The history of Riverside

HOW RIVERSIDE

STARTED

How does an entrepreneurship like Riverside Ecoliving come to life?

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By being a little curious (some would say crazy) and having had the opportunity to have so many types of jobs. The love of adventure and entrepreneurship had been instilled in me since I was a child. Those exact components were fundamental in creating a place like Riverside Ecoliving.

As a child, I went to a town near Medellin called Caldas. My father owned a hotel there which he made thanks to the boom in our coffee trade. It’s also the place I got my first job. I was about 11 years old and my job was helping at the reception desk answering calls and also delivering services to the room. I was fascinated by being able to meet new people everyday and absolutely loved my job.

One day, my father invested in a TV satellite antenna to provide better service in his hotel. The neighbour, understanding that he had this service, asked to connect to his network, and a few days later, another neighbour, and then another neighbour. This way, my father created a telecommunications company with more than 15k subscribers; this was key to understanding the business and learning by working there during holidays.

After working as an employee in marketing and sales in the IT sector and travelling to Australia to improve my English, I picked up certain skills such as bartender, barista, cleaner, cook and others, keys to the creation of Riverside.

By the time I was done with my chapter in Australia I had acquired the spirit of a traveler. I decided to go to Ecuador where I had the fortune of training over 400 salespeople from two telecommunication companies. To achieve this, I had to reinvent the way I sold, learnt to communicate more effectively, create a system that could sell more, and do one of the things I like doing best, which is teaching.

After this experience, I went back to Colombia, convinced that it was time to be an entrepreneur. In the beginning I was frustrated by not being able to move forward with a startup that sold very well as an idea but not as a business. Something else needed to be tried so I decided to create a consulting service for rural hoteliers based on my knowledge in digital marketing and sales, which generated results for each of my clients.

This opened new doors, and based on my research, I ended up opening a backpacker hostel in Jericó, Antioquia. From cleaning to marketing to sales, I applied each of my skills acquired from my multiple jobs to the test here.

TRAVELLERS

CULTURES

PASSION

PEOPLE

One of my passions is meeting people from all kinds of cultures. I love understanding the differences in customs, food, languages, and ways of thinking. All this is abundantly available in a place like a hostel. The experience of sharing so much gives one a feeling of constantly travelling, which for me is undoubtedly the best way to learn.

Every day was a new destination and one more opportunity to understand my purpose in life: to sell people a nomadic lifestyle and make them fall in love with my country.

Enamoring travellers with Colombia and applying my knowledge in Destination Marketing and sales, people began to see a change in the tourism market. Countless foreigners came to my hostel, which made the entire tourism industry in the town focus on my work and business.

That is how I managed to sell the idea to an angel investor to build a dream: to open a place for digital nomads in the middle of nature.

This is just the beginning of the story for me. And the culmination of all my experiences have taught me that sometimes being a little crazy is necessary and being stubborn can be a good thing, especially in selling. Every job, person, and experience I’ve had since I was a child has contributed in some way or the other in making Riverside stand today. Like Steve Jobs rightly said, you can see how the dots connect looking back. Had I not seen it all as a learning step, I would have never understood the modus operandi of business and the complexities of its functioning.

At Riverside, transportation, experiences, food, housing, work, and even access to information are sold ethically and sustainably. If you want to learn to sell dreams like these, do not miss any of the content we have prepared for you.

Follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram or schedule a sales coaching session here or for the people in your company to have the dream life at Riverside here.