The Working Women Seed deployed in 2013, learned about the lives and experiences of working women through the mothers, daughters, sisters, professionals, caregivers, and retirees that lived with them. They learned about the expectations put on “guerreras” (female warriors!), as they referred to themselves, as they worked to balance family, relationships, and career.

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Insights from Research:

The first iteration of this seed led us to build around a strong sense of guilt from Moms (and dads) when they have to be away from their children, yet there was no willingness to pay. During the second one, we switched to providing online psychological services that resulted in great engagement but no WTP. Constant interaction with users resulted in the realization that Beauty had a big spend of pocket and that it was the way that society and working mothers had allowed them to take care of themselves.

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Our approach

Elenas is modernizing and automating the direct sales model, taking the good parts of the traditional system–part-time work and trust-based purchases–and combining them with e-commerce. Now, women, or "embajadoras" can sell a wide variety of products from their own homes, they decide what to sell and how much they want to mark the price up, and Facebook, while Elenas manages the back-end support for product sourcing, delivery, and payment collection.

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Business Model: 

As we learned the significance of beauty products/services for working mothers and the best mechanisms to activate sellers into the platform, we first experimented with content and a limited portfolio of products, yet this result in poor results.

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Initial Challenges:

Elenas's first two years have been key to achieve Product-Market-Fit, the frequency and speed of iterations and learnings increased our success chances. The company has unlocked major milestones and is headed to achieve incredible results:<ul><li>Launched at the <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/event/techcrunch-startup-battlefield-latin-america-2018">TechCrunch Startup Battlefield</a></li><li>Founders Zach Oschin and Thomas Harsch recognized in the top 30 founders of the country in 2020</li><li>Forbes Top 100 digital startups in Colombia</li><li>+250 distributors and brands</li><li>Closed a Series A round for US$6M in March of 2021</li><li>+90 team members in Colombia and Mexico</li></ul>

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The Venture Today:

Elenas will continue its growth path in Colombia while growing its product portfolio and improving the income opportunities for thousands of women that are now opening their own endeavors thanks to the platform. After the most recent fundraising news, the team is now planning its international expansion, starting with the launch of its platform in Mexico by May of 2021.

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What the future holds:

Zach joined Polymath in May 2017 as intern demostrating his enthusiasm and dedication to learning and making an impact. Through his hard work and entrepreneurial mindset, and remarkable achievements, Zach quickly progresses within the company and assumed the role of Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR).He founded and launched Elenas, Latin America's top Social Commerce Marketplace, empowering women to achieve financia independence that now operates both in Colombia and Mexico&nbsp;Before joining Polymath, Zach started a number of businesses and growth initiatives for startups in the US, South Africa, and the Netherlands. He studied Global Business in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Linkedin

Co-Founder & CEO - Elenas

Zach Oschin

Leadership

Social Commerce trend has grown dramatically in the past years, recent research has forecasted that e-sales will exceed <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/272391/us-retail-e-commerce-sales-forecast/">$735 billion by 2023</a>. According to emarketer, retail e-commerce sales in Latin America grew <a href="https://www.emarketer.com/content/latin-america-ecommerce-forecast-2021">63.3% in 2020 to $104.60 billion.</a> <a href="https://elenas.co/">Elenas</a>, Latin America’s first Social Commerce Marketplace, is a good example of the rapid acceleration of the social commerce trend, which is powered by the virality of the marketing model and the establishment of existing social platforms.Social commerce is a new way of doing business, it is no longer about digitizing traditional channels or leveraging social media channels to increase traffic conversion. This new way of commerce enables new buying behaviors, where traditional stores, websites, or even apps are no longer the first destination for new customers. As this new model evolves and takes over Latin America, we talked to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachoschin/">Zach Oschin</a>, Founder &amp; CEO of Elenas to learn about how they developed the concept and his vision of the rise of social commerce in the region.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:48.93%;"><img src="/uploads/Zach_Oschin_Founder_Elenas_136db29cac.jpeg"><figcaption>Zach Oschin, Founder &amp; CEO - Elenas</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<h2>Elenas: The Story</h2>In 2017, young American Zach Oschin moved to Colombia from South Africa, where he worked for a start-up company of e-commerce and logistics, to join Polymath Ventures in the research and design of new business models for the Latin American middle-class. He joined one of the <a href="https://polymathv.com/seed-company-design-process-explained">ideation processes</a> of the company, which at the time was researching working women in Latin America.Before founding Elenas, the team went through different iterations to actually understand the need and expectations of the segment. In the process, the team explored different solutions to get closer to working women, our core segment. These solutions led them to explore the after-school space, online psychological services, and the direct sales model. Ultimately, the core need of the segment was to generate extra income for their household, while securing high levels of productivity and efficiency.Elenas was launched in 2018 and by October of 2020, they raised a <a href="https://news.crunchbase.com/news/exclusive-elenas-lands-2m-seed-to-expand-commerce-platform-in-latin-america/">$2 million seed round</a> from <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/alpha4-ventures">Alpha4 Ventures</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/amador-holdings/">Amador Holdings</a>, <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/polymath-ventures">Polymath Ventures</a>, and <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/meesho">Meesho</a>. Then, in March 2021, it raised a <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/04/elenas-series-a/">$6 million A round.</a> Since its foundation, the team led by Zach has achieved remarkable milestones, proving the relevance of this new business model in Latin America and the impact it can generate in thousands of women, or ambassadors as they call them, looking to achieve social and economic growth.With a competitively attractive environment, Latin American e-commerce has developed rapidly during the COVID-19 epidemic. In 2020, the business of Elenas has increased by 25 times. In May 2021, Elenas expanded to Mexico.According to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/shuang-bin-05a33125/">Shuang Bin</a>, Elenas’s consultant and expert in the China-Latam supply chain, Latin American e-commerce is still in its early stage, with a shortage of supply and monotonous business models. Amidst this opportunity, Elenas is choosing the social commerce alternative, which connects the suppliers with local communities, also enabling increased access in areas where some of these services have never landed.<h2>How to gain customers’ trust with social networks?</h2>In 2017, the team realized Colombia’s local e-commerce business was at a relatively early stage. Though there existed many e-commerce companies in Latin America, they only owned 0.5% of the market in many categories.Latin American is wealthier than other emerging markets, and the penetration of the Internet and smartphones is higher. According to Statista, in 2019,<a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/218531/latin-american-smartphone-penetration-since-2008/"> smartphones accounted for 69 percent of all mobile connections in Latin America</a>, and the share is expected to increase to 80 percent by 2025. In the same time period, the share of the population in the region who has <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/218141/mobile-penetration-rate-in-latin-america-since-2007/">access to a mobile phone</a> will increase from 68 to 73 percent. So, if the overall behavior is healthy and the ecosystem is ready to foster new digital behaviors, why didn’t e-commerce rise?.In order to tackle this question, Zach and the team interviewed hundreds of Colombian citizens. Through the process, they found that lack of confidence was the first barrier, users preferred corner grocery stores over e-commerce platforms. Besides, selling happened via traditional direct channels, where people probably ordered products from magazines shared by friends. According to Zach, in China, daily necessities e-commerce has a 70% penetration rate, while in Latin America this number declined to about 50%. In Peru and Brazil, the rate is 25% and 17%, and the main reason is the direct selling tradition. The global No.1 direct sale company, <a href="https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&amp;ai=DChcSEwjHpqC27vLyAhUZisgKHWkQC60YABAAGgJxdQ&amp;sig=AOD64%5F0d32W1RrsvTYVVX%5F16akYxF9XHfg&amp;q&amp;nis=1&amp;adurl&amp;ved=2ahUKEwji%5FZS27vLyAhUrK7kGHXTnCvQQ0Qx6BAgDEAE">Natura</a>, is Brazilian. The key learning was that in Latin America, community culture has a strong foundation, social contact is crucial to unlocking trust, people want to share recommendations and exchange information about the product.At the time the direct sales model filled this gap, however, the model was not efficient and created unnecessary barriers to both the final customer and the seller. For example, direct sellers had to order products to their own places before pushing them to the customers, they spent time and took associated risks, in some cases they even had to pay upfront for the product before receiving the client’s payment.Precisely to disrupt these inefficiencies and to create an impactful channel for thousands of women in Latin America looking to increase their income, Elenas was born. This Social Commerce Marketplace has built a selling network of tens of thousands of ambassadors, over 90% of them are women, that are enabling their own digital businesses thanks to the extensive cooperation with both local factories and importers, which gives them access to more than 45k types of products.Elenas is leveraging the power of social connections to maintain the familiarity of the direct sales model, empowering ambassadors to sell to friends and family members. At the same time they are leveraging the most critical learnings of the traditional models to enhance the experience for both the ambassador (seller) and final customer through digital solutions and a growing network of local and international brands.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:49.12%;"><img src="/uploads/Mujeres_Poderosas_2123093965.jpeg"><figcaption>Elenas Ambassadors</figcaption></figure><h2>Elenas mission to empower women in Latin America</h2>At the beginning, the core topic of the research was working women and the expectations put on “guerreras” (female warriors!), as they referred to themselves, as they worked to balance family, relationships, and career. And as the team learned since the launch of the venture, the impact of Elenas is directly related to the social and economic conditions of the countries in which it operates, especially regarding issues of gender equality.Today, most of its sellers or embajadoras are housewives and university students, and a large proportion of the sales comes from small cities and rural areas. Lizbeth, a young 24 years old woman, living in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duitama">Duitama</a>, sustains her household expenses thanks to Elenas. In December of 2020, she earned over $3,000 US, which allowed her to pay the maintenance of her car, grocery shopping and rent.Elenas enables the opportunity to earn extra income while working from home and reducing barriers and risks. According to Zach, some of the most successful ambassadors who work full-time in the platform can earn thousands of dollars per month, up to 10x more than in the traditional direct model. Also, the sales commissions can go from 10% up to 40% for the ambassadors, which gives them incremental opportunities to earn more.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:54.16%;"><img src="/uploads/Elenas_7f20c3d65a.jpeg"><figcaption>Elenas enables women opportunities</figcaption></figure><h3>25x growth during the pandemic</h3>In 2020, the outbreak of COVID-19 changed the pace of Latin American e-commerce. At the beginning of the epidemic, Elenas faced several difficulties. With Chinese borders closed, many imported products could not arrive in Colombia. Then, the virus in Colombia cut the logistical network, so Elenas could not transport products from Bogotá to Medellín.However, when the Colombian logistics industry adapted to the epidemic, local e-commerce exploded just like in other regions around the world. In 2020, with the fastest sales growth, Latin America beat the Asian-Pacific region and became the champion of the e-commerce retail market. It has been estimated that <a href="https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/news/how-covid-19-triggered-latin-american-e-commerce-boom">13M people across</a> Latin America made an online transaction for the first time last year.Elenas won from two different aspects. First, customers were looking for new shopping possibilities. They spent more time on the Internet and social media and hoped that products could be directly delivered home. Second, many were looking for a platform to earn money at home, which means more potential Embajadoras went to Elenas. Eventually, sales of Elenas increased 25x in 2020.In May 2021, Elenas landed in Mexico. As Polymath Ventures have learned in his extensive research, <a href="https://polymathv.com/push-pull-design-forces-in-colombia/">Latin American people share similar behaviors.</a> Generally speaking, due to lack of opportunities for female workers, women from small cities are looking for extra income, and they are used to traditional catalog sales. At the same time, the region is showing similar patterns of digital growth, presented in smartphone adoption and internet penetration.As Zach stated, “some of our top embajadoras receive more than 100 orders every month”. Today, 11M housewives are selling products via direct sales channels, said Zach, demands exist there, so we need to extend our scope and bring more people to Elenas.

The rise of Social Commerce in Latin America

As enablers of entrepreneurship in Latin America, we are committed to developing and supporting initiatives designed to elevate our ecosystem. <a href="https://www.joindayone.com/">Day One</a>, founded by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-hutton-3a030739/">Andrew Hutton</a>, former Chief Innovation Officer at Human Ventures, is a platform devised precisely to do that, elevate what we do by providing early-stage founders the tools and much-needed accompaniment.<a href="https://polymathv.com/this-is-how-it-all-started/">After eight years</a> in the business, we understand that the entrepreneurial path is loaded with tough challenges, yet rewarding and exciting moments. Each decision is a risk, but most importantly a learning opportunity and every piece of advice from the ecosystem is like finding gold. So we know that the work behind Day One is critical for early-stage founders looking to build and scale the next new venture.In this opportunity, we welcome Andrew as our guest contributor to talk about this exciting initiative, the purpose behind it, and their vision to expand their impact globally.<h2>Leveraging the work of experts</h2>Andrew here, founder of Day One. I’d like to give a huge thanks to the whole Polymath team for the chance to share our story. I’m unbelievably excited for Polymath to be Day One’s official LatAm partner and for the chance to work together to cultivate and grow the entrepreneurial ecosystem across LatAm.Day One’s mission is to help people across the globe as they take the jump into entrepreneurship, by providing the support, guidance, and community that first-time founders need.What’s exciting is that more people than ever before are already jumping into entrepreneurship. In the U.S. alone, 775,000 new businesses were launched in 2019, a number that had risen every year since 2010. And I can only imagine that 2020 will see even more people taking the leap and becoming entrepreneurs for the first time.These will be some of the world’s most talented people, leaving or foregoing prestigious careers to build something new. But even when a first-time founder is talented and connected, they still find themselves searching for support, and far too often not finding it.<blockquote>The next wave of entrepreneurs needs a new place to get started. We’re building Day One to be that place, and the first way we’re doing that is with the Day One Fellowship.</blockquote>The Day One Fellowship is an 8-week program that will take a large group of first-time founders and turn them into a tight-knit community. We’re doing this in a fully virtual setting and focusing on building a diverse, international group of entrepreneurs. These Fellows will take part in a program of facilitated small groups, cohort-wide events and talks, workshops working sessions with experienced investors and operators. We’re running the first Day One Fellowship this fall, but over time the Day One Fellowship will scale to support thousands of entrepreneurs from across the globe.We couldn’t run a successful, international Fellowship without amazing partners, and Polymath is not just our official LatAm partner but a real believer and supporter from the very earliest days.As Day One grows in LatAm, Polymath will be right by our side. Polymath is the first place Day One Fellows can turn to for local, on the ground connections and advice – and when we can, will play host to local meetups and chapters. The Polymath team will be sharing their expertise, not just with the LatAm members of the Day One Fellowship but with members from across the globe. And as Polymath grows and extends its impact through new startups and partners, Day One Fellows from LatAm and beyond will have front row seats to collaborate and support. You can also expect Day One and Polymath to collaborate on content and events that are focused on serving early stage, first- time founders.<figure class="image"><img src="/uploads/IMG_0824-1-2048x1322.jpg" alt="early-stage founders in seed stage"></figure>In the end, building an ecosystem is about working closely with amazing people and organizations. Day One has found that in Polymath, and we can’t wait to build our community across LatAm. If you’re interested in what we’re doing or just want to say hi, shoot me a line. I’d love to get connected and find ways to collaborate.Andrew Hutton – <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#25444b41574052654f4a4c4b41445c4a4b400b464a48">[email protected]</a>

How to succeed as an early-stage founder

The opportunity to transform the direct sales category by combining existing trust-based relationships with the power of digital sharing and purchasing behaviors was the starting point for Zach Oschin, Thomas Harsch and the team at Polymath Ventures to develop the idea behind Elenas: the first social commerce start-up in Latin America.Elenas is disrupting the $26 billion USD direct sales market by connecting leading lifestyle brands with a massive network of ambassadors who can promote and sell those brands’ products over WhatsApp and social media. After one year the company has already enabled over 25.000 women across Colombia to build their own online store and earn an extra income for themselves and their families.The impact of this venture is directly related to the social and economic conditions of the countries in which it operates, especially regarding issues of gender equality. According to the Human Development Report for Latin America, “women dedicate at least 3 more hours to domestic tasks than men and between 1 to 4 hours less than men to business activities”, which reflects the complexities and potential obstacles for women to secure job and extra income opportunities which fulfill their families’ economic needs. These conditions provide a tremendous opportunity to develop and innovate on traditional business models in order to transform the work structures which constrain women today.Elenas represents a new opportunity for a massive population of women who need to generate an extra income or want more flexibility in their schedules but are restricted by this traditional job market and antiquated direct sales opportunities. The current model of selling products via catalog to friends and family forces them to take on economic risk as they buy products upfront and have to handle the tedious operations of delivering products and using a paper catalog to sell.<blockquote>“When the number of employed women increases, then economies grow. According to multiple studies executed the rise of women in the workforce or a reduction on the gender disparity, produces a faster economic growth”. – OCDE</blockquote>The impact behind Elenas’ operation enables a positive cycle of empowerment for ambassadors and brands that are part of the network. This new channel has enabled over 30 Colombian lifestyle brands to achieve 25% WoW sales growth during their first month on the platform; one of these brands is Dermanat, a Colombian cosmetics company from Colombia that has developed natural products for over 30 years. Elenas has also opened a distribution channel for international companies that are looking to expand their operations to Latin America such as W7 Cosmetics, an innovative and trendy cosmetics company from London that has developed an extensive range of high-quality cosmetics at an affordable price.For the ambassador network, they are currently earning 3-8x what they earn through traditional direct sales, while the top sellers are earning more than the Colombian minimum wage. For these women, the extra income represents a 20-50% additional income to their full-time salaries.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:68.76%;"><img src="/uploads/Elenas_Business_Model_27b7491623.jpeg"><figcaption>Elenas Business Model</figcaption></figure><figure class="image"><img src="/uploads/Elenas-1.jpg" alt=""></figure>Elenas’ innovative business model has been featured by global media outlets such as TechCrunch, La FM, and Caracol and has been recognized by renowned organizations such as Georgetown University and CitiVentures. The Elenas team has grown to over 20 people and continues to evolve rapidly as the company’s message spreads around the country.Currently, the Elenas team is working to build out an even more extensive set of digital tools for its’ network of ambassadors so that they can earn more in less time. By using data collection and machine learning technologies the Elenas platform will provide even better recommendations to ambassadors and clients to better the browsing and purchasing experience.By the end of 2019, Elenas plans on extensively growing its base of ambassadors in Colombia and in the coming years it plans to expand the business to other markets in Latin America. If you are interested in learning more about how Elenas is disrupting this traditional category or want to join the growing team you can contact them by emailing <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#cdbdbfa8bebe8da8a1a8a3acbee3a1ac">[email protected]</a>.

Elenas breaks socioeconomic barriers with its innovative social commerce business

29K

Embajadoras

$7M USD

Paid out in commissions

250+

Distributors and brands

$8.4M

USD Capital Raised