May 28, 2025 • 25 mins
In this episode of The Nearshore Cafe Podcast, host Brian Samson, founder of Plugg Technologies, chats with Amir Reiter, CEO of CloudTask, about how MedellĂn, Colombia has become a hidden gem for building high-performing global sales teams.
From building his first team in an Airbnb to scaling a $6M+ revenue operation with over 265 contractors, Amir shares how CloudTask evolved from a service agency into a full-blown B2B marketplace for GTM (go-to-market) talent and software.
They dive deep into:
- Why MedellĂn is ideal for remote-first teams
- How to scale with Latin American tech talent
- Contractor loyalty vs. W2 mindsets
- Navigating culture, compliance, and team-building in Colombia
- How AI is reshaping hiring and tech operations
- Lifestyle perks of living and working from MedellĂn
Whether you’re a startup founder, tech exec, or just exploring nearshore team strategies, this episode delivers real insights from someone who’s built it—on the ground.
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- Amir Reiter: linkedin.com/in/amirreiter
- CloudTask: cloudtask.com
- Brian Samson: linkedin.com/in/briansamson
- Plugg Technologies: plugg.tech
- The Nearshore Cafe Podcast: nearshorecafepodcast.com
📢 Don’t forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS for more insights on Latin America’s growing tech scene! 🎧🔥
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Welcome everyone to another episode of the Nearshore
Cafe podcast.
I'm your host, brian Sampson.
If you're interested in doingbusiness in Colombia, running a
software company out of Colombia, wow, this is going to be an
episode for you.
I've got Amir Ryder, ceo ofCloudTask.
Before we officially welcomeAmir, let me thank our sponsor,
(00:57):
plug Technologies pluggtechGreat way to connect talent,
especially technical talent,from Latin America, to growing
US companies.
Amir, so great to have you onthe show.
Likewise, dude, appreciate theinvitation.
Amir, where in Colombia are youcalling from?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, I'm in Medellin right now, but I spend a lot of
my time in San Francisco wherewe have an office in the
headquarters, and then I sneakback near shore for the good
food and the good weather andthe safety and security and just
loving it here.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I've actually been in a lot of places in Latin
America.
I have yet to make it toMedellin.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh, you'd love Medellin.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I've heard it's like perpetual spring, but for those
like me who've never been there.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
They call it the internal spring.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, yeah, Tell me more about Medellin like quality
of life, what it's like livingthere.
Yeah, yeah, Tell me.
Tell me more about Medellinlike quality life, what?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
it's like living there.
Yeah, I wrote an article calledthe new American dream.
It's on substack and I just youknow, for me it's 65 to 82
degrees every day.
There's no daylight savings, solike you're not up at nine
o'clock with the light, like Isleep at 830.
And I'm like just on an amazingschedule which is, like you
know, really underrated, right,the food itself is 75% cheaper
(02:08):
and healthier, and then you knoweverything.
The cost of living is just muchlower and healthcare like my
healthcare in America is like900 a month for me and my family
, and here it's 190.
And I just you know, for me it'san amazing place that I just
truly love and there's just anawesome entrepreneurial network.
There's, like the CEO ofBeehive Shout out to Tyler Dank,
(02:29):
who just moved here and just alot of tech people and a huge
community.
I'm in like a paddle group oflike 100 like CEOs of tech
companies that live down here,which is great.
And then, you know, I go to SanFrancisco all the time for just
my clients and just you know,meeting the people that aren't
as fortunate to be able to justmove back and forth.
Right, I guess I'm very luckyto be able to just have that
(02:49):
liberty to be in two cities andsplit my time right.
But yeah, it's for me it's justa magical place.
You know, I know that you werein BA right, buenos Aires.
So I kind of look at it like aba of buenos aires, that's like
a smaller city that's justcloser to the americas right,
like when you have buenos airesis like maybe, like I don't know
(03:11):
, eight hour, ten hour flight tothe states yeah and, like you
know, colombia is like threehours from uh miami, but it's
just.
I went to argentina.
I fell in love as well, right?
So like, yeah, like it's abeautiful place.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
yeah, awesome, yeah, awesome.
Yeah, we'd love to.
We'd love to check it out.
Tell us a story Like how, howdid you end up there?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah.
So I had a advisory boardmember, eric Agmon, who was the
CEO of Answers on Demand.
It was a POC, erp, medicalsoftware and he sold it for a
great deal.
And he was like, let me, let'sgo to Columbia.
And he was my mentor and I waslike sure, you know, like like
I'm learning, you know, like my,my mentor, I'll, I'll come with
you.
I was like the 32 year old atthe time that was like gifted
(03:53):
with the gift of gab andsocializing, and he was the you
know, 60 year old, recentlydivorced, you know, getting back
into the game, type person.
Sorry, eric, if I you know,he'll be fine.
So I went there.
And then I also had a team inthe Philippines at the time,
which was great, they're awesome.
But I came down here and theguy at the hotel who is now our
VP of global talent his name isDanny Agudela and I was chatting
with him and this guy spokefluent English.
I was like yo, what do you know?
(04:14):
What do you make a month?
And he's like 700, okay, and Idecided that it would make sense
to.
At the time I wasn't running aB2B marketplace, I was an agency
and we got to about 265employees.
I really I kind of brought downlike B2B SaaS outsourcing from a
(04:34):
sales and customer successperspective.
I had amazing customers likeRingCentral, expensify, apollo,
all SaaS companies that wouldhire CS, cx and SDRs and AEs
through us.
So that brought me down, waslike the talent I met and just
the you know the adventure ofsomething new where, like I
already knew what, like HomeDepot, and I kind of knew the
(04:55):
whole America story like theback of my hand and like you can
close your eyes and basicallypredict the next 15 years of
your life where, like inColumbiaia, just this cool stuff
, like just random, weird things, and you're just like this is
strange but cool.
So it's also very mentallyengaging, um, and just different
cultures are great, right anduh.
So that brought me down here.
Just a random trip with anadvisory board member and then
(05:17):
at the time I had a you know anagency like a call center type
of thing, and I built a teamhere at that time and and well,
you remember what year this was,that this 2016, 2016, okay,
okay, well, how time is flying.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, I'll be 42 in june don't fucking ask me how?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
but fortunately I got married, I have a daughter.
So you know I'm I'm not peterpan anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah yeah, funny enough, 2016 was the year that I
first went to Argentina, so wewere doing it like the same year
, just in different countries.
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, our energies connected.
Eight years later for thepodcast.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, I like it, I like it.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Small world.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Did you meet your spouse in Colombia?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, I was buying computers for my team.
She was working at theelectronics store outside and I
said guess what?
I said?
I said hi, how are you?
What's your name?
I'd love to take you on a date.
Right, for anybody listening,that's pretty much all you need
to say to get a date.
Anything else is too much.
Yeah, yeah, and we were likefriends for eight years.
She was going through lawschool and then, you know, we
had a very mature conversationabout building a family and
(06:20):
she's actually our chiefoperating officer.
Her name is Jessica and she'sjust great, you know, very
fortunate to have a verytraditional, non-traditional
relationship where my wife getsto really focus on the family
but also gets to, you know, be apart of every meeting in the
company, and she's got equity inthe company and she's smart,
she deserves it, she earned itRight.
So really lucky in that.
I would bring the baby in, buttoo much time Show me a picture
(06:44):
here.
The picture.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
That's the wife and the baby.
Yeah, I love it.
Yeah, love the family.
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I'm a rebel so I was like we're going to have five
kids.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
It's great, there you go.
So was Medellin, the first citythat you set up in.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, and then I got an office in Bogota as well, but
Bogota is a little bit cold anda little rainy and a little
dangerous.
Medellin is a sweet spot for me.
I'm just really big into natureand hiking.
On the weekends I go to awaterfall hike and I got a
vishla, which is an awesome,very hyper dog.
I got my dog in Argentina.
We flew to Buenos Aires to pickhim up.
(07:26):
No kidding, yeah, yeah, the,the, the, you know from a
champion breed and his littlemodel.
He like, he like, poses forpictures and stuff.
It's in his blood.
It's funny.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, that's great.
So talk us through that veryfirst hire.
Because there's peoplelistening here they're like, wow
, this is a really interestingthing.
They're kind of hanging onevery word of the VP of talent.
You know the amazing arbitrage,like first hire.
You know how did that all workout?
Like, what did you do to makethat happen?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I, you know, I set up my job opening with my clear
description of the job, my clearexpectations and my salary
range and I, you know, allowedpeople to apply to it and I
reviewed the resumes and Iinterviewed people that matched
that job opening and then I madean offer to the people that I
felt were best fit and,unfortunately, the average the
average everybody in my companynow has been with me for eight
(08:14):
years, which is awesome, andthey're all contractors.
So anybody who says they haveto hire W2 for longevity is just
not really thinking smart,because it really matters, you
know, like your culture and youryour, you know, payment
structure versus the contract,right, Like the average two
months.
And you know I made friendswith all the people I hired, 265
(08:34):
that were actively working andprobably hire like 700.
A lot of them have gone on tobigger and better things, the
opening up agencies, and I justkept a good network of them and
stay friendly with all of them.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah, and did you make that first hire?
You were still living in SanFrancisco or you were already in
Medellin by then.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I was in Miami at that time.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah, I was in South.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Beach.
Yeah, and yeah, his name isJulian Moreno.
He's now one of the VPs atGlobalization Partners, which is
a big company.
He was one of my first hiresout of Bogota and he brought
someone else that he knew in hisnetwork and I flew to Columbia
and got an Airbnb.
We were all sharing it togetherand then I actually had this
penthouse.
That was huge, that I actuallyhad Some of my founding
employees lived with me.
One, eddie Bejo, who was myco-founder, actually married
(09:23):
Maria Sanchez, who was like thelady, who was like my CFO and
did all the government'spassports, and they ended up
getting married and having a kidand it was interesting.
It was like a work frat house,but a good time.
I like to live life a littlebit, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah Now California, miami these are places where
Spanish is already prevalent.
Did you have to worry aboutlike?
Did you have to becomebilingual to do it?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
No, I barely speak Spanish.
I had handlers the whole time.
So I've just been handled LikeMaria was my initial handler,
right?
So just take me to all thebanks, I'm signing things, I'm
stamping things.
So everybody I hired spokeEnglish and I was like friends
with them, kind of so like Iconstantly just had handlers and
like now my wife is my handler,um, so she does all my visas,
she's a lawyer, she takes me tothe doctor's office, tells me to
(09:59):
shut up and not be rude, youknow things like that.
She's happy I don't speakspanish because, you know, I got
a little bit of a gift of gaband I just, you know, I I talk a
lot, so she thinks it's goodthat I don't speak spanish.
But in tienda son poquito, like,like I'm gonna, you know, I'm
gonna continue learning, but I'man anomaly, like for some of
those who speak spanish.
I met like the coolest peoplein medellin the business owners,
(10:20):
the private families, like thefounders, so like all my friends
are just like top topperforming people.
So I guess that's like who Iwant to hang out with anyways.
Yeah, but I'm also, you know,I'll admit that it's a little
bit embarrassing that I don'tspeak spanish fluently, but
nobody's perfect.
You know I got areas of unityand uh, gotta work on it I think
that gives a lot of people fromthe state's confidence.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
You know that you can not only you go around to miami
, and they don't speak englishyeah, yeah like miami.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
They're like how about it's just different?
Because you're like you shouldspeak english right here.
You're not like you shouldspeak english.
You're like should I shouldspeak spanish?
Yeah, um, but like a secondGoogle like translates language
in real time.
I don't know if anybody sawthat update.
Sorry, no excuses now.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
You know what you know.
What's funny is, when I was inArgentina, absolutely, but I
live in Hawaii.
I really don't get a chance topractice it and, just like you,
amir, everybody that I work withspeaks advanced English.
So, like you know, theirEnglish gets better, my Spanish
gets worse.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
And I was like, like I think having respect for the
culture and the people on theland is equally as important as
language.
Right, like I don't come hereand try to like, push my.
I try to push my ambition andmy speed and things that will
help people get to the nextlevel, but I embrace the culture
, embrace the people and have alot of respect for it, and it's
a journey.
Right like now that I have adaughter, I'm sure that she's
(11:47):
going to be learning how tospeak and I'm going to be
learning how to speak spanishwith her right yeah life's a
marathon right, so maybe in like10 years, me and you will be in
medellin speaking spanishtogether love it, love it.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah, you never know right.
So cloud task tell the audiencea little more about, yeah, what
it is, what does it do?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
yeah, we're a b2b marketplace that's focused on
gtm services, full-timecandidates and software.
So we're kind of bringingtogether um, the account
executives, the sdrs there'salmost 120 positions that are
just, you know, customer facingroles.
Obviously, you know we partnerwith you guys on the development
side, right, and then lots ofsoftware like Apollo, clay,
(12:27):
wormley, all the technologiesthat people use for go to market
functions and in GTM you gotsales, marketing operations,
customer success, customersupport, right.
And then with agencies, thinkabout, like all the call centers
, telemarketing centers, inboundcenters, lead generation
agencies, seo agents there'salmost 50 types.
So we basically help buyersknow what they're buying and not
(12:50):
have buyers remorse, becauseit's such there's like 40,000
call centers and 40,000 agencies, 1,000 GTM softwares right,
thousand call centers and 40,000agencies, thousand GTM
softwares right.
So we really make sure thatpeople know what they're buying,
like what the businesschallenge really is, so that
they don't have buyer's remorse.
And you know, think of it like aUpwork or you know an Airbnb or
(13:10):
an Uber.
But just for GTM functions,right, for sales support
operations, cx, which is bigright.
So we're focused, but focusedon a very big part of the market
and that's what we do right.
That's what we do.
We help people find the rightsellers and the right partners.
We might even get you listed,because we have a business
challenge called building teamsand then website development,
(13:32):
and that's where you're going tobe in, because that's the
business challenge you solve forright, that's right, that's
where you're going to be in,because that's the business
challenge you saw for.
Right, that's right, that'sright.
We'll talk more about that, ohit's Don.
Sorry, you're in.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
You opted in.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
Yeah, what I'm reallyinterested in, amir, is the
scale that you got your team toI mean phenomenal.
And how did that maybeintersect with the original
vision of CloudTask?
Yeah, and where CloudTaskevolved to, and scaling around
that, yeah yeah.
(14:02):
The energy of doing that.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
We scaled the 265 contractors, we were about $6
million in revenue, and inAmerica you wouldn't be
profitable with the math there,but because the cost of goods is
75% lower, we were veryprofitable and successful.
And I really pivoted because Isaw an opportunity to solve a
big problem and to build abillion-dollar company.
And, depending on how I stickthe landing, I might be like, oh
(14:24):
, that was a great idea, pat onthe back, or I'd be like you're
an idiot, right, because I tooka very profitable business and
ripped it apart.
But it was, you know, for me.
I just, you know, I saw myselfkind of stuck with success,
which is not a bad thing, rightit just.
I really saw the fact thatbuyers didn't know what they're
buying and that the status quolike someone had to take a
chance to like really help theindustry because people just
(14:44):
wanted to hear.
If you came to me and you'relike, hey, I want to hire some
sales development reps, we needto generate meetings, and I told
you, hey, it would take 90 daysbecause there's no market
validation and I can't promiseyou 15-minute meetings, the
person would go to thecompetition who lied to them,
and I felt like that wasn't theway people should buy right.
So by being a marketplace, Igot 5,000 options.
(15:07):
I could really pay attention toyour real business challenge
and give you options and notsell you because I got it all.
So it's kind of like if yourcar is a BMW but I got all the
brands, I'll give you the rightbrand.
Because I just didn't like thefact that status quo was telling
people what they want to hearand that was the normal right
(15:28):
and at the same time, like froma capitalistic like I wanted to
fix a big problem and I wantedto do a good thing, but I also
wanted to be rewarded for doingthat right.
I don't want to state that,like you know, I wanted to build
a billion dollar company bydoing that and also, at the same
time, helping people gettingout of the call centers, like
you're doing right, which is anoble thing because you're
helping young professionals thatwork very hard, just access
(15:49):
jobs and opportunities theydidn't have a chance to before,
right.
So that was why I did the pivotand, you know, hopefully
partnerships like ours or youknow make it worthwhile in the
long run yeah, yeah justdifferent business model.
Right one birds cash, one makesmoney love it.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah, tell us more about, um, the actual scaling of
your company, because I'm justlike super impressed that.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
So we scaled from zero to six million in like
three years.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
And a lot of it had to do with getting in a plane
and meeting everybodyface-to-face and driving Like
some of our biggest clients Ilike land in New York City and
then I drove to Boston sevenhours and they're like, yeah,
you won the business becauseyou're the only ceo who got in
the car and like drove sevenhours and like looked me in the
eye, yeah, so I built reallystrong relationships with people
who you know it's required whenthey're trusting you to build
(16:40):
and manage teams and, um, Itreated the employees with more
of a sense of entrepreneurship,where I was like teaching them
like you know the world is andlike they kind of saw me cold
calling and like doing likewhatever I asked them to do, I
do myself, right.
So I think in this culturethere's more of like I'm the
boss, you're the employee, andif they called me the boss, I'd
be like I'm not your boss, I'mthe chief, right, like I might
(17:01):
be side with you, versus puttingmy feet up and bossing you
around.
And I think that was a big partof the reason why I scaled fast
.
It was because the culture wasmore like a San Francisco
startup versus you know, like,like, yeah, like I was less like
(17:21):
this is your job, more like youknow this is your career type
of thing, right, and and really,just, you know, I think that it
was natural because I reallyfelt that way and I think people
can tell right that I was justready to like get down and dirty
with them, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah, yeah, I like it .
Can you you walk us throughmaybe even how you set up the
org, Like did it mirror what?
Like the type of titles andpositions and departments?
Did it mirror what you mightsee in San francisco?
Speaker 2 (17:47):
or yeah, yeah you know, like, had a coo.
You know I had a uh, threeaccount executives, maybe five
account managers, a vp ofoperations.
Very similar, no different.
Everybody spoke english,everybody worked for american
companies, most of people Ihired already working for at&t
and cricket.
And you know the bigorganization, yeah, you know my
co-founder, eddie bejo, wasworking for Fitbit customer
(18:10):
support.
So yeah, same title, samestructure.
The only difference was like,hey, there's 22 holidays on a
Monday in Colombia.
They're not for you, they'reagainst you.
So you could be lazy, you'regoing to work on this holiday.
It's a different mentality of,like you know, I said I like
drinking on a Monday because,like, think about it, right,
they have 22 mondays off, okay,well, china's not taking off on
(18:33):
monday, all right, and you'recompeting against the global
stage.
So I just kind of like showedthem that like, hey, you're kind
of being duped by yourgovernment into thinking that
these holidays they didn't evenknow the holidays.
They didn't even know theholidays.
What is the holiday?
They had no idea.
No idea.
Multiple saint days, right, butthey don't know.
All they knew is they had along weekend and they couldn't
go party and it held theircareer back and it was a way for
(18:55):
the government to keep the poorpoor right.
They think you're giving themsomething, but what they're
giving you is a way to justclimb the ladder and fall back
down, yeah, right.
So I kind of came in and said Iwant to work for a plumbing
company, go, do that.
You want to work for us?
You're going to get education,exposure to tools, exposure to
AI, which is not even now, butyou're going to work in the
American days, right, so it's agiven again, right?
(19:18):
Yeah, I think you know, you'veprobably seen that in Latin
America they're more trained on,like, how to sue the employee
than they are how to make a lot,because that's what they get.
They're given they're not giventhe opportunity to move up the
ladder.
They're given opportunity tosue the employee, right, and and
I was like yeah, you can't sueme, I'm an american, you know,
like, like, you know like I'mnot.
You know, I'm not hiring anemployment contractor,
independent contractor, andyou're gonna have to work hard
(19:41):
and and earn skills.
People are given things thatdistract them, right so I felt
like the government was pullingthe shades over the eyes of the
general population.
While the top 1% working andcrushing weekends, the average
person is partying and takingoff and right, like, okay, if
(20:03):
you're, you know, and it'sbackwards In this culture.
A lot of the kids are takingcare of the parents.
The parents don't retire at 50.
The parents get supported bythe kids and there's one way to
break that trend by somebodysaving money and investing,
right.
So some of the guys I'm workingwith now have stock portfolios,
they have Bitcoin, because Italked to them about that right,
and I would say stuff like hey,it's not fair that now that you
(20:25):
make more money, you give yourfamily more money.
And they retired at 50.
Like like, where does it stop?
Right, it's a never endingvicious cycle.
And I just kind of like toldthem the truth.
It hurt their feelings, butthey could see that I kind of
meant it from a point of like,empowering the next generation.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
You're right.
Yeah, I like that.
I think that's really goodadvice.
Is there any other advice thatyou'd give maybe US CEOs?
Yeah, yeah, if they were tryingto build-.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Fly down, meet your team, take them out to dinner,
like I have, a company calledExpensify.
They had 48 account executivesfor five years.
Well, guess what?
They flew out.
They met the team, they tookthem and they're still there,
right, everybody who flew out tovisit their team still has the
team.
Anybody who just hired it likean outsourced third party, fire
(21:10):
them.
Treat them like they might workwith you for eight years.
Get to know them and build realrelationships in person.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, that's great advice.
I want to talk more, amir,about AI.
You're very well versed in yourcompany.
What do you see?
What are some of yourpredictions, and then maybe even
how it might impact nearshoring.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah, faster, cheaper , more efficient.
I see it making everythingfaster, cheaper, more efficient,
and I see the fact thatcompanies are going to have
could probably be able to beleaner on the headcount and
achieve more.
But there also might be morestartups, right?
So instead of having biggercompanies, I would predict that
there's going to be many small,specialized companies, right?
So if you need a million peopleemployed, and that was in 500
companies now, it might be amillion across 2,000.
(21:50):
And I think that what I'm tryingto do is just get the hands,
get the tool.
I have an example.
I got this guy, danny Nadella.
I joked around because onLinkedIn, I put some posts about
how he didn't speak Englishwhen I met him, which is not
true.
He did, and now he programmed acandidate assessment of lovable
and just letting and just likeletting people know that, like
you got to break things.
If you want to learn something,just start using these tools use
(22:11):
madnessim, use lovable, usechat, gpt, use Gemini, use
perplexity and ask it questions.
It's about the questions youask it.
If you ask it, how do I improvemy career and protect myself
for the next five years?
It'll give you an answer thatcan help you If you ask it, you
know who should I bet on in thenext basketball game.
You might get some goodinformation, but it's not going
to.
So it's like anything is as goodas the questions you're asking.
(22:32):
We're just getting informationfaster, right?
So just make pretend thatyou're using the tools the right
way, and then there's going tobe a big opportunity for you to
be a transform agent, meaninglike, hey, I'm going to come to
your company and shareeverything I know with AI to
make you do things faster,cheaper, more efficient, versus
(22:53):
being replaced by it.
So if you don't want to bereplaced by it, you should be
using it.
If you're not going to use it,expect to be replaced by it.
And I sent an email to my teambasically saying hey guys, we're
going to grow to a billiondollar company with 12 employees
or less.
You have a choice you caneither use these tools and I'll
pay for them, or you can resign.
Nobody resigned and everybody'susing the tools Awesome, I love
(23:14):
it, I love it.
And that even goes for me.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm sure you saw the email from, I think, the Fiverr CEO, right
Like even even the CEO.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, that was something similar.
I saw that and it's true, right, because it's like you're not,
like you're just, you're liketelling them the truth, and it
goes for me, too, right.
Like like as a CEO, like theremight come a day like a year
from now, or like I can getreplaced by AI right, I might
own that AI in that point, right, which might still be
beneficial is safe frominnovation and change, and it's
(23:46):
not a you versus them type ofthing.
It's like we're just innovatingfast and you could be a leader
or a laggard, right.
What's your favorite?
Speaker 1 (23:53):
AI tool.
Yeah, I've been having a lot offun with a caption app.
You know, where you can kind ofgrow your own avatars.
Are you vibe coding?
You vibe code?
I'm not a vibe coder, but I'mseeing a lot of this vibe coder
trend.
Are you All right?
No, I don't know.
Maybe, yeah, I'm seeing thetrend.
Maybe, maybe I'll I'll become avibe coder.
(24:15):
It seems like, yeah, I thinkthere's a lot of FOMO right now
around vibe coding, so we'll see.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, I'm like you know it's.
I wouldn't say I vibe coded,but for me, to communicate with
my CTO, my dev team, I was ableto use Manus to get this
prototype on a website, so it'stechnically vibe coding.
So, yeah, I guess I am vibecoding.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
There you go.
There you go Good, good stuff.
Well, as we start to wind itdown, I just want to ask a fun
question.
Yeah, what are some of yourfavorite must-go-to restaurants
in Medellin?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Favorite must-go-to restaurants in Medellin Somebody
visit, yeah, don Diablo, beststeak yeah, and then I go to
Hakanami, which is the bestsushi yeah, el Cielo is like a
five-star restaurant, which isawesome, yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Awesome, cool.
We'll definitely put those inthe show notes for everybody.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yeah Well, Amir, this has been super fun.
I'm just really impressed withhow you took the risk, built
something really special, did itall in Colombia and embraced
the culture.
So kudos to you.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Likewise to you, man.
You did the same thing, so I'malso impressed.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
And I appreciate you having me on.
Absolutely Well, you'relistening to the Nearshore Cafe
podcast.
This is Amir Ryder fromCloudTask.
This podcast is sponsored byPlug Technologies pluggtech
Great way to connect talent fromall over Latin America to
growing US companies.
We'll see you next time on theNearshore Cafe podcast.
Thanks for listening.
Welcome everyone to another episode of the Nearshore
Cafe podcast.
I'm your host, brian Sampson.
If you're interested in doingbusiness in Colombia, running a
software company out of Colombia, wow, this is going to be an
episode for you.
I've got Amir Ryder, ceo ofCloudTask.
Before we officially welcomeAmir, let me thank our sponsor,
(00:57):
plug Technologies pluggtechGreat way to connect talent,
especially technical talent,from Latin America, to growing
US companies.
Amir, so great to have you onthe show.
Likewise, dude, appreciate theinvitation.
Amir, where in Colombia are youcalling from?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, I'm in Medellin right now, but I spend a lot of
my time in San Francisco wherewe have an office in the
headquarters, and then I sneakback near shore for the good
food and the good weather andthe safety and security and just
loving it here.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I've actually been in a lot of places in Latin
America.
I have yet to make it toMedellin.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh, you'd love Medellin.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I've heard it's like perpetual spring, but for those
like me who've never been there.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
They call it the internal spring.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, yeah, Tell me more about Medellin like quality
of life, what it's like livingthere.
Yeah, yeah, Tell me.
Tell me more about Medellinlike quality life, what?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
it's like living there.
Yeah, I wrote an article calledthe new American dream.
It's on substack and I just youknow, for me it's 65 to 82
degrees every day.
There's no daylight savings, solike you're not up at nine
o'clock with the light, like Isleep at 830.
And I'm like just on an amazingschedule which is, like you
know, really underrated, right,the food itself is 75% cheaper
(02:08):
and healthier, and then you knoweverything.
The cost of living is just muchlower and healthcare like my
healthcare in America is like900 a month for me and my family
, and here it's 190.
And I just you know, for me it'san amazing place that I just
truly love and there's just anawesome entrepreneurial network.
There's, like the CEO ofBeehive Shout out to Tyler Dank,
(02:29):
who just moved here and just alot of tech people and a huge
community.
I'm in like a paddle group oflike 100 like CEOs of tech
companies that live down here,which is great.
And then, you know, I go to SanFrancisco all the time for just
my clients and just you know,meeting the people that aren't
as fortunate to be able to justmove back and forth.
Right, I guess I'm very luckyto be able to just have that
(02:49):
liberty to be in two cities andsplit my time right.
But yeah, it's for me it's justa magical place.
You know, I know that you werein BA right, buenos Aires.
So I kind of look at it like aba of buenos aires, that's like
a smaller city that's justcloser to the americas right,
like when you have buenos airesis like maybe, like I don't know
(03:11):
, eight hour, ten hour flight tothe states yeah and, like you
know, colombia is like threehours from uh miami, but it's
just.
I went to argentina.
I fell in love as well, right?
So like, yeah, like it's abeautiful place.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
yeah, awesome, yeah, awesome.
Yeah, we'd love to.
We'd love to check it out.
Tell us a story Like how, howdid you end up there?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah.
So I had a advisory boardmember, eric Agmon, who was the
CEO of Answers on Demand.
It was a POC, erp, medicalsoftware and he sold it for a
great deal.
And he was like, let me, let'sgo to Columbia.
And he was my mentor and I waslike sure, you know, like like
I'm learning, you know, like my,my mentor, I'll, I'll come with
you.
I was like the 32 year old atthe time that was like gifted
(03:53):
with the gift of gab andsocializing, and he was the you
know, 60 year old, recentlydivorced, you know, getting back
into the game, type person.
Sorry, eric, if I you know,he'll be fine.
So I went there.
And then I also had a team inthe Philippines at the time,
which was great, they're awesome.
But I came down here and theguy at the hotel who is now our
VP of global talent his name isDanny Agudela and I was chatting
with him and this guy spokefluent English.
I was like yo, what do you know?
(04:14):
What do you make a month?
And he's like 700, okay, and Idecided that it would make sense
to.
At the time I wasn't running aB2B marketplace, I was an agency
and we got to about 265employees.
I really I kind of brought downlike B2B SaaS outsourcing from a
(04:34):
sales and customer successperspective.
I had amazing customers likeRingCentral, expensify, apollo,
all SaaS companies that wouldhire CS, cx and SDRs and AEs
through us.
So that brought me down, waslike the talent I met and just
the you know the adventure ofsomething new where, like I
already knew what, like HomeDepot, and I kind of knew the
(04:55):
whole America story like theback of my hand and like you can
close your eyes and basicallypredict the next 15 years of
your life where, like inColumbiaia, just this cool stuff
, like just random, weird things, and you're just like this is
strange but cool.
So it's also very mentallyengaging, um, and just different
cultures are great, right anduh.
So that brought me down here.
Just a random trip with anadvisory board member and then
(05:17):
at the time I had a you know anagency like a call center type
of thing, and I built a teamhere at that time and and well,
you remember what year this was,that this 2016, 2016, okay,
okay, well, how time is flying.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, I'll be 42 in june don't fucking ask me how?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
but fortunately I got married, I have a daughter.
So you know I'm I'm not peterpan anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah yeah, funny enough, 2016 was the year that I
first went to Argentina, so wewere doing it like the same year
, just in different countries.
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, our energies connected.
Eight years later for thepodcast.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, I like it, I like it.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Small world.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Did you meet your spouse in Colombia?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, I was buying computers for my team.
She was working at theelectronics store outside and I
said guess what?
I said?
I said hi, how are you?
What's your name?
I'd love to take you on a date.
Right, for anybody listening,that's pretty much all you need
to say to get a date.
Anything else is too much.
Yeah, yeah, and we were likefriends for eight years.
She was going through lawschool and then, you know, we
had a very mature conversationabout building a family and
(06:20):
she's actually our chiefoperating officer.
Her name is Jessica and she'sjust great, you know, very
fortunate to have a verytraditional, non-traditional
relationship where my wife getsto really focus on the family
but also gets to, you know, be apart of every meeting in the
company, and she's got equity inthe company and she's smart,
she deserves it, she earned itRight.
So really lucky in that.
I would bring the baby in, buttoo much time Show me a picture
(06:44):
here.
The picture.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
That's the wife and the baby.
Yeah, I love it.
Yeah, love the family.
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I'm a rebel so I was like we're going to have five
kids.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
It's great, there you go.
So was Medellin, the first citythat you set up in.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, and then I got an office in Bogota as well, but
Bogota is a little bit cold anda little rainy and a little
dangerous.
Medellin is a sweet spot for me.
I'm just really big into natureand hiking.
On the weekends I go to awaterfall hike and I got a
vishla, which is an awesome,very hyper dog.
I got my dog in Argentina.
We flew to Buenos Aires to pickhim up.
(07:26):
No kidding, yeah, yeah, the,the, the, you know from a
champion breed and his littlemodel.
He like, he like, poses forpictures and stuff.
It's in his blood.
It's funny.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, that's great.
So talk us through that veryfirst hire.
Because there's peoplelistening here they're like, wow
, this is a really interestingthing.
They're kind of hanging onevery word of the VP of talent.
You know the amazing arbitrage,like first hire.
You know how did that all workout?
Like, what did you do to makethat happen?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I, you know, I set up my job opening with my clear
description of the job, my clearexpectations and my salary
range and I, you know, allowedpeople to apply to it and I
reviewed the resumes and Iinterviewed people that matched
that job opening and then I madean offer to the people that I
felt were best fit and,unfortunately, the average the
average everybody in my companynow has been with me for eight
(08:14):
years, which is awesome, andthey're all contractors.
So anybody who says they haveto hire W2 for longevity is just
not really thinking smart,because it really matters, you
know, like your culture and youryour, you know, payment
structure versus the contract,right, Like the average two
months.
And you know I made friendswith all the people I hired, 265
(08:34):
that were actively working andprobably hire like 700.
A lot of them have gone on tobigger and better things, the
opening up agencies, and I justkept a good network of them and
stay friendly with all of them.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah, and did you make that first hire?
You were still living in SanFrancisco or you were already in
Medellin by then.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I was in Miami at that time.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah, I was in South.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Beach.
Yeah, and yeah, his name isJulian Moreno.
He's now one of the VPs atGlobalization Partners, which is
a big company.
He was one of my first hiresout of Bogota and he brought
someone else that he knew in hisnetwork and I flew to Columbia
and got an Airbnb.
We were all sharing it togetherand then I actually had this
penthouse.
That was huge, that I actuallyhad Some of my founding
employees lived with me.
One, eddie Bejo, who was myco-founder, actually married
(09:23):
Maria Sanchez, who was like thelady, who was like my CFO and
did all the government'spassports, and they ended up
getting married and having a kidand it was interesting.
It was like a work frat house,but a good time.
I like to live life a littlebit, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah Now California, miami these are places where
Spanish is already prevalent.
Did you have to worry aboutlike?
Did you have to becomebilingual to do it?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
No, I barely speak Spanish.
I had handlers the whole time.
So I've just been handled LikeMaria was my initial handler,
right?
So just take me to all thebanks, I'm signing things, I'm
stamping things.
So everybody I hired spokeEnglish and I was like friends
with them, kind of so like Iconstantly just had handlers and
like now my wife is my handler,um, so she does all my visas,
she's a lawyer, she takes me tothe doctor's office, tells me to
(09:59):
shut up and not be rude, youknow things like that.
She's happy I don't speakspanish because, you know, I got
a little bit of a gift of gaband I just, you know, I I talk a
lot, so she thinks it's goodthat I don't speak spanish.
But in tienda son poquito, like,like I'm gonna, you know, I'm
gonna continue learning, but I'man anomaly, like for some of
those who speak spanish.
I met like the coolest peoplein medellin the business owners,
(10:20):
the private families, like thefounders, so like all my friends
are just like top topperforming people.
So I guess that's like who Iwant to hang out with anyways.
Yeah, but I'm also, you know,I'll admit that it's a little
bit embarrassing that I don'tspeak spanish fluently, but
nobody's perfect.
You know I got areas of unityand uh, gotta work on it I think
that gives a lot of people fromthe state's confidence.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
You know that you can not only you go around to miami
, and they don't speak englishyeah, yeah like miami.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
They're like how about it's just different?
Because you're like you shouldspeak english right here.
You're not like you shouldspeak english.
You're like should I shouldspeak spanish?
Yeah, um, but like a secondGoogle like translates language
in real time.
I don't know if anybody sawthat update.
Sorry, no excuses now.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
You know what you know.
What's funny is, when I was inArgentina, absolutely, but I
live in Hawaii.
I really don't get a chance topractice it and, just like you,
amir, everybody that I work withspeaks advanced English.
So, like you know, theirEnglish gets better, my Spanish
gets worse.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
And I was like, like I think having respect for the
culture and the people on theland is equally as important as
language.
Right, like I don't come hereand try to like, push my.
I try to push my ambition andmy speed and things that will
help people get to the nextlevel, but I embrace the culture
, embrace the people and have alot of respect for it, and it's
a journey.
Right like now that I have adaughter, I'm sure that she's
(11:47):
going to be learning how tospeak and I'm going to be
learning how to speak spanishwith her right yeah life's a
marathon right, so maybe in like10 years, me and you will be in
medellin speaking spanishtogether love it, love it.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah, you never know right.
So cloud task tell the audiencea little more about, yeah, what
it is, what does it do?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
yeah, we're a b2b marketplace that's focused on
gtm services, full-timecandidates and software.
So we're kind of bringingtogether um, the account
executives, the sdrs there'salmost 120 positions that are
just, you know, customer facingroles.
Obviously, you know we partnerwith you guys on the development
side, right, and then lots ofsoftware like Apollo, clay,
(12:27):
wormley, all the technologiesthat people use for go to market
functions and in GTM you gotsales, marketing operations,
customer success, customersupport, right.
And then with agencies, thinkabout, like all the call centers
, telemarketing centers, inboundcenters, lead generation
agencies, seo agents there'salmost 50 types.
So we basically help buyersknow what they're buying and not
(12:50):
have buyers remorse, becauseit's such there's like 40,000
call centers and 40,000 agencies, 1,000 GTM softwares right,
thousand call centers and 40,000agencies, thousand GTM
softwares right.
So we really make sure thatpeople know what they're buying,
like what the businesschallenge really is, so that
they don't have buyer's remorse.
And you know, think of it like aUpwork or you know an Airbnb or
(13:10):
an Uber.
But just for GTM functions,right, for sales support
operations, cx, which is bigright.
So we're focused, but focusedon a very big part of the market
and that's what we do right.
That's what we do.
We help people find the rightsellers and the right partners.
We might even get you listed,because we have a business
challenge called building teamsand then website development,
(13:32):
and that's where you're going tobe in, because that's the
business challenge you solve forright, that's right, that's
where you're going to be in,because that's the business
challenge you saw for.
Right, that's right, that'sright.
We'll talk more about that, ohit's Don.
Sorry, you're in.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
You opted in.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
Yeah, what I'm reallyinterested in, amir, is the
scale that you got your team toI mean phenomenal.
And how did that maybeintersect with the original
vision of CloudTask?
Yeah, and where CloudTaskevolved to, and scaling around
that, yeah yeah.
(14:02):
The energy of doing that.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
We scaled the 265 contractors, we were about $6
million in revenue, and inAmerica you wouldn't be
profitable with the math there,but because the cost of goods is
75% lower, we were veryprofitable and successful.
And I really pivoted because Isaw an opportunity to solve a
big problem and to build abillion-dollar company.
And, depending on how I stickthe landing, I might be like, oh
(14:24):
, that was a great idea, pat onthe back, or I'd be like you're
an idiot, right, because I tooka very profitable business and
ripped it apart.
But it was, you know, for me.
I just, you know, I saw myselfkind of stuck with success,
which is not a bad thing, rightit just.
I really saw the fact thatbuyers didn't know what they're
buying and that the status quolike someone had to take a
chance to like really help theindustry because people just
(14:44):
wanted to hear.
If you came to me and you'relike, hey, I want to hire some
sales development reps, we needto generate meetings, and I told
you, hey, it would take 90 daysbecause there's no market
validation and I can't promiseyou 15-minute meetings, the
person would go to thecompetition who lied to them,
and I felt like that wasn't theway people should buy right.
So by being a marketplace, Igot 5,000 options.
(15:07):
I could really pay attention toyour real business challenge
and give you options and notsell you because I got it all.
So it's kind of like if yourcar is a BMW but I got all the
brands, I'll give you the rightbrand.
Because I just didn't like thefact that status quo was telling
people what they want to hearand that was the normal right
(15:28):
and at the same time, like froma capitalistic like I wanted to
fix a big problem and I wantedto do a good thing, but I also
wanted to be rewarded for doingthat right.
I don't want to state that,like you know, I wanted to build
a billion dollar company bydoing that and also, at the same
time, helping people gettingout of the call centers, like
you're doing right, which is anoble thing because you're
helping young professionals thatwork very hard, just access
(15:49):
jobs and opportunities theydidn't have a chance to before,
right.
So that was why I did the pivotand, you know, hopefully
partnerships like ours or youknow make it worthwhile in the
long run yeah, yeah justdifferent business model.
Right one birds cash, one makesmoney love it.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah, tell us more about, um, the actual scaling of
your company, because I'm justlike super impressed that.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
So we scaled from zero to six million in like
three years.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
And a lot of it had to do with getting in a plane
and meeting everybodyface-to-face and driving Like
some of our biggest clients Ilike land in New York City and
then I drove to Boston sevenhours and they're like, yeah,
you won the business becauseyou're the only ceo who got in
the car and like drove sevenhours and like looked me in the
eye, yeah, so I built reallystrong relationships with people
who you know it's required whenthey're trusting you to build
(16:40):
and manage teams and, um, Itreated the employees with more
of a sense of entrepreneurship,where I was like teaching them
like you know the world is andlike they kind of saw me cold
calling and like doing likewhatever I asked them to do, I
do myself, right.
So I think in this culturethere's more of like I'm the
boss, you're the employee, andif they called me the boss, I'd
be like I'm not your boss, I'mthe chief, right, like I might
(17:01):
be side with you, versus puttingmy feet up and bossing you
around.
And I think that was a big partof the reason why I scaled fast
.
It was because the culture wasmore like a San Francisco
startup versus you know, like,like, yeah, like I was less like
(17:21):
this is your job, more like youknow this is your career type
of thing, right, and and really,just, you know, I think that it
was natural because I reallyfelt that way and I think people
can tell right that I was justready to like get down and dirty
with them, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah, yeah, I like it .
Can you you walk us throughmaybe even how you set up the
org, Like did it mirror what?
Like the type of titles andpositions and departments?
Did it mirror what you mightsee in San francisco?
Speaker 2 (17:47):
or yeah, yeah you know, like, had a coo.
You know I had a uh, threeaccount executives, maybe five
account managers, a vp ofoperations.
Very similar, no different.
Everybody spoke english,everybody worked for american
companies, most of people Ihired already working for at&t
and cricket.
And you know the bigorganization, yeah, you know my
co-founder, eddie bejo, wasworking for Fitbit customer
(18:10):
support.
So yeah, same title, samestructure.
The only difference was like,hey, there's 22 holidays on a
Monday in Colombia.
They're not for you, they'reagainst you.
So you could be lazy, you'regoing to work on this holiday.
It's a different mentality of,like you know, I said I like
drinking on a Monday because,like, think about it, right,
they have 22 mondays off, okay,well, china's not taking off on
(18:33):
monday, all right, and you'recompeting against the global
stage.
So I just kind of like showedthem that like, hey, you're kind
of being duped by yourgovernment into thinking that
these holidays they didn't evenknow the holidays.
They didn't even know theholidays.
What is the holiday?
They had no idea.
No idea.
Multiple saint days, right, butthey don't know.
All they knew is they had along weekend and they couldn't
go party and it held theircareer back and it was a way for
(18:55):
the government to keep the poorpoor right.
They think you're giving themsomething, but what they're
giving you is a way to justclimb the ladder and fall back
down, yeah, right.
So I kind of came in and said Iwant to work for a plumbing
company, go, do that.
You want to work for us?
You're going to get education,exposure to tools, exposure to
AI, which is not even now, butyou're going to work in the
American days, right, so it's agiven again, right?
(19:18):
Yeah, I think you know, you'veprobably seen that in Latin
America they're more trained on,like, how to sue the employee
than they are how to make a lot,because that's what they get.
They're given they're not giventhe opportunity to move up the
ladder.
They're given opportunity tosue the employee, right, and and
I was like yeah, you can't sueme, I'm an american, you know,
like, like, you know like I'mnot.
You know, I'm not hiring anemployment contractor,
independent contractor, andyou're gonna have to work hard
(19:41):
and and earn skills.
People are given things thatdistract them, right so I felt
like the government was pullingthe shades over the eyes of the
general population.
While the top 1% working andcrushing weekends, the average
person is partying and takingoff and right, like, okay, if
(20:03):
you're, you know, and it'sbackwards In this culture.
A lot of the kids are takingcare of the parents.
The parents don't retire at 50.
The parents get supported bythe kids and there's one way to
break that trend by somebodysaving money and investing,
right.
So some of the guys I'm workingwith now have stock portfolios,
they have Bitcoin, because Italked to them about that right,
and I would say stuff like hey,it's not fair that now that you
(20:25):
make more money, you give yourfamily more money.
And they retired at 50.
Like like, where does it stop?
Right, it's a never endingvicious cycle.
And I just kind of like toldthem the truth.
It hurt their feelings, butthey could see that I kind of
meant it from a point of like,empowering the next generation.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
You're right.
Yeah, I like that.
I think that's really goodadvice.
Is there any other advice thatyou'd give maybe US CEOs?
Yeah, yeah, if they were tryingto build-.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Fly down, meet your team, take them out to dinner,
like I have, a company calledExpensify.
They had 48 account executivesfor five years.
Well, guess what?
They flew out.
They met the team, they tookthem and they're still there,
right, everybody who flew out tovisit their team still has the
team.
Anybody who just hired it likean outsourced third party, fire
(21:10):
them.
Treat them like they might workwith you for eight years.
Get to know them and build realrelationships in person.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, that's great advice.
I want to talk more, amir,about AI.
You're very well versed in yourcompany.
What do you see?
What are some of yourpredictions, and then maybe even
how it might impact nearshoring.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah, faster, cheaper , more efficient.
I see it making everythingfaster, cheaper, more efficient,
and I see the fact thatcompanies are going to have
could probably be able to beleaner on the headcount and
achieve more.
But there also might be morestartups, right?
So instead of having biggercompanies, I would predict that
there's going to be many small,specialized companies, right?
So if you need a million peopleemployed, and that was in 500
companies now, it might be amillion across 2,000.
(21:50):
And I think that what I'm tryingto do is just get the hands,
get the tool.
I have an example.
I got this guy, danny Nadella.
I joked around because onLinkedIn, I put some posts about
how he didn't speak Englishwhen I met him, which is not
true.
He did, and now he programmed acandidate assessment of lovable
and just letting and just likeletting people know that, like
you got to break things.
If you want to learn something,just start using these tools use
(22:11):
madnessim, use lovable, usechat, gpt, use Gemini, use
perplexity and ask it questions.
It's about the questions youask it.
If you ask it, how do I improvemy career and protect myself
for the next five years?
It'll give you an answer thatcan help you If you ask it, you
know who should I bet on in thenext basketball game.
You might get some goodinformation, but it's not going
to.
So it's like anything is as goodas the questions you're asking.
(22:32):
We're just getting informationfaster, right?
So just make pretend thatyou're using the tools the right
way, and then there's going tobe a big opportunity for you to
be a transform agent, meaninglike, hey, I'm going to come to
your company and shareeverything I know with AI to
make you do things faster,cheaper, more efficient, versus
(22:53):
being replaced by it.
So if you don't want to bereplaced by it, you should be
using it.
If you're not going to use it,expect to be replaced by it.
And I sent an email to my teambasically saying hey guys, we're
going to grow to a billiondollar company with 12 employees
or less.
You have a choice you caneither use these tools and I'll
pay for them, or you can resign.
Nobody resigned and everybody'susing the tools Awesome, I love
(23:14):
it, I love it.
And that even goes for me.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm sure you saw the email from, I think, the Fiverr CEO, right
Like even even the CEO.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, that was something similar.
I saw that and it's true, right, because it's like you're not,
like you're just, you're liketelling them the truth, and it
goes for me, too, right.
Like like as a CEO, like theremight come a day like a year
from now, or like I can getreplaced by AI right, I might
own that AI in that point, right, which might still be
beneficial is safe frominnovation and change, and it's
(23:46):
not a you versus them type ofthing.
It's like we're just innovatingfast and you could be a leader
or a laggard, right.
What's your favorite?
Speaker 1 (23:53):
AI tool.
Yeah, I've been having a lot offun with a caption app.
You know, where you can kind ofgrow your own avatars.
Are you vibe coding?
You vibe code?
I'm not a vibe coder, but I'mseeing a lot of this vibe coder
trend.
Are you All right?
No, I don't know.
Maybe, yeah, I'm seeing thetrend.
Maybe, maybe I'll I'll become avibe coder.
(24:15):
It seems like, yeah, I thinkthere's a lot of FOMO right now
around vibe coding, so we'll see.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, I'm like you know it's.
I wouldn't say I vibe coded,but for me, to communicate with
my CTO, my dev team, I was ableto use Manus to get this
prototype on a website, so it'stechnically vibe coding.
So, yeah, I guess I am vibecoding.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
There you go.
There you go Good, good stuff.
Well, as we start to wind itdown, I just want to ask a fun
question.
Yeah, what are some of yourfavorite must-go-to restaurants
in Medellin?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Favorite must-go-to restaurants in Medellin Somebody
visit, yeah, don Diablo, beststeak yeah, and then I go to
Hakanami, which is the bestsushi yeah, el Cielo is like a
five-star restaurant, which isawesome, yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Awesome, cool.
We'll definitely put those inthe show notes for everybody.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yeah Well, Amir, this has been super fun.
I'm just really impressed withhow you took the risk, built
something really special, did itall in Colombia and embraced
the culture.
So kudos to you.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Likewise to you, man.
You did the same thing, so I'malso impressed.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
And I appreciate you having me on.
Absolutely Well, you'relistening to the Nearshore Cafe
podcast.
This is Amir Ryder fromCloudTask.
This podcast is sponsored byPlug Technologies pluggtech
Great way to connect talent fromall over Latin America to
growing US companies.
We'll see you next time on theNearshore Cafe podcast.
Thanks for listening.
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