Create a Clear North Star with Alejandro Patterson

Philippe (00:02)
Hey, Alejandro, how are you doing?

Alejandro (00:05)
Very good. Thank you for having me, Philippe.

Philippe (00:08)
Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate you coming to the pods.

Well, I was really interested. You I look at your profile and you seem to have like lots of experience. And most interestingly is this new nonprofit that you're building called Let's Build the Happiest Place on Earth. Can you tell us a bit more about this and you know, what's this new journey?

Alejandro (00:28)
Yeah, for sure. So about four months ago, I was really looking at looking at what drives me, what motivates me, what are the things I care about in the world. I was working until December at a fast growing startup called Honey Insurance. And yeah, that was an incredible journey. I got everything out of it. Everything that I wanted out of that journey, I got.

I got all the learning and yeah, just fantastic experience to go from a startup to a scaler. And I was also really ready to do something for myself again. And not just that, to reconnect with community and give back to community. Over the years, I've raised money for different charities and that's really lit me up. And so I did some soul searching.

I sat down and looked at what areas in the world right now could really use some support. And what I landed on was building something in Costa Rica so I can reconnect with my history. So I was born and grew up in Costa Rica. I'm Costa Rican-American, Kiwi, New Zealander.

I was born and grew up in Costa Rica. And yeah, through that, I reached out to an old family friend, Gail Nystrom. She runs a foundation called the Costa Rican Humanitarian Foundation. And I've known her. Her son was in my class. He was in Boy Scouts with me. Yeah, I was just spitballing with her, having a conversation going like, hey, I'm thinking about how I can give back to the community and

You know, you're always really involved with this slum called La Carpio in Costa Rica, hundreds of thousands of people living in pretty terrible conditions and usually illegitimate. they're like, they're migrants fleeing worse conditions in other countries in Latin America that had settled and Costa Ricans as well, but predominantly it's immigrants. And she's like, actually, yeah, I've been... speaking with this community leader in La Carpio Emilio. And there's this one group of families that live at the worst part of this slum. So you're already imagining like raw sewage, like some running water in some areas, all tin shacks, like dirt roads. 30 years ago, it was like a murderer day. Like it It was pretty rough. Not so now, thankfully, thanks to a lot of Gail's work. be honest. But these families live at the worst part. They're on the right on the edge of this river. When it rains, there's actually a cliff behind water, like comes off and drops trees and rocks onto their houses, erodes the like, it's, it's rough. And I've got all these videos actually, that they've sent me of their houses and stuff. It's, yeah, it's pretty rough. And she's like, these, these families are actually helping themselves as well.

So it's not like they're just like, poor me. The dads are working. Some of the moms are working as well. The kids are going to school. Like it's not like they're just sitting there waiting for something to happen. And I'm like, this is pretty cool. And she's like, well, you know, this is, this is something that I'm passionate about. Like when I was a Boy Scout, I did some work in like Carpio when I visited in 2013 and 2015, I went and did some work there. And so I'm like, I'm connected somewhat to this community. Gail, can, you can help structure things, you've got the non-profit, so we can put the funds through that to legitimize this project. Cool, let me have a think about this and have a conversation with some people. So fast forward to now, which is, four months in. Where I'm at is I've now got a team, we've got people on the ground in Costa Rica looking to purchase the land. The team in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, we're looking at

Philippe (03:36)
Mm-hmm.

Alejandro (03:54)
Well, we've already started raising funds, but fundraising kind of the marketing side of what we're up to. And then in Costa Rica, we've got another team that's looking at like corporate donations to help us build these houses. So what we're looking to do is raise $180,000 to build 12 homes that we can then gift these families, but they'll be working on all of the homes with us as we build them.

And we use volunteers out of the US and universities in Costa Rica to help us make sure that they're like super well built properties. And the vision goes beyond that, which is so there's this great book called the mystery of capital, Peruvian economist. And he speaks, he did this 15 year study and he speaks to unlocking the wealth in Latin America that's locked up in. illegal dwellings and businesses that are in these dwellings. The challenge that Latin America faces is it's on either government land or private land, but not being used for anything. There's no value being created out of it. There's more value in unlocking that and having that land transferred to these homeowners and allowing them to use that equity to grow the businesses that they've got. And he...puts a really good point to the world. And that's something that I'm exploring as part of this is let's not just build 12 houses and go, here you go, here's the keys. Let's look at education beyond this. Let's look at how we unlock it. How do we take people and get them out of poverty properly? And so there's like stages to this startup. If we're going to call it that startup is the first phase is let's get them out of danger.

Right? Like let's solve that problem. If we're looking at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, let's get them out of danger and get them into opportunities. Let's get them close to the work. Let's have the kids go to better schools and more integrated into their communities. And then as we're doing that, let's look at developing programs in education to expand out. So that's what I'm up to. That's what I'm up to at the moment. And yeah.

Philippe (05:49)
Yeah, mean, that's, I mean, it sounds exciting as well for you, seems like. You said about something about, you call this startup. I guess I wonder the differences between startups and the nonprofit, it feels like, it's probably the same thing actually. But I guess what you think is the main difference,

Alejandro (06:07)
Yeah, well, so I don't think there is a difference. So what I see is founders, it doesn't matter. So whether you consider yourself a founder or a business owner or our project leader or developing a product, whatever hack or title you want to put on yourself, CEO, founder, whatever.

You have a vision for the world. You have a future that you see that you want to fulfill. And then it's about working backwards from that and setting milestones in place and going, well, what is it going to take for me working backwards? Right? Like how, how do I achieve this? So if I've, if I've built 10 houses two weeks before that, what has to have happened? Well, I would to have had to have had a thousand volunteers and $180,000 in cash.

We would have had to sign contracts for the land. We would have had to sign contracts for the prefab bill to be in place. Okay, cool. What has to have happened two weeks before that? Okay, well two weeks before that we would have had maybe $160,000 and like the contracts would have been with the lawyers and you you get my point. You're working backwards from a future and then you're looking to enroll people to get, to have people join your journey. and support what you're up to, whether that be called an employee or a volunteer, same thing, right? You've got a vision, you're enrolling them in that vision, and then you are working with them to go, well, how can you contribute to How can you make this real, knowing that these are the milestones that we have to get to the outcome, the vision, to create that vision in the world? And so I don't see a difference in the mindset or like as in, the difference between a startup and a nonprofit, other than a nonprofit, we put all the money into whatever the end outcome is. Whereas a startup tends to be designed to either exit through being acquired or otherwise, right? there is, yeah, there is, that's kind of the difference, but you still have to be frugal.

Philippe (07:59)
Hmm.

Alejandro (08:08)
You still have to have like keen project management skills. You still got to have a clear vision and you've still got to move as quickly as possible because the, like before, for a startup that is burning cash, you have a certain runway for a nonprofit. The faster we go, the more money goes into the actual outcome. really you've got that same urgency to deliver until I,

I get that there's nuances within that. And of course, like the profit side of it will drive different people and the nonprofit side will drive other people. And then there's the business in the middle, right? Like there's people that don't actually want to exit, but they will change the world in their business.

Philippe (08:49)
I guess like, you you talked about like raising funds. How do you, how do you raise funds? Cause for start up, obviously there's, said there's an alcohol outcome, right? In terms of like exits, right? Like people obviously want to make money, but I guess for nonprofit, there's, there's a very different kind of investor that you're looking for. Like, what, guess like how'd you deal with

Alejandro (09:00)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, Awesome question. that's been one of the biggest learnings so far for me is, speaking of philanthropists, some people who are wealthy and who spend a lot of their time looking at projects to be like, where is my money going to add the most value to the end outcome? And does that end outcome align with the values I have as a philanthropist? And we've been very lucky working in Costa Rica with with Gail because she has a few people on her books because she's had her foundation for 30 odd years. And so she's found us a philanthropist who aligns. He has already bought property and built houses on those properties for people in the community, for different communities. So whether it's just like single parents, like et cetera. And so there's this alignment of outcome and skill set.

So I think that's what's really interesting. I'm to translate that to raising capital in startup world in a second. there has to be an aligned vision to the outcome. So do they believe and care about the same thing as you do? And do their skill set, what they bring to the table, is that in alignment with the things that I need? And I don't have the legal knowledge of purchasing property in Costa Rica that this person does.

Right? And so all of a sudden, instead of it being just like, here's some money, go. It's here's some money and some knowledge. So it's a one plus one equals three additive. Sweet. So let's translate that into the startup world. How can you raise? So not all money is equal. You can raise capital from someone who doesn't give a F about you, but thinks that what you're up to is going to make them a lot of money. Or you could raise capital off someone who's a channel to market.

They've got a customer base that you believe is going to be the one that your product services. Wow. Okay. They put in money, but they give you access to that. Wow. Okay. That's pretty cool. That's a higher value dollar for dollar exchange. What about if they have a key piece of technology or IP that you could bring into your or into your startup, that's going to be a multiplier in your exit, right?

Philippe (10:54)
Yeah.

Alejandro (11:07)
And so when you're looking from a startup perspective, especially your seed funding, don't just take money from anyone. Look for those additive funders, those people that are willing to put money in and time and are aligned with the vision that you're up.

Philippe (11:20)
Yeah, makes sense, makes sense. I guess for investor that's investing for non-profit, what do you think is the what's in it for them kind of question.

Alejandro (11:30)
Well, I know because I donate regularly, right? So for me, what it is is it's I've been lucky. I've created my own luck and I've been lucky in life. And I'm not just going to keep that for myself. It's important for me to give back. so generosity in my way of being is an important part of who I am.

Philippe (11:32)
Yeah.

Alejandro (11:51)
And so donating either my time, I've worked with founders for years in for money and for not for money, right? Like I give my, if someone actually pitches me, I will sit down and work with them, right? I've coached product managers for free. I've worked, and then I've worked in startups like Blue Chili, where I validated, well, worked with founders and validated 16 startups and built, I don't know, maybe 10 platforms.

in almost two years that experience and giving back that experience one sharpens me because teaching is actually a really good way of getting really articulate with what matters and how to how to communicate the value that you've learned to others so that they can take it on and feels good. I'm not going to BS about it. Like it feels good to donate and to give back and to see that, you know, when I don't donate X amount of dollars to Wayside Chapel, these many people are being fed or they're going to get clothes like this many sets of clothes for the winter. That feels good. I know I've helped someone and you know, speaking specifically to Australia, we're a very wealthy country. We shouldn't have homeless people. We do because there's people that are happy to just walk past them on the street and just be like, but you know what? All of us are just one bad decision away from being on the street.

Yeah. And so, you know, it's nice to know that there are people out there that if I completely bottom out that are willing to help, you know, and obviously like, yeah, anyway, that's, that's my view on it. And as yeah, you can tell a little bit passionate about it. do care. I care a lot.

Philippe (13:24)
We are well I can do nothing tell that you're passionate about this and stuff and I guess like let's talk about passion actually like I think it's a really good topic to talk about and how It seems that you understand yourself really well and You understood your why? You know, and how do you wanted to give back? I guess I wanted to understand sort of how do you get to that point? You know, what was that sort of like event?

Alejandro (13:40)
Mm.

Philippe (13:52)
that you were like, yes, I want to give back and I want to connect again. You said something about connecting again to your source in Costa Rica, right? So I just want to unpack that a little bit.

Alejandro (14:07)
Yeah, for sure. So I think there wasn't one aha moment. It's like a series of series of self discoveries that have led to this point and they will continue to happen. So first off, I grew up in a family that was always very charitable, mostly with time, but also with really being respectful of people and who they are. It doesn't matter what walk of life they're in. And as a Boy Scout, you learn about community and contribution and giving back, as well as all the skills that are required to do projects and work with projects in the community. So I'll set that as a foundation. In my 20s, I started really looking inwards to myself. and going like, what is it that drives me? Why am I the way that I am? And really questioning that and looking at, know, what matters to me? Like family matters to me, community matters to me, contribution matters to me. And to make that more solid, I've always been someone who develops big groups of friends. In my 20s,

Philippe (14:58)
Mm-hmm.

Alejandro (15:17)
You know, I had, I think I had three different businesses in my twenties. Um, one was with my best mate. Actually that business is still going. Um, I started a social media agency in 2007. think it was called Digi tribal media. Um, and out of that, I ended up buying a bar to prove that social media could be used to promote a business. Imagine that.

Philippe (15:43)
Hehehehehe

Alejandro (15:45)
And I built a huge community around that and even the name was crowdsourced. Like what cocktails were going to be on the menu? What food was going to be on the menu? We did that all through like, you know, Facebook and eventually Instagram as that became more popular. And it gave me a space running those two businesses to go like, well, to learn. test what I believe is the right thing over here and then use that to help my customers.

And that drove a really cool feedback loop into learning, understanding what works and what doesn't work, and discarding the stuff that doesn't work and keeping the stuff that makes sense. So to bring it back, the bar created this massive community around me. I already had a lot of the friends, but then that got me into more music because it was like, okay, you're looking at like, how do you entertain people? It got me much more ingrained in cooking. That's something I'm passionate about. And when I think in my early thirties, I started to look at it go like, what is it that, that like makes me happy? And it's really, it's sitting down. So imagine this sitting down with your 12 closest friends to a meal that you've all cooked together and just talking until whenever that to me is perfect. That's happiness. Being with my closest people, sitting down, having conversations, sharing food, having a laugh, but also talking about things that matter. Not just like, did you see so and so and blah, blah, blah, and I'm making this much money? No, it's what is happening in your world? Like what's, what, are you challenged with? And as someone who's worked with founders for a long time, like it can be really lonely and it can be lonely. You, you tend to push. I'm going to use these words very carefully, but you push away friends and family to,

Philippe (17:28)
Yeah.

Alejandro (17:36)
because you're so focused, you don't realize you're doing it until afterwards, when you're like, where are my friends? Where are my family? And then you like put your head up and you're like, man, I'm in a really bad space. And I haven't achieved what I wanted to, or I have achieved what I wanted to, but there's no one here to celebrate with me. And so both sides is true. Like no matter, and there is this disconnection or like drive, this hustle culture that drives you to be an individual rather than recognizing that slowing down, having conversations and asking for help is gonna make you move way quicker. And I've done it. So I know it works. Like I've done both sides of that conversation. And so coming back to my why and what I'm up to, like there's two, when I'm at work, when I'm working with business and my own business or for someone else's business have this very servant leader mindset, which I created for myself. It's created from nothing. It's just something that I tried it on and I'm like, yeah, this works. And that is seeing other people succeed around me makes me happy. And so in the work environment, that's that. And then in my personal life, it's food, people like together, cooking, eating, spending time together. Like, and you can see that those things come together.

Philippe (18:57)
Now you, you made some really very good points here and I can also reflect on myself, you know, when you talked about this being sort of like ultra focus and you kind of lose the connection and the friendship around that, you know, we talked about like, this hostile culture, you know, and I had a lot of chat with all the founders as well, and they all had the same sort of view in terms of like,

Like, obviously founders, need to work hard, but don't only need to work just for work, right? I guess like for me, want to understand about connecting and I guess like, what did you do to reconnect to your friends and don't lose that sort of like relationship and... and not be at the end of the journey of being found and be like, cool. I've done all this stuff, but now I'm by myself.

Alejandro (19:53)
The first thing is, is like setting really clear boundaries. So in the early days I worked all the time and you know, like, yeah, I just didn't spend enough time with anybody, honestly. And after, after a few different startups, I started to recognize that like, there's actually diminishing returns on your work. And I'm not. proposing that this is like the right outcome, but the four hour work week is a good mindset to look at. How do you do the most important jobs and then have other people support you and everything else? And that can look like outsourcing. It can look like building a team. It can look like having mentors. The important thing is not doing it on your own.

It's going, it's recognizing that you have a certain value as a founder and that you have certain skills and there's a point when those skills are gonna have diminishing returns. So that would be the first thing. like, yeah, like four hour work week, definitely worth like reading at the same time. Like, is it realistic? Maybe. But more realistically, it's a good way of selling books. It's probably the end outcome of that.

Cause it's a catchy, it's a catchy phrase and no offense to Tim Ferriss cause you know, I am what I do. What I would say is that for me, like what has worked is learning to stop and reflect on what I've achieved, which we're terrible at as founders. Cause we're just like, go, go, go, go, go, go and look back and go like, okay, this worked, this didn't work. How does it line up with what I said I was going to do?

Philippe (21:06)
You

Alejandro (21:33)
Cause that's the other piece. Like as a founder, it can be really hard to measure your outcomes. so back to the, you've got a vision, you've got your milestones. When you reach a milestone, look back and go, did I do everything that I said I was going to do? What distracted me? What worked? What didn't work? And then look at your whole project again, your whole startup plan, your roadmap, whatever you want to call it. And then go, well, these things are not going to work because they didn't work this time. Like I tried hard and I. bumped my head against the wall and I asked for help and it didn't work. Let's take that out and look at how we can solve that problem a different way when we get to this milestone. Like how, and that way you're working from created data, but you're working from data, data that you've generated by taking actions. And I think that's a really important point that I want to touch on is like data informed rather than data driven. as a founder, I think it's really critical to have an understanding that whether it is information or data that you can use, whether it's through conversation or reading or scraping or whatever, whatever it is that you're up to, use that, but remember to write your hypothesis down of why you're using the data. Because data is wrong. Like you talk to a data analyst and they tell you everything I'm going to tell you is wrong. Every time you have a conversation with them, you know, like, and yet it still gives you...

Philippe (22:38)
Hmm.

Alejandro (22:55)
insights that allow you to make the next decision. And that's really important one is like get enough data to make the next decision to move forward. And so bringing it back to the point around like how do we tie this together? Right? And how do we, how do we bring this into like, making our time useful as a founder? It's not just about you doing, it's about having the conversations that are going to make a difference. So recognizing that there's things that you have to do because that's the knowledge you bring and you're the, but really your value is, is as a leader, as someone who has enrollment present with other people that are going to forward what you're up to, right? They're going to help take your vision into the, into make your vision a reality, whether that be a request like, can you do this task for me? You know, or whether it's a, Hey, can you help me? Cause you know, this person and recognizing and mapping out those conversations and those requests is really important. And that will help you structure. then the other one exercise.

Get good sleep, eat well.

Philippe (24:10)
What's your exercise routine?

Alejandro (24:12)
It's true. so I do, let's say two good runs a week. So that's like a six to eight and a something between 10 and 15 a week. and then, then my gym is three, sometimes four times a week. and that's realistic. That's not a, that's based in fact, not, not what I hope that's like.

Philippe (24:37)
Hahaha

Alejandro (24:38)
I'm evaluated because that's what it takes to actually get fit and stay and grow. Like two to three times a week at the gym is good and you will be fit. But if you actually want to make a change in your life and there's more that you have to put in. And that's just what I've learned over time. If I go back to

Philippe (24:43)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Alejandro (25:00)
the question that led to this one around my why and discovering that I started running in my late 20s at about 28. And that was one of the things that started shifting my perspective because it gave me time to think and lowered my cortisol stress levels. And it became something that was a real challenge that I was not good at. I was a bit overweight, like it was it was hard. And wow, this is is effing hard.

Philippe (25:22)
Heh

Alejandro (25:26)
And once I settled into it, I became obsessed because it gives me that space to think I'm with myself and I get back and I just write things down and actually is important.

Philippe (25:39)
So how long do you think, so how long do you run? Like I'm just gonna go a bit more into detail, right? Is it like, you know, proper run for like 30 an hour? What's the time that you think it's like, you useful?

Alejandro (25:48)
Yeah.

Honestly, any running is good for you. And for me, like, it has to be longer than six K's for my mind to settle. Because the beginning is all of the like immediate now stuff. That's just onto the mind. It's like you wake up and there's like, that's the thing that's right there. And that's just like, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then as soon as I go past that, I start to get into the deeper thinking. It's like,

Philippe (26:08)
Hmm

Alejandro (26:20)
Okay, well, let's connect these ideas together. Who do I need to have a conversation with? How can I solve that problem? And then once I get past about 10 kilometers, the body is working so hard, like it's really starting to have to work for me. I'm like, okay. And that sort of like exertion means that my brain is almost switched off to all of the peripheral noise. And I'm, and I'm in deep, deep thought almost like meditation.

Yeah. And I don't know that's just developed over time or if that's normal for everyone, but it works for me. And I totally like recommend it. Because lifting is different. When I go to the gym, it's a different mindset. It's very endorphin driven. It's like, it's like, I can do this. I'm going to achieve this. It's very much. It's like, it's like target. It's very targeted and it aligns more with if I'm Lifting is really good.

Philippe (27:07)
Uhhhh

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alejandro (27:18)
If I'm doing strategy work, running is important.

Philippe (27:21)
Wow, that's very interesting too. I'll definitely like, do it a try as well.

Alejandro (27:27)
Yeah,

yeah. I'll be super keen to see what works for you. Because my hypothesis would be that different people will find different things. Some people love yoga, right? That's an hour, hour and a half practice where you're meditating, right? And like really moving everything out of your mind. And so that in itself could give you the space afterwards. And I have had experience with yoga and loved it, right? Like especially quite active yoga. Again, I have a very active mind.

So calming it, taming it can be fun, challenging.

Philippe (27:59)
Yeah,

I think I need to just get through the threshold because when I'm running, it's just like, it is painful, it is painful. It's just like, I guess I need to like pass that and then I'll be able to like sort of like, you know, free up my mind into like thinking rather than just thinking of the pain right now.

Alejandro (28:20)
Yeah, I got it. I got it. I got it. Totally. Yeah, so that those are those two. What else? What else is like? How else can I contribute to your listeners? Because you had so many weird and wonderful experiences.

Philippe (28:22)
Yeah.

I mean.

That's the thing. think the next thing I wanted to also explore was really your experience. You said you were born and raised in Costa Rica. Tell us a bit about the journey. Where did you come to Australia? What's the journey look like?

Alejandro (28:56)
Yeah, sure. So yeah, I left Costa Rica at 16, moved to Cambridge in the Waikato of New Zealand, which is a little bit of a shock to my system. went to author boarding school, which I'd never been to. And it was great for me. Shifting from not having as much structure to having like structured time, call it prep time. We have to do homework.

Philippe (29:04)
Mm.

Alejandro (29:19)
having to do sport, having to do, like I'm very creative so I've always been a painter and sculptor. I did a bit of an arts degree before I did my business degree. Arts as in like fine arts, graphic design and painting. And yeah, so was really good. It helped me focus, which I didn't really have because I was tired from exercising pretty much every day.

There was structured time and then there was structured sleep time. And so that routine really helped me. I then moved to Auckland as soon as I could. I needed to be in a big city. I needed that. I need, I love having people around me and like as much as Hamilton is a great city, it is quite small. And so yeah, moved to Auckland, started my art degree, started bartending.

And that was awesome. that, that really sparked something in me. And yeah, I worked in hospitality while I was studying. had a event promotion company called Three Promotions while I was studying, doing gigs, raves basically, while I was studying as well, which really like connected me to another community of music. started DJing and studying as well.

Philippe (30:20)
You

Alejandro (30:28)
At university, when I was doing my business degree, I started this project that well, joined this organization called Syf Students in Free Enterprise is what it's called. It's the largest nonprofit student run organization in the world. I started as a project manager in the innovation team and started a this like little project to create money for the nonprofit to then run our other projects.

So we had these really cool projects where we involved the engineering school and the business school. And what we would do is we would get computers from the community. They were donated. And then we set them up in the engineering department, the science and technology department, and they would fix them. Like from all these pieces, they'd make computers and we would then take them out to people that didn't have computers and internet. We had a partner that would donate the internet. We teach them how to plug them in, give them internet teach them how to use the computers. And we developed a game to teach enterprise, so teaching the market economics. And we would teach them how to use it with these. We'd teach these kids how to use it. And then we'd give them the computer so they can use it for school. So I started in this project called Proactive. I started it, which was speed dating for your CV. We would charge students and we would bring in people from the business people. And you would take your CV and they'd give you rapid fire, 10 minute feedback loops and that was super successful. think it's still going today. generating money for this startup. ended up taking that. It's a case competition at the end of the year. And so we ended up winning, against Australia and going to Canada. We came 18th in the world. That was amazing. And that really was one nonprofit stuff for me, like linking back to where I am today and running businesses. So after being the project manager, I became, the CEO.

Philippe (31:57)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Alejandro (32:15)
of that and I had a team of 80 people running like 15 different projects and I was studying at the same time and running a bar.

Philippe (32:22)
Ha

Alejandro (32:24)
Just a little bit out there, but I was learning. I was learning. was making mistakes. had people around me that were helping and giving feedback and it was so much fun. Right. It was so much fun. graduated, did a year of sales for a company. I didn't like how the guy ran the company. He was ripping off his customers. He was ripping us off as staff. And so I left and started a competing company with a friend of mine. We took all the customers that I had built up and

Philippe (32:28)
Mm-hmm.

Alejandro (32:50)
built that over the next seven years, sold that to him, started the social media company that I'd talked about. We then acquired, got a founder, and we then acquired another company called growth devil, which was the 12th largest, growth agency in the world for awhile. we had offices in LA and in New York for a bit. And that all came crashing down around me because I made some bad decisions. I, I wasn't listening. to my board and to my teams. And that was pretty painful, but I learned a hell of a lot. During that time, I'd also bought a bar. So 2009, I bought a bar as I spoke about earlier to prove that you could use social media to actually grow a business. And I sold that in 2015. So fast forwarding a little bit, 2015, I shut down Growth Devil.

And I started looking at what it's going to look like for me moving forward. I started working at one of my directors, Mike Burke's consultancy point 16. And we built like a validation tool that's still being used today and in that company. And yeah, end of 2016.

I started, I was like, I'm ready. I'm ready to travel. I'm ready to see the world. I've been head down focused on all these businesses for 10 plus years. Like it's time to do something different. so I personally, like instead of getting an agent to sell my business, I wanted to figure out what that looked like. So I sold the bar, and wrapped up my work at point 16, and traveled for a year. So went to Europe and traveled Europe.

And then to Costa Rica to spend time with my family. Lived with my granddad and my best mate and started working on some blockchain projects there. That was super interesting. Learned about cryptocurrency, how that all works. And then my partner and I, who was traveling with me, realized that Costa Rica was not going to be the place that we wanted to settle. Did a workshop and I won't lie, it was a workshop and spreadsheets and...

Philippe (34:35)
Yeah.

Alejandro (34:51)
like ranking everything from cities where we, where we had, we could live and like livability, how much rain access to outdoors and Sydney came up on top. And so yeah, that's, that's creating man. Like instead of just being like, my God, what do we do? It was actually, where do we want to be? And then we'll figure it out. And I was looking on LinkedIn and a friend had reposted another friend's job ad for blue chili.

Philippe (34:54)
Wow.

Wow, interesting.

Alejandro (35:17)
And I'm like, hold on, I didn't know Claire was in Sydney. So I reached out to Claire and I'm like, Hey, this could be interesting. I've never been a product manager before, but like what you're doing and consulting and working with these startups, I can do that. If you guys can help me learn about this product management thing. She's like, you already know enough about this. the problem, you just don't know that what you know is called product management. Okay, cool. Well, let's, let's have a look at that. And she's like, I'm like, should I, should I interview? And she's like,

Philippe (35:17)
Yeah.

Hahaha

Yeah.

Alejandro (35:48)
Interview. Well, you've just applied. So I'll hook you up with the CEO and HR and, let's figure out like when, if it works. And within a week I had an offer and they wanted me there in two weeks. And I'm like, hold on. I need three weeks. And that's how I landed in Sydney. Yeah. Pretty cool. and not, you know, like it sounds so glorified and it's honestly, that's what happened.

Philippe (36:02)
Hahaha

Wow.

Alejandro (36:14)
And it's crazy because I look back and I'm like, wow, how did I do that? And it's because I talk to people and I have community and I spend time nurturing my relationships, not just because they might yield something in the outcome in the end. It's because I genuinely am interested in what other people are up to and what they care about and what they're up to in the

And I think that, yeah.

Philippe (36:37)
I want to, I want to discuss this a bit more, like you talk about in your relationship and network,

I want to understand like, what's your point of view on like relationship and building your network and how do you do it?

Alejandro (36:48)
Mm.

Yeah. Well, the first thing is, is recognizing that the first place my brain goes is don't ask for help. It's a scary world. They're going to judge me. my God. Like if I asked for help, then I'm going to fail. They might work out that I don't know what I'm doing. And I have to give that up. And I have to. And every time I have to remind myself that that's just my brain trying to survive.

Philippe (37:03)
Mm-hmm.

Alejandro (37:14)
And actually people do want to help and they want to contribute. So that's the first thing. And then look, sometimes it looks like a conversation where I'm, where I go in with a pretext and it's like, I just want to catch up with you. then there's an ask and I've learned that that doesn't work. so for me, what is important in building a community is genuinely connecting with people and understanding what they're passionate about and talking about what you're passionate about as well.

with there being no need for there to be a reciprocal from them.

Because then there's no requirement, there's no burden on them. And by giving away my curiosity and my experience, turns out that a lot of people actually are like, actually, Alejandro knows stuff and he's working on things and there's things that he doesn't know. And so when he asks for help, I'll help. And so it's really vulnerability is what I would boil it down to. And that's taken...

Like have to move my ego out of the way and I've got a big ego, which I think is also important. Like your ego is also the thing that keeps you motivated and driven. And so you have to balance the little voice inside your head that's like, no, don't do that. they're gonna, you know, they're gonna figure out that you're wrong or that you don't know what you're doing and recognize that if they know that you're wrong, that's actually a good thing. Working out that you don't know something when you think you do, that's even better.

Philippe (38:38)
Yeah.

Alejandro (38:43)
Because it's going to stop you from making bad mistakes. Ones that you probably won't recover from. Because if you are so certain about something, you will make decisions without advice. And that's dangerous. Especially big decisions. And so what I would say from a founder's perspective is look at, look, and when I say look, it's think about where does your brain go? Where does your brain go when you're confronted?

Does it go to hide, run away? Like, what is it that it does? And recognize that that's not serving and give that up. And that's difficult. I'm not saying this is easy because ego will be like, no, no, no, no. It's going to like bring you down. so, and I know it sounds a little bit crazy having a conversation with yourself, but that's honestly what it's like. and I'm sure all of you know what I'm talking about, but you probably don't articulate it.

Philippe (39:33)
Now it's great that you

are able to articulate all this stuff. it seems like you, I mean, you've been talking to yourself a lot, guess, like in the past. And I guess.

I would love to hear your thoughts on focus. That's a problem that I also felt told you about the burnout that I've been through and I guess the focus is definitely something that I found hard to get back when you lost it. So have you dealt with this kind of thing?

Alejandro (39:51)
Hmm.

you

Yeah, definitely. And burnout, like avoiding burnout is the first thing. So the exercise, food, talking to other people, not just your computer. Like let's start there. And also if you end up with burnout, the first step is recognizing it and letting everyone know around you that you're burned out. And that's also in here going, don't tell people because they think you're going to fail.

Philippe (40:08)
Yeah.

You

Alejandro (40:35)
Guess what? Letting people know means they can contribute to you and recognizing that you're going to have to give yourself space to get back on the horse and recognize that like there is things that you can do, exercise, there's conversations, you can work with other people. But really it's coming back to your, you know, the why and really seeing if the why that was driving you to start with and the vision you wanted to create.

Like does that, is that still, does it still have the same effect on you? And if it doesn't, then you might have to create a new one. And this is a trick that I didn't recognize, is you can change what your why is anytime you want. And you can change the vision. There's an impact, especially if you're like building a startup and you're gonna pivot because your vision has changed. There's an impact, especially if you've taken money. But look.

that impact is there and you just have to be responsible for that. Right? And if it's going to get a better outcome, like I'm going to be a little bit conceptual just for the sake of it. Everything that we're doing is made up.

We don't have to do anything, right? This whole world is just a construct of conversations. And so that's conceptual. Let's bring that back to earth. Why is that important? Well, why that's important is because like when you recognize that actually all of this is made up, it's much easier to be like, okay, I want to change something. You're not stuck within like the confines of what you've already said. There's an impact. you change that, you have to be responsible for it.

Philippe (41:53)
Mm-hmm.

Alejandro (42:19)
and you have to go and have these conversations and they're possibly going to be hard conversation. And those conversations could be the thing that brings the golden egg or the future back into reality for you. Because it's really through conversation that you can create.

Philippe (42:35)
Hmm

Alejandro (42:36)
It's generative.

Philippe (42:39)
I mean, definitely like I'm, been doing this, podcast and talking to other people, like, every day I learn new things and like, no, new perspectives and, wisdom as well from people. it's been like so helpful, even for myself. So for me, it's like, if everyone can, learn as well, that's sort of like the biggest thing,

What would you, you know, if you were to start again, you know, being a founder, and you, or you would tell someone like a piece of advice for someone that's just starting out building their first business, what would you, what would you say to them?

Alejandro (43:12)
Mmm.

be really clear on... what you are creating, what that vision is, and spend the time working out and articulating it in words so that it's out there, other people can read it. Right? Like, this is what I am creating. This is the value. This is what it is. And then spend the time. I know there's the whole like agile lean methodology and I'm a huge proponent of it. I love experimentation to generate data.

Like, I love all of that, and...working backwards from that future and creating those milestones to weekly, four weekly, whatever cadence you want and doing the work preferably with a team or a group of people to go like, let's, I'm going to like use a really basic one. In four weeks, I want to have a dinner with for 50 people. Yeah.

Okay, cool. Well, what does that look like? Okay. Well, it looks like 50 people sitting down. need, you know, like 50 people sitting down around the table, sharing stories about entrepreneurship. Okay, cool. Yeah. Awesome. That lights me up. I'm excited about that. 50, 50 people had a dinner talking about entrepreneurship. All right, cool. What has to have happened a week before that? Well, we have to have all the guests confirmed. need the venue needs to be confirmed. The menus need to be sorted like, guest speakers, like, you get my drift. Two weeks before, one week before that, right? So it four weeks out, one week before that. Halfway point, what needs to be happened? Well, we need at least 50 % of the tickets sold, or like, people have opted in. 50 people, so 25 people have opted in. Okay, well, what needs to happen in the two weeks before that for that to be true? Well, what platform are we using to like, are we using like, Meet or whatever? Like,

And that will help you build the logic of what you're going to do first, which helps you. So there's this really interesting concept. When you work backwards there and you're standing in today, looking at the future, there's a path all the way there. Whereas if you start today and you go forward, it's like, there's a decision. which way do I go? I'm going to go this way or I'm going to go this way. And it might be the wrong way. And that takes time. So working from future backwards gives you that pathway and you're going to learn along the way and you'll have to adjust. But at least you know what your milestones are and they're tangible. There are things that are measurable. You know, we've got the 50 people, two speakers, it's dinner, so there's food involved. All of that is measurable. We know that all of that has to happen and we can go like working backwards at these things have to be done at these milestones. How you get there then working forwards from that point, looking at those milestones drives the vision into reality.

Philippe (46:11)
Yeah, yeah, I've heard about this, this backwards go setting sort of thing, right? This is seems like you, do you, I mean, you using this, this technique like, you know, it seems pretty interesting. No.

Alejandro (46:12)
So that would be my.

Yeah. And then you can combine that with agile. Once you're executing that to me is a really good fit, especially early stage, like back to the beginning, like from zero to product market fit. That would be the methodology that I would use.

Philippe (46:29)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah, I gotcha. Makes sense.

Alejandro (46:46)
with what I know now, because, you know, it will all change in the next 12 months.

Philippe (46:52)
Yeah, for sure. For sure. mean, I would love to have you back, you know, you know, after, you know, all the stuff that you plan to do with, you know, all these houses and the nonprofits and see how you succeed. So like, definitely keen to have you on board. Well, I always end up with a little game and it's called like this, I have this deck of cards with random questions. And I always ask the guests to pick a question randomly. So I've got 20 cards, right? So like,

Alejandro (47:04)
Yep. Yeah, man.

Philippe (47:22)
Schema number from like one to 20 and I can sort of pick a card and answer some question.

Alejandro (47:27)
Easy,

Lucky 13.

Philippe (47:31)
That's it.

Ooh, what bit of you did your parents never quite understand?

Alejandro (47:46)
Wow, okay, cool. This is an interesting question.

Philippe (47:48)
you

Alejandro (47:52)
And it's interesting because they didn't, but they do now. It's only been in the last year, really a couple of years where it's been clear. My complete disregard for doing the corporate straight out of business school, like get a job. Like from the beginning, I was like, F no, I'm going to figure this thing out on my own.

Philippe (47:55)
Yeah.

Alejandro (48:18)
And that was a problem because I was doing it on my own for so long. Right? But they really didn't, like they accepted it. They accepted it. And it's probably about six years ago, dad said to me, I really am so proud of you that like you just did it your way. Cause everything that you have said, everything that you, and I've consulted to his business now. Right? Like.

Everything like everything that you thought like that vision that you had has ended up with where you are now and that's the thing is we all carve our own paths and them accepting that obviously like and then being proud of me is the best gift a parent can get and But they didn't they didn't get it for most of my life Yeah, yeah

Philippe (49:08)
I mean, it sparked me another question. was like, how did you know that you were like, F no, I don't want to work in the corporate life.

Alejandro (49:20)
Don't know, it was just always there. So I was always fringy. I was a skateboarder. Yeah, I just kind of didn't quite do things exactly. I really didn't appreciate school. I wasn't super academic at school. I was more academic at uni. I did very well at business school and not so well at design. Better at painting, not a graphic designer over here.

Look, I figured like, life is more interesting when you figure it out rather than going the path that everyone else has already done. And yeah, okay, like maybe things would be different, but then I like I've gone my way and I own a house in Sydney, not like in the Ultimo in Sydney. Right now I'm packing up my place because I'm going to be traveling around Australia for the next year.

Philippe (49:52)
Mmm.

Alejandro (50:11)
working on like this nonprofit and just like spending time getting to know the country I now call home. And a lot of people would never do that when they're like, you know, I'm I'm 42, I'm prime career, you know, I've just been working for a very successful startup. Like I could go and get a job if I wanted, but you know, what's more important and more interesting is actually like seeing this place and having conversations outside of the bubble that is Sydney and getting to know.

Philippe (50:39)
Yeah.

Alejandro (50:40)
is all about and I'm sure I'll probably start a few more things on the road.

Philippe (50:45)
I mean it seems like your life is exciting no matter what because you decided to be exciting so I think that's it.

Alejandro (50:51)
No,

I think that there's a distinction, right? Choice and decision. Decision is you look at why you might do something. So it's like, I'm going to make a decision because actually the interest rate on my mortgage is cheaper at this bank. I'm going to decide to go over there. But life is about choices where it's like just because.

And I think that living a life of choice is one that is really important for me. Everyone else can make their own decisions, because I'm not about preaching. Just that's how, that's what works for me.

Philippe (51:26)
Thank you, Alexander. Like he was a very exciting podcast and interview here and I'm glad you spend the time. Really looking forward to see how your nonprofit is going to go and all the best of luck and send us some pictures. I would love to have you back sometime in the next like six months or later to see how you go and how...

What learnings did you get as well?

Alejandro (51:49)
Awesome, and thank you for having me on. really just, wanted to, no, I am acknowledging you for what you're up to. I really get that you want the contribution that you're creating here for founders, right? That are going through that early stage and it's a critical part of building community and I love what you're up to. So we will definitely be in touch.

Philippe (52:11)
Thank you.

Alejandro (52:12)
Awesome.

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