Most Interesting Founder: Startups & Mezcal - Martin Moscosa | Ep. 3

‍Julian: Hey everyone,this is Julian from The Grupo Podcast, co founder of Grupo, a community who'sfocused on the professional development and networking of internet buildersacross the world. Right now our community is heavily distributed in LatinAmerica, but... We're accessible globally right now we have the pleasure ofinterviewing Martin Moscosa.

The most interesting man in the world had a son who was astartup founder. This would be the guy. Martin's lived in so many differentcountries, has built businesses not only in the U. S., but Mexico, worldwide.He's spent some time in Asia as well. Such a wealth of experience, such awealth of knowledge in the different types of ways to build companies, butoverall...

He has seen the common themes for successful companies. He hassome insights on global work, where that's going, the increase of investmentand talent in places like Mexico and South America. And he's a current startupadvisor. He helps companies and founders really achieve product market fit.

And creates the growth strategies to help them becomesuccessful and culture to, to really achieve long term success as an amazingproduct on amazing teams. So listen to this episode you'll have a really funtime in learning his background experience and what he's been able to do tohelp startups really excel their careers as well as he has tips and insightsfor how you can, if you're someone who's building remotely for an amazingproduct or amazing team or a founder building a team for your own product.

Martin, thank you so much again, man, for joining me on thepodcast today. I'm excited to dive into your background, your experience. I wasactually doing a lot of research on you. Looking at your background and whatwas just absurdly surprising is the fact that you've lived in so many countriesbefore you were even like 15, I think.

So it, it was interesting because I was like, and I'm curiousto hear your take, growing up in those different countries. What was thepriorities around education? And, obviously computer science is one thing wekind of lean towards on the show, but overall, what were you seeing as a kidgrowing up and the difference of what each country emphasized?

Martin: No, that's,that's a great point that a lot of people don't really go and look into it, butgrowing up in all these different places, Argentina, Peru, Chile England, it'sjust It's about learning about a lot of things and not about a lot of thespecifics at the same time. So I remember when I was talking back to my friendsfrom primary school, elementary school when I was in Hermosillo, Sonora, forexample, in Mexico, and then talking about, hey, this is the history aboutMexico and Porfirio Diaz and Benito Juarez, and I was like, Oh yeah, I'mtalking about the Incas and I'm studying about the Mapuches and I'm doing that.

And then I'll come back and then try to bring the story fromlike the word story. And I was like getting all these different points andpoints of view and cultural aspects of how you were getting. So it was veryinteresting to not only learn the facts and the things, it's more aboutlearning to learn and learn in different, different ways that you have.

So I was just talking about history, but. Also about sciences,how they teach sciences and apply sciences in all these different countries.And I was very fortunate to go to different types of schools, some with lab,laboratory classes, some with more hypothesis kind of maths or applied maths,etc. So that made my brain to really have to go and adapt to every singlesituation.

So, it, it helped me a lot. But today, the thing that I canappreciate the most is being able to understand different cultures and reallybeing able to adapt to new environments that you're doing because when youtransport take all these to the professional world and as an adult, it's like,Oh, Any startup is successful if it's able to adapt.

Any engineer that I've managed is successful if they're able toadapt from one situation to another situation. Anyone that I've coached, it'sthe same thing. It's like, hey, we went from seed to series A. Now we have morepeople and et cetera, et cetera. It's all about adapting. And I think as aculture, that's what makes us really successful against different otherspecies, et cetera.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah,yeah.

It's fascinating because the reason why you were traveling, itwas your dad, right? And he was a geologist and what was that kind of impact interms of just like having a science having a parent who was very sciencefocused and forward, did that, I guess change kind of your habits or form yourhabits?

And, when you were going through education and learningsomething like computer science, something really regimented, what was thatimpact like?

Martin: Yeah, that'sa good question. And I think that. Also, the thought process and the train ofthinking that you have that your parents pour into you as, as I was mentioning,how you learn math, how you learn computer, how you learned about geology orbiology, et cetera, et cetera.

I was able to always abstract myself and try to understand. Itwas more about understanding rather than learning. So if I was going to learnmathematics, for example, and, and, uh, how much is. 2x2 or 2x3. It's notabout, like, memorizing. My dad would always go, he's like, try to understand,it's a sum of sums, so it's like 2x3, okay, 2x2x2, that's it, okay, that'sperfect.

Now, let's do the same with DeFi, let's do that.

And then, that took me then to being very curious. He's ageologist, I would go with him to all of the camps, I would, in the end, he'strying to understand, and he would tell me, he's like, okay, Understand wherethis rock came from, from Europe and now it's here in America.

Okay, do you get that? Yes, so now what we can do with this andtrying to hear all these stories. And I was trying to, and at that time I wascreating all these, asking all these questions and becoming very curious. AndHugo remember got us the first computer that we got and we had that. And mycuriosity made me open the computer.

And not being able to put it back together. So I was like, Oh,sorry. I just broke the computer. They're not expensive. So I had to go with atechnician and then I became very good friends with that, with the technician.And then I started to learn about programming. There was HTML at that time. AndI remember this guy, he was like, Random guy now is a really good friend.

He will come on his bike to my house after we fix the computer.He will teach me how to code, how to program, how to build, uh, initialwebsites, how to take the computer apart, how you had like Ram and the CPU andall these things. And it was similar, but at the same time, very differentfrom. Studying Earth, where this rock to become, but it's also why you havegold and copper or silver in similar areas, because they have some chemistrythat it's aligning.

Okay, how are you putting CPU and RAM memory and then a videoand then how that's made more efficient than that, allowing you to then buildthat software is like, Oh, okay. It's the same. Two times three is not twotimes three is two plus two plus two. Computer putting all these thingstogether. So it's, it's that, it's, it's, it's having that training processabout curiosity, asking questions and breaking things.

Julian: Yeah. Andit's amazing to see. It's really also about foundational learning from what I'mgetting. Understanding the components on why things maybe exist or why they'reneeded in their function. And that kind of creates this deeper understandingand this ability to then be curious because, you can have this foundationalknowledge and then apply it.

Kind of do the scientific method with everything that you do.

It's interesting is that you, you learned from, a technician,which is amazing because it sounds like I feel like the developer communityoverall is just always open to sharing, teaching each other, learning, progresswhich, kind of leads me to my next question, which was, I learned that it wasschool that kind of introduced you to entrepreneurship.

Your school actually had an incubator, which. Not a lot of nota lot of institutions have but I'm curious if it wasn't for the school offeringthat incubator, would you have gone into entrepreneurship and started actuallytesting the products you were making or the, the software you were making?

Martin: It's adifficult question to answer, like so many years now into, into that havepassed, but I can tell you something. After I founded my first company, Iremember talking to my mom and she pulled a lot of these The Drawer OfMemories, like a little notebook that I wrote when I was five years old orsomething like that and she was like, reading all of the things that I wrote islike, I wanted to be a computer scientist or programming, and I wanted to be myown boss.

And I remember reading, putting something like, I want to be,have a company like Bill Gates or something like that. Well, I already had inmy mind five years old that I wanted to have my company opportunities when Iwas five years old, which of course I wasn't putting my company at five yearsold, but my parents, my parents thinking about.

Hey, you're gonna have your own company and build your ownideas and become make them profitable out of your passion because there's morepeople that are actually sure that those. Not impossible, but those were crazythoughts, especially in Mexico, Latin America, having those ideas, like, no,you have to go and work for the big boss.

And I even remember not long ago, like when I was studying mymaster's, I had like a foster father that was, he's been my mentor. I know, areally good friend, foster father. And he's a really Like a role model inScotland and he was telling me when I was starting to work there His words isalways like keep your head low do what you're told do your work and go along Iwas like, okay, that's that's what he taught me because he that is the schoolthat he has It was like I want to ask a question.

Why are we doing this? Hey, we have this task What are wedoing? What is it? And this mindset is just Inside of me. So to your question,would I have founded my first company or a company without having theopportunity of incubating? I think yes, it would probably have taken me moretime. What I can tell you probably is I would have failed for sure, like a lotof entrepreneurs before, and I would probably be more afraid of taking a secondrisk of not finding, or be afraid of even suggesting, but now we have so manytools, so many opportunities, so many knowledge around those that it's like,you're going to fail, try another thing, pivot, do something else, adapt, etcetera, et cetera, so yeah, that's, that's how I feel about it.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah.One thing that popped into my head was, this idea of the incubator and havingthe resources is just so crucial to the success of a lot of founders, but, onething that you just mentioned was having the mindset And having the, kind of,from your parents, from people around you, that kind of, kind of piqued thatcuriosity, molded that.

If you don't grow up with that, how do you, recommend, in yourexperience, say, a founder kind of molds that mindset for themselves? What haveyou seen founders who maybe don't come from that, but they kind of have that,ability inside, they have that motivation, that urge? But they need to workthat mindset.

What would you advise them?

Martin: Taking the,well, first you have to be very honest with yourself. It's like creating themindsets or asking yourself why you want to become an entrepreneur. And that'ssomething that I've. I've learned across the years is like, do you want tocreate an anti culture, anti pattern of just don't be your own boss, or youwant to make a change?

Because, again, the journey is going to be very difficult. It'snot going to be an easy. And what I say is like, if everyone becomes anentrepreneur, there's not going to be partners or founding members, employeesthat are going to help make this happen. Foundations and successful stories. Soif you don't, if you don't have someone without the entrepreneurship mindset tocome and work for you, it's going to make, it's going to be very difficult thatyou are a one person band trying to solve and do finance, billing, engineering,product management, people, human resources, et cetera.

It's difficult. You need to bring and connect. These talents inorder to create that. But now you've covered. Yes, I'm ready for the challengeand the journey and I'm able to, to connect and I, I, I understand that it'sgoing to be difficult, but I want to do it and I don't have the mindset. How doI create this mindset?

It's just by, again, Knowing that it's going to be difficult,knowing that you're going to fail, and knowing that you're going to do itbecause the dream that you have, and not so much because you want to create astatus quo for the society that you're working. I live in Guadalajara which isthe startup Silicon Valley of Mexico.

I've been in San Francisco, Austin, and Hong Kong, and it'salways about everyone is now becoming an entrepreneur, and then you're justfeeling behind, and you just want to be that entrepreneur because everyone'sdoing that. No, no, no. Try to solve your own issue. Try to solve your ownproblem, your dream, and try to create it.

Don't, don't go for, I want to be huge because everyone ishuge. Otherwise, you're going to be frustrated. If you start with that, themindset will mold itself, and because you're surrounded by all these greatpeople You're going to learn how your mind reacts about different scenarios andsituations. But yeah, those are my two cents.

Julian: you mentionedincubators a second ago and discuss what additional or just resources thatentrepreneurs, founders have now that you didn't even have access to.

Outside of your school, like you mentioned, if you had thatincubator, if you didn't have that incubator, things would have gone maybedifferently. What are the things that founders have now and how is itdifferent?

Martin: You have morecontacts now. You have more people who have tried and have done it and you havemore access to resources.

Not only Economical resources, which nowadays you have morebecause you have a lot more of a venture capital, friends and family, or seedtype of investment that you have. In the past, here in Mexico, in Guadalajara,raising 2, 000. It was very difficult. It was like, Oh, okay. And then you werereading about startups in the San Francisco raising a hundred thousand to amillion on seed capital.

It's like, how am I going to even compete? Now you can raisethat money here. Now you can raise even that more money. Investors are becominga lot smarter about what they invest because of everything that we've lived,right? So you have to become profitable, not just about growth. You have tohave a solution and solvency, etc, etc.

But that's, that's about the economical resources that hasshifted through time and through The societies, a lot of, a lot more investorsare investing in Latin America and developing countries, et cetera, because yousee that talent. But the other thing that you have is a lot more opportunities.You have a lot more tools like GitHub, Atlassian, Twilio.

A lot of these companies is like, Oh, you have, we have astartup program and we're going to give you. 500, 000 in credits, and then youcan use it. Amazon, it's very easy. Just write them an email and explain howyou're going to use it. Google, the same thing. Microsoft, Oracle, IBM. Nowthey're giving away a lot of resources that, again, in the past, building onthe cloud, we're talking about 10 years ago, a little bit over 10 years ago,building in the cloud, it wasn't that easy.

Now, you have all these tech tools that you have. You have AI.I was just talking with a friend. He's Sister is publishing a book. She, andshe's doing that and she's using chat GPT to create a whole marketing campaignabout how she's gonna advertise and do that and it's working out for her and,and cost her $20, which was the subscription to ChatGPT4.

Julian: Yeah, it'sabsolutely incredible. I mean, we, me and my co-founder talk about it all thetime. Just the amount of low-code to no-code tools that you have access to as afounder. And, the rule of thumb is, only innovate in the one thing that you'regood at, or your product solves your problem, don't innovate in anything else.

And a lot of founders, they'll try to use these differenttools, but nowadays it's so easy to create a, product management Trello boardon different applications. Create integrations with Zapier and Airtable andwith many extensions. There's so many. Things in addition to, to what you haveavailable to you.

You mentioned competition though, between, and, and kind ofthinking about or founders thinking about the funding that's going on in the US versus and comparing it to the funding that's going on locally. I didn'trealize, do they really pay attention to that? And why is that you would thinkthat they'd have different markets that they're targeting, or is it just, theoverall, I guess, competition?

I'm, I'm so curious. I didn't realize that there was such this,

Martin: regarding thecompetition, regarding the investment going here versus

Julian: yeah,exactly. Yeah.

Martin: Now you cando twice, three times, four times, 10 times more as much that you can do herein Latin America, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Chile, that what you can do in theStates, the cost of living, the cost of hiring, the cost of development, it'svery high in the U S and Europe. And now Latin America is becoming veryattractive because of that.

And because we're breaking the borders. So you can create a lotmore talent. You see a lot of. Nationality is now coming to Mexico, to SouthAmerica, and you're seeing a lot more gentrification as well as that. So why isit? It's because you get the, you don't get cheap talent in South America orLatin America.

You get very good talent, quality talent. At a more affordableprice. Will this last forever? We're a developing society, so I can tell younow, rent prices for real estate is going high and that's thanks to companiesin in Guadalajara and L. A. We have WiseLine, we have Luxoff, now we havePorsche coming here and creating the tech hub here in Guadalajara so you canonly tell, okay they're bringing more, more companies the talent is the same.

We're creating more and there's a lot of synergy between thegovernment and the universities and the private institutions to keep creatingand bringing these talents. And this is what is creating such a healthycompetition in our society. I'm talking Guadalajara because I'm here, but I canalso talk about Mexico City, Guanajuato, Puerto Vallarta that are developing alot into those areas as well in technology.

Julian: Yeah. Inregards to kind of the development of different technology, what's beenexciting about the founders that have becoming, or building now and that whatare the problems that they're solving? What's interesting about the solutionsthat you, are particularly excited about because you've had this experiencedealing with startups globally?

Yeah. What have you seen that's very unique to Guadalajara andexciting for the future?

Martin: I love thatquestion because, and again, I'm probably going to expand on my answer morethan necessary, but 10 years ago, a lot of the successful stories were Ideasthat were successful in the U. S. or Europe or Asia and were just replicatingthe same solution and same business into a local market and they were becominghuge.

But now, we're innovating and we're creating a lot of newthings happening from Guadalajara. So you're creating a lot of a lot of talent,again, Guadalajara. We're a land of tequila, and there's a lot of technologydeveloping tequila, but we're exporting more software and more technology thanwe are exporting tequila.

This is Jalisco, I'm talking about. It's a lot, but also aboutsolution and innovation. We're talking about AI that we're building, and we'redoing a lot of computer vision and graphics. There's a lot of, there's a hugeindustry for that segment. Talent and creativity I guess, and this is a reallywild assumption because of Guillermo del Toro is from Guadalajara and then wehave Cidade Catia de Guadalajara and we have a lot of gaming companies.

So we have a lot of talent around a lot of new startups abouthow do we develop. The creative business, the media we have a company that Icoach, it's called Scouter, and that is just breaking the market at the moment,which is helping a lot of content creators, a lot of indie, local bands, andeven a lot of private people to create experiences or companies to liveexperiences in the way that they're just Giving you the location and theability to build that as from the palm from, from your hand and what you try todo.

Julian: Yeah.

Being, being at UC and, and coach so many founders and havesuch a, wide experience. What are the characteristics that lead, that you canvisually see or whether it's, you pull down or kind of uncover the machine of asuccessful company? What are those components that they have that separatethemselves from other companies who, maybe have fires every day?

Martin: They'realways hungry. They're always like, what's next? And they're always like 5, 000miles per hour. Especially the founder has this hunger of doing something.What's, if I'm doing something now, I'm already too late. So I have to do twothings tomorrow and three things the day after, because we, we have to be thissense of urgency from the founding team.

It's, it's critical, but the ability to also create a buffer tothe team and keep their team happy. So they can bring, it's not a. Team of of,of workers that are doing what the founder is telling is, is having thismindset and sharing that as a waterfall to the team and, and, and by being aninspiration to this founding team.

So they also develop these sentiments and work fast, notbecause the boss is telling you, but because you understand how and why we'removing. That's crucial. The other thing, and it's very related is founders thatare very people oriented. That really care about their, their employees. That'scrucial. Again, one of the things that I saw 10 years ago, five years ago, Ihad a lot of founders that I was coaching.

It was like, well, again, talking about cheap, it's like, Oh,I'm just going to pay them the minimum salary and something on the outside. I'mnot going to pay their insurance and I'm just going to be dodgy about these andthey're going to make it for free. And I'm going to go to university, theuniversity and get like a lot of.

Interns and gonna do it like that. Nowadays I see a lot offounders like, no, no, I'm gonna pay them. Well, they're gonna work here.They're gonna create a career and they're gonna be in making history. And thesepeople, when I talk to these employees, it's like, this is my company. Theyfeel just as much Yeah.

A part of what they're trying to, to build. So the recipe forme in creating high performing teams is just to. Reduce the inertia, increasethe purpose that you have, the playfulness that you have in your day to day,and to also be proud of the company you're working. If you reduce, as Imentioned, the inertia, and you reduce any economical stress that you have,it's like, how am I going to pay my bills?

Reduce both of those things, increase the playfulness, and givethem a purpose to work, they're going to take you to the moon.

Julian: yeah. Therewas something you wrote read recently that, that we're talking about. Somebodyhad mentioned to you to build a company not based on vision, but dream, or, orsomething.

I'm paraphrasing and somebody bestowed that upon you.

Now, I thought I was thinking about that because, vision isobviously what people, I mean, at length, talk about the vision of theircompany, the mission. What's different between that and the dream? And why isthe dream, in your opinion, so much more powerful and compelling for your, yourteam?

Martin: If you'retrue about your dream, it's difficult, it's more difficult to break a dream. Avision, you can get afraid, you can see the risk and try to pivot real fastwithout trying to go to the long, longer goal that you have. A dream, youunderstand and you are prepared to take a lot of hits. And punches in order toget there.

It can be a synonym of being more not smart. And just trying tobe silly about like, Hey, I'm just going to be doing the same thing over andover again. Like Einstein said, you're only going to be crazy if you keeprepeating the same errors. I'm not saying you have to be that, but if you goaround a dream.

Your, your values and your core and your mission is going to bea lot stronger, a lot more fundamentally than the vision. The vision issomething that, at least in my experience, a lot of incubators, a lot ofteachers will tell you, you have to write your vision. And nowadays, I'm sure alot of people will just go to ChatGPT and tell them two or three things andthey're a tradition, a dream that you believe on.

And it's very difficult to change beliefs in people if they'rereally rooted to the cause. So that's why I believe that.

Julian: Changingbeliefs, man. Somebody told me when I was younger, it was, it's funny, it wasone of those videos on YouTube. It's like things I wish I knew at 20 that Iknow at 30.

And one of them was, don't argue people's philosophies. Becausethey have them as deep rooted beliefs and, when you can align, if there's opendiscussion, it's different, but, it's like, if that core belief is so strong,you can see how it impacts a lot of actions and activities and things likethat.

One thing I'm so curious about, seeing that you've seen bothsides of the coin, you've lived in these other locations my family's fromJalisco, from Guadalajara area we're close, but not too close. San Antonio,Matute, shout out to that granchero, but. Um You know, in regards to like,keeping and maintaining culture, and now this whole collective internetculture, how does that bridge, I guess, not only South Americans, but people onremote teams worldwide, how is the change in internet culture, and how is thatimpacting the connectivity between people who are working in Mexico versus theU. S., and other places.

Martin: really goodquestion, and it's something I wrote my dissertation about, because differentcultures Let's not even go about working remotely, where you can work ondifferent areas, but working with different cultures, it's very challenging. Ifyou're working on different geographical zones with different backgrounds, it'sdifficult.

There's not one recipe that fits for one recipe that fits forall. You have to, again, learn how to adapt and the manager has to be very openminded. The founders have to be very open minded. You asked me a minute ago,what do I see in the recipe for founding members and how do they becomesuccessful?

I kept saying they inspire, but one thing is to inspire and theother thing is to Talking about dreams and beliefs is trying to make sure thatI, I embed my belief and you're going to true and you're going to do that. No,because that's going to, that's not respecting other people's beliefs in coremissions.

If you inspire, you can be respectful about what they believeand that you can work together about working towards the same goal and that,that, that's, that's working. So if you understand that with the culturalbackgrounds, it's very different. I've worked and I I manage and I led teamswhere I have people from Eastern Europe.

In Latin America, it's so different. How do you have to go andask about things and questions?

I remember in Mexico, it's, it's a lot about, hey, like, heyJulian, can I ask you a favor? It's like, can you go and do this? Like, sure,sure. So you're doing me a favor. I remember doing that with some, some, someengineers that I have in Eastern Europe.

It was like, hey, can I ask you a favor to do it? And they werelike, no, it's like, no, no. It's more about doing it. It's like, I feel likeyou have to be a little bit more

direct.

Julian: Pointed,direct, yeah, yeah. About the question or

Martin: the ask thatyou're doing. And the same thing when you're asking that note, a lot of peopleand managers that I coach, it's like, Oh, this guy is rude.

He's like, telling me, he's like, no, he's telling me no. It'sfine. It's just a no. And here is like, and you'll find a lot of jokes on aboutLatin America. Mexico is like, Hey, do you want to go to a movie? It's like,well, yeah, let me see. I'll tell you in the afternoon, but I think I havesomething, but I'll just let you know.

It's like, okay, it's better if you just like, no. Okay, yeah,

Julian: yeah, yeah,the cultural differences are just so funny and we work with a lot of Braziliansin our community. And they were, they were telling me the same phenomenon andwhich is, there's, there's so many pleasantries to finally getting to yourpoint that sometimes it takes longer than you hope.

But what, what I, if you're a founder and it seems kind ofdaunting, you're hiring from different teams. You want to make sure people getalong and actually execute and also, have fulfillment because that's going tolead to them staying long term. How do you set up a environment?

You talked about inspiration, but, thinking more. Mechanic dayto day, whether it's stand ups or meetings on cultural revision, how do you asa founder, do you set up the environment so that you can kind of cut throughthe cultural differences to kind of create this ecosystem at work, which islike, here's where we work, this is how we communicate here.

However you do it outside is your choice, but you know, this ishow we set it up here. So there's no confusion or miscommunications. How do youdo that?

Martin: It'sdifficult.

And some of the companies that I admire the most that they'resolving that issue is, uh, funny enough, they're creating their own culture andthey're being very transparent about this is our company culture.

We respect what you have, what you bring in, but the companyculture is about. You set your own goals and everyone that you invite to, towork with you, you have to make sure that they're cultural compatible to, tothe company's culture, not so much you as a founder or you as a colleague ormanager is more about.

The company culture that you're doing and a lot of thecompanies that I work and I help grow Part of the recruitment process will bewill start or end with a company Cultural fit in kind of interview and a lot ofthese times will be with the founders of the company Interviewing you is likehow do you behave?

It's not not about anything technical You have plenty ofinterviews to look at that. It's like are you gonna be a cultural fit? We'regoing to be able to respect our culture as a company, not my culture as afounder, not my culture as a manager, or your culture as an individualcontributor, it is our culture as a company.

And it's very clear about what we believe as a company, andit's very transparent.

When companies grow, then you're starting to have a lot oflayers between one level and the other different levels, and that's when itbecomes more complicated. If we're talking about stuff, a lot of the timesyou're 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 employees.

It's still manageable to keep a very transparent sense ofcommunity and creating this culture. Over 200, it becomes very challenging, notimpossible, but it is indeed very challenging.

Julian: Yeah, yeah, Iwould always say, and I think a lot of founders would agree, it's, it's, intimes where you can't maybe answer the question for your employees and theyneed to act independently, like, how are they going to act?

And what guidelines do they have? And, That's where a lot ofthat culture, values, and those things you set up those foundational piecesearly, then, they lead to outcomes where you're not like, Oh my God, why wouldyou do that? It's, it's okay. If it's customer first, then it's customer first.

And you're like, okay, well, we'll figure it out from there.But the culture really sets up that expectation.

Another thing you mentioned that was particularly interestingwas about building teams. And why is it more challenging now than ever? To hirereally good people that you'll, you can invest time in because you see a lot offounders hiring people part time, maybe contracting them, then full timepermanence.

I know a lot of the developers in our community have thatexperience. But from the founder's side, you have to see the opposite. It ishard to, just Invest in somebody and, and when, when you have so much otherworry and, how do you do that now? And why is it so much harder now to hire theright people?

Martin: Because it'sbecoming very competitive and you have a lot of great products working togetherand you want to be in all of. These different places, but at the same time, andone of the things I feel very lucky is that I've been able to grow a verystrong network of engineers and people human resources, and other careers andbackgrounds that they're doing, so they can put them together, but why is itbecoming challenging for the founders, and the fact that I've been able tointroduce a lot of these to a lot of successful companies, and I can tell youthat It's also the lack of knowledge of what you want.

It's not always you know what you want and We're talking islike you have to make sure that you bring people that are compatible to yourcompany's culture They have to be culturally fit to what you're preaching,right? But a lot of the time it's like yeah, I want something so an engineer. Iwant like a Staff engineer who is very cheap that also can adapt my company andis going to be committed to my company.

And if Amazon comes and offers them money, they're not going toleave because it's like, you're looking for a Who are you hiring? Exactly. It'swhat do you want to do? Just, just maintain the website. It's like, whoa. No,it's, you have to understand what are you looking and then you create that andyou nurture a lot of the, the, the requirements that you're doing.

They're going to grow with you or they're going to help yougrow. You, you have the resources, you have the, the roof for them to continuedeveloping you. You, a lot of the founders have to be selfish when they'rebecoming, when they're building a company, but when you're building teams. Youshouldn't be as selfish.

You also have to think about the people that you're bringing.And if you continue to raise the roof, they're going to be thankful becausethey're continuing to learn regardless if they're working with you or at Amazonor Tesla or some big company that is going to put a big logo on their back. No,they're growing with you and they're helping you build their business and, andthat's what you're doing.

But then you get to these mutual agreements on what you'redoing. So I think that's I truly believe that's why it's, it's complicated forpeople to get the right talents.

Julian: Yeah.

It's, Interesting you mentioned network and how impactful thatwas and, and not only, finding founders, resources, or finding yourselfresources, or I'm sure funding and things like that, networking comes sounnatural to a lot of people and, and I argue it's even harder now than everbecause people are moving away from cities into more affordable areas, morespace for their families and, kind of trying to find this balance, where arethe places people should start networking online?

And also, how do you go about it to maintain, something that'sactually growing and not necessarily there when all of a sudden you need a jobchange or you need an engineer for an MVP that, this your seed fund seedinvestors want to see how that now online?

Martin: It'sdifficult. As you say, now it's online before and before COVID, there was,there was a lot of events going on here and I remember being. A person who wasat all of the events and people will recognize me and I'll go. And now onlineevents, as you say, I have people living in smaller towns and you have to getthere.

So the only thing that I continue to do before COVID when wehave these events and that I continue to do, and it helps me to keep a healthygrowing network is One of the core values that I have is to help others and tomake friends instead of contacts. So it goes with that selfishness that I wastelling you is not being selfish is if I'm gonna meet you Julian and you needhelp I'm gonna help you not because of what you're gonna give me and I'm gonnaand I'm gonna engage a conversation not because who you are who is just We'regoing to become friends and probably you know someone that that may have theskills that I know someone who's looking for the skills.

It's just connecting this and creating this network. Buttalking, helping, being there for people, it's important. Maintainingrelationships is becoming very difficult. Especially when you're physicallyconnected to people, it's easier because You can manage those relations. Hey,let's go for coffee, let's go for a grab a beer, or for lunch, and let's startdoing that, or I'll see you in this event that is happening next week, andyou'll meet these people and try to coincidentally maintain the relationship,like, at least with a nice hello.

Now, online communities, and it's becoming a very Disperse,like going into LinkedIn or X or Instagram is like, Oh, I gave you a like. Hey,Julian, how's it going? It's trying to keep that it's becoming very, verydifficult. You don't always have a topic of conversation to talk with someoneand say like, Hey, let's talk just for the sake of talking and keep ourconversation open.

No. But if you're always helping people. When someone islooking for help, they'll go like, Oh, Martin is doing that because he likes tohelp people. And I know I can go with it and I'll introduce to this otherperson that was looking. So that's, that's what I see. It's, it's don't fakethe relationship.

Be honest about, I want to build something because I want tohelp you or the network that you have.

Julian: Yeah. I wastalking to somebody the other day about, they were wanting to build a personalbrand online and start creating, healthier content. And my advice was justlike, find your comfort zone.

Find something that can almost self generate and, that'salmost, similar to what you're saying. It's like, find some intention that'sgoing to continue to create these valuable conversations, whether it's helpingpeople in any chance you can get or sharing, knowledge online consistently.

All these different mechanisms is, is, really exciting to beable to kind of connect with people authentically.

And actually, thinking about content wise, how have you seenthis, this amazing evolution and, and revolution, really, of, of founderstaking advantage of these social content platforms?

What, what have you seen that has been really successful from agrowth standpoint now with the ability for founders to get involved in socialmedia and, and all these different visible? Hard to reach things if you werethinking about a few years ago.

Martin: Yeah, and Ican talk very closely I have a friend, company that I helped before being hereat Sunroom Rentals.

It's Felix Lee from 82 East on Singapore. And he uses hissocial media very, very strongly to create his personal brand and his companybrand in such a strong manner that he's becoming The brand that it's supportingthe company behind him, and it's allowing him to go regardless of where he is.And he's in Singapore, he came to Guadalajara, and he was able to use thisnetwork to create conference in an easy manner.

He went to San Francisco, same thing. So, just from whatever heis trying to leverage. This lack of geographical barriers and limitations thatwe have, he was able to take it in a very actionable way on the network or theplatform that he was building. I have other people and other friends that Evenif they're trying to go on a vacation and holiday to France or to Japan someonein Mexico, Mexico here I remember they went to Japan and they, they reach outto the Mexican embassy in Japan.

It's like, hey, we're entrepreneurs and we want to meet people.Again, asking for help. Don't be afraid. Asking for help, reaching out topeople, and the ambassador, they just redirected them to another person andthey got out like a private tour with a lot of the tech ecosystem in Japan.It's like, What do you do for a living?

It's like, yeah, but I wanted to meet people. And now thisperson knows a lot of people, investors, and founders in Japan that now aretalking about coming to Mexico. So this is the type of things that you can takeadvantage of. And when I was going to study to Scotland, I remember I waslooking for my US visa and it's like, I was using social media like, Hey, Ineed help because I need to get there fast enough.

I got accepted like very close to the start date. So I had tospeed up the process. And I got the government helping me in Mexico to getthose letters to go to, to, to Europe, to Scotland to study. So asking forhelp. And again, not knowing. Who you're going to be talking to, not becausewho they are, but because you're really engaged in what you want to do and helpor, or meet make friends, not contacts is the same things on social media, onreal person or anywhere that you go, because humans, we have a lot of flaws,but also we're amazing because we like to meet people, help people in the end.

And we want to reach out our hand to see how we can help otherpeople grow.

Julian: Amazing. Verypowerful. Martin, I have a series of rapid fire questions. I call it my FAQs.I'm gonna hit you with some and then we'll finish out and close out. But firstquestion coming at you is Easy. What are you currently doing right now?

What should we be excited about what Martin's working on?

Martin: My day to dayjob is leading a group, a team of engineers working for a U. S. startup, tryingto innovate and reinvent the real estate industry in the United States. Sohelping people and renters to self care and lease faster homes.

So I'm leading that and I'm the engineering part of thattogether with two amazing founders. But also on the night when I put myself inmy cave, I'm trying to help other founders grow and build and get funding andconnect with amazing people.

Julian: Yeah. If youweren't working on that, what would you be doing?

Martin: Ah, greatquestion. I have a lot of ideas. There's a lot of things. And every daysomething new comes out. And as we mentioned at the beginning of the call, I'mvery curious. So I'm always trying to try something new and trying to do both.What would I be doing is trying to create better opportunities for everyone inthe ecosystem.

Julian: Whatindustries, like, more recently are getting you excited in terms of whetherit's, amount of funding going to them, founders or interesting, innovativeproducts that are actually seeing traction?

What industries are you really excited about and in terms oftheir growth potential?

Martin: HealthTech issomething that I see a lot of development going on, of course. I've worked at acrypto company and fintech company, and I think there's a lot of things goingon there, but I'm excited actually about the industries that haven't beeninvolved in a lot of time. So, education, real estate. The more that I'mlearning and building solutions, the more that I see that there's not a lot ofinnovation, there hasn't been a lot of innovation.

So trying to bring this sort of innovation into, into theseindustries that haven't really transform, that's exciting for me. And of courseeverything that's happening in the US and other people are working, that'sexciting because they're doing it. But the fact that we're going to innovate onthings that hasn't evolved for hundreds of years, such as education and realestate that's exciting to me.

Julian: It's sopowerful thinking about, everything that's, especially in health tech and howalso industries are kind of morphing together. AI is playing a part of it ineverywhere and you see so many kind of combinations of technology that arefascinating.

What are some early, early founder pieces of advice, I guessearly lessons you had that if a founder was asking you, what are some things Ishould absolutely avoid?

What would you tell them?

Martin: As an earlyfounder, you don't know it all. So don't try to pretend that you know it alland try to beat the grand scheme is. Don't be afraid of asking questions,asking for help, and asking for favors. It's the, you don't have anything andyou have everything at the same time. So those are your two biggest it's yourbiggest risk and your biggest assets.

Julian: Yeah. Whatare maybe some, a couple of books, anything that has had any lasting impressionto you and even things that you'd recommend to other founders, people you meet?What, what books or people, have given you some advice that really has, haslasted the test time?

Martin: Thanks forthe feedback.

That's one of the founders on Slack, I think that she was a coauthor and I really like that one. And there's a lot of engineering books thatI I could recommend, but long lasting thanks for the feedback. That's the onethat I would recommend to the audience because it's all about how we'retalking.

We were talking a minute ago about The different cultures andpeople with different backgrounds, if you know how to talk and be transparentand objective about the way that you're asking or requesting for feedback, theless room for assumptions. And the healthy relationship you're going to becreating and that's going to help you as you're building your team and even ifyou already have a team to strengthen that and to create a culture of we are,we all are able to speak up and to bring and tip in our ideas into better andgreater things.

So that's, that's a book that I would probably give.

Julian: yeah. A lotof our audience and our community are building the internet across the world.What are three skills or habits that they should start learning today thatcould help accelerate their professional career?

Martin: Never stoplearning. That's one.

I've been in education for a long time and I think it'simportant that you never stop learning. Always be humble. Always distrust. Themost of those who come to me saying I know it all and I'm an expert. The mostknowledgeable people that I've met are the most humble and the people that tellme that don't know anything.

So yeah, always be humble, always keep learning. And the lastone is always be hungry. It's like, what's next? What, what are you going to beworking on next? Knowing that. Everything is going to change, so you have tolearn how to

Julian: adapt. Yeah.

We're coming to the close of the episode, Martin. Is there anyquestion I didn't ask you that I should have?

Martin: I don't know.I like wine, tequila, mezcal, I like cars. I drink a lot of coffee, probablymore than I, yeah, would like to.

Julian: Which, yeah,which are tequila, which are tequila and your mezcal of choice? I love both.I'm a big, I mean. Jalisco, come on.

Martin: My sister isworking at a brand that is very, like, it's opening their markets in the U. S.and I think they have something in New York called Don Fulano. So, that'sreally good and I like that. The other one is Ocho. So, those are the twobrands that I like for mezcal. There's a hundred of varieties, but I can tellyou I like Espadin and Tobalá, which are the plants that they like, like smokykind of mezcal.

Yeah. Probably a question or unasked question about myentrepreneurship story is like, I opened a brand of mezcal that is sleeping atthe moment, but that all happened because I was at a coffee I was at a dinnerwith someone in San Francisco and I wanted to become friends and came askinghim, it's like, what are we going to do?

It's like, Let's go party in San Francisco. And he was like,Oh, it's very popular. I don't party. I only like to work. It's like, Oh, he'ssuch a boring guy. And then I kept asking, what are we going to do? He's like,no. And then he, he asked me, he's like, what do you do? And I was like, whatdo I do? And I came up with this Miskol brand at the time is like, And Ipitched the whole thing to him.

He's like, Oh, I love it. He took his business card. It's likeventure capital is like, tell me more when you have your company. He's like,Oh, so I went back to Oaxaca. I have my mom, mother's family there. It's like,can you introduce me to someone who's doing Mezcal? He's like, yeah, I know thepresident of the Consejo Regular de Mezcal.

And he's like, sure, let's meet him. He took me to a lot ofMezcal producers and I created my Mezcal brand and that's it. So again, neverbe afraid of. Just screwing up and doing things. It's like sharing ideas.

Julian: Yeah,exactly. Yeah, man. It's so powerful.

One founder told me a long time ago, if, if you meet a founderwho's afraid of telling you about their product or their idea.

Then just leave them alone because it's so hard to copy an ideato stop everything you do and actually to copy what somebody does. And ifsomebody does, that means it's even that much more powerful for you to go buildit. But the sharing of the ideas, people get excited about that and I thinkreally lead to some amazing relationships and partnerships.

Martin: Well, forsure, there's no 1, 000, 000 idea. There's 1, 000, 000 execution and the morethat you share your idea, the more feedback you get and the more that you'regoing to adapt to your end customer.

Julian: Yeah, we'llcall this the 1, 000, 000 Execution. I'll use that as the tagline for thisepisode. Amazing.

Martin, thank you so much for joining us on the show.

It was such a pleasure talking about your background, yourexperience. I'm sure we could talk at length about so many more topics, butjust to have Your time and your experience, your expertise. It's been such apleasure. Last little bit, where can we find you? What are your Instagrams orLinkedIn? Do you have a blog?

Tell our audience where we can be a fan and support what you'redoing.

Martin: Yeah, that'dbe great. My, well, my name is Martin Moscosa. My last name is M O S C O S A.So that's not very common. So my handle, my username on Twitter, X, orInstagram, or even my website is @mmoscosa, M M O S It's C O S A, and you'll beable to find me just LinkedIn, Instagram, X, or my website. com. So that'swhere you can find me.

Julian: Amazing,Martin. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Martin: Thank you,Julian. It's a real pleasure, and all the best to the audience and communitiesthat are hearing. Thank you for spending this, I don't know, 30 minutes, 40minutes that we've been talking. I really enjoyed it.

50! 50!! It's okay. Time did really fly. So, I really enjoyedthe conversation, the talk, and looking forward for more, and hearing, andhelping anyone. Of course. Always happy to help.

Julian: Of course.

Thank you.

There you have it. Thank you so much for being a part of theconversation staying with us to learn all of Martin's insights and experiences,anecdotes of impressive knowledge If you're somebody who values these types ofconversations, please follow us online.

You can follow our YouTube channel. You can follow us ongrupo.dev/podcast and stay up to date with more amazing internet builders,people who are building global teams, building global products. If you'resomebody who's interested in that stay tuned.