Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 14:02
I know it varies with experience and everything like that. Roger, as far as the rates go, what’s the range someone should expect maybe in the US and then compared to the range in Latin America.
Roger Einstoss: 14:18
Imagine that in Latin America you can hire a senior developer paying maybe 8000 a month, which is something like 900 K a year. And if you hire the same senior engineer in the States, obviously depending on the city, but if you are hiring them in I know in New York, obviously in San Francisco, but also in some like smaller, smaller cities like Cleveland or Boston or Chicago. You will be paying double that, maybe 180 or 190. Okay, so it’s 50 or 60%, obviously, depending on the on the seniority. It’s not the same to hire a junior developer than hiring a senior developer. And also something interesting is it’s not the same as senior developer for me than for you. So we have to align that vision of what is a senior for us for for each each of us.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 15:21
Yeah. And and will someone will you only hire full time or do you hire part time as well.
Roger Einstoss: 15:29
Full time but full time. Because all of these years working with different kind of companies and helping them to create their their engineering teams and digital products, subtasks that it’s very difficult for a, for a developer to have like a split focus in 2 or 3 projects. So it’s unreal that you can say to a person, okay, you will work for this project from nine to, I know, to noon or to 1 p.m., and then just switch because it’s not always a matter of time, it’s a matter of focus. And maybe a developer can solve something in two hours, something that he had been working for eight hours without no solution. And then in one hour you say, wow, I get it. So it’s a matter of focus. And also from the client point of view, the the the amount not related to money, but effort of, of investment that they want to do if they are willing to say, okay, I need a person for, for this project. It’s not the same that you say, okay, I need ten hours a month. It’s a matter of of of segmentation of clients.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 16:46
Also. I want to go back to what you said. Interested about the interview process. And you mentioned, you know, there’s technical interview portion, there’s a cultural interview portion. What are some of the questions that you ask maybe for, for your company from the cultural interview point of view?
Roger Einstoss: 17:06
Yeah, it’s an interesting question. It changed between between each role and each interview. But we also interview using a methodology that is called learning agility. Basically it works asking the candidates about situations that they needed to go through. So it’s not the same to say give me three examples of leadership. For instance, if you are interviewing a project manager, then saying, okay, tell me about the situation when you have to give negative feedback to someone so they can tell you how was that situation of giving negative feedback to someone, or maybe firing someone, and then you start asking questions about that to understand if, if, if that is like a real situation that the candidate went through or it’s like just a story that, that, that is that just read in ChatGPT, you know, so always putting them in situation of something sometimes like a role playing like, okay, imagine that now I’m your, your developer and I did something wrong. How do you tell me that. So we understand if they just like feeling nervous or many times in English, for instance, we start our interview in Spanish, but then from one moment to another we say, okay, from this moment we will start. will continue the interview in English and and maybe we ask the same questions again to understand if, if they use two minutes to to respond something in Spanish, but then in English they say okay, yes, no. So the language skill, it’s a must for us.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:06
I do want to talk about culture for a second. I’m just going to share one of my favorite parts of your website, Roger, is your about page and specifically your values. And can you just talk about coming up with some of the values? You know, we have people centered. Actually, this is my favorite part. I really stuck on this one and watched it like ten times because I think it’s hilarious with The Office permanently on beta, because I actually have seen this episode where Kevin spills the this whatever it is, chili or whatever it whatever it is. Talk about how you came up with some of these core values. People centered permanently on beta. With great freedom comes great responsibility. Let’s have fun with it. There’s no place like home, and this is also a fun. You picked out some good gifts here. This is hilarious. Yeah. So talk about coming up with these.
Roger Einstoss: 20:05
Yeah. The story about People’s Center comes because we we one of my business partners, we met each other working for for another company and it was I, I know how to say, but it was like a sad job. You know it was not people centered. So since the moment we started thinking about creating a company, we always thought, okay, we want to create a company where people want to just wake up every morning and come to the office or before Covid. Now we are fully remote and just Get the job done. So we always put the people in the middle of everything because it’s more than a phrase. I mean, if you want to have like amazing results, you need people that it’s full compromise with the projects or with the company. Otherwise it will fail. So that’s why every decision that we make, even fighting someone, it’s it’s backed on people central and the other values and the continuous beta. It’s it’s interesting for us because I always tell to the people that we are engineers and we didn’t know how to create a company. We just started and and trying to do things. And even today, after almost 15 years, we still trying things and new things. And that’s the best part of my job. I mean, you know that all the people say that if you see the S&P 500 over the years, the companies changed because if you if you can’t have the ability to change your business, model your values many times, and the way you get things done, you will probably die as a company. So it’s it’s one of our core values to always be testing and and trying new things. Even the developers with our clients and also we, we try to find clients that share that value with us. I mean, we can assign a developer that maybe have like a performance problem. It’s always that that can happen, but it’s not the same to say, okay, I will kill you and I will fire you because you had like a bad week that having a good conversation with the client saying, hey, I think this guy should start doing this. Stop doing that, and we can talk about it and make things work. So that’s one of the of the core ones. And having fun. It’s part of of people centered. I always like to say that it’s a place where if you get your job done now, they will be asking you like, okay, why did you I know went out at 5 p.m. instead of six. And we believe that it’s obviously a matter of time because we sell like a full time service. But it’s more a matter of quality and delivery. At the end of the day, if we get things done, that’s the important thing on this.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 23:38
On that point. And you mentioned obviously the team’s virtual. What are some ways that you help you manage a virtual team and what’s been successful for you? And other people can can think about that.
Roger Einstoss: 23:54
Yeah. It’s challenging. We used to have a home office before Covid, but then during Covid we just went fully remote. We have people all over Argentina. Argentina is a big country, so we have people maybe four hours away from from Buenos Aires, which is the, the, the main capital. So we we have two physical meetings a year, once in July in the middle of the year and once in December. So we organise a party and we bring people from all over the places just to see each other, to spend an entire day talking about work, but also about our personal life. Drinking beer, mate. Eating an asado, which is something really traditional in Argentina. And. And then we have one to ones twice a month with every single person in the company, no matter if if it’s assigned to a staff up to a staff augmentation project, which we don’t live that people directly or not, we ask them every two weeks, okay, how are you feeling? Are you happy with the things that you are working on? Do you need me to talk with the client because I know something is treating you bad, or you are not happy with the kind of of tasks that you are working on. And obviously having an open communication, not having fear of talking about or having difficult conversations not only from us to them, but also from them to us. So I’m a big believer that that if you talk things, everything is possible.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 25:51
I want to talk. You know, when I think of your company, I always think of tech companies. But you help a lot of different types of companies. So we’ll get to a tech example. But there was one which I didn’t expect. I’m going to pull it up here in a second. Here’s your core values here. Which is Newbook. Can you talk about what you do with Newbook and then its newbookmodels.com. What’d you do with them?
Roger Einstoss: 26:21
Yeah, well, you look, it’s a really interesting project because they founded the company before Covid and they sold the company before Covid. But then the new owner during Covid, he didn’t know how to make things happen in the new world. So the original founders, Seb and Nora, they they got the company again. They bought the company again. And the first time when they founded the company, they raised money. They did like the venture capital path. But the second time they they they thought, okay, this time we this will be like a bootstrap. That was the time where we met them and started working together, you know. And I think that they they were working with the team in India, but they it was difficult to deal with the timezone difference and the cultural thing. So we were like a perfect mixture and a perfect match. And I always, I always like to to tell the story about new book, because it’s a perfect way of showing how things between the states and Latin America can, can perfectly work. And also how they take advantage of this thing, of the cost efficient of hiring people in Latin America because they were bootstrapping. So obviously every dollar it’s it’s even more important. So it’s a story. And also they are one of the of, of my favorite clients because we have been working together for, I know, four years now. So every now and then we go to to the States and visit them. And also they they come to Argentina. Last year they spent two, 2 or 3 months here. We went to the river. We ate some salads. So, like you, I’m also a big fan of of personal relationships and and and develop that.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 28:25
Yeah this is interesting because so it’s a marketplace for models. So like you know I don’t know Disney, Lululemon, Nordstrom needs people for their commercial or some video or an ad, they can go to this marketplace and look. And then so you’re you’re augmented staff will help kind of, you know, just make sure all the features and bells and whistles and the platform is functioning and adding new features and things like that.
Roger Einstoss: 28:51
Yeah. Yeah. In this case we have a squad, an entire team working with them. And we help them to execute the roadmap to to get the things done and create new features. Also give support to existing features. So it’s it’s it’s a nice example.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 29:11
Another example is a health tech which is more of what I originally expected. But obviously these days all companies have some kind of, you know, website presence and tech behind it. What did you do with the health tech company?
Roger Einstoss: 29:26
Yes, we have another client in healthcare or health tech space. We can’t say the name because of the NDA, but The the challenge there was that they were looking for a for a developer who could work with with, with augmented reality in unity. And I think that they they were looking for the person like for four months, six months. And they, they, they weren’t able to to get it. So they came to us because of the referral and we told them, okay, we promise you that we can do this in a month. I don’t know why we promised that, but it was something that we know that, okay, we have these people in the pipeline. We have some people with this like unity skills, which is something really hard to get. So we will do it and we did it. And that person has been working since a year and a half or early, early last year. Yeah. And a year and a couple of months. And they they are they they fall in love with that person. Because not only we were talking about this thing of cultural thing, we we not only find developers but also find people that want to be involved in the business. So, so the success story about this is not only the amount of time that we took to find the right person, which was a month against the six months that they were, that they were looking for, but also the kind of person that we assign that now they love him and, and and they want him in, in different kind of projects. But obviously they he only has a day. So it’s, it’s it’s a nice story to.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 31:28
Yeah. I love to hear some of your favorite tech right. It could be software you use as a company or any apps that you use. What’s some of your favorite software tools in your toolbox?
Roger Einstoss: 31:42
Well, I you were you were saying about Zapier and Pipedrive. I’m a heavy user of both. I like Pipedrive, but when it comes to Zapier, I can’t believe the unbelievable work of engineering that they have behind the scenes. It’s unbelievable. And and they founded the company maybe ten years ago, I don’t know. So so they they have been doing this for for many years. I love Zapier, definitely. And when it comes to day by day applications, I use Todoist, which is to do a to do list application. You know, I’m an engineer, so I’m a big fan of having everything organized and having my lists, so it helps me a lot to keep track of everything that I have to do. And so I use no matter if I have to go to the dentist or do something for a client. Everything is in Todoist. It’s even more useful than calendar for me. I also use calendar, obviously, but. But having everything writing down there, it’s amazing.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 33:01
Any other favorite apps? It could be business or personal.
Roger Einstoss: 33:06
I also use Slack. I’m a big fan of Slack. And now in the last four months, I became a big fan of the of the health application from the iPhone. I started like, I’m doing like a personal change in my life, trying to eat like in a healthier way, walking the 10,000 steps a day, those things. think so. I’m a little bit obsessed about the health application from the from the iPhone and tracking my my sleep cycles and my my daily steps. Everything. And I’m looking for a good application for that. So maybe it’s someone in the audience is listening and know a good application for that. I’m happy to see it.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 33:56
Yeah, I have a whole folder on my home screen that is just dedicated to health apps because I geek out on that type of stuff. So yeah, I have some suggestions for you there, of course. I use Oura Ring. I don’t know if you’ve used Oura Ring before.
Roger Einstoss: 34:13
So I have the app. I have the the Apple Watch. But I think next step is.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 34:19
I mean the Apple Watch is great. I mean, I don’t have an Apple Watch, but from a sleep perspective, I’ve heard it’s just more accurate with the with the Oura ring. But you know, tracking all the stuff you need is probably on your Apple Watch, I imagine, as well. Yeah. Roger, I have one last question for you. Before I ask it, I just want to point people to Braintly, as you’ve seen on the screen, if you know someone or you are looking for, you know, engineering talent, message them, right. So last question is about mentors. Now this could be actual mentors in business or it could be distant mentors. Meaning there’s just books or resources and people that you’ve, you know, learned from. Or it could be both. So who are some of the mentors that you consider and that’s been helpful on your business journey?
Roger Einstoss: 35:20
Well, that’s a that’s a good question. I don’t have like one person, one mentor. I have different people that I used to talk with to share ideas. You know that I’m part of, you know, this, this network of entrepreneurs and something I learned in the last year, year and a half, it’s to ask for help. Like knowing someone that you admire. Or maybe you just say, hey, I, I, I saw the things that you are doing. I, I really love the way you are running your company. And I just want to ask you for, I know 30 minutes of your time to ask some questions or understand how you think business, your company, people, issues, whatever. And I learned to ask for those moments without being shy or without thinking, okay, he, he or she will think that I’m a stupid guy because I’m asking this or that question. So I ask everything. And if the other person thinks that, okay, this question was stupid, okay? It’s a problem of that person, not mine. And I also like to be a mentor for for early stage startups. For for early stage entrepreneurs who wants to learn about my my journey or my experience and always trying to be really transparent and and trying to help them, you know, like not not going through the same mistakes that I made. Being humble, I’m trying to say, hey, this is the thing that worked for me. Maybe it will work for you or not, but just take it. And, you know, and that’s the same approach that I take when I ask questions to a mentor, but I don’t I don’t have like one.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 37:29
We’ll talk about that. That kind of hits on it. I mean, you know, if people don’t know it’s Entrepreneurs’ Organization, it’s all over the world. And it helps, you know, founders talk about whatever is going on to work through them and have that networking collaboration. What are who are some interesting businesses in EO Argentina?
Roger Einstoss: 37:50
Yeah, there are too many interesting businesses in Argentina. We are more than 100 members. 120, I think. And you have from digital marketing agencies, software agencies through I know people from the from the healthcare spaces. And there is someone who I know is running like, yeah, like food businesses, like McDonald’s. But it’s another one called Mostaza. Here in Argentina, And there is another one who built airports and and and routes in Argentina. So it’s a it’s a nice chapter because it has a good mixture between people who who run real life businesses like, I know, building an airport and digital businesses like, like mine. So it’s a it’s a chapter that and it’s growing. It’s growing. It’s growing fast and and it’s full of really, really interesting people. Many people from that chapter live in the US, in Miami, in New York, but they still are part of, of the Argentinian chapter because they have their forum and they want to be contact with Argentina. So many of them are part of both. I know the New York chapter and also the Argentina chapter.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 39:26
Yeah, I found Roger one of the most important things in my business in any, any health business, is just joining a group of like minded people who are doing what I want to do and and pushing me to do more. So I love that. You know, whatever it is for someone, you know, I’m in Chicago. Also, I’m in a specific one just for digital agencies. I also have a group that just talk about health related things, you know, so I love that. Anyways, thank you for sharing your stories everyone. Check out braintly.com and we’ll see you next time. Roger thanks so much.
Roger Einstoss: 40:11
Thank you very much.
Outro: 40:12
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