The people who shaped my Endeavor immersion in Mexico

Jacob VanderZwaag

“Do you travel for work?”

This is often the first question my friends ask me when I explain what I do for a living.

As an Associate on Endeavor Global’s Entrepreneur Selection team, I’ve worked with founders from across the world and visited places from Indonesia to Kenya. Most recently, I spent six weeks living and working in Mexico.

Having grown up in the homogenous suburbs of Rochester, New York, I always had a desire to broaden my horizons. After studying abroad in Quito, Ecuador in 2019, I was hooked. I knew I wanted to continue visiting new places, accumulating new experiences, and meeting new people—whatever form that took.

Upon graduating with my bachelor’s degree in global business, I was hopeful that I could combine these cross-cultural ambitions with my broader professional goals. I found that in Endeavor, a truly global organization that supports entrepreneurs from 45+ countries across five continents.

Perhaps the biggest highlight of my first two years with Endeavor was my recent “immersion” with Endeavor’s Mexico office. The immersion program offers Endeavor employees the opportunity to spend one to two months working in one of the organization’s worldwide offices. This is a chance to live and work in a new country while building stronger relationships with colleagues, entrepreneurs, and other members of the Endeavor network.

I could tell you about Mexico’s vibrant culture, its world-class cuisine, or the country’s dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem. But you’ve probably heard those stories before.

Instead, this is a snapshot of my time in Mexico through the lens of the people I met. Some are friends, some acquaintances, some mere strangers. But they all played a role in shaping my immersion experience.

Juan Pablo is the co-founder of Prima, one of Mexico’s fastest-growing companies, and one of our newest Endeavor Entrepreneurs.

We met while he was going through Endeavor’s entrepreneur selection process and I was working on Prima’s company profile—a comprehensive due diligence document that Endeavor creates on every company we evaluate (similar to a venture capital firm’s investment memo).

Analyzing companies at the final stage of Endeavor’s due diligence process is the core of my work as an Associate on the Selection team. Each month, I work with a new batch of two to four companies, deep-diving into new countries, industries, and business models to help select our newest class of Endeavor Entrepreneurs. But this work is about more than just analyzing businesses; it’s about building a relationship with founders. When you write their profile, entrepreneurs are trusting you to tell their story.

There’s always a nervous energy that comes with meeting a founder for the first time. Prima shares an office building with Endeavor, so Juan Pablo and I met for coffee soon after I arrived in Mexico. While we spent just a short time chatting, I had the chance to both get to know Juan Pablo on a personal level and ask a few of my most pressing questions about Prima’s business.

Later that day, Juan Pablo sent me a message. I’d asked him to share a document the Prima team was working on that outlined the founders’ vision for the company. Below the document was a short note: “You seem to be a very crafted writer—would love to get your feedback [on the document]. Thanks!”

I couldn’t help but smile. I had gained Juan Pablo’s trust; now it was time to get to work.

Ana Gaby is a Manager on Endeavor Mexico’s Entrepreneur Experience team. While in Mexico, I had the opportunity to collaborate with her on various projects.

But more than this, Ana Gaby served as my “Endeavor sherpa,” helping me to navigate living in a new country and working with a new team.

While technologies such as Zoom have made our world more connected than ever, there’s no replacement for building in-person connections. During my time in Mexico, Ana Gaby and the rest of the team welcomed me with open arms. Highlights included a Lucha Libre fight in Mexico City, a working brunch with a view of the Great Pyramid of Cholula, and too many team lunches to count.

During my last week with the team, Ana Gaby invited everyone over to her house for a goodbye dinner. We ate a traditional meal of tacos árabes and talked for hours. After just six weeks, I already felt completely at home with my new teammates and found myself hesitant to return to New York.

As with many of my peers at Endeavor, I am proud to call Ana Gaby not just a colleague, but also a friend.

Emilia is the best salesperson I know. She doesn’t work for a Fortune 500 company. Or a high-growth technology startup.

No, she is the owner and sole proprietor of Jugos con Amor, a streetside juice stand located close by my apartment in Mexico City.

I discovered Jugos con Amor by chance: I was running late to work one day and needed a quick breakfast on the go. But after that first encounter, Emilia made sure to keep me coming back. “Hasta mañana” (“I’ll see you tomorrow”), she’d say every time I’d stop for a cup of fresh juice. Orange. Or mango. Or lime. Even when I wasn’t buying from her, Emilia would smile and greet me as I walked by her stand.

Emilia’s end game wasn’t fostering customer loyalty; that was just a byproduct of her genuine warmness. I’ll miss a lot about Mexico City: the sights, the sounds, the food. But it’s people like Emilia that make CDMX feel like home, even for a gringo like myself.

Rodrigo is the CFO of Wellbe Care, a Series A healthtech company based in Mexico.

I met Rodrigo at the kickoff event for Endeavor Mexico’s CFO Journey, which aims to foster community among CFOs in Endeavor’s network and offer them opportunities for professional development.

Knowing I was in a room full of native Spanish speakers (or so I thought), I was prepared to put my work-in-progress Spanish skills to good use. At one point in the evening, I approached Rodrigo, greeted him in Spanish, and struck up a conversation. A few moments later, Rodrigo hesitated for a second before asking me: “can we switch to English?”

While I was initially worried that Rodrigo was commenting on my lackluster Spanish abilities, he soon informed me that he had actually just moved to Mexico from Brazil a few months prior and was still not fully comfortable with his own Spanish. After breathing a sigh of relief, Rodrigo and I continued to have a great conversation about the similarities and differences between São Paulo and Mexico City.

Here I was in Mexico, having a meaningful conversation with someone from Brazil. I was reminded that this kind of global connectivity isn’t just rare—it’s uniquely Endeavor.

Regina previously worked on Endeavor Mexico’s Entrepreneur Experience team.

In my first few months after joining Endeavor, I collaborated with Regina to analyze several Mexican fintech companies coming through our selection process. After three years at Endeavor, Regina left to join Félix—a Series A cross-border payments company—as Chief of Staff last year.

Regina remains close with many of her former colleagues from Endeavor Mexico. One evening, she joined us for a team dinner. On a personal level, it was gratifying to finally meet Regina in person. Professionally, it was insightful to learn about her new role at Félix and how she’s applied the skills she honed during her time at Endeavor.

Since Endeavor is my first full-time job, it’s inspiring to see how former employees, like Regina, have transitioned into new roles beyond Endeavor. Yet many remain in Endeavor’s orbit, building successful careers as entrepreneurs, operators, or investors themselves.

As we say internally: “Once Endeavor, always Endeavor.”

Mexico is the latest in a long list of amazing places that Endeavor has taken me.

But my experience at Endeavor has been about so much more than stamps in a passport book, pins on a map, or photos on an Instagram post.

At its core, Endeavor is about the people.