I’ve written about our first paid customer, Henry, as well as our 3rd, Jochen. Our 2nd customer was Amy Kerman, a former product manager at Intuit who spent the better part of a year traveling through South America in 2014. Turns out, she also led us to our newest co-founder, Oren Borovitch. Oren is in charge of finance, business development, and operations. Here’s a little bit more about him, in his own words:

Here are a few thoughts from Amy…

After working as a Product Manager at Intuit, Inc. for 4 years, I decided to take a sabbatical in 2014 to travel the world. 8 months into the trip, I landed in Santiago with plans to stay with Drew and Will (who I’d never officially met) as one of Horizon’s first “customers”. I’d stayed with friends of friends once before, while in Myanmar, and it had worked out great. It was on this visit that I introduced Drew and Will to Oren. I’d met him and his wife a couple weeks earlier in a hostel courtyard in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. Our paths kept crossing as we made our way south, ultimately running into each other again on a walking tour of Santiago. The walking tour led to happy hour, which led to an impromptu dinner (and after-dinner house party) with Drew, Will and some friends. I’m thrilled that this chance encounter not only led to great friendships, but a growing professional relationship and it’s a perfect representation of what Horizon stands for - bringing great, like-minded people together in a new place.

When the two random Canadians (Oren and his wife Melissa) came for drinks at La Mesa Verde prior to a house party, little did we know it would change the future of our company. Amy, Oren, Melissa, Will, and I - along with many friends - partied together, with absolutely zero expectation of a future professional realtionship. Over the course of the night, I came to realize Oren had background in startups, and proceeded to tell him a little bit about what we’d been working on the past few years (Oh Hey World and now Horizon). Oren and I discussed the business over coffee a couple days later before his departure from Santiago, and kept trading emails about progress over the next few weeks while he traveled through Argentina and Colombia. He flew home to Toronto to tie up loose ends, but proceeded to get right back on a flight to Santiago (on his own dime) and spent all of December and January living and working with Will and I in Santiago.

The goal of his two months with us was to determine whether he was a good fit for our team. The fact that I’m writing this blog post today proves the answer was yes.

Thank you Amy, for your support as well as for leading us to an important member of the Horizon family.