Victor M. Chapela

Entrepreneur

Digilab (now DigiPro), Celebrando.com, Applied High Technology Group (Grupo ATA), TrueCentric, Sm4rt Security Services, Sm4rt Game Studios, Sm4rt Predictive Systems, Suggestic

Sm4rt Foresight - a fraud prevention system based on Deep AI that has 5x the precision of other comercial fraud prevention solutions.

I want to change the world.

Waze, Space X, Google

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.

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.

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

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.