UPDATE: I have updated this post to include the three selected candidates for LetMeGo in Portuguese.
Seven weeks ago, we announced a contest: the LetMeGo I18N Challenge. This project was designed to help us find the CEOs of two upcoming ventures: LetMeGo in Spanish and LetMeGo in Portuguese. Today, we are announcing that we have examined the applications of all of the entrants, as well as their responses to our various challenges (more on this below), and have selected the six candidates who will move on to the next stage. For the next six months, each of them will design and implement a competing version of LetMeGo en español or LetMeGo em português–at the end of this period, we will select two winning entrepreneurs, who will be named CEOs of their own version of the LetMeGo service, and, if everything goes according to plan, will eventually become partners in the parent company.
We received almost four hundred applications. Eighty-seven candidates for Spanish and sixty-seven for Portuguese were invited to compete in the preliminary tests. Sixty-one candidates completed the entire set of tests after one tough week. The job opening I wrote mentioned “The tests will be brief, and should not impact candidates’ normal lives.” At the time I wrote that, I believed it to be the case. However, our competitors, through their diligence and competitive spirit, put the lie to my words. As the candidates came to recognize each others’ skill and dedication, and realized how heated the competition would be, their efforts became more and more intense. By the end of the testing week, some candidates and teams were foregoing sleep, trying to ensure that the response they submitted for each challenge was the best it could possibly be.
Clearly, then, selecting only three candidates out of such a talented pool would be extremely difficult. We’ve never had the privilege of getting to know so many passionate, professional, and interesting people in such a short period of time. I’ve spent days worrying about how I would break the bad news to the talented candidates who would not be selected. In spite of my efforts, I have yet to put into words how proud I am of many (in fact, most) of them, and what an honor it was to evaluate their responses to our challenges. Not only was their work of the highest quality, but they proved themselves to be warm, well-rounded human beings. I hope to be able to work with many of them in the future, and look forward to the positive change they will enact in our world as they pursue their other dreams. Perhaps this sentiment, expressed by Steve Jobs in the famous commencement address he gave at Stanford in 2005, comes closest to expressing my wishes for those who didn’t win:
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
And the candidates for the next stage on the LetMeGo I18N Challenge are (in alphabetical order):
| For LetMeGo in Spanish | For LetMeGo in Portuguese |
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The runners-up, who will move on to the next stage if one or more of the above candidates drop out during the next 15 days, are (also in alphabetical order):
| For LetMeGo in Spanish | For LetMeGo in Portuguese |
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These six candidates hail from many different backgrounds. They reside in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Portugal, and the United States. Some of them have experience working with companies including LAN Airlines, Lenovo, and Microsoft. Others are lifelong independent entrepreneurs. Now that I think about it, I’m not even sure who did and didn’t go to college in this group. Regardless of their backgrounds, though, congratulations to everyone!
I offer my sincere thanks to all of the candidates who participated in the first phase of our challenge, for sharing the LetMeGo dream (if for only a few weeks). Thanks are also owed to Leonardo, for his thus-far flawless execution of this challenge. Thank you, too, SocialAtom Team (Andres Barreto, Maca Lara, Lina Ceballos, and Juan David Vargas) for the great work you did in promoting the challenge. Now, it is my job to encourage the winning candidates to produce their best work yet.
Alexander Torrenegra
Alexander is LetMeGo's co-founder and jefe. Here is his LetMeGo 
Congratulations!!!!!!!!!! Welcome to the team! I will be meeting each of you very soon. Please count on me for anything you need
Congratulations Winners!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And all the participants! You have done an amazing job and it’s been amazing to see the quality of the tests you submitted!
Hope we get the chance to interact and learn from each other and take LetMeGo to infinity and beyond!!!
Un abrazo
Congrats to the winners!! thanks for the opportunity!!
We didnt win but it was interesting, we ´ve done the seven tests!
Cheers and hope to have other opportunity like this!
abrazo grande!
Congratulations, you deserve it!
I wish you all the best and much sucess for the project ahead of you.
For the rest of the participants, for what I´ve seen, I´m sure this was a step forward towards the dream you are chasing and it won´t be long till you get it.
Best of luck,
Fernando
I’m still wordless. This was such a tight competition, I couldn’t imagine I was going to be in the top three. Today is my birthday and… what a surprise!
Well, just to say: Felicitaciones a todos (dentro y fuera de LetMeGo)!
Happy Birthday Hernan!
What a great surprise to celebrate your birthday…
Felicitaciones por doble partida!
Parabéns!
Felicitaciones!
Congratulations to the winners! May the force be with you all.
Congratulations. We (LetMeGo team) feel lucky to have such talented people on this project.
Congratulations and welcome to the LetMeGo team! I look forward to speaking with you soon!
Congratulations to the winners.
It’s have been a pleasure compite with you, and the another contestants .
Dennis Zelada.
Congratulations to the selected candidates. And thank you Alex, for sharing Job’s speech. Since I first listened to it a few years ago, it’s had my favourite comfort words, for sure. I think what has stick on me the most is the following:
“Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking, and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart you’ll know when you find it. And like any great relationship, it gets better and better as the years roll on. So, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
Thanks a lot!!! I’m really happy and I can’t wait to start…. Congratulation to Alberto’s Team and Hernan Gauna as well.
Hernan, what a good birthday’s gift, isn’t it? Happy Birthday!! : )
Thanks to all LetMeGo team, it will be my pleasure to work with all of you!!
Hope to meet everybody soon!
Abrazo grandote!!
Andro
PS: I also love that Steve Jobs’ speech by the way…
Big thanks to Torrenegra Labs and LetMeGo.com for creating such an exciting and interesting competition.
Congratulations to the selected candidates that will move forward to the next stage!! It was, indeed, a great experience competing with you and I wish you all (selected and non-selected candidates) the best.
Orquidea Licona
@orqs
Congratulations to the winners, this was definitely a tight competition and even (I can guess) a more difficult task for Alex and Leo to select between us all.
It’s a shame to leave behind such a great opportunity, but I hope I will get a chance to work with you all soon enough.
My best wishes to LMG and do enjoy the stage to come; it will be unforgettable for all the selected ones =)
Congratulations to all the Spanish entrepreneurs that made it. I’ll have to check out Steve Jobs speech.
Happy birthday Hernan
All the best from Portugal.
Congratulations to all of you guys!
Big gift for Hernan! Happy B-day!
“Stay hungry! Stay foolish!”
Regards
Congratulations to the selected candidates!!! Good Luck to all of you for the next stage.
It was a pleasure to participate in such a really interesting and great competition.
Regards.
@nicokras
Congratulations to the winners!!
Now you are connecting the dots
Good luck for the next stage!
The next months are going to be interesting, fun and very busy!! to say the least. Thanxs for all the warm welcomes from all the LetMeGo stuff!
Congratulations to the selected candidates!!.
I would like to get in touch with the spanish candidates living in Spain, to share information and comments about this interesting process.
Thank you!
Sorry, my website was wrong in my previous comment…
Enhorabuena y felicidades a los elegidos para la version espanola, espero que sea solo el principio de una gran aventura
Milena Calzoni
Congrats to all the selected candidates!!!
Now it is where the really fun begging’s for you guys!! We wish you the best, and most of all that you enjoy the journey that you are in!!
Thanks to all LetMeGo staff members!!!
This was a really great experience!!!
Team Omedes
Felicitaciones a todos e parabéns para todo mundo!
We all know how hard it was..
Thank you very much to the LetMeGo team for this opportunity and for making of this contest an intensive course for every candidate and such an incredible experience.
Best wishes for the winners!!
Agustina Gatius
Congratulations to all the contestants.
For the winners good luck. For the all of us that continue the life journey good luck to.
I all deserve it.
For the LetMeGo team, a big thanks and congratulations, for the 2 new projects now starting.
And to everyone else. A fantastic future.
And don´t forget. A dream without action is a illusion…
Congratulations to everyone who competed, specially the winners. We all went through a lot to get to this point and has been worth it every step of the way.
Thanks to LetMeGo team for the challenging experience and welcome. Let the fun begin…
Congratulations to the winners!
Thank you LMG team for the opportunity you have gave us all, not as a job opportunity but as an opportunity to fight for something we really enjoyed.
Thank you all other candidates to having making it so challenging and interesting!
Ana
Congratulations to all,
I believe we all learn something with this challenge, speacily the ones who got this far.
Portuguese winners: I will be watching you closely, if you need anything just horn
.
And now the real journey begins…
Congratulations to all the winners!good luck to everyone!!!
Thank you for the opportunity LetMeGo and all the best!:)
Milena Calzoni
Dear Alexander, Leonardo and all the LetMeGo Team,
thanx for the exciting time. That competition was great and we are lucky, that not all the job posts work like this.
Although my name is not among the selected, I do not feel like having lost or being second best. You had a great field of candidates to choose from to continue the challenge.
I would almost say, that dropping out now is much more comfortable, than having to quit after the second stage.
And this is where I wish the remaining teams the guts and drive to not only do a fantastic job, but to do it well, despite that possibility.
So: All the best to you, a great rollout to the projects and lots of fun.
Matthias
Congratulations to all the winners and in particular to Sergio Rebelo, he is a great professional and I wish good luck to him!