Not built for startups
Bringing the investment home turns into a bureaucratic ordeal. The dollars move Wise-to-Bancolombia-Negocios by Swift, then require phoning a help desk to 'pactar una tasa de cambio', and when Juan tries to distribute the money it stalls in an approval workflow he never enabled, on an account where he's the only holder. The 5382 capital-inflow code (no income tax, but a Banco de la República registration and eventual capitalization into shares) adds more forms. The reflection that generalizes: starting a company with partners in Colombia is a camello. The system is built for established groups with accountants, not beginners, so it may be smarter to build alone first and join up later, once you're established.
// trace: where this idea came from
- ↳ video diary @ 28:52 (un flujo de aprobación que nunca activé)
- ↳ video diary @ 34:56 (empezar una empresa con socios en Colombia es un camello)
- ↳ Entry 236-1: Every move leaks (la fuga que aquí se vuelve fricción burocrática)
The investment sits in Wise, and moving it to spendable pesos becomes an ordeal that indicts the whole apparatus. The transfer to the Bancolombia Negocios business account has to go by Swift, dollar to dollar ▸ 27:16; once it lands, the platform demands he “pactar una tasa de cambio”, a button that only works by calling a help desk and negotiating a rate for fifteen minutes, 3646 against the day’s 3667 ▸ 26:23. Then, trying to pay each founder, the transfer stalls: an approval workflow fires on an account where he is the only holder, and no button appears for him to approve his own request ▸ 28:52. The app runs on twenty-year-old logic and carries a 2.3-star rating to match ▸ 30:28.
The paperwork multiplies underneath. The capital arrives under exchange code 5382, aportes de capital social, which is good, it isn’t income, so no income tax ▸ 33:44, but it drags a Banco de la República registration, a foreign-investment form number four, and an eventual conversion into shares at the Cámara de Comercio ▸ 34:10. Every legitimizing step is another office, another form, another call to a woman who says she can’t help.
el sistema es para grupos ya establecidos, no para principiantes →
The reflection is the teaching, and it’s the leak thesis turned structural: starting a company with partners in Colombia is a camello ▸ 34:18. The rails are built for established groups who already have money and accountants and know how to run a business together, not for people just beginning who want to do it jointly ▸ 34:56. So the counterintuitive advice he lands on: build a business alone first, get established, and only then partner up. The infrastructure that’s supposed to welcome founders quietly assumes you already made it…
Postscript, video 242: he canceled the account. The platform stayed down for two hours, the phantom approver couldn’t be removed without calling a virtual line for a certificate and returning to the branch, and the 18,000-peso monthly card fee was the last straw ▸ 33:18. Canceling, unlike everything else, was instant. The verdict: some platforms let a startup fly and others drag it backward, and Bancolombia Negocios is not for startups, choose the rails that don’t hold you down ▸ 37:03.
// continued in
no entry has continued this idea yet: the arc is still open