In November 2024 it was launched E-Factora very novel but challenging project: a talent show for Cuban entrepreneurs.
In the first 72 hours after its launch, nearly 200 business owners had registered, motivated by the initiative and its ambitious prize of 10 thousand USD in technologies, supplies and raw materials.
The owner of the best “gene E”, or entrepreneurship gene, as the organizers have called what they seek to find and measure in the competition, will win, because “what we are evaluating, although it is the person’s business, is also the ability of the entrepreneur,” explains Andy José Rivera, director of Operations and host of E-Factor.
Only 12 of those registered made it to the competition, after having been subjected to a pre-selection process and interviews.
He talent show It is scheduled to premiere at the beginning of next year. It will have ten episodes, the first five chapters of which will focus on the work of the competitors with coaches and then the tests before the jury will begin. The program will be available through YouTube and the package of the week.
“The contestants are going to have to go through very Cuban challenges, very fun challenges,” is all that Rivero tells us.
From saying to fact
The project, created by Yeline Ramos, general manager of Nihao 53 and current CEO of E factor, hoy has more than twenty sponsors.
“When we start thinking about E-Factorwe wanted to create a space in which companies that had the same objective could coexist, which in this case is to promote creation, to promote the Cuban business ecosystem as such. What we were clear about was that we wanted to make a kind of talent show that had the narrative of a contest but also of inspiring, connecting, motivating new actors, new Cuban entrepreneurs,” Rivera tells us.
Quickly, this clear idea began to mutate due to the needs that the contestants themselves showed existed in the sector and the opportunities and ideas that were born due to the extension of production times for such an ambitious audiovisual project.
“We realized with the pre-selection process and interviews that there was a need for training, to know how to do a business, how to scale a business. Entrepreneurs came and were not clear about what their mission or vision was, whether their business was scalable or not, they did not have a pitch clear. “There was a huge need for this information and training, and we decided to explore other areas.”
This is how the Labs emerged, conferences dedicated to addressing various areas of business management taught by names that are today references for entrepreneurship in Cuba.
From the interest of motivating, “Showporation” was also born, the podcast of E-Factor which has just released its seventh chapter in which its guests talk about their experiences creating businesses in Cuba, tell their life stories and improvement, and above all, how many times they made mistakes or failed and how they got up and made their projects succeed.
To unite communities and promote natural exchange, they then created “Afterwork by Factor E”, a space where at the end of a work week entrepreneurs can attend a meeting where they can choose whether they want to talk about business, meet new colleagues, or just enjoy and relax.
In the ring…
Since December 2024, they were announced who would be the contestants of the first season of E-Factor. The filming process for the show did not begin until July 2025, a time in which the participants shared in the training spaces, creating professional and personal ties. An unusual process for this type of competition, but one that provided a unique experience for them and the entire team.
“10 thousand dollars in technology can be the difference between your business succeeding and going bankrupt, however, they, most of the time, are giving each other advice and supporting each other, and that is something that has no value. In the end I think that this first generation of E-Factor Since they have spent so much time and so many things together, they have managed to consolidate themselves as a family.
“E-Factor It is a space in which we are not here to compete, we are here to unite and move the entrepreneur forward. We understand that competition as it is does not exist because there is space and a market for everyone, because your audience is not my audience, because my products are not your products, my suppliers are not yours and also, how good it is that there is a rival, so to speak, that raises the bar a little and does not let you be in your comfort zone,” Rivera details.
However, there are twelve competitors and only one of them will be the winner, according to the magnifying glass of a jury made up of Julio Martínez, CEO of Cartel Estudio, Alejandro Palmarola CEO of La Quinta de los Molinos and Yessie Guridi, CEO and founder of Cafetalex and Mokalex. The contestants have the support of working with coaches Mario Marketing, founder of Nos Fuimos, Aldo Álvarez, main partner of Mercatoria and Darien García, general director of Gestoría Confías.
“In business, in ventures, in entrepreneurs, not everyone who wins means that they are going to be a winner and this may sound a bit like a tongue twister. Entrepreneurs can win a contest and not be great businessmen, or you can have lost the contest, even having started from the first meetings and being a great businessman, because what it takes as a businessman is to be systematic, persistent and not see failures, but to see that that path was not like that, what do I have to do? change, what I have to improve to move forward and that is what I have been trying to convey to them,” Darién García explains to us, about the vision with which the coaches worked.
For her part, Yessie Guridi says that as a juror she came to E-Factor to “find the nature of the Cuban entrepreneur that is closely linked to creativity, to creative lucidity, because a Cuban entrepreneur faces a lot of challenges daily, just as the boys are going to face them in the program. What I am going to measure is precisely that creativity, that ability to respond, to confront any type of crisis. And of course the resolution.”
Among those who measure their talent or ability there are entrepreneurs of different ages and types of businesses. The rules only required that they respond to some of the forms of non-state management in the country and that they be in a take-off or embryonic state, to ensure that the conditions of each contestant were not so unequal.
“The experience with E-Factor I think it has been quite constructive, more than anything because of all the people we have met here and we have made connections and friendships and I think that is what we take away the most,” says Gabriela López González, Founder and General Coordinator of the Aldama Project and one of the contestants.
That is a vision that almost all the participants share and they let us see it when our team had access to the last day of filming of the talent show.
“Here the most important thing for all of us is not who wins, because in the end only one person wins, here the important thing is the process, the alliances that we are going to forge among ourselves, meeting people with visions or businesses different from yours, but with the same passion, with the same gene of trying to start a business or trying to do things in Cuba, which is so needed,” thinks Fernando Arias, creator of Venko, a sportswear brand.
In the end, the program has served for almost everyone as a space where, more than showing their abilities, they have learned a lot and have demonstrated it in each challenge.
“In some way it has created in us the need to collaborate, to understand that it is necessary not only to bill, but also to create values, to give others the opportunity to do things, to manage and collaborate with people to be able to make life easier, more comfortable and do business easier in Cuba, which is the most important thing. It has helped us land those ideas and materialize the ideas that we have as business owners, and it shows us that the projects are closer than one believes,” he summarizes his experience. Marlon Vázquez, from “El Duro”, a business that takes up the Cuban durocolero that many of us grew up with, but that until today we have established as a homemade product.
The competitors also share that spirit that this can be a lasting and inspiring project.
“When Factor AND come out, I think it will reach many because here we are guys who started businesses from scratch. We are natural people and I think it will be an example for many people,” is what Joel López Tamayo, competitor and creator of Jojo Acuapónico, aspires to.
Nayla Oliva, owner of La Comarca, wants to leave several things behind through the contest, “the first thing is that my example serves for others to undertake. The second is that the world sees that in Cuba, although not everything is as we would like, we from within can make it change and yes you can undertake from what you know with the passion that it serves us and can serve many other people.”
“I would encourage them to be part of a project like this, where they definitely test many things that you don’t know you can do and that is the most beautiful, most productive part, because you always think that you have a limit or that you can’t achieve something, they are limitations, mental barriers that we impose on ourselves just because, because we leave them there and then you face different situations and you realize that you can,” recommends Doria Alderete, head of Progressive.
“I would like the image that remains with the public to be that in complicated times where there are so many people thinking about moving or so many people thinking about importing or thinking about other things, there are crazy people who still dream that it is possible to do things in Cuba, because Cuba needs people who decide to stay,” summarizes Fernando Arias.
