Jorge Etchebehere began to understand U.S. culture at the age of 16 when he was an exchange student in New Jersey for three months. He later used this knowledge when working for an Argentine company selling seeds and fertilizers provided to the company by Monsanto. Although he did not work directly for Monsanto, he received training in sales and marketing on a regular basis by the company’s representatives, who traveled to Argentina from the United States for that purpose. Etchebehere, who spoke English, helped the representatives with the presentations they made in Argentina and interacted with them on a social basis as well. In 1991, he began working as a sales assistant for Genoud, an important manufacturer of furniture in Argentina. During the first two years, he traveled around Argentina selling furniture, but then the president of Genoud decided that Etchebehere should sell the company’s furniture abroad. Etchebehere took a six-month course from a local university and soon left for his first trip to the United States as a sales representative for Genoud. During that trip, he realized that the products he was attempting to export would not sell themselves, and that potential clients were asking for detailed technical information he could not provide. Consequently, he did not sell anything on that trip. Although other Argentines in this industry returned from similar trips thinking that the foreign companies simply did not like their products, Etchebehere’s experience with U.S. culture taught him that this was not the case. The people he met on his trips just wanted more information about his products. So Etchebehere returned to Genoud’s factory to familiarize himself with every step of the production process. He also took advantage of the fact that the president of Genoud was at that time also the president of FAIMA, and traveled around the country with him visiting different wood furniture producers. Six months after his return to Argentina to familiarize himself with how furniture was produced there, he returned to the United States and began selling furniture for Genoud, and began receiving a number of different orders for a variety of furniture products. As a result of this experience, Etchebehere realized that he did not have to limit himself to selling furniture for just one Argentine company; he could represent many of them in the United States. In 1997, he decided to create his own company, and he moved from Pergamino, where Genoud is located, to Buenos Aires. He placed an advertisement in a trade magazine in the United States indicating that he was looking for sales representatives and received 20 resumes. He sent pictures of the furniture being produced by various Argentine companies to all of the people who responded to his advertisement and one of them, a designer, wrote him back
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