Juan Ignacio Kurtzemann
I'm 20. I study business and technology across seven countries. I've built companies that worked and companies that lost money. In 2026 I crossed all 23 provinces of Argentina in 23 days to raise food and hand a flag to the national team.
- 23
- +16,000
- 7
- 115/90.000
MIND FIRST, THEN THE WORLD
I was never a normal kid. At 13 I launched a digital marketing agency. At 14 I made my first 200 dollars from TikTok. By 15, in 2021, I was deep into personal development: meditation, visualisation, cold showers, courses, books. And I had a strange certainty for that age: I didn't want to go to university.
Three years later that got tested. At 18 I left to study abroad and everything I knew ended overnight: home, friends, language, food. I landed in Dubai not knowing how to use a washing machine.
What came after didn't come from being brave. It came from doing the inner work first and only then going out into the world.
And I still get it wrong a lot, and leaving still hurts. I lost money on 1,000 chocolates nobody wanted. I made 130 dollars in three months with my first business. And when I came back to Argentina after eight months away, I sat down to my mum's milanesas and burst into tears at the table.
this is me too
13 years old. i didn't know it had a name
- 2019
I launch my first digital marketing agency. I didn't know it had a name; I knew brands needed someone who understood social media.
- 2020
I make my first 200 dollars from TikTok. Little money, big idea: you can earn from your bedroom, at any age.
- 2021
I go all in on personal development: meditation, visualisation, cold showers, courses, books. Twenty-one days straight, two hours a day, while my friends were doing anything else.
- 2023
I win the UNR Accounting Olympiad. I get the Cambridge Proficiency, the first in my school to do it before graduating. I start a podcast with 100 followers.
- 2024
I end up going to university after all, but to one that looks like no other: first Argentine admitted to Tetr, one of ~115 out of 90,000. I move to Dubai and leave home and my friends behind. My first business makes 130 dollars in three months.
- 2025
India, Singapore, Malaysia, Ghana. I make chocolates that don't sell and sell cards that do. In San Francisco I build Amia in nine days.
- 2026
I cross all 23 provinces of Argentina in 23 days, raise 16,000+ meals for five food banks and hand a signed flag to the national team.
None of it started with a trip, though. It started with what I was doing at six in the morning, when nobody was watching.
I'VE NEVER HAD A DROP
I got obsessed with health well before I got obsessed with any business. By 15 I was already tracking my sleep, taking cold showers, trying fasts and reading everything I could find about it. Nobody at home did any of that: I pieced it together on my own, trial and error.
The rest came from there. I've never drunk alcohol. Not one glass, at any birthday, in any of five moves abroad.
At 15 that was a problem. People looked at me strangely and I was often left out. Today it's what keeps everything else in order: I train, sleep and work better than I would otherwise, and by now nobody argues with me about it.
“I decided to put my health above other things, and although it was hard at first, it really was worth it.”
- 2M
- 93K
- 3.5K
—Of everything I've published, this travelled the furthest. Not an achievement: a decision.
not one glass. really.
With that head on my shoulders I got on the plane at 18, not knowing how to use a washing machine.
SEVEN COUNTRIES, ONE DEGREE
TETR COLLEGE OF BUSINESS
BSc (Hons) Management & Technology
- /First Argentine admitted. One of ~115 out of 90,000 applicants.
- /Scholarship earned by winning the UNR Accounting Olympiad.
- /A real business built in each country of the programme.
- /Gold Award for Innovation in Business Education, QS Reimagine Education Awards 2025: No. 1 in category out of 1,600+ submissions.
CORNELL TECH
Venture semester — AI
- /Building an AI startup as part of the Tetr programme.
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE
Academic term abroad
- /No. 8 in the world, QS World University Rankings 2025.
IIT DELHI
Academic term abroad
- /India's top-ranked institution according to QS.
COLEGIO SAN PATRICIO
Secondary school · 85% average
- /First student in the school's history to obtain the Cambridge Proficiency before graduating.
At Tetr you don't pass by sitting an exam: you pass by building a real business in every country. These are mine, with the number each one returned.
WHAT WORKED AND WHAT DIDN'T
Every project with the number it actually returned, not the one I'd have liked.
An AI therapist available 24/7. We built it in 9 days at Founders Inc, inside the Cold Start / Ship It programme. The idea came from two places: my mum is a therapist, and I was very lonely in Dubai.
Launched January 2025.
nine days. my mum is a therapist.
A deck of phosphorescent playing cards, half white and half black, sold through Kickstarter: from zero to funded campaign in 30 days.
AU$18,394 raised against an AU$1,250 goal: 14.7× the target, from 137 backers. The highest-raising team in the entire cohort.
14.7× the goal
BELURE CHOCOLATES
A direct-to-consumer chocolate brand built from scratch: product, packaging, sales. Five of us, and we felt like Willy Wonka.
We made 1,000 units, double what we could sell. Half expired. We lost money. Lesson: ask first, produce second.
SLEEP PRODUCTS
My first real business. Dropshipping sleep products, five people.
US$130 split five ways, over three months. The market said no and we had to listen.
a total flop, but we learned
SHEA NUT ROLLER · GHANA
Work with an NGO and the design of a tool for the women who harvest shea nuts by hand.
Field project from Tetr's Ghana term.
Content creation for a San Francisco startup building AI necklaces that transcribe conversations.
VOZ DEL ÉXITO
An interview podcast with entrepreneurs, made before getting into Tetr.
10 reels, 3 guests, 100 followers. In the admissions interview Tetr's founder told me he'd listened to it. None of it was big; what mattered was that I was already doing something.
While I was building all of that, I was filming. And that's where I learned what wasn't on any syllabus.
WHAT I LEARNED PUBLISHING
I make content about what happens to me while studying and building abroad. My furthest-reaching video isn't about an achievement: it's one explaining why I don't drink.
The same video passed 2 million views on Instagram and stopped at 2,900 on YouTube. Instagram rewards who you are; YouTube rewards where you are. Once I understood that I stopped posting the same thing everywhere.
690×. same video.
- +2M
- +4.4M
- +45M
- +60M
- A university where AI runs your exam445,000
- What it's like to study while travelling228,800
- What I HATE about the countries I've lived in219,783
- I'm the first Argentine on scholarship at Tetr202,000
- The PROBLEM with EATING in GHANA154,078
- This is how I live studying in Malaysia130,000
A camera, an audience and five moves abroad. With that in hand I came up with the biggest idea I've ever had.
23 PROVINCES IN 23 DAYS
I crossed all of Argentina, from Ushuaia to Rosario, without skipping a single province. In each one I collected a signature for a flag. I raised food for five food banks. At the end I handed the flag to the Argentine national team and came back with a jersey signed by the squad.
MISION23.COMBefore leaving I set myself three rules. They weren't a travel plan: they were the line between doing this and just driving a lot. Keeping them was the hard part.
- 01
One signature per province. No exceptions.
Twenty-three public figures, one per province, and none of them owed me anything. I had to arrive, find them and convince them the same day. If a single province came up blank, the flag was worthless.
- 02
Eat or do something local to every place.
The rule that forced me out of the car. Without it the trip is a road and a spreadsheet; with it, it was 23 different places and not 23 toll booths.
- 03
Close the day before 23:59.
Without this rule you cheat without noticing: an hour today, two tomorrow, and day 23 ends up being day 26. The clock was the only judge of the challenge.
all three, 23 days straight, never once letting up
- Tierra del Fuego
- Santa Cruz
- Chubut
- Río Negro
- Neuquén
- La Pampa
- San Luis
- Mendoza
- San Juan
- La Rioja
- Catamarca
- Santiago del Estero
- Tucumán
- Salta
- Jujuy
- Formosa
- Chaco
- Corrientes
- Misiones
- Entre Ríos
- Córdoba
- Buenos Aires
- Santa Fe
- +10,000
- +16,000
- 5
- 8
- +250
- 3.1M
driving. not flying.
—The goal was 100,000 meals. I got to just over 16,000. I'm putting it here because the real number is the one that counts: it fell well short of what I announced and it still fed a lot of people.
we still really helped. that's what counts.
An Argentine flag signed by a public figure from each of the 23 provinces. I handed it to the national team in June 2026. AFA president Claudio Tapia backed the project in person.
WHAT I DIDN'T SEE COMING
The flag left Ushuaia blank. It came back with 23 signatures: one per province, collected one at a time, skipping none. That was the deal I made with myself on day one.
On 15 June 2026 I took it to Kansas City, where the national team was, and handed it to Claudio Tapia, the president of the AFA, in person. The flag went to the dressing room.
My job ended there. Drop off the flag and go home: that was all I had gone to do, and with that, what I set out to do on day one was done.
What I didn't see coming was what they did. Tapia put Messi's number 10, signed by the whole squad, into my hands. I didn't ask for it, nothing was arranged and it had never crossed my mind: it was their gesture, and it's the part of the trip that still hasn't quite landed.
“After crossing the 23 provinces in 23 days, Juan Kurtzemann arrived in Kansas City with his flag, which symbolises more than 45 million Argentines and which will be handed to our national team.”
i wasn't expecting this
And I wasn't the only one telling it.
WHAT THEY SAID OUT THERE
National and regional coverage of Mission 23. The 14 June Infobae piece named all three sponsors. TV and radio figures are estimates of potential audience per appearance, not measurements.
in january none of them knew who i was
TV & RADIO
- TELEFE
- CADENA 3
- TNT SPORTS
- DIRECTV
- CANAL 5 ROSARIO
- RADIO 10
- RADIO 2 ROSARIO
- VORTERIX BAHÍA
- VIVE TV FUNES
- CANAL 4 JUJUY
Some things were on the record before all of this. Others, because of it.
ASIDE FROM ALL THIS
Some are from years ago and some from this year. None of them fit the timeline above, and all of them count.
this one arrived on its own. i didn't ask.
DECLARED OF PUBLIC INTEREST · SENATE OF SANTA FE
The Senate of the Province of Santa Fe declared Mission 23 to be of public interest, “for its contribution to promoting solidarity, civic participation, the visibility of food banks' work and the strengthening of food-support networks.” Signed by Felipe Michlig, provisional president of the chamber.
ACCOUNTING OLYMPIAD · UNR
First place. The year before I came third competing against older students. This is what got me the Tetr scholarship.
TED-ED TALK
“External Discomfort, Internal Peace.”
CAMBRIDGE PROFICIENCY
First student in the school's history to obtain it before finishing secondary school.
ROSARIO RUGBY TOURNAMENT
Champion with Jockey Club in the U15 category.
“BROWN” SPORTS TEAM
Elected leader by a vote of the whole school.
That's what there is so far. What comes next isn't written yet.