Jul 24, 2024

Insights on adapting benefits platforms, building partnerships, and prioritizing employee well-being in Mexico’s unique landscape. Keep up to Date with Latin American VC, Startups News When we decided to enter the Mexican market, I knew Betterfly’s adaptation would be key. Our platform needed to align with local regulations, particularly NOM 035, which mandates workplace psychosocial well-being initiatives. This regulatory landscape shaped our entire approach. We’ve structured our offerings to cater to different business sizes. For large corporations, our plans start at 85 MXN + VAT per employee, while for SMBs, we begin at 200 MXN + VAT per employee monthly. This tiered approach, coupled with our SaaS model, allows us to serve a broad spectrum of Mexican businesses. Partnerships have been crucial to our success in Mexico. We’ve forged alliances with global wellness providers like Udemy, Headspace, and FitOn. Simultaneously, we’ve collaborated with local foundations such as Reinserta, Grupo Murlota, and Únete. This dual approach enables us to offer a comprehensive suite of benefits that resonates with Mexican employees. Our research showed that while 48% of Mexicans consider benefits crucial for job retention, only 38% feel these benefits meet their needs. This gap informed our strategy to prioritize physical and mental well-being in our offerings. Building trust was paramount in a market where we were initially unknown. We focused on transparency, high-quality services, and demonstrating tangible improvements in workplace well-being. This approach has paid off, resulting in over 400 clients across major Mexican cities including CDMX, Querétaro, Monterrey, and Guadalajara. We encountered significant technical hurdles in integrating with local systems, managing large data volumes, and ensuring scalability. To overcome these, we invested heavily in our tech infrastructure and obtained ISO 9001, 14001, and 27001 certifications to ensure data privacy and security compliance. Maintaining our corporate culture during rapid growth has been crucial. We live by five fundamental values: action bias, giving perfect effort, acting with purpose, dreaming big, and unleashing human connection. These values have guided our expansion and helped us maintain our identity in a new market. To support our rapid growth, we implemented career development tools like Career Path and Performance Review. These allow us to evaluate and nurture talent throughout their professional journey with us. As a Public Benefit Corporation and B Corp, our social impact focus has been a cornerstone of our operations in Mexico. We’ve integrated this into our business model, collaborating with local foundations to address pressing social issues. We use a combination of engagement metrics, customer satisfaction, and impact on employee well-being to evaluate our performance. Our new experience is designed to address various HR KPIs, helping companies improve engagement, reduce benefits costs, and boost employee satisfaction. We’ve worked to understand and complement strategies for compliance with NOM 035. Our platform offers services like meditation, telemedicine, and physical training, which align with the law’s requirements for promoting employee well-being. Our experience in Mexico has been invaluable. The lessons we’ve learned about adapting to local needs, building strategic partnerships, and maintaining our core values during rapid expansion will guide our future growth in other markets. We’re committed to continually evolving our platform to meet the unique needs of each market we enter, always with the goal of improving workplace well-being and driving positive social impact. Lina Vanegas serves as Betterfly’s Head of Marketing She has over 10 years in Communications and Marketing roles in private and public sectors, tech startups, mass media, and corporate environments across Latam.​