← Liftoff with Keith: Conversations with Super Founders and Growth Experts sharing useful insights
Liftoff with Keith: Conversations with Super Founders and Growth Experts sharing useful insights
The Remote Intelligence Advantage: How LATAM Talent Is Powering the Future of Global Teams
00:40:02
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- [00:00]
A
I. I try to speak with as many entrepreneurs as I can. You know, when, when I raised money, a lot of people gave me advice and the advice they gave is impossible, right? Don't do it. Don't try. You're gonna waste your time. If you want to raise money, you have to move to Silicon Valley. And you know, I'm one of those that, that entrepreneurs is just stubborn. Hey.
- [00:32]
B
This episode is brought to you by the outstanding team at Compass Strategic Advisors, your trusted partner in driving strategic growth. Whether it's expanding into new territories, launching products, rebranding, or hiring key staff and board members, they offer the expert guidance every step of the way. With a versatile approach and a proven track record, Compass is the go to resource for both startups and established companies looking to scale with confidence. Thanks. And show your support for this podcast by sharing some sponsor appreciation. Check these guys out at www.compass-strategic-advisors.com. now I get to welcome Louis Dretchen to the podcast. He is the CEO of Near you. I like how you pick names that phonetically are just so easy. Near you. Well, of course that's a, a great offshoring company name, but you spell it a little differently. N I, R Y, U.
- [01:22]
A
Correct.
- [01:23]
B
Because people want to check it out on the website after we're done talking. Of course it'll be in my show notes, Luis. But give us a sense. You started this company because you saw a major problem. I mean, when we are working on a startup and we need to hire talent fast, we need great people and it's hard to get them in the US we go to different places. Sometimes we think about Eastern Europe, sometimes we think about Asia, and sometimes we think about Latin America. What is your story? Why do people fail in some of their efforts in terms of picking a partner? And why is. Is Mexico the right, the right place to go and specifically through your organization?
- [02:04]
A
Awesome. Well, thank you for having me, Keith. It is, it is a pleasure and, and an honor to be able to chat with you and, and have your audience listen to, to some of the knowledge that you and I will hopefully together distill. So to, to answer your question, I, I first have to give you a bit of a background.
- [02:24]
B
So please.
- [02:25]
A
Born. Born in Mexico many, many eons ago, but raised in Southern California. So you know, sort of that bicultural vibe and then we would cross the borders often. Right. So if you wanted, you know, bad example, but if you wanted hamburgers, you. You'd stay in the US but if you wanted tacos, why go to Taco Bell?
- [02:46]
B
Right.
- [02:46]
A
You'd lit, you'd head for the literal border, cross the border, and then. And then have tacos in. We went back and forth for many years and then moved back, chasing a.
- [02:57]
B
Girl.
- [02:59]
A
In my early 20s and lived in Mexico for a while. And then in the early 2000s, you know, I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. I won't bore you with all the details, but in the early 2000s, I founded a tech company that became Mexico's first tech startup to raise US Venture capital funding. And then I moved back to the States. And I'm giving you the, the, the backstory because when I, when I got to the States, you know, I had raised a few million bucks. And one thinks that, you know, three, four million dollars is going to last them a lifetime. But then when you start looking at the wages involved in hiring talent in the US and this is early 2000, mind you, right now, it's even worse. You sort of realize that, you know, you, you have to pick and choose which people you can hire initially in your early stages. And because we wanted to have a, a fuller team, what we did is we hired key positions in the U.S. and then we hired other people to support those key positions in Latin America. It was easier to hire, it was less expensive to hire. Right. Less competition for the talent. So we, we started hiring in Latin America to support US Operations after a while, did that in India as well. So I was, I was part of the company for 13, 14 years until its acquisition. And then after the acquisition, I started getting phone calls from other CEOs in the, in the area that, you know, knew what we had done, and they were telling us how their offshore or nearshore projects had failed. So they, they wanted our help. So that, that's sort of how I got into this business. I didn't get into it, you know, in a strategic plan. I started getting called into gigs, right? Consulting opportunities to help people sort of write a, an unsuccessful attempt and just to finish up, realized after many of these, that there were some common pitfalls. So we started figuring out how do we target the pitfalls involved in the failure and started a company in order to do that. And today we offer the ability to hire people in Latin America using what we call the remote intelligence framework, in order to be able to raise success from 27%, which is what the statistics show, to 95% success rate.
- [05:32]
B
You know, I'm one of those people that have found it challenging to do successful offshoring. So I completely relate to your experience, although I've worked in dozens of companies now as a consultant and employee and I've seen it be successful as well. I'm not sure I figured out the right way to do it. Maybe you'll educate me. But first let me fill in a couple little blanks if I may, Luis. First of all, the best tacos are definitely in Mexico versus California. I feel like I've been in, I've been, you know, I, I spent a lot of time in San Diego, hence Mexico.
- [06:05]
A
Yeah.
- [06:05]
B
Sometimes I didn't recognize there was a border back in those days and had so many great experiences. I, and I'm so proud of what, what you accomplished. I spent a lot of time in, in DFA and other parts of Mexico and, and learned a lot about business. But I always applaud silently when I see a Mexican entrepreneur raising money. You raised a lot of money for when you were doing jack be the successful BI company that you exited and that's what was it, 40 million you raised?
- [06:35]
A
Yeah, it was around 40 million.
- [06:37]
B
And to have a successful exit and then to continue that success, I'm sure you continue to enlighten other entrepreneurs as you said you were doing and sharing your experiences with them.
- [06:50]
A
So, so, so first of all, I, I back to the tacos thing. So yes, no, no doubt best tacos are in Mexico. However, however, you have to understand Mexico is a big country, right. And 135 million. So if you were to make that blanket statement, anyone would say, all right, so carne asada from Tijuana, Pastor from, you know, Mexico City, carnitas from Puebla. And you'd have to get a lot more granular, granular in order to do.
- [07:20]
B
We'll have a food show next time. You and I, we'll talk about it. You and me will play Anthony Bourdain on our show.
- [07:26]
A
Tacos and beer.
- [07:27]
B
There you go.
- [07:28]
A
All right, so to, to the, the, the comment question that, that you, that you mentioned. So I, I, I try to speak with as many entrepreneurs as, as I can. You know, when, when I raised money, a lot of people gave me advice and the advice they gave is impossible. Right? Don't do it, don't try it. You're going to waste your time. If you want to raise money, you have to move to Silicon Valley. And you know, I'm one of those, that, that entrepreneurs is just stubborn and I was, I was able to do it. And because of that I feel like, know, 13, 14 years of battling in, in the US market sort of gave me the, the arrow marks or the whip. You Know Marks involved in, in battling every day where I feel that I, I must give back to the entrepreneurial community in Latin America. So at. Every time I'm asked to speak, I do it. I, I've been asked to speak at, believe it or not, entrepreneurial courses in MIT University, Maryland. You know, a bunch of places where there's a high Latino concentration. Exactly.
- [08:47]
B
Can I point out, also you have an Amazon bestseller.
- [08:51]
A
Yeah, that's, that's recent. I'm incredibly proud of it. Yeah, you can see the smile. Right, right. Every. It. It's on. If it's not, it should be on everyone's bucket list. Right. When, when, when you sit down, you in front of a computer text editor and trying to put your thoughts together, you sort of realize that your thoughts aren't as deep and they have to go deeper. And then you realize that they're too deep and you have to simplify them. And it was, it was a one year process. You know, rewrite it or rewrite three times. Rewrote it three times, of course. But yeah, I'm, we're very proud of it.
- [09:29]
B
You had a good editor. Let me, let me dive into it then because again, I have a lot of entrepreneurs watching the show and I will share this with them. Help me define the proper way to bring on an offshoring partner. What are the best steps to do? What are the things you must avoid?
- [09:46]
A
So let's go to the avoid first. Or, or what are what. And the reason why I say let's go to the avoid first is because in when, when I started doing the, the offshore consulting realized that there were some common pitfalls that signified that people were falling into the, what we call the offshore team death trap. And when I mentioned these, Keith, it's going to. None of these are revolutionary. These aren't things that you would say, I can't believe that, you know, this person did it. Because there's situations that are sort of, you fall into them by following common sense. Let me explain what I mean. So the first pitfall is what we call the talent mirage. So if, if you're a US company and you're hiring based on your US experience, you're going to, you know, give people the same trust, the same level of comfort, the same everything. But ultimately a lot of time, skills don't necessarily translate. So you end up hiring someone that you thought had some skills and didn't have exactly the skills or they look strong on paper, on the resume, but just, you know, when the proverbial rubber hits the Road, they weren't there. Second one is cultural chasm. If you hire someone that hasn't worked with the US Company and you don't give the person the right onboarding and integration, then there's going to be a cultural shock that, that will, may make that that person not be successful. The next one is what we call the hidden cost spiral. If you don't know what you're getting yourself into as far as all the costs that are involved in hiring, or you hire a company to help, you sort of pick and then choose and then pay the person, and you're not transparent about what the costs are going to be, the savings may not be as big as you thought they were going to be. And you know, it's, it's, it's, it, it's not going to be successful management quicksand. You have to realize that when you hire people remotely and even more when it's crossing borders, there has to be certain processes in order to make sure that you're not spending too much time managing them. Right. And because if not, then it's a time suck for you and all the effectivity or efficiencies that you thought you were going to achieve again disappear. Next to last is the retention revolving door. Similar to what you said, you, you tried to be successful and then you weren't, so you let the person go and you try it again. And then, you know, just goes on and on and on and you're never able to build that, that company knowledge.
- [12:33]
B
Right. Those all resonated with those raft of experiences I had. I could almost feel each one. They were like, oh, you got me on that one. Oh, that was that company. Yeah, those things are real and you don't even start to evaluate them on that basis. The integration, how much coaching this person left? Oh, that person was really good. Oh, you know, and they go, oh, who else is new? And now I got to train them.
- [12:56]
A
And the worst part is these aren't. Even though they can exist in the individual, they tend to stack on top of each other. Keith. Right. So, you know, because of the cultural chasm, we hit the retention revolving door and, and with that, the quality erosion, you know, starts happening. So yeah, what, what, what you indicate is absolutely real. These are real things that happen 73% of the time. These are responsible for 73% of failures or for projects being not being successful 73% of the time.
- [13:34]
B
So if I'm hiring near you, I'm going to get success because how, how do you solve those problems then of the Integration, the retention and maximizing the efficiency to create that great cost savings. Okay. On the front end, I got a great deal because it was X percent less money. By the way, give me a little indication of how much we're saving hiring in San Francisco today or remote US for engineers and managers versus what I'm seeing now in LATAM or Mexico specific.
- [14:04]
A
So I'd say Latam across the board wages tend to be very similar. Argentina to Mexico to Colombia. There isn't much difference. There are differences in the types of skills that you can find and whatnot. But the, the cost difference tends to be LATAM will cost you about 30 to 35% of what the a very similar role will, will cost you in the U.S. so you know, if you look at a java engineer with eight years of experience in the U.S. on average, San Francisco may be higher, but in the US on average, and then compare it to the same type of developer working out of Latin America, It'll save you 70, 65 to 70%.
- [14:49]
B
That's beautiful. Okay, great. Now to avoiding those problems.
- [14:53]
A
Yeah. So, so to what you said. Let me, let me first clarify one thing. So I appreciate that. Yes. If you hire near you my company, we are going to do some things and I'll walk through things, follow a framework that will allow you to be more successful. But you know, we touched on giving back a few minutes ago. So because we believe very strongly in being transparent and giving back to the community, it's not only near you, right with near you that you. That you can be successful. What we actually did is in the book that I published, we, we met, we explain the, the first, the seven components of the death trap and why it is that you fall into them or that people fall into them. And then we go through what we call the Remote Intelligence framework. And by following the remote intelligence framework that's also explained in the book, you're able to achieve success. Remote is an acronym Rigorous talent selection. E for Expert onboarding and integration. M Manage support and services. O Optimized Team performance. T stands for Transparent cost plus pricing.
- [16:03]
B
Okay.
- [16:04]
A
And E for enhanced scalability and growth. So if, if you follow the recipe, understand what the different letters mean, how you can do this. How, how by executing on the different topics or the different letters in the, in the remote intelligence framework, you could be more su. Successful. That's how you achieve much higher rates than 27%. And I'll say we at near you have proven 95% success rate. So it's proven to be successful.
- [16:43]
B
Fantastic. I have to ask, of course, about AI. We're living in such an AI, so there's a question of hiring AI talent. How is Latin America keeping up in terms of upskilling there from the university side, from the, you know, exec side, how much is it being deployed and how much are you seeing in terms of demand there? And gosh, we could go one step further, Luis, and talk about how you're using it yourself within your organization, if that's appropriate.
- [17:16]
A
It is, it is, absolutely. So first of all, what is the rollout or how is AI penetrating the Latin American market? And it's, this is a global phenomenon. I mean, you know, the reality is that, that the large model providers are, are providing it all over the world. And, and we're seeing positives and we're seeing negatives. The, the negatives are, and not only in Latin America, but I, I posit, you know, India, so Asia, the, and then Eastern Europe. You're, you're beginning to see that a lot of jobs that potentially would be farmed out are now being, what's the word I'm looking for? Are now being done by, by artificial intelligence. Right. A lot of junior coding jobs. Right. So today you have senior coders that are using AI as, you know, their little hand, literal hands, in order to program. And because of that, the architects and senior engineers are supervising and correcting code, whereas before it would be that senior person with a team of four or five engineers doing all the coding. But, you know, how is AI taking over? The answer is no. It's just being used very differently. And it's being used differently in Latin America as well as in the US Having said that, I'll state that Latin America tends to be three to five years behind the US So it's not cutting edge. Even though the technology is cutting edge and the uses are growing. The reality is that there are no large AI companies in Latin America. In fact, this week I just heard of a company that's deploying AI in the industrial sector. And it's, it's a Mexico City, San Francisco based company. Right. So, so they're getting talent, I guess, from, from San Francisco and then deploying it in industrial scenarios here in Mexico. And by doing that, getting the best of both worlds. But so because we tend to be three to five years behind the, the U.S. i haven't seen a whole lot of, of AI being used as, you know, as companies or LLMs, you know, native LLMs. Everyone says that they're using it. The governments claim that they, they want to get Sort of on the AI track, but the success cases or the use cases aren't very visible for, for the moment. And then as far as how we use AI, we're. We're using AI for marketing, right? We're using AI for interviewing, we're using AI for sourcing. So for us, AI is another tool that are talent acquisition specialists or vetting specialists or people who do the testing of the people who were, who, who were recruiting of all of these aspects. And our marketers go crazy with it. You. Because, you know, if, if you want volume, then, then AI is the best way to, to be able to market.
- [20:40]
B
That's perfect. Okay, well, leads me to another question because does that, is that part of the formula you have for your 21 day program? You have a 21 day.
- [20:53]
A
I don't, I don't remember the 21 day. Keith, my plug.
- [20:57]
B
Oh, the 21 days without the traps.
- [21:00]
A
Ah, got it, got it, got it. Okay, now I understand. So, so yes, I mean the, the ability to, you know, for, for a few weeks go without that. It's like anything, right? The first thing you got to do is admit you have a problem. Once, Once you admit you have a problem, then you have to realize what the problem is. And then the best, the best way to correct it is you have to be conscious about not falling into, you know, into the components of the death trap. So yes, the, the, we have a, on the, the website for the book, we have a workbook that sort of walks you through. How do you find the pitfalls? How do you identify them for you? How do you make sure that you're not falling into pitfalls and repetition like anything breeds success, right? If what you're repeating is, is, is good and that, that's where the 21 days comes in, right? If you can go 21 days creating awareness for you not to do those things, then, then you start to see that success.
- [22:02]
B
I like that. The other question I have that's similar, I'm thinking of like, I have one company, right? They have 10 people and there's a new thought within the valley that that's all you need these days, right? Because you have every, all these agents doing all the other work, But I have 10 people and I, I'm in the physical AI world where I'm building things. My AI is attaching to robots, it's attaching to cars, it's attaching to about different things. Where do we start to think about hiring offshore? At what stage? When you have that management layer settled and you need more Development more. Give me your idea of when you counsel startups is when it's time to consider looking for that offshore talent.
- [22:48]
A
You know that that's an excellent question and, and, and, and I, I'm seldom asked that. So I, I, I appreciate the, the nuance that you're looking for for. So in order to answer your question, we, we have to sort of go back in, in, in history and see how, how was offshoring started? And it was started in the 90s, right. 80s, 90s by large companies who wanted to lower cost and had that managerial level and had the processes in place in order to be able to do it. So because of that they could sort of offshore entire processes, right. And then have people do them offshore and then sort of spit them back, send them back in today's world. And, and as you said, 10, 10 people are doing what 100 people used to do. Right. So the fact that you're asking people to do more to be more effective and to be more efficient is, is important because the structures, the processes, that management layer tends to be put in place at, at companies earlier. So to be precise in my answer is you want management, you want culture, right? And then you want some processes in order to be able to have people work remotely. Because, and this is very important if you have people working remotely and it's not only in Latin America, even if you know, you're a Silicon Valley startup and you have people working in Austin or in New Hampshire or you know, or, or in Oakland across the bridge, but they don't to the office, then what, what you need is to have processes in place in order for your culture to be, in order for, not to be accidental.
- [24:35]
B
Right.
- [24:36]
A
You need it to be defined and for you to be able to bring someone in, integrate them onboard them, make them feel part of the company, understand what the company's about, what the processes are. So I would say that you probably, if you're a solopreneur and you're not looking to scale greatly, then bringing on people who can do repetitive tasks is one easy way to offshore. But what you were stating was a little more involved because you were saying a company that is doing AI, putting it into hardware. So for that you probably want the company to be a bit more mature with that management process and then start bringing on people so that they can be far more effective in the way that.
- [25:24]
B
Yeah, it occurs to me that maybe the epidemic had some small benefit in that it prepared companies to handle remote workers better and that you can assimilate multiple cultures in that same workflow.
- [25:39]
A
Yes, yes, no doubt. The pandemic created a fertile ground for people who, who were managing others to realize that just doing it over Skype, even if you're in the, in the same city or over Zoom. I said Skype. God, I'm old.
- [26:00]
B
So we do date ourselves. That's okay. Yeah.
- [26:03]
A
So doing it over.
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B
I could go back to AOL. So you're safe with us.
- [26:06]
A
Yeah.
- [26:09]
B
How about CompuServe? Do you go, you don't go that far back.
- [26:11]
A
No, no, I don't go that far back. You got mail. Right?
- [26:16]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [26:18]
A
So, so back to what we're saying. So people realize that having someone on the other end of a screen, even if the person was in the same city, you have to be far more organized and far more determined to make these things happen. Because communication isn't as easy when you're working shoulder to shoulder with someone. Right. You, you can over, you realize, are you screwing it up?
- [26:41]
B
Right?
- [26:42]
A
No, no, no. That's not the way I want you to do it. Whereas if you're doing it over Zoom, you, you have to wait until the person delivers something and that's when the conversation begins. So it's similar to prompting. Right. You've been mentioning AI a lot. Think about the framework, right? So rigorous talent selection. You have to make sure that it's the right agent. Right. Or the right model expert, onboarding integration, and then optimize team performance, be able to tell them how are they going to be measured, make sure that you measure them correctly, and that there's a feedback load loop. So it's, it's, it's very similar. Right. Again, because people are going to be working remotely. You have to make it far more, it, it far less accidental.
- [27:29]
B
Great. I want to make a quick pivot to talk about you, the entrepreneur, and the things you learned that you didn't expect to learn on this amazing journey you've had. Growing your first company in the business intelligence space and then pivoting to the recruiting space, the process of raising money, the process of hiring, kicking something off the, off the, to start selling your first product. The founder led. Selling motion, building teams, managing teams. You seem like such a natural entrepreneur and I know you are somewhat serial and started multiple businesses and now advise people. What are the things that surprise you most about your startup journey and what are the things that, I don't know, were the things that really upset you or surprised you?
- [28:24]
A
Yeah, you know, as, as, as, as you were mentioning all those things, I, I, I, I was getting. Keith, any, any entrepreneur that's been through this for many years or more than once has again, you know, we're, we're all pioneers, so we have the arrows, right, that brought into our back. Pioneers ultimately are, you know, you, you, you sort of suffer, suffer the consequences.
- [28:54]
B
Right? Picture Mel Gibson and Braveheart.
- [28:57]
A
Correct.
- [28:57]
B
Okay, but it's hard. Also, it's very time consuming and you're on an island, you feel alone a lot. But, but how do you adjust? What is it that you experience that was kind of special to you?
- [29:09]
A
So I think the, the two. Well, three. Three. Huge, huge for me, number one. Most entrepreneurs think my idea is the killer idea and I have to protect my dead cost, you know, at all costs. Right? I remember the first time I was sending my pitch deck to a VC and I said, I'm going to send you it, but can we sign an NDA first? Yeah. I says, are you kidding me? You have any idea how many pitches I look at? And I didn't realize it at first, but the lesson is, yes, ideas are important, but execution is 90 to 95%. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Right? I would be incredibly surprised. As innovative an idea that any of your listeners can have, I will bet you 100 to 1 that at least five other people have the same idea in different parts of the world at the same time. So what will differentiate the person or the group? That is successful execution. That's it. That's my first lesson. Second lesson, entrepreneurship is not a solo sport. It's a team sport. Even if it's a team sport, you know, just a couple of people in order for them to provide support to each other. You, you've, you've been through this. I'm, I'm sure, Keith, the highs are the highest you will, you have ever experienced. But how low are the lows?
- [30:44]
B
Right?
- [30:44]
A
You, you, you come out of a meeting where a potential customer basically says, yeah, I don't get it. You know, I, I don't understand what you do. You were going to the meeting thinking, you know, it, I'm Jack and the Titanic, right? I'm the king of the world. And then you realize that Titanic hit nice berg and it sunk. And not, not, not now you're floating in the, you know, in the Arctic circle. So the, the ability to weather, to, to be humbled during the highs and then to be lifted off the, the ground during the lows, that's part of the team, that's part of team spirit, part of team sport. And, and it's, it's not surprising that nowadays VCs are investing more in two and three person founder teams than, than one founder teams because they, they want this. And then lastly, I think the, the, the biggest lesson again, and it has to do with the previous two, is the most difficult thing in entrepreneurial life is product market fit. Yeah.
- [31:54]
B
Pmf, emf.
- [31:57]
A
Absolutely.
- [31:58]
B
So hard.
- [31:59]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [32:00]
B
And then so hard to recognize it because sometimes you feel like okay, I sold a couple, I have, I have product market fit and you go, well wait a second, that's not exactly the proper benchmark.
- [32:11]
A
Or, or, or you know, you sort of have product market fit in, in a market and then you realize, yeah, but this market is 10 people big.
- [32:19]
B
Right. So yeah, not as big as I.
- [32:21]
A
Thought or back, back to the drawing board.
- [32:23]
B
And now I, I, I need a new TAM analysis. Well, I totally agree with you though about the team point. I mean it stretches, let's stretch that analogy because you play and then you go, I gotta play to win. And then you start to define what winning means and then you're lucky enough it's one of those, you know, single digit percentage companies that come out of venture that actually win and find some kind of exit, hopefully a big one like you had. We played a win and then that win becomes addicting. Oh yeah, you know, I got to do it again or I got to find my way to get attached to that. And it's just so fun and so addicting. But yeah, I think it's great. You mentioned words like ego. You got to, you got to make sure that people have the right balance. Balance and how they, how they look at the failures that are come along the way that key hire left, that sales fell through your board rips you something not special. And so you have all that frustration that just comes with the territory.
- [33:28]
A
Yeah, I think that famous business philosopher Mike Tyson said, right. You have a perfectly laid out plan until you get punched in the face.
- [33:37]
B
Face. Yeah.
- [33:37]
A
And, and that's when the real fight begins. Right. So, so to what you said, I, I don't know any entrepreneur that goes into, you know, starting a company or, or just a solo effort and goes into thinking, well, you know, I'm going to be mediocre and I'll, you know, I just sort of fly by the seat of my pants and see what I get out of it. All of us think I, I'm going to be the next unicorn. I'm going to be the next winner. As you said, you play to win, you play hard, you know that it's going to be 12, 16 hour days, 6, 7 days a week, and you're determined to do this. And then boom, as you said, the market, the market hits you in the face and that's when the real battle begins.
- [34:25]
B
Let's get going. You're right. Well, listen, we're going to wrap up. I've taken way too much of your time already. But I do want to ask you, I'm somewhat familiar with the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Mexico. I don't have depth of knowledge though. But just from my standpoint, what can we do to help support more entrepreneurship in Mexico, across Latin America that will just benefit? I know there are government issues and there are tariff issues and all kinds of other nonsense at a macro level, but let's talk about what really happens here. We just got to deal with that, how we deal with that. Any thoughts?
- [35:09]
A
Sure. So, so first I, I'd actually say I believe that entrepreneurship is more prevalent in Latin America than it is in, in the US And I know that that's sort of counterintuitive. Let me briefly explain. So the type of entrepreneur that when I use the word entrepreneur pops into your head is very different than what pops, you know, what I'm trying to convey when I say the same thing in Mexico. So you have to understand Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, you know, all of the countries in Latin America because of all the typical economic boom and bust cycles that they go through. People have jobs and then they lose them and then they have a company and then they lose them. They're way more accustomed to fending for themselves. So, you know, whether it's the store in the corner or the person that's selling, you know, out of the trunk of their car, you know, tacos or tortas or whatever, just to make a living, to me, those are entrepreneurs. And because of that it's way more prevalent because it's the, the opportunities are harder to come by for, you know, meaningful jobs in Latin America. Yeah, but if, if we sort of put that entrepreneurship to the side and, and go at the, you know, how do we build companies with the ability to scale, grow and potentially exit which, which is I think what the, the what you tried to convey when you use entrepreneurship. Fortunately it's growing there, there, there, there are far more colleges, universities that are teaching this. The fact that the world is flatter right to mention the book has made it so that a lot of younger people are seeing the success in other places, whether it's Denmark, Sweden, the us, India, and they want to participate in that. So the hunger is there. Universities have because of that, started dealing a lot more in entrepreneurship. I remember in the early 2000s, I would go to Mexican universities to, you know, sort of talk about what we were doing. And I'd say, how many of you here are looking to start, you know, your own company? And out of a room of 40, 50 people, maybe three or four hands would go up. I did the same thing about 10 months ago. I went to the Tech de Monterrey and you know, and I was giving a talk and I asked the same question and I was surprised to see exactly the opposite. 45, 46 hands went up and they all wanted to, to start their own company. So the mindset has shifted. And then lastly, there's more VCs, there's more funding, there's more angels, and there's more people, you know, like me that have gone to the other side of the border, so to speak, live that and then come back, you know, or from afar. Be willing to, to provide the, the experience and the expertise.
- [38:08]
B
Luis, thank you. This has been great. I wish we could go on longer. We could talk about so many more things, but you've given us a great, a great lesson in terms of hiring and near you sounds like it's on a great role. So success, continued success.
- [38:26]
A
Thank you.
- [38:26]
B
Yes, it's been fantastic.
- [38:28]
A
I appreciate the opportunity. Keith, I'm sorry, I think I jumped into some. My apologies, but as I said, it's an honor. It's a pleasure. If there's anything that I can do for you or any of the listeners, please, on LinkedIn. Look for me Louis spelled the Latino way. L U I S my last name Durachen. D E R E C H I N DM me there or email me. You can find my email.
- [38:55]
B
I'll drop it into the show. Notes for my listeners. That'll be up in a week or two. And listen, we have a couple agenda items to follow up on already, including I got to take you to al Pastor Poppy, my food truck turned restaurant in the Bay Area. I gotta get down to Mexico and have a look at your operation and then go off to one of your favorite watering holes, perhaps. Looking forward, but I look forward to seeing how this, this whole evolution goes with the, the staffing, what's happening, the offshoring challenges and how those get corrected. Just a lot of fun stuff. And then finally, maybe we could be part of an ownership team that can bring the Oakland A's or another franchise that you love, maybe a new friend, maybe we've just moved the A's out of Vegas and over to Juarez or Mexico City.
- [39:47]
A
They can't be worse, right? I mean, the Tijuana Athletics we got, they got.
- [39:52]
B
I love it. It should. It should happen. Anyway, thank you so much for your time.
- [39:56]
A
Thank you. Take care.
- [39:58]
B
Take care.