Speaker 1: 0:01

Hey, we're here live on Impact Innovators podcast, and this is the podcast where real founders like Maria here are sharing their stories of how they got their company going all the trials and tribulations and hopefully, some triumphs as well and they're going to share some actionable items that maybe you can use in your own business. So welcome to the show, maria.

Speaker 2: 0:22

Hi, thanks for having me here, Shane.

Speaker 1: 0:24

Oh, it's so nice to see you. We got to meet through an, actually a founder's incubator, a business incubator called the DMZ, and you guys were invited to my hometown here in Innisfil, which is just north of Toronto, canada, and yeah, we got a nice little place here on the lake. It's a gorgeous place, and so we got a chance to sit down, you and your husband Erwin, and talk a little bit about just business in general, what's going on and that kind of stuff. Anyway, I'm going to introduce Maria Sukang. I think I pronounced that correctly.

Speaker 2: 0:56

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 0:57

She is the founder of Remotify, which is I call it an outsourcing company located in the Philippines, but they're an employer of record, so they actually employ the personnel. They're treated as true employees. It's a real human kind of approach to all of this kind of thing and I'll save the story for you to tell. But I think you've got a different model in terms of how we can hire remote workers here in North America and all over the world, really. So Maria is a wonderful advocate of business and founders and that whole story. She is actually been voted as one of the top 10 startup founders in Asia in 2023 and top 30 leaders on LinkedIn worldwide.

Speaker 2: 1:39

Philippines, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:40

Wow, that's some pretty amazing stuff. So why don't you tell us how you got that all started?

Speaker 2: 1:43

Sure, so a little bit you tell us how you got that all started, sure. So a little bit about Remotify first. Remotify, indeed, is an employer of Record Plus Solution. What we do is we help startups and mid-market companies extend their runway by building remote teams in the Philippines, and one of the things that drove that is there are 85 million jobs unfilled in the West and 3 billion workers joining the workforce from emerging markets in the next 10 years and, according to Boston Consulting Group, the Philippines will surpass the average participation rate in the global workforce by 2030.

Speaker 2: 2:26

I had no idea that was the case.

Speaker 1: 2:27

Yeah, I would have guessed that it was India or China or something.

Speaker 2: 2:29

We have always been. For the past 30 years we've always been second to India in terms of outsourcing. But people's minds Philippines is this small country, but we're actually a pretty large country, we have 7,000 islands, and during the pandemic it really started the idea of Remotify right, because all of a sudden, businesses, everybody understood that all of a sudden you can have teams anywhere, it doesn't matter where you are. Digitalization already opened up the lid to globalization of work a long time ago, but the pandemic just blew that lid right off. And so during the pandemic, what we've realized is and I've been in corporate and same as Erwin right, my last corporate job before founding Remotify, I was with Erwin working at a UK-based telco tech startup. I worked there for 12 years, uk-based TelcoTech startup. I worked there for 12 years office space as well. I had teams in the Philippines, in Portugal, in Poland, in Hong Kong and at one point in London. And Erwin also worked there for five years and he was the global head of provisioning there and he also had teams in three continents and all managing it remotely. So we already knew that we could be in the office and the whole day we would be in calls with people from Portugal, from Russia, from the UK, from the US, and so we know this the back of our hands. Right, I've traveled to Portugal every quarter before to meet with my teams, but we were able to build the best culture and the best bonds, even when we're not face-to-face.

Speaker 2: 4:05

And so during the pandemic, what we realized is, oh my God, we all of a sudden gained four hours of our lives back, because in the Philippines, especially in the metros, we don't measure distance by time, because you can travel the same route in 30 minutes or two hours. During the pandemic, what we realized is we gained back four hours of our lives. We started eating breakfast, lunch and dinner with the kids and I realized, oh my God, I can still do my job and I can still start to live and do what I want and build relationships and have time to just read and to learn, and I've been more productive than ever. And during the pandemic then I thought, hey, what if we can do this for a longer time? What if we can actually flip the narrative and create a workplace that's not an actual place, but anywhere employees feel valued, connected and cared for right?

Speaker 2: 5:02

I love that, thank you. And I've been in the outsourcing space for 18, 19 years now. I've seen the traditional models. I've seen the newer models, because indeed the Philippines is second to India. Our laws are written in English, our street signs are written in English. Eight out of 10 subjects, from elementary to college, all subjects every day, are taught in English. Eight out of 10 subjects, from elementary to college all subjects every day, are taught in English, and we have a culture of care and friendliness that's unbeatable.

Speaker 2: 5:33

If you go to any top-line cruise ships, if you go to any five-star hotels, you will see Filipinos everywhere. Right, we're super big on service and overseas Filipino workers. Ofws is the other biggest industry builders in the Philippines. It's outsourcing remotely from here, like you have call centers and you have. Now it's evolved right, because, like for Remotify, we only have knowledge workers. We have software developers, we have accountants, we have SPED teachers that help ed tech companies in the US, etc.

Speaker 2: 6:09

But what I'm trying to say is that for a long time a lot of Filipinos wanted to go abroad, leave their kids to make a living, and there's been a big generation of parentless people. And now we're reversing that Now of our current staff, for some of our clients. We have now, I think, two or three ex-OFW overseas Filipino workers. They came back earning the same salaries but well-being with their families right. So it's reversing the brain drain in the country but, at the same time, really elevating the lives of people from everywhere.

Speaker 2: 6:49

Because the Philippines have 7,000 islands. People think Indonesia is small, but it actually is humongous. Now we have employees spanning the Philippines from north to south Benguet to Sultan Kudarat, 77% of whom are women. In 2023, we won the Outsourcing Impact Award for Diversity and Inclusion. Because of that, and we're very proud of that, apart from democratizing access to secure full-time remote employment, even though we've never met in person, our employees are assigned for our clients. Percent of them say we're a great place to work. Two out of the three years that we are running, we've been certified as great place to work, and where we score the highest is community intimacy, corporate justice, hospitality, because what we found is that a lot of Filipinos working remotely are usually unregistered employees without employers on record. It means that over the internet, they find a client, they get paid, but that means, in the context of my country, they don't have social security, they don't have health insurance, they don't even pay their taxes. It means they can't buy a home, get a car or even be approved of a loan.

Speaker 2: 7:59

The worst case is it can be fired anytime without the labor right that they should have. What we serve is really our companies that are startups and mid-market companies but are wanting a longer lifetime value, a stable team, that they care for compliances, that they don't want the hassle of running payrolls every month or do have really an HR strategic partner on the ground. And we've been very lucky with our clients and our employees because we've had the same clients that have been with us for the past three years. Right, that's crazy. We'll say that remote work you can't really build a culture. You can't really. That's the heart of what we do. Right, we build a culture in community.

Speaker 2: 8:44

In remote work we apply the premise of Remoteify. Really, is that because remote is the future? Right, the same compliance, community and controls that will enable that freedom of remote work? Right, that you balance out the freedom with responsibility, that you balance out the freedom with responsibility. You balance out that distance with culture and with community and with intimacy so that you can really invoke the best in people, because people want jobs with purpose and people want, of course, to be paid well and to have the rights, their employment rights, but at the end of the day, it's more than that, right. You have to be able to activate their seeking systems so you can really capture the best of what your workforce has, because that is what will build your business and I suppose that's the best value add that we have for our clients.

Speaker 2: 9:42

We're not just a paper mill that gives contracts or payrolls. I mean, I suppose the effect of that are those words, right, that's an aftermath, it's not done for that, but it's a natural sort of reward, if you must say of that. But the heart of it, the heart of what we do, is that transforming two things right democratizing access to full-time, remote employment throughout the country and later on replicate that in other emerging markets for the same demographic dividend, at the same time making sure that startups like us have a much longer runway. But not sacrifice the excellence of having a loyal, caring and great team. And I've always been a big advocate and a big fan of filipino talents and I've seen that from, I've learned that from my previous job actually being or being in rooms where in my age, in my race, in my gender, it's not really normal to be in those rooms and having the courage to just speak my real voice.

Speaker 2: 10:53

And be, able to represent the talents in the philippines, but also in hong kong, but then later on the teams in portugal, and just able to showcase that, yes, I'm a'm a Filipino, but Filipinos can also be world-class.

Speaker 1: 11:06

I really love your philosophy, the whole philosophy that you have about the care to the workers, the employees. You give them balance in their life, and this whole concept of you call it OFW Overseas Filipino Workers and being torn away from families and not having balance in our lives. And just even here in North America we have this attitude of the hustle and grind persona that you have to work 15, 16 hours a day to make it in the world of business. And we as founders, as entrepreneurs and especially CEOs of big corporate companies, we have this tendency to just spill that over on our employees, Like they're just like a number and we have those expectations of them that they hustle and grind and work their butts off to. To what end is it really? Truly for profitability?

Speaker 1: 11:57

Because I spent quite a few years in the corporate world, living that life. I actually had a senior vice president that was my boss for about three years and he literally had a sign behind his desk. It was so intimidating. It said you must be dedicated 724. That was their philosophy. They expected that you were available anytime, anywhere, anyplace.

Speaker 1: 12:19

And then you couple that to, as you said, even there in the Philippines it's true, here as well the commutes are an hour and a half to two hours one way, so you're ripping that time away from the balance of the person and what I learned after creating my own company and having one where I did the hustle and grind and I probably spilled that over on my own employees and then, after five or six years of that, slowly started realizing that there's a different way to life and a different way to make money and grow businesses, and that came from tapping into creativity I found for myself, and then I ended up teaching my students, other entrepreneurs. During COVID I taught online. I had a group of entrepreneurs that I had as a coaching group and I taught them how to tap into your inner self, how to tap into that creativity, and a lot of it was through balance of lifestyle. I start every morning now for the past eight years with a morning routine that starts with some yoga and some meditation.

Speaker 1: 13:19

I read a couple of chapters from my book. I go for a walk, I feel nature, I get the sun on my skin, and so by the time I get to my desk, I feel energetic, I feel creative and I want to give. How many times have you seen people that are working in that hustle and grind mode or that atmosphere, and you look at them and it looks like death warmed over. They don't look good. These big CEOs think that they're doing themselves a favor by saying you have to come to work and you have to put all these hours in, but are you really getting a contribution from them? Are they being creative or are they just putting in the time?

Speaker 2: 13:56

The beauty of it is that you don't even have to ask that of your people when you are effectively activating their seeking systems. When there is this level of autonomy, there's this level of understanding what your business is and them being aligned to the values and culture and really rooting for your business. Here, if communication is transparent, they know exactly their place in the business, how they contribute big or small and they know where you're going and they want to fuel you.

Speaker 2: 14:27

They will fuel you right so but there's also a balance of that and you would know if it's the employees just abusing the privileges of freedom and flexibility. There should be also boundaries for that. There must processes for that. We're not saying freedom and flexibility would just like you go haywire and it's the Wild West. No, you must have the control measures and clear expectation of what you have for this job, what it means for it to be successful, and successful for the individual, for the business, for the teams, for the culture, right? If somebody's grinding and like just really out of their best efforts, doing day-to-day their best for you, and then one day have a sick son and you have a deadline that day, like you gotta be human too, right?

Speaker 2: 15:19

you gotta understand that it's very what they say like like people don't leave companies, people don't leave the office, people leave managers, and it's the power of having great middle management trickling down from the culture created by the leadership of that business that will make or break your company Right, because you set the right tool on there and you have great middle managers, you will get the best out of every single role in that business.

Speaker 1: 15:51

For sure. So talk to us some more about that. Do you have a story to tell? What is that all about?

Speaker 2: 15:56

So I read that from a book. Come Alive at Work, I think is the title really stuck with me is because I was reminded of how we built the culture that we had at my old company that then I also built for Remotify, and from having a small group of committed people we managed to become the world's best service team. To become the world's best service team. And how we did that was just the small things, the small acts of making sure that people are rewarded for the right behaviors, right. Our management meetings start off with the best inspiring stories about a customer service agent or about a customer right.

Speaker 1: 16:43

I love that.

Speaker 2: 16:45

And it's little tone like that and it's little things like I've never implemented for my service teams in other BPO's right, in other contact centers or whatever service centers. You would typically say, hey, you got to control the call within eight minutes.

Speaker 1: 17:00

Yeah, that KPI is for the employer, not for the customer.

Speaker 2: 17:04

Correct and because that would be the cost of service would be more expensive. And what we always say is do what is right. You don't have a script, you don't have an average handling time. If the person needs three minutes, you give three minutes. If the person needs eight minutes, you give eight minutes. But you got to be human. You got to understand what are the things that are not said that you need to address you're still there shane, are you still there? Yeah yeah, hopefully you can cut the recordings oh yeah, no problem okay.

Speaker 2: 17:38

So what I was saying is that I remember shane. At that time I had a director and used to work for Labara. He took Labara to award-winning status and then I started working with him and at the time I was the quality manager for that telco tech company and he built my confidence and said hey, I want you to manage the site right, and I want you to do this and I want you to do that Right.

Speaker 2: 18:05

What I realized is that what he saw in me is an alignment of how to build a culture. Technology and the same team that powered supported the Apple's global eSIM launch on iPhone, ipad and watch products Right. But at the time when I was working with that director, I had to tease him because he said he went for an award and he didn't involve Manila. And I said, oh, you didn't win that award because he didn't involve Manila. So I was just teasing. But at that time I was managing the Manila office already and I already plastered a big poster on the wall. The whole wall was covered the world's best service team. And he said that's our goal in a few years. And I was looking at it I do that status. I didn't know how to do that and I was looking at it I do that status. I didn't know how to do that, but one day indeed, because I teased him, he assigned me this task of, like, writing world's best service entry, and I did it over Christmas and lo and behold, in February 2014,. We got accepted. We were invited to pitch in Singapore in July.

Speaker 2: 19:27

I will never forget that, because I was competing with large brands like A&Z, dhl, and I was looking there and I was like, oh my God, who's Cheerful?

Speaker 2: 19:35

Nobody knows Cheerful. All I had then were customer stories, the culture we created and a very committed team, and that's all I had. When I went on stage In July 2014, we were named Asia's Best Service Team, which meant that we would qualify to fly to Las Vegas in November 2014. I can never forget that, because that was my birthday and I was pitching a day after my birthday and we ended there being named as the world's best service team. They're being named as the world's best service team, so the takeaway there is that the only thing we've ever done to be able to get there is to activate people seeking systems by allowing them to be natural, to play to their strengths, to understand where the business is, to understand what their contribution is and give them the liberty to talk the way they feel they should talk to the customers and how to help them best. And the most important thing for us was that you resolve that as quickly as possible.

Speaker 1: 20:37

I love that. That is such a great theme. One of my values that I have written out for myself and for the company is to surprise and delight clients.

Speaker 2: 20:46

Yeah, I will never forget one of the stories. I'll share it here. Maybe that would be good for your listeners to hear as well. So never forget one of the customer service agents we had in the UK. We had a rule where, like I said, you don't have an average handling time. You can talk with the customers. You can call out to any number right If it needs to be done, call out to any number right if it needs to be done, and you can ship out SIM replacements for anywhere in the world, right.

Speaker 2: 21:16

So one day a consumer customer called in and said hey, I need a SIM replacement for the GPS watch of my son. We allow them to be humans and talk and really discover. The agent found out that the watch was for the son of the woman that has autism and she really needs to track the son right, and unfortunately she can't break open the watch because it will break warranty. What the agent did without asking for permission is he called the sim.

Speaker 2: 21:47

The watch manufacturer in france really called them day in, day out for three days until they agreed that we will ship the sim replacement to them, insert it in a brand new watch, send it to to the lady right in two weeks, my director and myself we received an email from this lady and it was a long email and it said yeah, thank you very much. I've never had a mobile provider that cared this much. Blah, blah, blah, blah and longs a long letter and at the end of the letter it says thank you very much for giving us another chance at life. I don't know what had happened in those two weeks, but I'm pretty sure that that customer service agent that then left to go to graduate school, he will never forget that.

Speaker 1: 22:33

No.

Speaker 2: 22:34

That customer will never forget. And that's the power of culture when you set the right tone, people will start doing the right things.

Speaker 1: 22:41

Such an amazing story, I mean, and that would never, would never have been a story if you hadn't enabled that through the culture, through that theme of hey, you can talk to them about anything, just do whatever you have to do and what's further multiplies, this is you never hear these kind of good stories when it comes to a telco provider yeah, so the net promoter score of the telco companies is positive 20 right never.

Speaker 2: 23:07

Anything that is positive is deemed to be good. I've been running.

Speaker 1: 23:10

I think if you're over 7, that's deemed to be okay, so to have a 20 is amazing.

Speaker 2: 23:16

That's the average. For telcos, the average we're running at positive 55. Then when I was running that team In Remotify, we're running at positive 78. So that's really true value of just putting who matters at the heart of what you do.

Speaker 1: 23:36

Superficial measures yeah, this reminds me of have you ever seen simon sinek?

Speaker 1: 23:41

he did a famous tedx talk quite a few years ago written a number of books on the whole concept of what we're talking about here. How do you tap into this? Why are you even here in business? If it's just to make money and hustle and grind, then there's no point. But you have to have a purpose behind all of this and then embed the themes of how you work and the culture of how you work within that purpose, and so he had a couple of quotes that I really love. One is that the mind can be convinced, but the heart must be won. People don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it, and what you do simply proves what you believe in, like why are you doing it? What is the purpose? So tell us a story about that. It sounds like you're really deeply rooted in this purpose, and your why? Like? Why are you doing this, maria?

Speaker 2: 24:32

But why I you doing this, maria, but why I'm doing remotify is really to make sure that we enable freedom, right, a lot of freedom of not just time, but freedom of not having to look back and see am I having a secure job or am I going to be fired tomorrow, but at least that you can have a peaceful mind, having a job, doing the best you can, while also, from the client side, making sure that you don't just have an employee that you don't know over the internet and tomorrow they go MIA and you have so many problems. Right, we solve that for people. The ultimate goal of that is to really enable freedom and make sure that we redefine what work is, redefine what life is and redefine what the outsourcing model is today in the Philippines really, and just decentralize it. A lot of the good paying jobs. I remember in my old company I had a colleague who forego seeing his family every weekdays and just stay in hotels because he lives in the province. Right, I mean that works. But there are also those that are in the extremes. They really leave their families in the provinces to go to the three metros Metro Manila, metro Cebu, metro Dabao because that's where jobs are. And now we have software developers in Sultan Kudarat. We have ped teachers, special education teachers in Cebu City. We have a Shopify developer in Bantayan Island, a beautiful, secluded white sand island that before it was just tourism, and now we have a Shopify developer earning very decent amounts and you can imagine the trickling effect of that in those communities, right? You can imagine the trickling effect of that in the small shops that they buy from and the schools and just living in those communities, the economic impact of that. But for me, my personal why is I really believe in Filipino talents? Like you will know what you're passionate about when it ticks you off and when it makes you happy.

Speaker 2: 26:41

I remember when I was working for that telco tech company, I once traveled to the Netherlands and I just got off from a service review with Tesla. So I joined a service review with Tesla because they were one of our clients there, and one of the sales guys from the Holland office said to me oh so you manage a team in Portugal? How's that possible? You're from the Philippines, very demeaning, right, and I'm lost for words, but I knew that. Of course I I didn't react rudely, but I knew that something in me right like I'd die for this country, right? I love the people in this country and there's so much to showcase because of the culture of air friendliness and everything. And then I I traced back my actions for that company that every time somebody would travel to the Philippines a colleague from a different country no matter that I don't bill it to the company, I still tour them around. I make sure that they understand the culture, the hospitality of the Philippines.

Speaker 2: 27:46

I make sure that, even shifted my working schedule, All of the managers around the world work their normal like country hours and I chose to work European hours to make sure that when there are big meetings, decision-making a resource that could really give resources to the team that I could represent Filipino talent, Since it's really putting the power back to the people who actually would need to make a living but give dignity to that living and giving that freedom, but at the same time, enabling small, medium businesses like startups and mid-market companies to be able to really rest easy, that they can build a team 70% of the cost but have the best team they could possibly have. I'm excited for this booming because it's just starting now. People are just realizing this now.

Speaker 1: 28:43

I like it. So listen, you're touching upon a topic that's maybe a little sensitive for some of our listeners here in North America anyway, because the whole concept of outsourcing. There's controversy right now, especially in the US, but here in Canada as well, around immigration and that there's too much and they're stealing jobs. So how do you contend with those kind of things?

Speaker 2: 29:07

I think there are really roles that needs to be in country, especially those that you would need to brainstorm together, right, and I always say that it's best that they are nearby. There are roles that could also be outsourced, right? So in Canada, when I was there, when we met, there's really a scarcity of accountants even in the US and you have accounting jobs to do. But the Philippines have the same accounting principles as in the us and statistics shows like the median age in the philippines is 24 years old, while the rest of the world globally is 30, japan 45, the uk 40. So eventually, like I, like I said today, there's 85 million jobs unfilled. That could go lower with ai, etc. But, truth be told, people still need people, right? I was in a networking event after the coalition conference in toronto and I had 20 seconds to and I signed up. Can you imagine having a certified public accountant for a thousand US dollars per month, which is, and then you create really good paying jobs for people that could be in your team supporting your more senior accountants, and so we can think about this as a winner takes all, if you are a startup or a mid-market company, and all the big boys are doing this.

Speaker 2: 30:41

30 years ago, we started outsourcing already in India and in the Philippines. All big brands have buildings here. Now, if big corporations are doing it, why can't small businesses, can't mid-market companies do that? If you'd like to extend the value of the, your runway, your spend, of course it must be balanced out with the jobs that you create for the country, the same as what I advocate for here. Right right, but there's no denying that all countries need talent and it's just until you can be baby-making nations again. Even Japan, right Like now, they're opening up their country to remote workers to have more people in because the population is aging, and I think all we want about outsourcing is bad and unethical and blah, blah, blah. But one businesses got to survive. Number you go where the supply is.

Speaker 2: 31:42

The demand goes where the supply is, you always can balance it out, because if you have talents in country that are, for example, more advanced in AI technology or more entrepreneurial, or the senior leaders or what have you, you got to be smart around how you burn those dollars.

Speaker 1: 32:02

Yeah, I agree. Especially for us as smaller startup entrepreneurs, we need to be careful with that kind of thing, and there is definitely a much bigger trend around outsourcing, co-sourcing and even just our projects. Ebb and flow. There's high times and there's low times, so we need to have the ability to go up and down and plug people in when and where needed. So how does that work? Like you said, could you imagine getting an accountant for a thousand dollars a year? So is that full time?

Speaker 2: 32:32

or is that?

Speaker 1: 32:33

plugged in certain times. How does that work?

Speaker 2: 32:35

Yeah, it's $1,000 a month In the Philippines. It's monthly salaries. What I mean is for Modify. We only give full-time employment for the longer term.

Speaker 2: 32:49

So, if you're looking to have a team, a stable team. So, for example, you want to have your IT team here. You want to have your shared service finance team here. You want to have your marketing teams here. You can have that under remotified.

Speaker 2: 33:06

What we do is we help you even when you don't create an entity here. We will employ them under our record, we take care of payroll, we take care of making sure that they have all the benefits of a normal employee, because what you can't give them if you don't have an entity here is that the social security is not paid. The health insurance so we take care of that as well. Health insurance so we take care of that as well. And we just really make sure, from onboarding, from hiring to retiring of the employee, that we help you throughout that. We can guide you through that process. You don't have to worry about a thing and you can focus on growing your business. But because if you want project worth like two weeks or three weeks, then you're better off going to Fiverr or Upwork. But what we have is because these people sign a full-time contract, there's no non-compete, there's no moonlighting and they're dedicated only for you. So you really have it's like hiring in-house, but hassle-free. You treat them as your full-time employees.

Speaker 1: 34:10

I like this model. It's interesting you say this because you reminded me I just saw a post from a friend and mentor. His name is Dennis Yu. He's also in the marketing world like me, and he said his philosophy on all this and he actually teaches a course about outsourcing and co-sourcing. And he said just on the weekend he made a post and said, when it comes to project, project-based stuff, if you need to build a new app or do some modifications or you've got a project that's going to be lasting for three or four months, then yeah, go to the outsource sites like upwork or fiverr or there's several others.

Speaker 1: 34:43

Hire a person for whatever period of time that you need so you can ebb and flow with your project work or your customer work. But then, when it comes to your company, hire from the Philippines, because then you teach and bring them into your culture and they become a part of that culture and that's the essence to your customer service. That's the touch points with your customers, whereas the project-based people a lot of times they're working behind the scenes or maybe, if they're working on a UI, they have very limited touch point with your customer, but they're moving the needle ahead in terms of the products that you're offering and getting things out quicker, but in terms of customer service and having that culture that you talked about, the theme of looking after people, hiring full time in the Philippines is the way to go. So interesting that you talk about that.

Speaker 2: 35:31

Yeah, that's a good coincidence.

Speaker 1: 35:33

So what about in terms of our listeners on here? We're all startup entrepreneurs, we're all bootstrapping in some cases and we've all had to make some risky moves, some decisions that maybe could have gone one way or another. Do you have any decisions you've made in terms of where you had to take a risky move? And even if it worked out for you or it didn't work out for you, we all learn from either side of it success or the so-called failure. Do you have any stories like that in building Remotify?

Speaker 2: 36:02

Definitely the story it actually had the same. So the day we decided to build Remotify is the same day as my surgery, right? And I think it's the effect of the anesthesia that I told Erwin because I was seeing him struggle like 200 over something blood pressure from his old job and just how crappy it was set up by the coaching manager, plus he wasn't given yet the means at that time and then we were having this big major life change and then I told him you know what? We're risking more to stay there than if you leave and him leaving his job means three-fourths of the household salary. Right, and I think this effect of the anesthesia that I said when you get back, just quit your job because it's not worth it that you risk your health, you risk our security and we'll just figure it out because I still have no four months of rest and I'm still paid, and just we'll figure it out.

Speaker 2: 37:08

And so we decided that we let go of three-fourths of the household salary. We took all of our life savings. It took a sale of a house to bootstrap the business. We decided in February. We completed the incorporation In the Philippines. Typically it takes long to incorporate, but we managed to complete the incorporation March 29. We secured the trademark April. It was so fast, Everything was serendipitous and the biggest pickle that we had was a web developer. Had COVID twice and had gone MIA, unfortunately, oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:41

This is the peak of the pandemic. And then we went live with a website July 2021. And then, actually in two weeks, without running ads, we closed our first organic clients. Just because we spent time, really, I blueprinted, I had a service blueprint of every touch point for every employee, for clients, for the sharehold, everything mapped out and we made sure that every single word on the website actually speaks to that. And, yeah, so the first client was closed in July 2021. Then we've grown the business X since then. Right In 2021, we managed, or in 2023, we managed to close the fiscal year at 1.2 million US dollars GMV from zero external capital, 24% take rate, running the business with five full time employees and a lot of automations, and so taking those risks, but being certain of your next steps, knowing clearly what your next five moves will be, you have the right mindset, heart set, tool set, skill sets to be able to do that. Plus, I also have people that help the business part-time. I have a lot of support system. It takes a village to build a startup.

Speaker 2: 39:16

I think that's the biggest risk that we've had to take letting go of the job. I only quit my day job a year after, when we could already pay me a salary, because we also need to pay the tuition fees, et cetera. But still now we're running bootstrapped. And now we're just about to raise our seed round and that's to make sure that we can really prepare to consolidate the market and build our tech for scale, build a team for scale and making sure that, but still profitably and still not wastefully, and just ready to consolidate, to buy off the maybe the smaller outsourcing outfits that are with a hundred employees and a handful of clients that are working remotely, etc. And then put them on a record because we know it's going to be good for everybody.

Speaker 1: 40:09

Right, everybody wins so that's a beautiful story and it worked out. That's a great story of taking a risk, that you weren't sure what was going to happen, but it worked out in the end because you made it happen and you had the right foundation, I think, in terms of your theme and why you were doing it. What recommendations like for our startup entrepreneurs, startup founders that are listening right now and maybe they're faced with a decision they have to make and they're just not sure what to do maybe some risk associated with it? What advice would you give them?

Speaker 2: 40:41

As Steve Jobs said, follow your heart. Somehow you already know what you want. Right, and even though it can be noisy, just stick to your values. Stick to what you believe is right, even when you hear a lot of no's. Just stick with your guns, but back it up with facts. Right, and don't be greedy. Create value for us. Of that, 1.2 in 2023, gnv 1 million of that, or a little bit less, is all for salaries for Filipinos. Right, it's not all tape, but it's the profit, but also the impact that you create, right, that makes it so much worth the journey, so much worth the risk, so much worse, every single waking hour that you spend thinking about this problem.

Speaker 2: 41:39

And I think the biggest advice would be don't start a business just because you want to start a business. Don't try and beat your head to think about a business just to have a business because it will come to you. Right, but always operate from a place of passion and strength. You will know what you're passionate about. When money is no object and you didn't have to be paid, you'll still be doing that. And if you're not strong at something and you're not passionate about it, just don't bother because you won't be able to keep a job down. If you're, if you're passionate about it, just don't bother, because you won't be able to keep a job down. If you're passionate about it but you're not very good at it a little bit like me at painting then make it a hobby. Do it over the weekends.

Speaker 1: 42:23

I like that. We have to have our hobbies, too, disconnect from our work.

Speaker 2: 42:28

Yeah, but because if you can't make money out of it and you need to make money out of it, yeah, but because if you can't make money out of it and you need to make money out of it, just maybe that's not a career for you, but make it a hobby. Do it over the weekend until you can practice and be super good at it.

Speaker 1: 42:38

I think that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 42:40

What I see, where people typically get stuck is when they are good at something but they're not passionate about it or they just hate it. And my question there is why would you waste your time wishing you were doing something else?

Speaker 1: 42:56

Couldn't agree with you more about that one.

Speaker 2: 42:58

The worst case scenario is that people care and pay you to do something you hate get promoted. So one very concrete example last year when I was invited to an after Christmas like party, december 26,. I was invited to an after-Christmas party December 26th. I was having drinks with people from the startup ecosystem and I offered this beautiful lady a sangria and she said she's one of the VPs, I think, for one of the banks in the Philippines and she said oh no, maria, I can't take that, because tomorrow I need to go to a job I absolutely hate.

Speaker 2: 43:36

And that's the real thing of that. Right, you grow and you shrug aside that you don't like the job and you grow into the job and it becomes a cold and handcuffed. The bright side of that story is that I met her again and she said oh, you remember, you told me about the Strength Finder book. I now changed my career and da, da, da and she's so much happier, right. So that's the other spectrum. But where you are really going to be thriving is when you're strong at something and you absolutely love it, because that's when you're going to have a gargantuan competitive advantage. You're not even trying it, but the problems, they're happy problems you can't stop thinking about them. You're happy thinking about them. Maybe sometimes you're annoyed, but you're so fueled up it gives you energy to think about them.

Speaker 2: 44:23

And that's where you're going to be at your greatest for the world. In Japanese it's called Ikigai, but it's just Ikig. Yeah, I like that yeah that was one of the things that I taught during the pandemic to my entrepreneurs is this concept of ikigai where you explain what is ikigai ikigai is really the culmination of mission, vocation, passion and, just put it simply, it is what you do best that can make you money that the world needs. I love that, my life.

Speaker 1: 44:59

I taught that too. I had a Venn diagram set up In the Venn diagram it's what do you do that you do really well. What do people in the world need? But on top of that, what is it that people need that they're willing to pay for? Because sometimes people need something but there's no commerciality to it. So there has to be a commerciality to it. And then in the middle sits your passion or your reason for doing it, like that's really why we're all here and to me. I did a big product launch with a new york times best-selling author. His name was robin, and I really like Robin's philosophy about business too.

Speaker 2: 45:35

Yeah, yeah, I love Robin Sharma.

Speaker 1: 45:37

He was so great to work with. I'm telling you just so much knowledge and insights. But he talks a lot about as entrepreneurs, we're all going to face the valley of despair at some time. Right, we have this idea and in the beginning it's all exciting and we get a team together or making things happen, but then all of a sudden something doesn't go so good and you hit the doldrums, you hit that valley of despair, and sometimes the valley of despair can go on for quite a while in the world. Then everything's going to fall into place for you, whether it's money or resources. When you just take that first step on the journey, then the universe conspires to help you. So, just when you're hitting that point, seek some support with your fellow entrepreneurs. That's why I do this podcast is to help my fellow entrepreneurs. It's a real passion for me and I don't do it to make money. I don't make money from the podcast, that's for sure. But I love the entrepreneurial journey and, more so, the struggle of the entrepreneurial journey. We find ourselves in struggle, probably more so than we find ourselves on the top of the heap, and as entrepreneurs we want to be tough and not show it. But I think it's important that we talk about those things, open up about them and seek support so that we can help each other get through that valley of despair.

Speaker 1: 46:56

There's a book written by Stephen Cotter the title sounds weird but it's the Rise of Superman but he talks about how do you get into flow and keep in that way of doing things and it doesn't matter if you're doing a sport or it's business or you're writing a book or whatever it might be.

Speaker 1: 47:12

There's times where you want to get into flow and he says there's different things that you can do to get yourself into flow, and one of them is the power of social connection, which we're doing right now. He says more acceleration comes from the social support of a group that a group provides. Finding flow isn't easy and finding it repeatedly is tougher still. The struggle phase can drag endlessly on and the urge to give up grows stronger as the lasting memory of the last flow grows dimmer. But the collective momentum fights hard against individual inertia and in any community, when one member is in struggle, another is likely in flow and probably using that state to do something amazing and amazing energizes, whether it's a cooperative excitement or the competitive jealousy. One person's triumph becomes another's motivation and that creates a flywheel effect and the group itself gains momentum. So to me that just sums everything up that we've been talking about here.

Speaker 2: 48:06

Yeah, agreed, and flow is really motivation on steroids, right Like time passes you by and it's just, you're in your peak. So I really love the chat. I took so much energy from just this conversation. Hopefully we can have more of these with many more entrepreneurs. You got to look at the regulations. You got to look at your competition. You got to look internally. You got to look out for your team, for your customers, but don't forget to look out for yourself too.

Speaker 1: 48:39

I love that.

Speaker 2: 48:41

But looking out for yourself also means looking out for people who will look out for you too.

Speaker 1: 48:49

That's great. So listen, we're just rounding out to the hour. I want to be respectful of your time and all the people listening. If people want to get in touch with you or they want to talk to you about hiring some of your wonderful employees, what do they do? Where can they go? How do they?

Speaker 2: 49:03

get a hold of you. Sure, we'd love to help you grow your team in the Philippines. Just visit us at wwwremotifyph.

Speaker 1: 49:13

Okay, and so will they be talking to one of your staff members or you Me, okay, so you heard it here first. Folks Go check them out and I highly recommend working with them and I love the Filipino community.

Speaker 2: 49:28

Thank you so much. Please come on over. And particularly, we take our clients and our friends to go to this amazing waterfalls, 45 minutes from where we live.

Speaker 1: 49:38

I actually have a couple of friends living in the Philippines that are from Canada here, so I would definitely love to get over there.

Speaker 2: 49:45

Awesome, let's do that Okay.

Speaker 1: 49:47

Thanks, thanks, maria, bye, bye.

Speaker 2: 49:50

Cheers.