Female Founder Factor: Meet Catalina Vega of Reccupera

Female Founder Factor is a big initiative inside Start-Up Chile that aims to even the playing field for women in the startup world. For that, we have plans that involve gender-parity in our programs and connections for Female Founders, and we also have this new section of our blog, in which we will highlight some women innovators that have gone through our program.

To start us off, we had a nice chat with Catalina Vega, the CEO and co-Founder of Reccupera (formerly known as Payscript),a startup that went trough our Build 6 program.

In one of the spaces of our Co-Work —also one of Cata’s favorite parts of our program– we talked about how this industrial engineer decided to jump into the startup world inspired by the project of one teacher and how her love for technology ends up influencing her work. 

“I started with Reccupera because I found that collection was a transversal pain in all industries and today especially debt is everywhere: between people and between companies”, says  Cata.

What has been your biggest challenge as the founder of a startup?

To sell ​​(laughs). When you don’t have much experience in sales and you love your product so much, going out and sell it to another person who doesn’t see the same value as you is very difficult, until the moment it’s already tried and it works. But my biggest challenge has been in sales and (to get in) contact with larger companies such as corporations.

What would you have liked to know before starting this path?

That we didn’t need to have the entire finished product to go out and sell it. If the pain is truly there, the MVP is enough.

What do you think are the main complications that women face in the ecosystem currently?

It’s actually a bit of a matter of believing. I have a super biased view because, for me, it has always been taken for granted that women are badasses, but I think it is a little bit about wanting to dare. I believe that the ecosystem is also prepared and they are looking for women who are very powerful, but I think we lack a little self-conviction that we can do it. It is also one of the reasons why I like being in a startup because it generates visibility that there can be women in technology positions and in C-Levels who start their own startups. 

What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a startup?

Some people are going to kill me for this, but for me, the co-founder is super important. Have a good partner who you can convince with the idea and is willing to accompany you to execute it.

And why is that good co-founder so important?

Because there are many times along the way where you falter or have so many problems that it makes you want to quit everything and you think it won’t work out in the end. But having a person that you managed to convince and also has the same vision as you is like building a path together, and having another vision is always important to not be so biased or not be fixated on something that isn’t working. 

While it’s not necessary to have a co-founder, I  believe that if you have the desire to start a startup you need to find a good counterpart. The counterpart can leave eventually, but you are left with the experience that you started something not just with your ideas, but that you shared it with someone.

What was your favorite part of the Start-Up Chile program?

I love coming to the Co-work, I find it great. I really like the community here, the contacts that are generated, I also really like the feedback options, the hallway conversations. Being here adds to you beyond the program and everything they can teach you, the community that is generated in Start-Up Chile has been very valuable.

Catalina’s Special Things:

• She runs the  Instagram account @databycata for posting tech news curated for people who aren’t super close to technology.

• She’s  also all caught up with One Piece, the famous anime with more than 1.000 episodes that tells the story of Monkey D. Luffy.