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| Immigrant entrepreneur: | Jorge Ruiz |
| Company: | FinConecta |
| Place of birth: | Bolivia |
| Employees: | 25 |
| Age started business: | late 20s |
Show notes
Jorge came from Bolivia to the U.S. initially to study in college. His journey brought him back home where he launched several different companies all in completely different fields.
With his expertise at Citi Bank he launched the first global solution for financial institutions by connecting them with the top innovative fintech solutions. Financial institutions are in need of digitizing practically everything they do, and it’s rapidly growing. That’s where FinConecta comes in and creates the different services/products that transforms the way they do business and connect with their customers.
With the rapid innovation, Jorge continues to build and transform the fintech solutions.
His journey to success is one of a kind, and you’re absolutely going to love all the invaluable advice that he provides.
Quotes by Jorge
Growing up was always talking about business, and always looking for business opportunities.
I knew it was going to be difficult for the first couple of years.
As many startups, you have to continue to raise capital.
It’s impossible for anyone to know everything.
It doesn’t matter what you do, you’re always going to need the support either understanding pricing, or understanding markets.
Having a good network of people that you can talk to, I think is key.
I was fortunate to talk to so many entrepreneurs along my innovation career that I learned bits and pieces from many of them.
The more you can read, the more you can learn, the more that you can experience, the more people that you can talk to you, you’ll always find something that you can use.
Failure is something extremely difficult.
The best way to manage failure is the ability to pivot as fast as possible, to find the next possible good thing.
Failures will happen, it’s just the matter for you to find a new path. It’s not easy by no means.
Having a good network of advisors, partners, it’s very important so you can have the ability to pivot as fast as possible.
It’s not an easy journey.
Keep in mind when you’re down there’s a good thing coming up. You won’t be at the bottom for too long, you will start going up again.
Don’t try to do this alone.
Look for partners.
The financial industry is digitizing and we’re in the middle of it all.
Always think big.
I don’t believe in focusing on something small because it takes the same amount of energy to do something that is for one country, or for one city. The same energy as you would be thinking that solution can be for a region or for a much larger target market.
So if you’re going to invest time on building something, make it worthwhile and make it big.
Where to find Jorge
Links mentioned
- Good Neighbor Scholarship for Texas
- The Venture City Venture Capitalist
- Endeavor mentorship, access to capital
[read more] Alina Warrick (1s):
Welcome to the Immigrant Entrepreneurs Podcast, Episode 33. My name is Alina Warrick and I’m extremely honored to speak with Jorge Ruiz about his journey. He initially came to the United States to study because all of the universities were closed due to a military regime in Bolivia. But his journey took him back to Bolivia where he ended up opening several different companies in several different industries. His mission now is to create tools to financial institutions, to allow them to innovate and digitize their processes. His company FinConecta is a first in the industry to launch this innovation that integrates FinTech’s into financial institutions around the world.
Alina Warrick (49s):
Jorge is extremely bright and brings a lot of invaluable entrepreneurial advice to all of us. So let’s dive right in. Jorge, thank you so much for coming on to the Immigrant Entrepreneurs podcast. I truly appreciate your time and I am super excited to get to know about your journey. So welcome to the show.
Jorge Ruiz (1m 11s):
All right. Thank you and thank you for having me. It’s an honor to be here.
Alina Warrick (1m 15s):
So lets talk about your immigrant journey. Tell us where you’re from, and when did you come to the United States?
Jorge Ruiz (1m 23s):
Of course. I was born and raised in Bolivia in South America. I went to college in Texas, so I was in the US before. Then I went back to Bolivia after that and came back with my family to Miami in December of 2004. So Miami is such an amazing place to live, do business, meet like-minded people. When I say like-minded people, I mean people with diverse groups and they have some regional or global business goals in mind. And of course the weather is fantastic. So that’s why I think Miami is a great location to move in.
Alina Warrick (1m 56s):
So, you came out here to study. What did you study?
Jorge Ruiz (1m 59s):
Well, that was in late 80’s and I actually started with Aerospace Engineering and then, yeah, I always wanted to go back to Bolivia, but then I thought, what am I going to do with that in Bolivia? So I switched to business and while I was in business I said, okay, so what’s the most difficult one within business and I thought a combination of finance and accounting, that’s the one, that’s why I chose Finance, but then I fell in love with Finance and then after graduating I went back to Bolivia and work with multiple financial institutions. And I founded my first company in Bolivia, a broker dealer house, that was my first gig. So, FinConecta, is not the first one, but we are going to talk about that later.
Alina Warrick (2m 40s):
Okay. And how old were you when you came back here to Miami with your family?
Jorge Ruiz (2m 46s):
Yeah, so this time, I was not that young. I was in my early forties.
Alina Warrick (2m 51s):
Early Forties.
Jorge Ruiz (2m 52s):
Yeah, I was fortunate to arrive to this country that time around as an expat. Citibank offered me to move to the US, to meet at a regional business unit. And that later became a global innovation team that I manage out of the Miami office at. Didn’t want to go to New York, that’s a little bit too cold for me so, we built the global team from Miami and out of that, we manage to do 16 innovation programs all around the world and met about 3000 Entrepreneurs in the FinTech space. That was a very nice landing and a good opportunity that Citi gave me be in a global role from Miami.
Alina Warrick (3m 28s):
Got it. Okay, so essentially your work brought you out here to live in the United States?
Jorge Ruiz (3m 34s):
Correct. That’s correct.
Alina Warrick (3m 35s):
Okay. Okay. Got it. So what was it like growing up in Bolivia?
Jorge Ruiz (3m 38s):
Well, I was fortunate to have been raised by a serial entrepreneur, that was my mom. Yeah. I learned about successes and failures of entrepreneurship since I can remember. The timing, things might not have made that much sense, but now when I look back, I clearly see where I come from. I think every time I think of a business, I think of what I the family used to do. I was introduced to the 7 weeks, 16 hours a day work by her. And growing up was always talking about business, looking for business opportunity. So any conversation in my family, we would always include some business discussions, some next step. So to me, raising in Bolivia was basically being raised around entrepreneurship.
Alina Warrick (4m 19s):
Wow. Amazing and what kind of business does your mom have?
Jorge Ruiz (4m 22s):
Oh, she did so many different things. She was in gold, she was in textile. She was in so many different things. Some things worked, some other ones didn’t. So some were great success and the other ones were not as much. So I think I learned through the different experiences with my mom.
Alina Warrick (4m 41s):
Got it. That’s so amazing to have you see full example living right in front of you and to see all the ups and downs and get all of the juicy and information of what its like to be an entrepreneur right in your household. So that’s amazing. So tell me a little bit more about Bolivia was it prominent for everyone to go to college? I mean, how did you end up going to school in Texas if you were in Bolivia?
Jorge Ruiz (5m 9s):
Yeah. It was an interesting story. At that time we were living not too good times at Bolivia, so it was difficult times because the Universities were closed because there were military regimes. And so my mom thought, Hey, you better go somewhere else otherwise, you are never going to be, you are never going to have a profession. So she decided to send me to the US. So that’s how I ended up here. At first I really wanted to be a mechanic. I love motorcycles. So I thought I was just going to stay in Bolivia and be a mechanic. But thankfully that was not the case. And I came to the US, learn a little bit of Finance and that gave me this interest in the industry. So that’s how I started my career in Finance and in Insurance and Banking.
Jorge Ruiz (5m 51s):
As I said, I launched a broker dealer house. Worked as general manager for an insurance company. And from then, many things happened that brought me to the US and where I am now.
Alina Warrick (6m 1s):
Did you come on a scholarship to study in Texas?
Jorge Ruiz (6m 5s):
No, not really. When I started, no, but then when I got to Texas, Texas at that time had a scholarship called, I think it was The Good Neighbors Scholarship or something like that. And one person per country will get a full scholarship and I got that for a couple of years so that was nice. But other than that, it was my mom’s finances that brought me here.
Alina Warrick (6m 26s):
Shout out to your mom. She did an amazing job. Oh my goodness.
Jorge Ruiz (6m 31s):
Yes she did.
Alina Warrick (6m 32s):
Okay. So tell me a little bit about the struggles that you’ve had to go through when you first immigrated. And I want to hear kind of both sides, the first time when you came to Texas, I’m sure it was a culture shock for you, but let’s talk a little bit more about that.
Jorge Ruiz (6m 46s):
It was, because there was a language barrier, of course. And there was a culture barrier. I had some friends that were also from Bolivia and some other ones from Mexico. We were able to get a good group of people. So it wasn’t as difficult. I did want to go back to Bolivia and that’s why I decided to switch careers instead of Aerospace Engineering, go to finance because I thought Bolivia was the place to be. And so that was that journey. And this second time around here in Miami, I think the struggle was a little bit different because that was more related to the change of lifestyle due to the nature of my role, I had to spend I would say, two-thirds of my time traveling.
Jorge Ruiz (7m 27s):
That meant being away from the people I love, most of the time, which is very difficult and you never get used to that. So I think that was the biggest challenge that I had being an immigrant, but at the same time, because of the nature of the role that I had.
Alina Warrick (7m 42s):
Got it. Got it. And so before you tell our listeners about your company, tell me a little bit about the path that you took. And I am hearing that FinConecta was not the first company that you started. So let’s hear a little bit about that journey.
Jorge Ruiz (7m 57s):
Yup. For sure. So FinConecta is my last company, but then prior to that I was involved with five or six other ones. The big difference with,
Alina Warrick (8m 5s):
Wow.
Jorge Ruiz (8m 6s):
Yeah, with FinConecta is that most of the other businesses I launched, I was not leading the company and I would always had second gig going on at the same time. So I would work for someone else. But at the same time I will have some sort of a stake in different companies. And the first company that I launched I managed that company, I founded the company, but I had a good partner. I had a financial institution that funded the broker dealer that I wanted to do. So that was different than FinConecta and FinConecta was started with our own funds. So that’s different because you see the money going out, you don’t see that money coming in for the first few months and that’s sometimes it’s scary. But I think I was lucky enough to have learned from different start ups that I met in my career and the journey that followed through Citibank and the innovation program.
Jorge Ruiz (8m 55s):
So I knew it was going to be like a difficult first couple of years, but thankfully everything turned out well.
Alina Warrick (9m 1s):
So you said your very first company was a broker dealer and what is that?
Jorge Ruiz (9m 7s):
It’s a company that will invest money for others, like lets say like, Hmm, like the Goldman Sachs. But they do trading. This is just small, of course, a very, very small version of that. But we did trading for multiple people. We launched a couple of mutual funds. So it was an investment firm, a broker dealer house. And I still own a part of the company, a very successful one.
Alina Warrick (9m 33s):
Okay. And this was, you launched it in Bolivia.
Jorge Ruiz (9m 36s):
Correct.
Alina Warrick (9m 36s):
And how old were you?
Jorge Ruiz (9m 37s):
I was in my late twenties, probably.
Alina Warrick (9m 40s):
Wow. Young, young Entrepreneur.
Jorge Ruiz (9m 43s):
Yeah. I started young.
Alina Warrick (9m 45s):
Okay, awesome. So then after that was it, you said five or six different companies, were you involved in just financial industries after the first company?
Jorge Ruiz (9m 58s):
No, we also launched a company in education. We acquired a franchise for Future Kids. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them. They started in California and this is a franchise to teach kids about technology. And this was probably 25 years ago. So it was early days in terms of technology. And we launched that company. It was, going to say, okay. And at the end, we decided to just sell it, but that was one of the other companies that we launched. Then we also did some e-commerce. That was interesting. It was a different kind of industry. It was not finance. It was not an education. So that was that. And then we had a couple of other ones that we started but we’ve decided not to go live because it was not the right timing.
Jorge Ruiz (10m 44s):
So the different companies at different moments, some were
Alina Warrick (11m 1s):
Yeah. Wow. That you’ve been in all kinds of different industries now. You got your feet wet all over the place. That’s awesome. Okay. So tell us more about FinConecta and what you guys focus on.
Jorge Ruiz (11m 14s):
Of course. We founded FinConecta with a goal of giving tools to financial institutions to digitize their businesses. We created a platform that allows financial institutions to test, to innovate fast. So financial institutions that want to work with third party solutions, let’s say FinTech’s using our platform, they can do that without having to invest time or resources because we basically are software as a service and they can create new solutions with one-tenth of the costs or the time devoted for that. So what we do at FinConecta is we actually support financial institutions to develop new solutions, and to integrate new capabilities without having the pain of building on their own and being able to use them as they present it to their clients.
Jorge Ruiz (12m 3s):
So it’s a software, it’s a service that allows them to buy solutions from third parties.
Alina Warrick (12m 7s):
Okay, so can you give us some examples?
Jorge Ruiz (12m 9s):
Of course. And you can see this as iTunes for FinTech. So financial institutions, once they go into our platform, they can find multiple services from different FinTech’s around the world. We have a catalog of about 200 FinTech’s that they offer services like chat bots, account opening, know your customer. So different services that financial institutions need in order to provide a digital business to their clients, they will find them in this catalog of services. And then they will be able to integrate all those services into their own platforms. For their clients, they will not notice because this works on the back end of the financial institution, but this allows financial institutions not to have to build all of that and wait for months or years to have solutions that they can offer to their clients, to digitize whatever the clients do.
Alina Warrick (13m 2s):
And you guys only focused on FinTech’s, right?
Jorge Ruiz (13m 6s):
Right now, that’s what we do. We focus in the financial space. We focus on integrating FinTech’s into financial institution’s around the world. We do this in Latin America, we’re doing this in Africa. We are in conversations to launch a couple of partnerships in Canada, US and Europe. There are companies that we will partner to be able to present the solutions to financial institutions that are currently working with them.
Alina Warrick (13m 34s):
Got it. So is it similar to like PayPal and Stripe and then if they wanted, like you said, a chat bot on their website then that’s where you guys would come in and develop those services?
Jorge Ruiz (13m 47s):
Yeah, it’s a, let’s say a bank and let’s say a bank in Kenya, they want to offer digital account opening. So what they do is they register in our platform and they will go and search for account opening in Kenya, and they will find a service that provides that kind of technology in Kenya. So this can be a company based out of New York, based out of Australia, where they will click on that and then that will get integrated into the core system. So it’s a very technology infrastructure solution, that allows financial institutions to quickly accelerate the process of digitizing what they do.
Alina Warrick (14m 30s):
So sophisticated. I’m hearing.
Jorge Ruiz (14m 34s):
Yeah. I mean, this is for financial institutions that want to digitize their business. And it’s not for people to use them. It’s more for the financial institution itself to be able to accelerate the growth in the digital space.
Alina Warrick (14m 49s):
Got it. Okay. So I want to know, how did you come up with that business model? Was there something when you were working at Citibank? Or did something trigger that? Let’s hear more about that?
Jorge Ruiz (15m 1s):
For sure. The financial industry is not as developed, from a technology perspective, as other industries. And one of the biggest problems that we had at Citi, and many financial institutions have, imagine if Citi had those problems, a midsize and small size financial institutions is even more acute. Is that the integration process of new technology is cumbersome, is expensive, is not efficient. So that’s why when we started designing the solution, I said, Hey, we need to find a way that we can create a global, where we can have multiple solutions that can serve many financial institutions and being able to create an interconnected ecosystem globally, which is what we actually wanted to do when we look at what we wanted to achieve in the next, let’s say three to five years.
Jorge Ruiz (15m 53s):
Is to start connecting multiple pieces from around the world into one single interconnected ecosystem. This is something that today doesn’t exist. There are some pieces here and there, but there’s not one place that you can go and find multiple solutions that you can integrate with only one connection if you are a financial institution. So we are the only one in providing that today. And we are hoping that with what we are doing, the cost of serving people will reduce and which will definitely allow for financial institution to grow and being able to support more people around the world, not just to have an account, but have an account that is efficient in terms of cost. And it’s efficient in terms of how can you access those services?
Jorge Ruiz (16m 37s):
So there’s at least one third of the population of the world today, they don’t have proper financial services and if we’re able to create an interconnected ecosystem that produces the cost for that. We can certainly support that.
Alina Warrick (16m 50s):
Okay. Got it. So you were working at Citibank and you realized that there was no one in the industry that is doing what you guys are doing and you kind of just said, you know what, let me just launch it and see where it goes?
Jorge Ruiz (17m 1s):
Yeah, correct. And what we’ve launched is not something that one financial institution can do. Because we are sort of like the aggregator with a connector that’s why it’s connected because we connect different pieces and because it wouldn’t work, banks don’t work necessarily with other banks. They don’t like to share that information. So you need someone in the middle that will be able to connect them all. That’s how we came up with this idea of having and building an interconnected hub.
Alina Warrick (17m 30s):
So genius. I hope you guys are going to be the leading industry in that.
Jorge Ruiz (17m 35s):
We were hoping. Yes. So how long did it take you guys to see some real traction in the beginning stages? Yeah, something that we did was to partner with development banks. So we partnered with the Inter-American Development Bank for Latin America, the Inter-American Development Bank is like the World Bank, but just for the Latin American Caribbean region.
Alina Warrick (17m 57s):
Okay.
Jorge Ruiz (17m 57s):
So we partnered with them and then we launched an innovation program and that was very successful because it attracted many financial institutions interested in innovating and launching different financial services. And we did the same for Africa with the FMO, which is the Dutch Development Bank. So we decided not to go alone, but to partner with people that have been in the ground for many, many years, and that’s the IDB and also the FMO. So that was probably one of the strategic calls that we made that I think were the right ones. A couple of years after we launched the program with IDB, IDB also became one of our shareholders.
Jorge Ruiz (18m 40s):
So the story with the IDB progressed to the way to have them on a more structured partnership with them.
Alina Warrick (18m 46s):
Okay. So is that raising capital with these different partners or you kind of just partnered up to reach or network and then get the ground level going?
Jorge Ruiz (18m 56s):
Yeah. Both.
Alina Warrick (18m 57s):
Okay.
Jorge Ruiz (18m 57s):
In the case of FMO, it was to reach their network. In the case of IDB, it was network plus funding
Alina Warrick (19m 4s):
And what is IDP? IDB?
Jorge Ruiz (19m 7s):
Inter-American Development Bank, IDB.
Alina Warrick (19m 9s):
Oh, got it.
Jorge Ruiz (19m 10s):
Yeah. It was based out of Washington.
Alina Warrick (19m 13s):
Oh, got it. So then when you guys launched did you see real traction in the beginning stages or did it take you some time?
Jorge Ruiz (19m 22s):
Yeah, the first year was more developing the technology. So the second year, when we launched the program with IDP, we started seeing traction and then we went to Africa, more traction. And then what we did with that was to come up with a new way of using our technology. Now we give our technology as white label, meaning that whoever wants to build an interconnected ecosystem for a country region, we give them the technology, we partner with them, and then we’d launched the market place. We did the first one in New Mexico with a company that process payments, the company name is Prosa. They wanted to launch a market place for digital solutions for the Mexican market and they didn’t have the technology, they have the right business model.
Jorge Ruiz (20m 9s):
They went to the Inter-American Development Bank to ask for advice. And well they told them, we just invested in a company and they have the right technology. So they got us together and that we launched a marketplace called the FintSpace in Mexico. And today we are in discussions in other countries to do the same. Launch marketplaces by countries. So we were successful at presenting the model, and now we have shifted towards building an ecosystem with partners and that’s where we are now.
Alina Warrick (20m 40s):
So how did you decide to go global? Or how did that come about?
Jorge Ruiz (20m 45s):
Yeah, well. I guess, it was the nature of where we were coming from because I was very accustomed to the business everywhere because I was the global head for innovation and FinTech. So I will travel the world to look for FinTech’s everywhere. I probably met with, I don’t know, 3000 of them, out of the 16 programs that we did with Citi. Yeah. So I was very much accustomed to be in multiple geographies. So I think that was a fortune to really understand how business works in different location. So we were not focusing in just one region, plus we wanted to build this global ecosystem. So that’s why we kind of started global.
Alina Warrick (21m 25s):
So I’m hearing you basically just build that network already. So you had all the connection, where you kind of just put the pieces together and reached out to all these different partners and launched an amazing product in Mexico. And then that’s how you developed it in Africa and going into other countries.
Jorge Ruiz (21m 41s):
Yeah. Mexico came afterwards. We first launched in Latin America, then Africa, and then the Mexican initiative was more, let’s use our technology as a white label for one specific market with a local partner but we do have clients in different locations, that the first one that we started with it.
Alina Warrick (22m 0s):
So we talked about raising capital. You said you did raise capital in the beginning stages. Did you have to raise, continue raising capital?
Jorge Ruiz (22m 8s):
Yeah, we have. We started with a BC here in Miami. It’s called Adventure City. Amazing people, great partners. So we started with them. They were our, actually our angel investors. The first round was with them. And then the IDB came as an investor and together with the IDB, a group of individuals, private investors that we’ll bring in knowledge and network. So that’s how we grew our capital base. And as many start-ups you have to continue raising money in order to grow.
Alina Warrick (22m 41s):
So let’s talk a little bit about mentorship. Did you have any mentors that helped you out to start your business and I’m going to just cover all the businesses and all stages.
Jorge Ruiz (22m 53s):
Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean many, starting with, of course, my mom, you know, and then different people in different moments depending on what we were doing at the time. I think one of the greatest mentors I had was, and I still have it, it’s Jay Collins, which is the Vice Chairman for Citi. He was always there supporting us. He’s also an investor for FinConecta. So that’s one name that is really important for me. And along the way, many other people that have helped me, really understand what we were doing and what needed to be done. Today we have an advisory board for FinConecta that is very, very strong and every time I need something, I will just raise my hand and they will come.
Jorge Ruiz (23m 37s):
The other thing that we did was we joined a network. I don’t know if you are familiar with them, Endeavor?
Alina Warrick (23m 42s):
Yes.
Jorge Ruiz (23m 43s):
So we are an Endeavor company. Actually I am an Endeavor entrepreneur and Endeavour is a network of people that will help you depending on what you need. So it’s a group of advisors, they also have a capital, if you need. And that’s also a way of giving back because we support new entrepreneurs and other entrepreneurs support us. So it’s a very strong network and having an Endeavor by our side, that’s been important.
Alina Warrick (24m 13s):
I am hearing it is important, but how is it important in the success of any entrepreneur to have mentors, to reach out to mentors, to get advice? How do you, what do you think about that?
Jorge Ruiz (24m 25s):
Yeah, I think it’s impossible for anyone to know everything and it doesn’t matter why you do, you’re always going to need the support, either on understanding pricing, understanding markets, or even you just, you just want to chat with someone to get their ideas on things you might be doing. So having a good network of people that you can talk to, I think it’s key because otherwise you’d go crazy trying to solve things on your own. And many say that entrepreneurs are extremely lonely and I think having that advisers is good because then you have people that will understand where you’re going through.
Alina Warrick (25m 0s):
Yeah. We can’t do this all by ourselves, right?
Jorge Ruiz (25m 2s):
No, there’s no way.
Alina Warrick (25m 4s):
So Jorge, what do you think most prepared you to become an entrepreneur? Is there anything that you can see specifically that prepared you in any way?
Jorge Ruiz (25m 14s):
Yeah. I think it’s a combination of things, it’s things that you read about, the people that you talk to. I think I was fortunate to talk to so many entrepreneurs along my innovation career, that I learned bits and pieces from many of them and their successes, their failures that helped you see different things that you have to see. And being an entrepreneur is that I’m sure you heard that it is very difficult and you need support. And so the more you can read, the more you can learn, the more that you can experience, the more people that you can talk to, you’re always going to find something that you can use. And I’ve done many things in my life, and I’ve spoken with so many different people and I visited so many different industries, countries and there’s always pieces that will remind you what’s happening when one part of the world, you know, Kenya, for example, to me, plays for inspiration.
Jorge Ruiz (26m 10s):
There were so many things happening in Kenya. They innovate with so little and they do amazing things. Same thing in Israel. When you visit Israel, when you speak with them, you learn so much from them, right? The more you can talk to people, the more that you can reach out, the more that you can travel whenever we’re back to traveling, it’s the best experience in terms of learning. Yeah.
Alina Warrick (26m 30s):
I totally agree because anytime I go overseas, there are so many business ideas that it just pile up with and I’m thinking why doesn’t America have this or why can’t we have this where I live, you know? So I totally agree with the traveling and everything that you’ve said so far. So I’m really interested to know how do you look at failures and how do you overcome them?
Jorge Ruiz (26m 52s):
Yeah. Failure is something extremely difficult. It’s easy to say that you have to learn how to manage failures, but when you’re an entrepreneur, you have clients, you have employees, you have partners, you have investors and failing could mean different things for all of them or for some of them. And you need to be able to manage that. And the best way, I guess, to manage failure, is the ability to pivot as fast as possible to find the next possible good thing. Because failures will happen. It’s just a matter of you finding the new path, keep trying, right? Because otherwise if you just stay with the failures, you will never move forward.
Jorge Ruiz (27m 37s):
But it’s not easy, by no means. And having what we were saying before, having the right network of advisors, partners, people that you work with, it’s a very important so that you can have the ability to pivot as far as possible to find the next potential positive outcome.
Alina Warrick (27m 57s):
So don’t be afraid to fail, right?
Jorge Ruiz (27m 59s):
Well, yeah, don’t be afraid to pivot right after you fail because the chances are, you will fail one way or another, not necessarily a hundred percent failure, but you are going to have small failures here and there. You have to learn from that pivot and keep moving.
Alina Warrick (28m 15s):
So through all of your entrepreneurial adventures. You had so many different companies. Did you have at any point ever want to give up?
Jorge Ruiz (28m 25s):
Yeah. I mean, yeah, it’s natural because people get tired. And when you are, I don’t know, let’s say one, two years and you don’t see a positive outcome yet. Then it can become frustrating, right? And again, here comes the ability to pivot and to find the next potential success, and it has happened to me and to my partner’s, it is frustrating. You just have to keep going. It’s not an easy journey. And when I’d said that, I learn about a 7 day week and 16 hours a day of work. That’s what this story is about, right?
Jorge Ruiz (29m 6s):
And then throughout that you will, there will be days that you think you are like conquering the world and then the day after you think you are done and you probably heard that story before, but it’s so true. You just have to keep in mind that when you’re down, that there is a new thing coming up because you’re not going to be at the bottom for too long. You we’ll start going up again and you need to focus on that. As long as you can think that the good thing is coming, when you are down that we’ll pull you, that will say, Hey you, there is something positive, going forward. So keep going. And yeah, that’s how you can finish the journey with a positive note.
Alina Warrick (29m 47s):
So, so powerful. Thank you. Thank you so much. So it is important to talk about failure’s but it’s also important to talk about the successes. So let’s switch gears and talk about successes. Are there any successes that you will like to outline from your Immigrant Entrepreneur journey?
Jorge Ruiz (30m 5s):
Right. Yeah, I guess it’s something very important that we did was to partner from the beginning with the names like the Inter-American Development Bank or the FMO or, or others that we partner with. Don’t try to do this alone and try to find a strong partners that can help you through the journey. And I think that was a success for us because that give us the strength to get what we’ve done and what’s coming next. So I think in general, that was something that we learned that I think we can pass it along to others, which is a look for partners. So don’t try to do this alone or whatever it is that you are doing? And I think that’s probably one of the most important ones.
Jorge Ruiz (30m 45s):
The other one, it could be being part of a network, as we said, Endeavour or anyone like that, that can help you through the journey because networks are, as strong as Endeavour, will definitely help you. And then you have to use that network. So I think those two were good decisions that we made at the right moment.
Alina Warrick (31m 7s):
Thank you so much for sharing that. So what’s next for you guys? What are some business goals for the next couple of years? Anything you can share with us?
Jorge Ruiz (31m 15s):
Wow, yeah, we are launching a new product in the next two weeks. The world is moving towards open banking. Open banking is a way for financial institutions to open their technologies for third parties to connect. And that’s a very expensive proposition. So what we’ve done is built a solution called Open banking as a service. So we are launching that in a couple of weeks that will reduce the cost of doing this. I don’t know, 10, 20 times to what it is today. And then we are about to launch a couple partnerships probably in the first half of this year I wish I can tell you who with, but it’s very strong names that we think is going to be a very interesting journey for the next couple of years.
Jorge Ruiz (32m 3s):
Ideally we will be growing. We will be hiring more people and enter new markets. All depends on how things progress in the first quarter of this year that we. I’m very positive about it, but we will grow because the financial industry is digitizing more and more and we’re in the middle of it. So hopefully we will be able to work with many financial institutions and in different regions in the world.
Alina Warrick (32m 24s):
Yeah. Yeah. So stay tuned. So, what was the traditional banks, how do they look at all of this innovation? You said Open banking. Are they afraid? Are they catching on as well?
Jorge Ruiz (32m 39s):
I think, there’s both. There are the one’s that they don’t believe this is coming. I think that used to be like 90% of them. I’m going to say that was like four or five years ago. I think that it had switched. I think 20% of them now think that they can remain as they are. I think 80% of financial institutions of the world are trying to do something around digitization, whether that is partnering or building their own things, or they have to move quick because the financial services, as we know them today will change in the next three to five years. There’s a lot going on in this space and many new entrants and, if you are in the financial industry, you have to innovate and you have to innovate in a way that it’s efficient in terms of cost and timing.
Jorge Ruiz (33m 23s):
And I think that’s where everyone is heading towards and that’s where we can to help and work with anyone that has that in mind.
Alina Warrick (33m 31s):
So Jorge, what does the American dream mean to you?
Jorge Ruiz (33m 36s):
The American dream, I think, first we have to see the US as what it is, right. I mean, US is in terms of GDP, that’s one-fourth of the world. So that means that every dollar that gets produced in the world, 25 cents comes from the US, you know, so it’s a very large economy. And then when you’re thinking about education also in the US, 15 of the top 20 and university’s in the world that are here in the US. And when you are thinking about funding, 18 of the 20 largest Angel and early stage VCs are in the US. So if you add all of that to a very robust structure in terms of law, infrastructure and all of that, then it’s an agent that definitely can be fueled for many entrepreneurs, right?
Jorge Ruiz (34m 24s):
So I think all those elements, all those factors, are a huge contribution to, having a basis for anyone to be able to innovate and create. So the American dream for me is being able to have all those tools available that anyone can reach out to. And if you work hard, you can definitely put all those pieces together and build something that can be successful. So that’s how I see the American dream.
Alina Warrick (34m 55s):
That’s so true. I hear so many people on this show say that from all the countries that they are from, if you work hard, you don’t go anywhere. It’s based on your grades or it’s based on your heritage, or it’s based on where you live. So the working hard piece that you mentioned and putting all the pieces in perspective, what we have in America is truly, truly amazing. So, yeah. So is giving back either volunteering time or giving back to the community something that is part of you business values?
Jorge Ruiz (35m 30s):
Yeah, totally. That’s another reason why we have joined Endeavor because Endeavor has a formula of not just Entrepreneurs and getting advice, support from the network, but also give back. It’s even a commitment from the entrepreneurs that if they sell their company, they are going to give a percentage of the profits to fund new supporting mechanisms for new entrepreneurs. So totally. And I think whoever is an Endeavor entrepreneur that you have to have that in mind and be in that part of their mission.
Alina Warrick (36m 7s):
So you mentor brand new entrepreneurs through Endeavor?
Jorge Ruiz (36m 12s):
It hasn’t. You can do it through Endeavor, but of course you do that. And also Endeavor will help you structure that, because it’s, now that you’ve become an Endeavor entrepreneur from day one, I think it’s from 3 to 7% of entrepreneurs that applied, that are selected as Endeavor Entrepreneur. So it’s not an automatic membership. It’s you have to earn it. So in order to get there, yeah, there are different steps. So there is a scale-up program. So the different programs where they invite other entrepreneurs that are not there yet, they are not scaling yet. As Endeavor entrepreneurs will support those networks as well.
Jorge Ruiz (36m 53s):
So it’s a network of supporting each other. Depending on which level you are in. There’s always going to be something for you.
Alina Warrick (37m 1s):
You said the only people that get selected are 3 to 7%, is this for the elite?
Jorge Ruiz (37m 7s):
Well, the thing is, it’s not that they can reapply, you know, it’s a, you have to have certain conditions that show that what you’re building, and it’s a business that will scale and not all will succeed of course, because that nobody can assure that, but it’s meant to be for those that are in a moment that they can scale more. And if you’re not at that level then you can still be in a scale-up and be mentored and supported until you get to the point where you can become one of their entrepreneur.
Alina Warrick (37m 38s):
Got it. Okay. Awesome. So yeah, I will definitely link the Endeavor link in the show notes for everyone who’s listening. Thank you so much for sharing that. So what are some of the things that you would advise the next aspiring immigrant that wants to start their own business listening to you right now?
Jorge Ruiz (37m 55s):
I think something that I always say when you ask question like that is always Think Big and don’t be shy on what you are dreaming and what you’re thinking of? I don’t believe on focusing on something small, because it takes the same amount of energy to build something that is, let’s say for one country or for one city and the same energy as you would be thinking that solution could be for a region. It could be for a much larger target market. So I think it’s always think big. Always think how can you make a bigger impact and always focus on that because the time that you devote to whatever it is that you’re building, you’re not going to get it back.
Jorge Ruiz (38m 40s):
So, if you’re going to invest time on building something, make it worthwhile. And so, make it big.
Alina Warrick (38m 45s):
Dream big. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. And so Jorge, I have some super, super fast questions to wrap up with, if that’s okay with you.
Jorge Ruiz (38m 56s):
Of course.
Alina Warrick (38m 57s):
Okay. What time do you normally start your day?
Jorge Ruiz (39m 0s):
I’m going to say 7.
Alina Warrick (39m 2s):
Okay. How many employees do you have?
Jorge Ruiz (39m 4s):
25.
Alina Warrick (39m 5s):
Okay. How often do you watch TV in a week?
Jorge Ruiz (39m 9s):
I’m going to say, now a days, probably three hours. Three, four hours a week. Yeah.
Alina Warrick (39m 14s):
Okay, awesome. And the last one is, how many hours of work do you normally put in on average, say, on a week?
Jorge Ruiz (39m 23s):
70 hours.
Alina Warrick (39m 24s):
70 hours, okay.
Jorge Ruiz (39m 26s):
Yeah from 60 to 70, probably.
Alina Warrick (39m 29s):
So your mentality from your mom is still instilled.
Jorge Ruiz (39m 34s):
Yeah. Yeah.
Alina Warrick (39m 36s):
Hey, we’ll Jorge thank you so much. What an amazing journey you have gone through. You are so innovative and what a genius products you guys are developing. So I wish you all the best of successes and thank you so much. And hopefully there will be a part 2 to this.
Jorge Ruiz (39m 53s):
Of course. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. I’m totally honored to be with you tonight.
Alina Warrick (39m 58s):
Alrighty guys, thank you so much for tuning in. If there are any links that were mentioned in this episode, make sure to check them out on my website under this episode, to find all the links conveniently located in the show notes. I just wanted to ask for a quick favor, if you could please leave a review wherever you’re at listening to this podcast. Also, if you’re an Immigrant Entrepreneur and would love to be on my podcast, please email me and we’ll get connected. I’ll see you guys all next time for another exciting and impactful episode, take care.
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