Francisca de la Piedra had graduated as a lawyer, she had specialized in family law almost as a hobby, reading manuals instead of novels. One day she received a case of brutal domestic violence, with violation of minors’ rights involved.
She teamed up with other lawyers to take on the case, and saw firsthand something that would mark her: having private professional advice changed the life of that family. The State, with all its professionalism, simply could not cope.
Mother of three daughters and married for more than 15 years, Francisca always swore that she was never going to start a business: her father was, and she did not want to follow that path. He wanted to study social work, but ended up in law.
She later worked in an advertising company, where a boss who today remains her mentor pushed her to learn project management, bidding, and even how to use Excel – something that the university, she says, never taught her.
From that case of domestic violence, however, came the question that would end up defining her career: how to make this help reach more people?
From a domestic violence case to Legal Step
The company was born as free legal help for workers, under the company name Legal Step.
Very quickly, Francisca and her partners understood that the legal solution alone fell short: what these families needed was multidisciplinary support, without over-intervening or re-victimizing. They started looking for a new name to represent that.
- How did the name Umano come about?
“This started as free legal help following that case of violence. Very quickly we realized that the legal solution fell short: what that family needed was a multidisciplinary program, without over-intervening or re-victimizing”
“We looked for a name for a long time, until an agency proposed Umano to us, without the axe. Without the smoke of super-sexy corporate welfare. They shot it to the core, and there it stayed.”
The program grew professional by professional, following what the specialists themselves were asking: a social worker joined the lawyer and the psychologist; then, occupational therapy, when the child and adolescent psychologist noticed a high demand for autism spectrum diagnoses; Then, personalized kinesiology, based on each patient’s real routines and not generic gym plans.
Today there are eight lines of professionals, all interconnected with each other.
We are more than empanadas
When Umano left, the people departments of many companies were focused on the end of the year party or the celebration of September 18: a comprehensive wellness program ended up competing, literally, with the empanadas budget.
- How difficult has it been to convince companies to invest in well-being?
“That’s why we did, from humor, a campaign that we call the Empanometer: we are more than empanadas, we need support all year round, not just the 18th. It has been changing, because today there is evidence: the World Bank estimated the annual losses in productivity and absenteeism due to mental health in the region at more than 30 billion dollars.”
Being a woman in entrepreneurship, she says, she does not experience it from a victim role, but she does recognize that the field is far from being even: fewer funds available for women, fewer women applying for them, and a burden of family conciliation that continues to fall, disproportionately, on them.
She remembers, amid awkward laughter, a meeting with a people manager from a large company who told them, off camera, that women only went to companies to get pregnant.
“Those are the things that are affecting your security. There you have to look for evidence of the importance of what you are doing: we are not inventing the wheel, very powerful people have been talking about this for a long time, and there are results.”
Think big, without romanticizing the path
Francisca insists that entrepreneurship is too romanticized: the problem is not usually a specific milestone, but the uncertainty of day-to-day life, paying salaries, meeting the budget, which does not resolve itself.
Today Umano operates in Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia and Ecuador, and is already scheduled to launch in Brazil in 2027, with a first customer waiting.
- If you met again with Francisca who was just starting out, what advice would you give her?
“That I had more confidence. The first year I felt a lot of insecurity, as if we were crazy people selling something halfway between a foundation and a company.
…You have to look for evidence of the importance of what you are doing, and never stop seeing the problem you solve: that is what keeps you relevant.”
She wouldn’t change anything, she says, not even the difficult things: everything, the good and the bad, brought her to where she is today.
It’s the same conviction with which he named his company a few years ago, when he decided that corporate well-being didn’t need more smoke, but something much simpler and more difficult to build: human solutions for human problems.
Startup.Connect is a program of the Universidad del Desarrollo in conjunction with País Digital that connects startups with large companies through a specialized scouting system. Throughout its editions, it has facilitated more than 250 1-on-1 meetings for more than 90 startups, achieving 92% effectiveness in its matches.
More information at https://startupconnect.udd.cl/
