E03: Winston Damarillo - Silicon Valley & Growing from Failure

Speaker A: So I was a VC from intel who left intel and things were a little too easy. So, uh, I got my first check, a $10 million first check in 2004. Right. Uh, without a business plan. Right. And that was actually bad. We competed with IBM at ebay and we won. Right. And that's the reason why the acquisition happened. When you were younger and I was at the time younger and had more options, you tend to be a bit more stubborn.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Um, and, uh, I would say just listen more.

Speaker B: Hi everybody and welcome to our third episode of True Founder Stories, a show where we discuss FinTech AI and cross border expansion. My name is Felix and I'm your host for the show today. With me is Winston d', Amarillo, who is a serial entrepreneur with multiple successful exits. He, he was also an investor in Silicon Valley at Intel Capital. Winston leads Talino Venture Labs, a venture studio, and he's also the CEO of Hidala. Winston, it's great to see you today. Thanks so much for joining us.

Speaker A: Hi Felix. Thanks for having me here. This is exciting.

Speaker B: Great. So let's kick off with our episode. Um, you've spent considerable time in two geographies, both the US as well as the Philippines. Maybe you can talk a little bit about how those two places have shaped you as a person.

Speaker A: It's very interesting. Like, I feel like I'm boomeranging between two places, but I was born in the Philippines. I grew up, uh, in an emerging country in the Philippines and built, uh, most of my career in the United States. So it's an interesting journey to go from the Philippines to the United States and find my way into Intel Corporation and then finding my way back to the Philippines, uh, and specifically, uh, through technology and entrepreneurship. So it feels great to be able to, uh, traverse the two geographies, uh, so to speak. But it's even more fun to actually kind of feel like coming home, uh, after learning a lot from the United States, uh, and now we're feeling like the America has something to learn from Southeast Asia as well.

Speaker B: Maybe take us a bit back to the early days of maybe your childhood, early career. How did you grow up? What was that like?

Speaker A: So I was born in a province in the Philippines, south of the Philippines in, uh, in Bohol, which is an island where, you know, it's more popular now for its beaches. But I was born in Bohol and grew up in Cagayan de Oro, which is the Mindanao side of the Philippines. So I grew up, uh, both in a very diverse culture, uh, right. Muslims, uh, Chinese and native Filipinos. Um, and then I went to school in Manila in De La Salle University. And that's kind of when I started thinking about, you know, career and what future lies and all of that. And so I've always been an entrepreneur. I was born out of parents, ah, that my mom's a CEO, my dad's a CEO. I normally wake up in the morning, they've already gone working in the office and I usually sleep at night, my grandparents taking care of me and doing all of that stuff. And when I meet them, it's usually for lunch at our office. And it feels like a board meeting or a catch up meeting. So we've always, I think, uh, whether we consciously and unconsciously do it, they kind of injected uh, entrepreneurship in us early on. Uh, and so that was kind of the environment that I started with. I didn't know that the career path I take, entrepreneurship, was going to be in technology. But fortunately it just happened to be that way. And I'm grateful that the path that I ended up taking.

Speaker B: What was maybe from that time, one of the beliefs that you picked up from the time that is still with you today.

Speaker A: I think that, uh, the one important lesson uh, in my life was resilience. Um, my parents, when I was growing up, we were rich, right? We were one of the well known wealthy, uh, Filipinos in Cagande Oro, which I was growing up. And then at the fourth year of my high, uh, school, we lost all of that. And my dad actually was very clear on his point of view for me. He said, hey, when you were born, we had all this money, but before you, your mom and I built all this wealth, right? And uh, I know we've lost it and that's gotta hurt. But we started from nothing, so it's not a problem. Start over again. I think that kind of carried through, right, because when I was in college, um, we have lost all our wealth then. And I went to a very wealthy school in De La Salle and I couldn't like find myself, uh, in a situation where I couldn't afford the things I used to have. And so I started being an entrepreneur early on at 16, 17 years old, uh, already buying and selling, uh, tractor components and all of that stuff kind of out of necessity, but also from an acceptance that, that being unable to afford things was not acceptable. And there's a way that you can do that, right? And so when I eventually migrated to the United States, um, I wasn't afraid of being out of resources. Uh, and America is really a really good venue for that. Right. If you're, if you're resilient and you're, you know, uh, industrious and all that kind of stuff, you'll find a way. And that's kind of how I found my way to Intel Corporation. And actually my first big job in the US Was. Was with Intel.

Speaker B: Yeah, let's talk a bit more about Intel. What was it like there, and what were some of the deals that you were looking at when you were at Intel Capital?

Speaker A: Well, just, uh, prior to Intel Capital, um, what's really interesting was how I got to Intel. Uh, I was a Filipino, you know, graduated from De La Salle in the Philippines. And I was competing with MIT grads and Harvard grads and all of that. And this was the early days where computer and voice just started to merge together. And I had thought that the way to get into intel was technology. And so, uh, I was, you know, I was working on GSM, uh, and, uh, what's called GSR, uh, 28, which is a compression algorithm for voice over the Internet. And I told intel, hey, you can have my tech if you hire me. But that was kind of, I guess, a really important start for intel because intel is a very engineering culture company. Like, everybody's an engineer, right? So we always have this joke of, you know, he's an engineer that knows accounting, or he's an engineer that knows marketing, or he's an engineer that knows sales, right? So all of us had this one common theme is the engineering mindset. So when intel started to branch out, right, beyond the hardware engineering that we're so good at, uh, the primary approach was let's just influence and then make investments. And so that's kind of where intel capital, I guess, kind of came out of, right? We know we're good at hardware, and we know we're good at microprocessors, and we know we're an important ingredient to the Valley. But there was a consciousness at the time that we're not going to dabble in things we're not good at. And so we used capital. And that's kind of my foray into intel capital. Uh, we wanted the gaming companies, uh, to use our chips. And so at the time, we invented multimedia chips called mmx. We invented, uh, agp, which are graphics cards. And we wanted software, uh, title makers to use those technologies to enhance the 3D aspects of their gaming. And the main concern they have is why would I build 3D games on title? I'm not sure people are going to buy this. Right. And the investment's really high. And so intel said, well, why don't we invest money in you guys? So for me that was the start of Intel Capital. And I believe at the time there's only like eight or 12 VCs in the valley. And so there was a good old Wild west, uh, at Intel Cap. And those are the fun days where geeks were really helping geeks through capital.

Speaker B: Yeah. And maybe going through that experience of venture capital in Silicon Valley and then also of course, being an entrepreneur in the Philippines. How do those two places compare in terms of the people, the culture, the affinity for technology, etc.

Speaker A: Early on there was this perception that the center of the universe is Silicon Valley, right. And the rest of the world were just ingredients to it. Right. And even with me, right. And I've sold the company since then, but, uh, even with me, I have thought that, you know, we will invent in Silicon Valley and I'll use cheap labor from wherever it's available. At the time when I actually moved from working at intel as a VC and became an entrepreneur of my own company. In fact, when we built Glue Code, which is the first startup that I built, the first iteration of Glue Code actually didn't work. It bombed out. Right. So I was a VC from intel who left intel and things were a little too easy. So uh, I got my first check, a $10 million first check in 2004. Right. Uh, without a business plan. Right. And that was actually bad, uh, because it brought bad habits to it. And so when that company didn't work, I, uh, actually returned half of it back to the VCs and restarted all over again. And then I started realizing that globalization of innovation is actually really important. And this is the dawn of open source, uh, at the time. And so we were um, really fascinated with what the Apache Software foundation is doing and what Linux is doing. And could you really build software companies that could compete with Microsoft with free labor at the time? And that's when my understanding of the global human capital changed dramatically. Because instead of thinking of the Philippines or India or China, all these things as just source of lower cost human capital, it actually, um, flipped that into there's innovation everywhere in the world. Right. And so the second iteration of Glue Code, right, when I rebuilt it again, I raised money again. Um, this time it was different. We used open source as a mindset, we used global human capital as the engine, the fuel of it, and we used Silicon Valley as the metric of it. So Glue Code can be summoned in something very simple. We, uh, used Apache as The framework by which we collaborated in creating and inventing and innovating, I used the Philippines as the, um, anchor factory of really producing the products. And we validated in Silicon Valley. And in fact our first client was ebay. And eBay in 2004 and five is kind of early on, right? And we competed with IBM at ebay and we won. Right? And that's the reason why the acquisition happened because those, uh, key catalysts to say, hey, this could become a serious threat and by being threatening to a big gorilla is kind of why we all do this, right? Is be disruptive and challenge conventional wisdom. And glue Code was the first ever acquisition of IBM in open source. They validated not just open source, but globalization. But I failed one thing there. I didn't highlight the Philippines, right. I highlighted the fact that we get validated in Silicon Valley. And I've changed, I've trying to change that ever since. But that was an interesting early days. Um, it was actually, in my opinion, the benefit of what Silicon Valley brings to the table, but also the realization that, hey, everyone in the world can participate in this.

Speaker B: Yeah, very interesting. And we talked a bit about finding meaning, right? And I found this quote from you online. If there's one thing to do, it's to do introspective soul searching to find your passion. Um, what did that process look like for you and what did you find?

Speaker A: I think it evolves over time and this is kind of in the hierarchy of need. And when I was trying to, when I moved to the United States, it was can I work for intel or IBM or Microsoft, right? Those was my goal, right? And honestly I tried 20 times to work at any of those companies. And it wasn't until I said, hey, I have software and if you, you know, hire me, you get my software, my patents. Um, and so that was the first validation just to be, be a part of the stage. The second validation was like, would an intel recognized me from an emerging country to be a part of their most important group at the time? Venture capital is new, right? And so, uh, being able to be a part of that group that pioneered the idea of high risk strategic investment to entrepreneurs, uh, was something that's another check. And when the leadership of intel said, hey, it's time for you to go build your own startup, that was another check, right? Can I be CEO? Can I be able, can I convince venture capital to invest in me? And so there's a series of, of check marks and gates that you pass as you enter that journey. But then when that Journey hits an important milestone. And to me that's when the World Economic Forum, you know, nominated me as a ygl. And the question that gets posed to us in Davos was like, so where do you find meaning in your life? Right? And when the basics have checked, I've checked economics, I've checked, um, validation of your technical skills, it's like the mark you leave when you're done. What do people remember you by? And to me that was the impetus actually of then flying back to Southeast Asia and investing more of my time in Southeast Asia and also picking fintech because I thought that that space and that, um, area of blending of technology and business model innovation is what lifts most people. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, let's talk a bit about that. What kind of pulled you into launching your venture studio and what ultimately made you start Higala as a company?

Speaker A: Well, I'm trying to think whether venture studio is the right terms, actually. I feel like, um, so Talino is the venture studio and we called it that because venture studios, uh, have both. Right? It's got entrepreneurship and capital in it. Tolino, uh, had capital. This was the fruits of the early exits and more investments from companies like Chemonix. And there's really another component that we had at Tolino, which is the factory. I have about 300 engineers in the Philippines, so we can kind of think of something and build it quickly. And the third was, um, being able to provide a safe, reliable place for entrepreneurs and uh, exiting executives to find something, um, stable for them to make a risk on. And the context that we picked was fintech, because I thought Fintech created its own moat by being complex to be in it. Right. There's regulatory, uh, hurdles that you have to cross. Ecosystem built up in fintech's hard. You need to know banks, you need to know regulators, you need to know other players. And the technological challenge is high, right? Sure. Akyc, aml, all the technology. So it was a good context for us to do so. I thought this is a good place to build a venture studio on because you can leverage all of this into multiple contexts. And from a startup venture economic standpoint, your risk of failure is low. And your at bats, meaning the number of tries you can do is a lot more for the capital you spend. That was my theory. And so we built multiple startups in that space. And in particular Higala, uh, the startup that uh, we are excited about and uh, we're spending a lot, I'm spending directly. A lot of my effort is really codifies that because Then it takes the idea of something very complex and implement an infrastructure for the entire country.

Speaker B: Maybe we can give our listeners a few words on what Igala does in simple terms.

Speaker A: So Igala is uh, an infrastructure company. It's uh, built to augment Instapay, which is our version of PayNow or UPI or Pix in the Philippines. But it's built so that multiple financial institutions, rural banks and big banks can participate in. It's participated in by large and small banks in the Philippines like Banco de Oro and rcbc. And then it's highly desired by rural banks and cooperatives and fintechs, uh, to be a platform they can count on so that money becomes standardized in the Philippines and that uh, we can have a more fluid way to pay each other.

Speaker B: Great. You also mentioned that open source has been a topic for you throughout your career. How does Open source come into play for Higata?

Speaker A: So the beauty of open payments is there's similarity in every implementation that you can see around the world. Right? It's you wanted a uh, system that has a common language, in this case a standard called ISO 222 which is the lingua franca uh, or the common language of payments. Uh, it's intended so that it benefits more when there's multiple people participating in it, not just one particular brand. That's an important piece. Third is it evolves really quickly as a community meaning the evolution moves around the need for central banks to provide more stability in banking system but also in alignment with the rest of the world. So that's natural for open source. It's almost like an operating system. Igala in particular selected to partner with the Gates foundation and Moj Loop uh, to deliver an open source based infrastructure for payments in the Philippines and it's used here in Singapore as well uh, for Nexus. We in particular pick uh, Moja Loop because I think not only will it get immediate impact from trusted providers uh, around the world, but it also will evolve very quickly so that it can be repeated over and over in the rest of emerging countries that's going to adopt it. The goal of Higala is to make payments very, very inexpensive so that everyone can take advantage of it and then make it a platform for even better good. Right. So for instance lower cost lending, lower cost remittance, lower cost transactions and lower cost interbank uh, exchange of goods. So I think open source accelerates the commoditization. So open source companies are never afraid of commoditization. Right? Because we feel that as we Commoditize the plumbing, we increase the value, add to our clients. And so I've seen that uh, for the three companies that I built and exited, um, people think that when you deal with open source you're giving away software. It's actually not right. You're opening yourself for collaboration so you can do even more innovation. And the innovation that we deliver is on the business benefit as opposed to the code itself, codes. In my opinion, it's going to become even more commodity with AI. Right. So this allows us to focus more on how can I help the rural banks, how can I help the fishmonger digitize cash, how can I help lower the cost of lending? And so that's what open source brings to the table. Uh, and that's what we're hoping at Higala, uh, to be our main weapon, uh, to disrupt this ecosystem.

Speaker B: Right. You also talked about AI and I do want to talk about especially the large transformer models because when you think about open source versus closed source, we see that some of the leading models, um, OpenAI, paradoxically as well as XAI, are using closed weight models, um, while some others are using open weight models. Do you think ultimately we're going to a future where everything will be open source or at least open weight?

Speaker A: I think so. I think that um, the temporary um, barriers that we think we have in IP ephemeral, it's not going to last. Right. I think the idea that collaboratively built technology will always win has uh, already been proven. It's the case. So that allows entrepreneurs like myself to focus on value we bring. Right. Am I helping people get lower cost credit? Am I helping businesses flow much quicker? Am I helping reduce the number of, of shark lenders, right. Uh, in the ecosystem? And when we think about that higher plane, that's never going to be automated, that's never going to be commoditized. Right. And as you bring value to it, there's, there's benefit in the business and that's ultimately what creates market caps, that ultimately what creates value for, for us in venture. Uh, so we welcome not just open source but AI as well in this place. And there's so much more problems to fix that the temporary replacement of valuable assets that you may consider a moat is less significant than the value we can potentially bring if we use and harness open source and AI together.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And of course reaching these noble goals that you've defined for most entrepreneurs, for all entrepreneurs, means going through a lot of pain, a lot of challenges. Looking back at your professional career, what was the most painful moment for you so far?

Speaker A: I think, uh, failing a mentor to me was the most painful part. Uh, there's a mentor that I met in Silicon Valley. His name is Dado Banatao. And um, I, uh, invited him to help me in my company. He also invested in me. And I think over time there was a divergence of ideas between the two of us. And a lot of the earlier younger startups tend to have to face this dilemma of do I, um, compromise or do I, uh, stay within what I believe to be true? And I think being able to go back to your mentor and settle the score before you take your own path versus just doing it on your own, uh, is the one place I would go back to and say, hey, I should have listened or I should have had more conversation to process that. I think when you're younger and I was at the time younger and had more options, you tend to be a bit more stubborn.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Um, and uh, I wish I just listened more. Um, I wish I had just communicated more. Um, and now I value that because I'm looking at my career now to be more of a mentor than the executor, uh, of efforts. But the people you meet along the way is important. And I think taking the time to value that would have made my career better, would have made my exits stronger, uh, would have shortened my cycle of getting to where I want to be. Uh, so I'm catching up, uh, to that, uh, and I m keep that in mind for most part and, and uh, try to make sure I don't run into that again.

Speaker B: Right. And in those situations, of course, all of us wish we had some sort of moral compass that is guiding us through these difficult decisions. Right. How do you build and maintain your compass?

Speaker A: Um, I think that um, again, being the superhero with a lot of helpers, and you tend to get that, by the way, the more success you have. But having good co founders is important, having good investors is important. Ensuring that, um, your horizon is longer than the short term is important. And really, uh, just um, drinking your own Kool Aid, I guess what we used to call it, right? And to be self aware that there, uh, are people smarter than you, there are people that care more about the topic that you are working on and you seek that out, uh, is actually a very important investment. As soon as you start thinking that you're the brightest, sharpest guy in the world and you start realizing there are other people that can do that for you. It's hard to be a startup CEO. It's lonely job. And you can make that a lot less lonely if you have a lot more, um, collaboration and friends around you.

Speaker B: Yeah. And interestingly this level of humility is something that you usually observe as you become more experienced. You see, the more experienced entrepreneurs, they get to that level of humility actually later in the stage, even though they have so much more experience.

Speaker A: Don't wait too long, don't wait till you're 55 or 56 to have that. Right. So have that. That's kind of what I tell the younger entrepreneurs. Right. Like learn early. And I uh, have a lot of entrepreneurs in my ecosystem that I kind of see where they're going as a. Hey, but you know, it's going to be a little bit more tougher. But you know, you know what's great about um, younger entrepreneurs these days is that your bandwidth for interaction is a lot more than before. We used to do email and text messaging right now there's like 50 other channels to do that. So use it, you know, and take advantage of it. Um, it's also fun because there's a lot more to solve these days.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, and so, you know, I would say if, if you know, you and the ecosystem of venture capital, I'm sure it's a lot more fun because there's more tools uh, to see, to solve more problems and there's more energy around there.

Speaker B: It definitely resonates. And when we sort of thought about what are our company values for Cardan Capital, because I think it's very key. Some companies come up with seven or nine different values. I think you should probably have maximum three. One of them is shoshin, which is Japanese for beginners mind. And I think it implies a few things. One is that you're constantly learning, you're always looking for new information. But you also built this level of humility where you assume that others are smarter than you and you kind of have to start and work your way through the problem instead of assuming and deciding based on your past knowledge only. I think that's a very, very valuable um, sort of mindset to kind of attack this.

Speaker A: Yeah. And you know, I gotta say this. So the reason why we're partnered with Kadan and hey Gala is that I feel like you uh, at Kadan and along with uh, 1982 Scott and her son, I still the hardest working VC, uh, uh, that I know. I feel like your co founders in Higala. And apart from all the attributes, the Japanese attributes that is embodied in Kadan, there's a word that I've learned early on in my VC called Kiritsu, I believe it meant a, uh, community of practice. Right. That, you know, it's an informal, uh, people of like mine, uh, on a similar mission. And that's kind of the tenet I worked by an early days of my venture capital. Right now we weren't competing with Kleiner Perkins or Sequoia or Benchmark or Matrix. Right. We were all working together because it was a harder problem to fix. And I think that's coming back. I think it's good that, that that kind of mindset's there. And, uh, like I said, we got a lot more problems to solve these days. Uh, and, uh, you know, the ecosystem is good and vibrant, especially here in Southeast Asia.

Speaker B: Yeah. Talking about problems and challenges, since we're on that topic, uh, I do want to talk about your previous exits a little bit. What are some of the challenges that you had to go through to get to exits? What are some of the unobvious, um, hurdles that people might have to overcome?

Speaker A: I think managing expectations, the hardest part, right? So when you're pitching, when I'm talking to you at the time, right. The goal is to hit, to hit the highest level of potential value creation and to do it at the least amount of resources in the spot. So as an entrepreneur, I switch gears. I start with being optimistic. The world's my oyster and all of the stuff, right? Then I operate. Then I have to deal with burn rates and fundraising rounds and sales forecasts and gross margins and take rates and CACs and LTVs right along the way. That becomes, it blurs your vision a little bit because you have to deal with, oh my God, if I don't do this, I'm laying off people the following day. And so that challenge just kind of your conviction a little bit, right? And it, and be able to have a steady hand to say, look, um, I'm going to stay with my vision. I mean, I'm going to do what needs to be done, right. Even if it's laying off my friend, or even if telling my co founders we're going to take less salary today, or even going back to my VC and said, hey, that vision I was telling you, it's a little bit tricky at the moment, right. That's hard. And it's even harder to communicate that. And creating an environment where people can tell you it's time or co partners and investors and partners, that being able to say it's okay, uh, that kind of frame of mind and that kind of situation is hard to create. It's almost hard to say I'm in trouble when you're in trouble. Right. Especially if you're the CEO of the company. So I think being self conscious is important uh, for that, uh, not losing your sight but also realizing that hey, this is the time to be thinking about things. Um, but I think we're all in this business to do that. And I think that most entrepreneurs don't realize that most investors just wants to get a straight situation of what's going on and they tend to also adjust. So I think it's just that interaction is important. I think developing relationships are important to begin with, uh, when you're starting out and that sets the tone uh, for how you would build these companies together. And VCs know that this is a high failure rate business. Right? We're going to fund 10 companies and expect three to win.

Speaker B: That's true, that's true. And the good VCs, I believe they will always tell the hard truth as well and share what's going wrong. And B, at the same time I think the ultimate goal for a VC is trying to be there when things are not going well and actually being able to help and to listen. I think those situations will be the definitive ones.

Speaker A: Yeah, like I said, I've never seen uh, uh, a partner like you in 19, uh 82 in Kadan that actually is actively looking for what's the next step, what's the next benchmark? And you engage that as opposed to One of the VCs that I try to avoid are the ones that just says hey, you said you're going to do this next month. M. You're not there. Uh, I think what's refreshing about the younger group of VCs here in Singapore and Southeast Asia in general is more like what can I do for you? Right. It's different and you feel like you have a partner, not a boss. Uh, ah, that's important. I think that's a healthy ecosystem here in Southeast Asia. I can contrast that with Sand Hill Road. It's different. Uh, that's still there in San Hill Road. That's still the high bar. Give it back to me quickly kind of mindset still there. Not all, but that's dominantly like the difference. Uh, so you have a little bit more courage here to build startups. Um, our challenge is to have big exits and that's probably the next thing we need to do.

Speaker B: Right. You talked a bit about power, law, investing and that in a VC portfolio, only a few companies will win. Now you've been of course, a VC investor that had to build with that mindset. You're also an entrepreneur that is focused and has to focus on many different things at once. Um, how do you stay focused on the right thing?

Speaker A: It's a challenge every day, uh, to think about that. But you know, you have as, as an investor, I'm burdened and benefited by the idea that I'm a VC and an entrepreneur at the same time.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So I look at all my efforts as, okay, this one's going to be a home run, this is the double and this is a base hit and this was a dude, right? And be able to decide on that very quickly. Saves you money and saves you effort. Right. And so while I think like that as a vc, I also kind of have a little bit of that as an entrepreneur. The only difference is as an entrepreneur, you're dealing with resource management within one context, meaning the startup. So from my perspective, I only have Higala to think about. Right. As an example. And so for instance, when things are not going well in regulatory, I worry about go to market and if go to market is not quite there, I work about strategic impact. Right. And real example for Higala, um, we're working with the central bank and naturally we're going to need to wait for regulatory um approvals and regulatory um frameworks to be passed and we have to be patient on that. Right. Meanwhile, I have a burn rate. Right. I need to make money.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So my team goes out and say, okay, we're going to continue to work with central bank to wait for what we need to get done on regulatory stuff, but let's increase our service line so that we can offer more services to rural banks and we make more money meanwhile. Right. And when that also needs to be augmented, then we start thinking about, so how will we make Higala more strategic at the moment? Right. So let's go work with Mojo Loop and make some donations and work with. So I think it's important for an entrepreneur that as you make those decisions between trade offs, right. Like my main strategy is not going there yet. Um, I need to have plan B, plan C, plan D. Right. And be able to execute that and then be able to be agile enough to do that. Then communicate this more transparently with your partners. Because entrepreneurs move faster than the investors. Right. At least in the board on, uh, the startup. So then that communication starts. When I said I failed the mentor, that's the piece I didn't do. Right? Right. I knew I was doing the right thing in the Maneuvers I did, but I didn't bring along people that have invested money in me in my m. Previous startups. And so, uh, that's the uh, important challenge that the entrepreneur do that. And then a lot of us mask it around the fact that I'm too busy to do this. Actually, that's not the reason. It's actually I'm too afraid to open up to doing that. Right. So the moment you're like, be less afraid and having good co founders make you less afraid, the more that thing, that friction that happens between investors and execution operators, uh, have mismatched. So we're trying to avoid that. And that's how we manage our day. And that's every month when I meet with my board and talk to my investors. Those are the vectors I worry about. Where are we strategically? Where are we regulatory? Where we can. Where are we in a revenue strategy? And it's not all green in all those factors.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Never is. Uh, that's an amazing insight. Um, I think we've covered your work, we've covered your professional background. I do want to cover you as a person a little bit more as well. And I do want to ask you, how would you describe your worldview? Are you positive? Are you a capitalist? Are you politically engaged?

Speaker A: I am not politically engaged. I'm a Republican that voted Democrat. And I'm clear, where am I right now? Um, but I'm very concerned in the transition. Uh, I think the world's evolving and also in an age where I'm beginning to look at a lot of what I do is soon to be inherited by my son and how can we do that transition? So I think there's a bit of an angst politically, uh, for me at least both in what's happening in the United States where I live, and uh, what's going on in the Philippines where I was born, uh, and in the world in general. Right. Where are we going there? So I'm kind of, kind of cautious and a little nervous about what's going on there. On my geek side. I'm excited. Right. Uh, you know, AI is really here and it's really making an impact and it's going to be dramatic in terms of what's going to happen in every aspect. Whether it's fintech or cloud, climate tech or whatever aspect we do, AI is going to change the world and we get to participate in that. And that's great. Right. I get, because I'm older, I get to participate in, uh, when we transition from offline to online when the web became popular and we started doing commerce and I sold my first startup to power the first Web 1.0 commerce in the platform, got to participate in the birth, the dawn of open source, the early stage of cloud. I think AI is going to be a more dramatic evolution for that. So it's great to be in this time. So I'm highly optimistic about what technology can do, uh, to humanity. So it's really exciting. Um, and I also think that we're about to leave this world to the next generation. So for instance, I feel guilty that my son's going to inherit a less than desirable planet, ah, than where we're leaving it from. And, and to be able to say, hey, for my last move. Right, um, this is what we're going to impart and what I'm really highly motivated about is to ensure that the framework and my personal framework and platform would be stabilized in the next five to 10 years so that the amount of what I can leave behind is dramatic. So for my investor, that means we're going to try to make a lot of money, as much as we can right now, of course. Uh, but that's driven on the fact that it's important for me what I can leave behind. I think that what I've worked hard on early on got me my home, you know, my startups, my venture fund, uh, my infrastructure to do cool and fun things. And I'm grateful for that. And you know, it's out of hard work, but the opportunity to build something then you can leave behind actually changes you when you think about it. Right. You tend to be a bit more thoughtful in the startups that you make. And I'm kind of on that stage.

Speaker B: Right, right. What would you want your companies to be remembered for or your legacy?

Speaker A: I want my companies to have impact. I think the most fun I've done is actually nonprofit effort during the pandemic. And, uh, this is where I met Chemonics, where the government asked for help. We wanted to provide infrastructure for pandemic response in the country. Uh, so we made QR code quarantine systems and ran across an opportunity to provide a digital, uh, social humiliation platform for 8 million Filipinos. And we built that from a volunteer engineering team of a thousand that we delivered in three weeks that, you know, helped a lot of people not have to, you know, be on a 1km long line just to receive cash so they have money to buy food. Right. Digitize that whole process. And that was addicting. And that feeling was kind of was driving me to Build more and more of these fintech startups that I'm building right now. And so that felt good and that we want to do more of. And so if Talina Ventures, a public benefit corporation, um, we wanted to make sure that that profit, while it's our primary motive, is not the only motive, uh, for building these things.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And correcting my past, uh, imperfections. Ah. And learning more from it and then sharing that more so that, you know, I'm better off. Because my dad was good at realizing his weaknesses and he shared that right before his death. I don't want to be in my deathbed to be able to share it. I want to do it earlier. Yeah. Ah. Um, so I think the last, the next five to ten years is super important for me. Um, from that, from that legacy perspective, amazing.

Speaker B: And maybe on the note of becoming a better person, what's a great piece of advice that you've received that you wish you'd gotten earlier?

Speaker A: Well, I said don't drink your own Kool Aid. Right. So I think, uh, self awareness is hard, especially when you're succeeding. And my dad was telling me that he was a better person, a better entrepreneur after he failed. I think I got better when I failed my mentor at one point. That got me to realize it and I got even better when my dad was able to, to tell me that, um, you know, the numeric aspects, if you do what's right, the numbers will follow. And so I'm trying to live that a little sooner, I think, and being around people that have a lot of potential and changing my role, being the guy that's going to fix it all to the guy that can enable more people to fix more things, uh, is what I look forward to. And so it makes you have a lot more energy to wake up in the day thinking that's your goal.

Speaker B: Now what's actually a big, hairy, audacious goal that you have right now.

Speaker A: The Philippines is in a great path at the moment, especially now, to evolve into a truly emerged country. Um, there's some signs that our government's correcting the ship. Um, we've always had great human potential, human capital in the Philippines. Uh, we've always thought that there is a spark that could happen making Philippines, uh, its own powerhouse even among Filipinos. To have that confidence that we're good on our own, uh, that we can self validate that to be the case and bring that confidence is something that I think can be done. And yeah, it's a smaller goal actually from a global perspective, but it's a bigger goal from a Filipino perspective.

Speaker B: Fantastic. I think that's a super valuable goal to have. Thank you so much for your time today. It was a pleasure having you on the podcast today.

Speaker A: Thanks for having me. This was a lot of fun.

Speaker B: Thanks for tuning in to the latest episode of True Founder Stories, where we talk to entrepreneurs about fintech, AI and global expansion. Stay tuned for our next episode and thanks for watching.