A year after starting college, he landed a job at a tech company in a technical-sales role. It was there that he began to learn about the industry, its challenges, and the opportunities it offered.
“I gradually learned about the electronic payments industry, which is very complex, and I ended up staying in that field. Now I’m developing my own startup,” he says.
Liurner didn't want to miss the opportunity to start a business, now from Tel Aviv, where he is pursuing a master's degree in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science at Reichman University. He is launching his startup, which focuses on B2B payments in the Mexican market.
“The skills I developed while studying engineering, combined with my personal experience, motivated me to start my own business. I don’t want to look back years from now and wonder why I didn’t give it a try. I feel like it’s already paid off because I took on the challenge of leaving behind a stable situation and dared to face my fears and anxiety, dealing with a roller coaster of emotions while learning new things every day.”
Although his project is still in its early stages, he has already hired 10 people from Argentina and is looking to continue adding talent to his team. “Even though I’m in Israel, I’m looking for people from all over Latin America because there are no longer any barriers.”
Israel's startup ecosystem
Tel Aviv has long since established itself as the world’s leading entrepreneurial ecosystem after Silicon Valley, surpassing cities such as New York, London, and Paris. Thanks to the success of its entrepreneurial ecosystem, Israel has come to be known as the “startup nation.”
“It’s crazy—everyone here works at a startup, but it’s not a project that starts in a garage; instead, you quickly secure funding,” says Joel, adding, “You can easily secure $2 million in funding, which, while modest, is a good amount to start with, and you already have a team of 20 to 50 people.”
While large companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook are also present, startups have been growing and establishing themselves in the Israeli market with products and services that are primarily sold to the United States. “There’s plenty of funding available worldwide; if you have a good team and product, securing funding isn’t a problem.”
“The startup ecosystem in Israel is incredible; there are about 20 unicorns a year and several companies that go public every year,” says Liurner.
His time at dLocal
The Uruguayan fintech company dLocal became the country's first unicorn—a designation given to startups that exceed a valuation of $1 billion—and was the second Uruguayan company to go public on the New York Stock Exchange.
When this happened, Joel was part of the company, and he says that, having experienced it from the inside, it came as no surprise: “Given how fast the company was growing and how its people were working, it was only natural.”
“As a Uruguayan, I felt proud when dLocal became Uruguay’s first unicorn; unfortunately, the pandemic made it very difficult for us all to celebrate together.”
It is also worth noting the company's humility; despite its great success, it continues to work with the same dedication it had in its early days.
College Memories
He remembers several things from his time in college: the hours spent studying in the library, growing alongside his classmates—who are now his friends—and a lot of stress and hard work.
“It took many hours of dedication, not only because of the demands of the program but also to develop an engineer’s mindset—to understand problems and create solutions. Because you don’t just learn about electronics, networks, or communication systems; you learn to solve any complex problem, to map out a plan, to consider possible solutions, to research, to test, to build prototypes, and to figure out the best way to implement them.”