It wasn’t just Argentina’s economic panorama in 2018 that prompted Guillermo Hellas, now 52, to found Kråke Café, a “specialty café venture” where filter coffee is the star. That year, the country again asked for help from the International Monetary Fund, in a record bailout of more than $50 billion (which is still picking up the pieces), and fell into recession. All the reasons why Guillermo avoided starting a new company.
Feeling uncertain and insecure, he went ahead with a personal project with his wife in Cordoba, the second most populous city in Argentina. “Several possibilities arose and it was easier to do it than not to do it,” he sums up to “Observador”. If he had to wait for the best economic scenario, the industrial designer who worked for 20 years in a family business probably would not have taken this step at all. “Argentina is a country in constant crisisSo, in a way, we can’t wait for the best moment. You do things when you can, with what you have or what you can afford.
In Argentina, there is no “culture” of granting credit to start a business from scratch due to “lack of stability.” However, from this distance, 2018 is believed to have been a more stable year than 2023, with inflation already exceeding 10% in some months, well above 100% annually (in October, it was 8.2% series and 142.7%). (in annual variation, according to the Argentine Ministry of Economy).
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