Today's Entrepreneur: Victor Chapela

Mitos Suson · March 7, 2017 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/490c

No. 1 Mistake: Focus too narrowly on the part of the puzzle they feel most competent at

Today's entrepreneur is Victor Chapela, Co-founder and CEO at Suggestic. 

Suggestic delivers actionable suggestions that help people make the right nutrition decisions at key moments in their day.  The underlying technology, which leverages state of the art artificial intelligence, dramatically increases user engagement for health, wellness, and fitness organizations.

Here's a little about Victor:

I am a(n): Entrepreneur

Companies I've founded or co-founded:
Digilab (now DigiPro), Celebrando.com, Applied High Technology Group (Grupo ATA), TrueCentric, Sm4rt Security Services, Sm4rt Game Studios, Sm4rt Predictive Systems, Suggestic

Company exits (of companies you founded):
Sm4rt Security Services , https://eleconomista.com.mx/tecnociencia/2015/03/26/kio-va-ciberseguridad-gobierno-sm4rt
Sm4rt Predictive Systems , https://eleconomista.com.mx/tecnociencia/2015/03/26/kio-va-ciberseguridad-gobierno-sm4rt

Achievements (products built, personal awards won):
Sm4rt Foresight - a fraud prevention system based on Deep AI that has 5x the precision of other comercial fraud prevention solutions.
If you are an entrepreneur, why? I want to change the world.

My favorite startups: Waze, Space X, Google

What's most frustrating and rewarding about entrepreneurship/innovation?
It is very frustrating not to be able to focus deeply on every interesting aspect of your own company. I would happily live several lives rotating through different roles and activities. Time is never enough. But on the other side, as an entrepreneur you are rewarded by creating something bigger than yourself, that touches the lives of many people. And you are rewarded by giving birth to a living entity that can last long after you have left.

What's the No. 1 mistake entrepreneurs make?
Most entrepreneurs focus too narrowly on the part of the puzzle they feel most competent at. Not realizing that entrepreneurship is a very complex multidimensional problem with no single solution. And it requires multiple aspects to work simultaneously and in unison.
Being an entrepreneur is not about doing what you do best and finding the right answer. It is about tolerating uncertainty, being adaptive and keeping open questions.

What are the top three lessons you've learned as an entrepreneur?

1. Only work on a problem you are passionate about
2. Team up with people you admire, you have fun with and with whom you share the same end goal
3. Always give back in excess to what you receive - it generates a positive feedback loop

Full bio

Victor Chapela is Founder & CEO of Suggestic, a Palo Alto, CA based company that creates a symbiosis between collective intelligence and deep AI to make relevant personalized suggestions. The suggestion engine will first be used to help choose restaurants and menu items based on a persons food intolerances and preferences. Mr. Chapela has over 20 years of entrepreneurship experience. During this time, he has founded six technology related companies in the United States and Mexico. As CEO of these companies he has primarily been involved in the management of the companies, as well as in the design and implementation of the technologies and processes. Four of his companies have been successfully acquired. As part of his previous experience Mr. Chapela founded and led Sm4rt Group, that included Sm4rt Security Services (Security Operation Centers), Sm4rt Predictive Systems (Card Fraud Prevention) and Sm4rt Game Studios (Videogames).

The security company was acquired by Kio Networks and the fraud prevention venture was acquired by a bank consortium. Previously he also founded and served as CEO of TrueCentric, an Austin based consumer analytics company where he lead a development team of over 90 engineers in the creation of an AI customer relation software product for the financial industry. Back in 1994 he founded DigiPro, one of Latin America’s leading financial data and document image processors. He has served in 14 different boards of directors in the technology industry and has invested in several more. His main expertise lies within the area of artificial intelligence, machine learning, risk modelling, and information security. He is an active startup mentor and co-author and contributor of courseware, study material and papers for several organizations and media companies. He is a frequent speaker at international events and has been featured in business and trade magazines, television and radio.

 

Editor's Note:

Suggestic may present on stage at Splash Health, Wealth & Wearables 2017, 3/23 in Fort Mason Center, San Francisco. Splash is Vator's startup conference, gathering top CEOs to share their lessons learned, and highlighting promising new ones. Join us! REGISTER HERE.  

Want to invest as little as $5000-$10,000 in some startups Vator identifies? Join the Vator Investment Club (VIC).  Join before March 1 and be eligible for a complimentary ticket and be eligible to win one round-trip flight on Surf Air! Join VIC. 

Image Description

Mitos Suson

I produce Vator Events and enjoy the challenge. I am learning and growing a lot, being involved with Vator and loving every moment of it!

All author posts

Support VatorNews by Donating

Read more from our "Today's Entrepreneur" series

More episodes

Related Companies, Investors, and Entrepreneurs

Suggestic

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on

Suggestic delivers actionable suggestions that help people make the right nutrition decisions at key moments in their day.  The underlying technology, which leverages state of the art artificial intelligence, dramatically increases user engagement for health, wellness, and fitness organizations.

Going on a diet can be a stressful and confusing process. As soon as we set restrictions, eating at restaurants, grocery shopping, and even just deciding what to grab for lunch can be daunting, causing many people to give up within days.

With Suggestic eating healthy and sticking to your diet is easy!

 

146356

Victor M. Chapela

Joined Vator on

Victor Chapela is a serial entrepreneur with 4 successful exits. Suggestic -his most recent venture- uses Deep AI to combine your genetic and health data with devices and crowd sourcing to deliver personalized lifestyle and nutritional suggestions.