Like many of the other dot-com pioneers, Fernando Espuelas dealt with the meltdown of 2000 by writing a book.
But instead of recounting the glory days of the Internet, the serial entrepreneur put forth a philosophy that evolved into a media company called Voy, which means “I go” in Spanish.
“Voy is a brand that doesn’t describe a product, but an attitude of optimism and self-empowerment,” explained Espuelas. “It works across communities and connects to mainstream American values of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
On a practical level, Voy LLC is a digital media company with the mission of connecting to second-generation U.S. Latinos in the English language. The company, which recently moved its headquarters to Los Angeles from New York, has its fingers in music, film, DVDs, and the Internet, with plans for television and mobile.
Content pipeline
Founded in 2003, Voy functions as both a content creator and a distribution pipeline for others. According to Espuelas’ vision, the company should be organized around the consumer rather than around a specific communication medium. The young bicultural Latino targeted by Voy is “someone who doesn’t look at media in the traditional way, but expects media delivered to him regardless of the platform.”
One of the first media products Voy promoted was Espuelas’ book titled “Life in Action: The 12 Voy Principles of Success and Happiness.” The eclectic company then tried to put together a TV show starring Espuelas. It also released the film “Favela Rising,” about a man who rallies the people in a Rio slum to stand up to drug lords and corrupt police. More recently, it released “Spin,” a direct-to-DVD film featuring two singers in the bilingual reggaeton genre.
Last month the company released the first in a series of educational DVDs called “Voy Baby.” Various installments will teach colors, shapes or numbers to children ages 0 to 3 in both English and Spanish. Again, the project targets the second-generation Latino who now heads a family. The series was developed and produced in L.A.
Rather than get into DVD distribution, Voy partnered with Vivendi Visual Entertainment, based in Universal City. The hunt for similar deals explains why Voy moved to Los Angeles in the first place.
“In this next iteration of the media business, the connection between distribution and creation will become much more immediate,” according to Espuelas. “We needed to move closer to the content creation, and its greatest strength is here in Los Angeles.”
The L.A. presence ties in directly to the company’s music distribution. Each month about 3.8 million visitors go to the Voy music site to explore and download Latin songs. The site’s popularity, despite the existence of other well-trafficked music download sites, lends credence to the company’s contention that “Latinos remain vastly underrepresented in media and are afforded few choices to access programming that connects them with their heritage.”
On the Internet front, Voy has signed a deal with Joost, a broadcast-quality video portal, to provide several channels, including a Latino film showcase, an entertainment news show and a low-rider car show. The Voy site has a show called VOYer, where a host presents top videos for the day. Another show makes fun of Latin TV astrologers.
The big question remains how to make money from all this content distribution. Espuelas plans to answer on a medium-by-medium basis, taking on advertisers or charging user fees as appropriate. “We are selling more advertising, and we think we have a model that will work but it requires investment up front,” he said. “We raised venture capital from individual investors, many who had invested in my previous companies.”
In time, Voy hopes to attract institutional partners with either financial or strategic motives that have an interest in the young Latino demographic.
Dot-com difficulties
Espuelas personifies the bi-cultural Latino his company seeks to reach. Born in Uruguay, he came to the United States at age nine. By his early 30s, he was a top marketer for AT & T;, Ogilvy & Mather and Young & Rubicam, mostly in Latin American markets.
In 1996 he founded SatrMedia Network, a Latino Internet portal and one of the highest profile successes from New York’s Silicon Alley. Like Voy, StarMedia had a sense of mission, namely to foster Pan-American communication among Latinos regardless of their national origin. The Spanish- and Portuguese-language site eventually had a clientele of 25 million users. Chief Executive Espuelas took the company public in 1999; at one time it had a market capitalization of $3.8 billion.
But the dot-com disaster devastated StarMedia. Its shares lost 95 percent of their value and the company sold most of its assets to an Internet service provider in Spain. In 2003, it changed its name to CycleLogic and ceased to exist as an Internet portal.
At one point in November 2001, StarMedia faced seven class-action lawsuits from angry investors, and the company’s undoing continues to haunt Espuelas. In March 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Espuelas and other former StarMedia executives, accusing them of inflating revenues. Espuelas intends to fight the suit, saying he wasn’t involved in any financial misstatements.
As for the media market, Espuelas believes no one has the answer of how it will evolve in the next few years, so he plans to keep an open mind. “We are agile, we know we are going to experiment, and by definition some of those experiments will succeed and others won’t,” he predicted.
