The Colombia Expansion That Failed: What Buen Provecho Learned About International Growth

International expansion looks straightforward on paper: replicate your successful model in a new country and watch it grow. But for Buen Provecho, their first attempt at expanding beyond Uruguay became an expensive lesson in what happens when you underestimate cultural differences and choose the wrong market entry strategy.

On the Levels Podcast, Guillermo Martinez, COO and co-founder of Buen Provecho, shared the story of their Colombia launch—why it didn't work, what they learned, and how those lessons shaped their successful expansion into Argentina.

Why Colombia Seemed Perfect

After proving their food waste marketplace concept in Uruguay, Buen Provecho faced a familiar startup challenge: their home market was too small to sustain long-term growth. Uruguay has just 3.5 million people, with 60% concentrated in the capital city of Montevideo.

"Uruguay is a great marked test because it's kind of like smallish and you can kind of like get something going. And also because it's small, It's really hard to gain a lot of sales, even though the business model, you don't already have a product market fit."

They needed to expand, but where? The obvious choice—Argentina—was underwater economically in 2023.

"Argentina is culturally super similar. But at that moment, If you're not aware with the Argentinian history and economics, it was underwater, totally. And it was almost impossible just to go there. Inflation was over the roof, was like 1000%. So it was impenetrable going there."

Brazil was out. Despite being the largest market in Latin America, it operates differently enough that success requires being Brazilian.

"Obviously, we went to the big market. It only works for Brazilians to be honest. You need to go there and speak Portuguese and live there and be basically one of them. Otherwise they can buy from us."

Mexico and Chile already had established competitors. That left Colombia—a large market, Spanish-speaking, and without a dominant food waste platform. The opportunity looked clear.

The Franchise Model Mistake

Here's where Buen Provecho made their critical error. Instead of launching directly in Colombia as they had in Uruguay, they chose a franchise model. The reasoning made sense at the time: they were still a small team with limited resources, and partnering with a local operator would reduce risk while leveraging local knowledge.

"We said, okay, let's go for a local partner. And yeah, we basically had our first roadblock, because we sort of just going there directly, or just having a huge stakes or a lot of skill in the game, we went for a franchising model."

The franchise model works well for certain types of businesses—restaurants, retail stores, service businesses with proven playbooks. But for a marketplace that requires constant iteration, close communication, and cultural nuance, franchising created more problems than it solved.

"Obviously with a lot of caveats to a lot of growth, not just compromising future growth or current success, you could say. But yeah, we basically didn't get the right partner. That wasn't the right model for our kind of business."

The issue wasn't just finding the wrong partner. The fundamental structure of franchising a marketplace doesn't align with what marketplaces need to succeed. Franchisees want autonomy and local control. Marketplaces need consistent branding, unified technology, and centralized optimization. Those two needs conflict.

Cultural Differences They Underestimated

Even with the wrong business model, Buen Provecho might have succeeded if Colombia had been more similar to Uruguay than it actually was. But the cultural differences ran deeper than they expected.

"Obviously you may be educated, but it's not the same thing of living it from your skin. The cultural differences were a lot bigger than we expected. Not that the business model was not working."

One example Guillermo highlighted was communication style. Colombians tend to be indirect in their communication compared to Uruguayans, who prefer straightforward directness.

"For example, there's something that is quite impressive to me, even Telefor all this time. They are really not direct. They're really indirect on how they speak. So, but at same time, At least we prefer the Rectness. It's let us have more efficient results, I think."

This affected everything from sales conversations with potential store partners to social media messaging to customer support interactions. What worked in Uruguay needed substantial retooling for Colombia, but the franchise model made those adjustments difficult to implement and test quickly.

"We had to retool a lot of the ways we communicated, how we do our socials, what's the attractive value proposition for the average Colombian when compared to the average Hawaiian."

The value proposition itself needed reframing. While Uruguayans responded to environmental impact messaging, Colombians needed different hooks. The discount aspect needed different emphasis. The trust-building approach needed adjustment.

The Execution Gap

The combination of wrong business model and underestimated cultural differences created an execution gap that proved impossible to bridge remotely.

"And yeah, that ended up with that we were not able to capitalize on that. And that took us from, that was something I started at the end of middle to end of 2023."

The franchise partner couldn't move fast enough to adapt messaging, test different approaches, and iterate on what worked. Buen Provecho's team couldn't directly control operations to make those changes themselves. The result was a slow-motion failure where everyone could see problems but couldn't fix them quickly enough.

After months of struggling to make Colombia work, Buen Provecho made the difficult decision to pull back and refocus. The economic situation in Argentina had stabilized somewhat, and they decided to apply the lessons from Colombia to a market that was culturally closer to home.

The Argentina Success

When Buen Provecho entered Argentina in mid-2024, they did it differently. No franchise model. Direct operations. Heavy emphasis on finding the right country manager who could bridge Uruguayan business culture with Argentine market realities.

"And we shifted to Argentina, obviously using the learnings taken from Colombia in 2024, middle of 2024. And now we see we're in Argentina, it's going quite well."

The results speak for themselves. Argentina now represents 25% of their store base and is growing 15% month-over-month. More importantly, they've maintained quality and brand consistency while adapting to local nuances.

The key difference was having someone on the ground who understood both cultures and could operate with the speed and autonomy needed while staying aligned with the core brand and strategy.

"From our experience, that's kind of a way to go, but that, know, country head or country manager needs to be a mix of your culture and their culture."

This person needs to "talk in their language while working in your language, right? With your rules and customs." Finding that person is hard, but it's essential for marketplace expansion.

The Second Attempt at Colombia

Now, armed with the lessons from their failed first attempt and their successful Argentina expansion, Buen Provecho is planning to return to Colombia.

"And now that we are lot stronger, we want to double down and go back to Colombia. We know that a lot of companies are trying to go there. It's a bit hard to enter, but at least when compared to Uruguay and Argentina even, they are a lot more inefficient in the food production industry."

The opportunity remains compelling. Colombia's food production is even less efficient than Uruguay's or Argentina's, meaning more waste and more potential value to capture. The market is large enough to sustain multiple players, and being early matters.

But this time, they're going in with direct operations, the right market entry model, and realistic expectations about cultural adaptation. They know what messaging needs to change, what operations need local optimization, and what can stay consistent across markets.

Lessons for International Expansion

Buen Provecho's Colombia experience offers several crucial lessons for founders considering international growth:

Don't franchise a marketplace. The operational flexibility and rapid iteration marketplaces require doesn't fit the autonomy franchisees expect. Direct operations with local management works better.

Cultural differences compound with distance. What seems like minor communication style differences become major obstacles when you're trying to manage operations remotely and can't quickly adjust.

The right country manager is everything. Finding someone who understands both your home culture and your target market culture—and can operate effectively in both—determines success or failure.

Timing matters for emerging markets. Argentina's economic crisis made expansion impossible in 2023 but had stabilized enough by 2024. Sometimes the right move is to wait rather than force entry into a difficult environment.

Learn cheap, apply expensive. The Colombia failure was expensive, but applying those lessons to Argentina created success. The second expansion benefitted from the first one's mistakes.

Key Takeaways

• Franchise models don't work for marketplaces that need rapid iteration and centralized optimization
• Cultural differences are deeper than language especially around communication styles and value propositions
• Country managers need bicultural fluency to operate in local language while maintaining company culture
• Market timing can matter more than market size as Argentina's economic situation demonstrated
• Failed expansions are expensive lessons but only if you learn from them and apply that knowledge to future attempts

Listen to the full conversation with Guillermo Martinez on the Levels Podcast to hear more about navigating international expansion and building across Latin America.