more about</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">his decision to go into finance and his experience working at Lehman Brothers until right before the firm declared bankruptcy in 2008. We also talk about Colombia’s broken real estate industry, how he first bootstrapped La Haus with Jaguar Capital before raising outside funding, and the importance of mentorship and role models.</span></p> <h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">From boom to bust</span></h3> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When Rodrigo landed a banking internship on Wall Street in 2006, he recalls feeling like a kid in a candy store. However –as we all know– that financial boom turned into a bust two years later. Rodrigo had left Lehman Brothers right before the crash when his colleagues saw their world c