March 25, 2025 • 23 mins
In this episode of The Nearshore Cafe Podcast, host Brian Samson sits down with Arturo Garcia, CEO & Co-Founder of DNAMIC | Databricks Data Solutions, to discuss how Costa Rica has emerged as Latin America’s Silicon Valley for AI & Data Solutions.
Arturo shares his journey from medical school to building DNAMIC, a company that grew from a small startup to a million-dollar enterprise in just one year. Learn how the company’s “Work from Happiness” culture promotes productivity and employee satisfaction while providing high-quality solutions to clients worldwide.
Key topics include:
✅ The rapid growth of DNAMIC in the AI, Data Engineering, and Healthcare sectors.
✅ Why Costa Rica’s political stability and strong education system make it ideal for nearshoring.
✅ Navigating regulatory compliance and data security when working across borders.
✅ The unique Work from Happiness model that fosters creativity and efficiency.
✅ Costa Rica’s evolving reputation as the Central American Silicon Valley.
✅ The future of AI and Data Science for companies like DNAMIC.
✅ Insights into Costa Rican culture, tourism, and talent development.
This episode is packed with valuable insights for anyone interested in Nearshore Outsourcing, AI solutions, or building successful remote work cultures.
🔗 Connect with Arturo Garcia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arturogarciaf/
💡 Follow The Nearshore Cafe Podcast for more discussions on Nearshoring, Latin American Tech Talent, and Cross-Border Collaboration!
✅ Host: Brian Samson | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briansamson/
✅ Sponsor: Plugg Technologies | PLUGG.tech
📢 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 (00:26):
Welcome.
Welcome everyone to anotherepisode of the Nearshore Cafe
podcast.
I'm Brian Sampson, your host.
This podcast is sponsored byPlug Technologies pluggtech
great way to connect talent fromall over Latin America to
growing US companies.
If you are interested in lifesciences, regulatory healthcare
(00:51):
and how it connects to CostaRica, wow, this is going to be
an awesome show for you.
Let me introduce Arturo Garcia,out of Costa Rica, the CEO of
Dynamic.
Welcome, arturo.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Thank you, brian, thank you for having me here.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
So, as we talked about, you're building a company
from Costa Rica that impactshealthcare in the States.
That's a lot in itself.
How did this get started, andmaybe even pre-company?
You've had a really interestingjourney in your life, in your
career.
I think our audience would befascinated by that.
Could you share more how thisall came to be?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, yeah, thank you , and I would call it kind of
like unusual.
So here's the thing when Ifirst went to college, I was
trying to become a doctor.
So I did medical school forthree and a half years and I
loved it Like I absolutely lovedit the science, the hospitals,
the technology for diagnosingpatients, all of that Right.
(01:50):
But after like three and a halfyears, my younger brother and
co-founder of Dynamic, our CTO,andres Garcia, came to me saying
hey, arturo, how about if westart a technology company?
It sounded super exciting, man,and he eventually convinced me.
So I was like all right, let'sdo this.
So I was super excited aboutswitching to software
(02:11):
engineering.
Now my dad, on the other hand,who had been paying for medical
school for three and a halfyears, wasn't so thrilled about
it.
So he said you know what,arturo, if you're doing this,
you're paying for it.
So I got myself a job and Ipaid for software engineering
school, which I ended updropping at some point, but
that's a topic for another time.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Cool.
What was the vision?
You're with your brother,andres.
Help us understand the day onevision.
We all know in entrepreneurshipsometimes things pivot, they
change over time.
But day one what were you guystrying?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
to build?
Yeah, no.
So, as I was saying, you know,I got myself into software
engineering and started workingon tech projects as a quality
assurance person, and then,after that, project management,
and then leadership in generaland then sales, and that's when
things got interesting.
Right, we started payingattention to the US market and
(03:08):
the boom in the mobileapplications world, and so the
vision was let's serve the NewYork market, which we had most
of our connections back in theday 2014, when we started
Dynamic let's focus on servingthe New York market with the
best mobile applications onearth, and that was the vision
back then.
I mean, this is 2014,.
Like, mobile applications havebeen booming since 2008,.
(03:31):
Right, and we had a lot ofexperience building mobile apps.
So that was the initial vision.
But then, at some point, westarted doing web development,
project management, digitalproduction, all of that and
eventually, at some point forthe past three years, we
switched to data and AI, so wecan focus on a different niche.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, Did you find a client and then kind of work
from there, or were you and yourbrother?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Because we had been working on IT services from
Costa Rica.
You know, since the early 2000s, we built a good from Costa
Rica.
You know, since the early 2000s, we we built a good network of
connections, you know,especially in New York, and so
we got ourselves our firstproject.
We started Dynamic in 2014.
Back then it was me, my brotherour co-founder in California,
(04:19):
by the way, sufjan and, ofcourse, a few old laptops and a
lot of Red Bull man.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
A lot of Red.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Bull, and that way we took this company like working
hard, not getting that muchsleep.
We took this company from zeroto a million dollars in just one
year.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Awesome, that's incredible.
You don't hear that very often.
How about the early softwaredevelopers that you brought on?
I'm assuming these are all guysfrom Costa Rica.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yes, yes, so the beginning of the company was
focused on Costa Rica and thenwe expanded to other regions.
But at the beginning we startedbringing the people that we
knew and trust people that knewwe would deliver the level of
quality that we wanted to offerto our clients.
And so we brought close friendsand, of course, family.
Dynamic is a family company, sowe brought on board family and
(05:13):
then, you know, at some point itwas 10 guys, then 20 guys, then
30 guys up to the point inwhich, nowadays, we're more than
100 people.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So I've been lucky enough to visit Costa Rica, but
as a tourist I wasn't thinkingany business there.
You know.
We quickly were in San Jose,but otherwise Manuel Antonio
ended up proposing to my nowwife, you know way back.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Oh yeah, you did that right.
You proposed to Manuel Antonio.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah, I proposed to Manuel Antonio, so it's got a
special place in my heart.
But I and I think we saw CloudForest and where they have the
coffee.
But, arturo, we want to giveour listeners a great sense of
Costa Rica as a business hub.
Yes, but maybe even before westart there, just tell us about
(06:02):
Costa Rica overall.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, so Costa Rica is this beautiful green country
in Central America, verypeaceful, green country in
Central America, very peaceful.
The country abolished the armyback in 1948, I think and ever
since we invested all of thatmoney into education and so
(06:24):
Costa Ricans were not used to anarmy, not used to seeing guns
and all of that right.
So we're a very peacefulcountry, generally speaking.
Three and a half hours flightfrom major cities in the US, so
not that big of a long trip.
Right, and then you'll get tomeet these just friendly people,
highly educated, in thisbeautiful green country.
(06:46):
The generally speaking CostaRicans tend to be good at making
conversation.
We're good at becoming friendsand building just genuine
relationships right.
As you can see, we have anaccent.
Like most people in Costa Rica,I had an education, basic
education that includes Englishlessons, but that's not usually
(07:10):
that great to make conversations, so we have to take courses.
Additionally, there's lots ofhigher education institutions
and, generally speaking, we havegreat universities Actually the
best and this is a fun thingabout Costa Rica, a fun fact
about Costa Rica the best andhighest quality higher education
institutions in Costa Rica.
(07:31):
Universities are free andmandatory.
Did you know that?
I can hear you.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
That's right.
And, arturo, what are some ofthose universities that are
maybe some of the ones that youpersonally like to recruit out
of?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Right.
So we don't really pay thatmuch attention to which college
you went to and we don't reallypay that much attention to
degrees generally speaking.
Essentially, at Dynamic, wewant to hire people with the
right knowledge.
We vet them properly.
They take technical tests withus.
We focus on values and we focuson their ability to be creative
(08:05):
.
The degree or what college theygraduated from, it's not that
big of a deal for us.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, tell us more about what the staff looks like.
So you've got about 100 or sopeople.
Are they all softwaredevelopers, ui, ux, devops, qa?
What kind of roles are theydoing?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yes, but keep in mind that we expanded to Mexico as
well, right, so nowadays we haveresources across Latin America,
but mostly Costa Rica andMexico.
In our company, most of ourdevelopers are nowadays
full-stack developers dataengineers, data scientists,
devops people for sure, lots ofthem UX, ui people, project
(08:48):
managers, technical leads likeyou name it right Everything you
need to grow an IT consultingcompany.
But see, that's the thing.
For the past three years, we'vebeen specializing more and more
and specializing in specificniches, including healthcare and
life sciences.
We no longer do that much workwhen it comes to mobile
(09:11):
applications, but we want tofocus more on data engineering,
data science, ai solutions thosekinds of things for the
healthcare and life sciencesindustries.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yeah, that's something I'd love for you to
dive in deeper.
Southern California, san Diegoarea, huge place for life
sciences, yes, and I'm surethere are people listening that
have maybe never offshored ornearshored and they're thinking
like, wow, I'm in a veryregulated space.
(09:41):
Is that even allowed?
Like, how does that even happen?
Can you break it down, likewhat this ecosystem looks like?
And the regulations, thecompliance how does this all
come together when you'reworking across borders?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
So there's information you're not allowed
to take across borders, butthere's ways to work around that
.
For sure, it's not animpossible gap to bridge and so,
as long as you have the rightcontrols in place good VPN
connections, security training,great security practices,
(10:17):
encrypted data and you havepeople accessing that
information in a secure way,that should not be a problem.
So companies that think youknow what, can I do this or can
I not?
There's definitely informationyou don't want to get out of
your country because of localregulations, and each country
has different regulations,especially when it comes to
(10:37):
healthcare and life sciences.
But then again, there arecertain projects you can dissect
, outsource and collaborate withpeople, as long as they have
good HIPAA compliance trainingand the right encryption methods
.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
So thanks, Arturo.
That really helped meunderstand how you guys are
doing some of this cross-borderand you're working across
different industries too.
You know life sciences, pharmaand so forth.
Can you share a little bit moreabout, like, maybe, how that
might differ from industry toindustry and how nearshoring can
(11:10):
make it happen?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Absolutely.
So.
Keep in mind that we serve allkinds of clients, right From the
earliest age startup all theway to mid-size companies and
then very large pharmacorporations.
They all have differentregulatory controls and policies
, right.
So your early age startup wantto take care of the data.
They want to control the data.
They want to control the data.
They want to share it with youin an appropriate manner, so
(11:36):
they want to be in control of itand you accessing it remotely.
They want to encrypt thatinformation and then want you to
use a VPN.
And then midsize companies whouses things like monitors to
keep track of patients' healthcare.
Those kinds of things youcannot share.
You want to keep in the US.
And then large corporationslike pharmaceuticals they want
(12:01):
to keep things very, very tightand so they set up very specific
controls and checkpoints andsecurity controls for you to
access their information and youhave to sign additional NDAs
with them.
Again, it's all doable.
It's just a matter of the sizeof the organization and how they
structure their securitycontrols.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Arturo, I'm imagining the culture of your company is
excellent.
You're a great leader.
Can you talk about how, maybelike advice for other companies,
like how to build a greatculture where you're able to
work across borders and makeyour clients happy and then also
you know Costa Rica is a morelaid back place than maybe you
(12:43):
know some other places in the USand how you're able to keep a
great culture, make your clientshappy, but then also you know
kind of match the right energy.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Right.
Right, and I think you alreadymentioned some of that, brian
it's all about keeping thingssimple, like the most simple.
You can keep things.
I mean you have lots of thingsyou want to take care of, right,
security, controls, training,those kinds of things right, but
you have to establish a goodcompany culture in which you
keep things simple and peopleunderstand that and they know
(13:16):
that.
So take, for instance, atDynamic we do have offices,
places that we go to work to,but then again, most of our work
is remote.
Our guys just meet every nowand then to share experiences,
to focus on a specific project,but they get to work from home.
And actually at Dynamic we callit work from happiness, because
our guys are allowed to workfrom wherever they have internet
(13:38):
connection.
And so we've had people workingfrom Europe, from the US.
We've had some of our guysgoing to South America and just
work for a month or two becausewe allow that.
And so as long as you keepthings simple and you focus on
the important things likequality, deadlines, good
communication, your client willfeel happy.
(13:59):
Brian, it's all about keepingthings simple.
You know you want to.
There's many things you have todo in a company.
You have to serve your clients,but you also have to give
services to your people, and so,as long as you focus on the
right things like quality,deadlines, budget your customers
will appreciate that you'rekeeping things simple.
And so, for instance, atDynamic, we have a policy that
(14:22):
we don't call work from home.
We call it work from happiness,meaning that you get to work
from wherever you're happy, aslong as you have a good internet
connection and when you havehappy people.
From wherever you you're happyas long as you have good
internal connection and when youhave happy people collaborating
with you.
They have the proper, theappropriate training and the
right values.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
They deliver on time, high quality work and your
customers will be happy, amazingand um, in your company, um,
could you give us a little moreidea on, like, the structure of
you see you've got leads andmaybe architects and VPs and so
forth.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
How do you kind of put all that together as there's
client facing roles, heads downroles, yeah, so keep in mind
that I'm an extremely practicalperson, Brian, and we can come
back to that in a moment.
But then again, I try to keepdynamic as lean as possible in
terms of company hierarchy.
Try to keep dynamic as lean aspossible in terms of company
hierarchy.
We don't think a project manageris a more important person than
(15:20):
a developer or a qualityassurance engineer.
We're all the same right.
We're all contributing tosuccessful projects and so, yes,
we do have people doing thedevelopment, we have a
leadership structure, we haveproject managers leadership
structure, we have projectmanagers.
(15:40):
But then again, some of ourprojects tend to be more lean in
the sense that at some point, atechnical lead could be acting
as a project manager and wedon't really need a full-time
project manager.
Sometimes we're building aproject for one of our customers
and we only need theintervention of a project
manager every now and then toset up the right project
infrastructure or the right bestpractices, and then, after that
(16:01):
point, we continue on our own.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, I wanted to come back a little bit on Costa
Rica as a business destination.
You know, one of the unfairthings is Latin America
sometimes gets lumped in likeit's one singular country right
and problems that maybe anothercountry experiences, you know,
(16:24):
has nothing to do with anothercountry in Latin America.
You know from internet outagesto you know, inflation and
unstable currencies orgovernments.
Can you talk about some of thatand then you know if there are
any challenges that you'retrying to manage within Costa
Rica?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Right, so that's a great question.
I mean, let's split that intothree parts, right?
So the country has the CostaRica has the longest democratic
record in Latin America over 200years of democracy, which is
great record in Latin Americaover 200 years of democracy,
which is great.
Lots of political stability.
The currency is super stable aswell.
(17:01):
So those are good things forcompanies to set up their own
team or their own branch inCosta Rica.
That is the reason why we havecompanies like HP, alienware,
ibm, you name it.
Lots of large, largecorporations in the US have
operations in Costa Rica.
So that's one part.
Then the other thing is I mean,yes, across Latin America we
(17:24):
have 650 million people androughly half of them are part of
the workforce.
Throughout Latin America wehave thousands of great
universities, very olduniversities with great
practices and great teachingprograms.
Costa Rica has the same as well.
And then about the culture sothe culture in Costa Rica is
(17:46):
very laid back.
We're very friendly, but thenagain, just great values overall
.
If you talk to Costa Ricans andyou have collaborated with
Costa Ricans you know that we'refriendly people and we want to
learn continuously.
Now, in that part, I would saythat not only Costa Rica, but
all of us, because of these AIchanges and these new
(18:09):
discoveries we're seeing on AIpretty much on a daily basis, we
have to train ourselves tolearn more and more and in a
faster pace.
Nowadays.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, tell us more about that, about AI.
I mean, we're in the middle.
It's changing so fast and everyday.
What does that mean for you,for your company, for the vision
of your company?
How is the?
You know?
What are you trying to do tomake sure you're ready for these
new changes?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Right.
So I mean there's so much tolearn in AI, in data and data
science, these kinds of things.
You're seeing discoveries on adaily basis, as I was saying.
So essentially, the way youaddress all of that is by having
the right company culture and aset of small good practices, by
having the right companyculture and a set of small good
practices.
So at Dynamic we have differentSlack channels for different
(18:59):
topics, because if you try toaddress everything in AI in just
one Slack channel, it's goingto become like one of those
newspapers that talk abouteverything and no one's really
paying attention to anything.
Right, that's one.
And then the second thing ishaving that new learning mindset
, and so that has to come fromthe upper management.
So, for instance, I made it apersonal challenge for me to
(19:22):
learn as much as I can about AIfor the past five years, and so
that's part of the reason why Idon't really write emails.
I actually don't type.
I try to keep my keyboard awayfrom me as much as I can,
because I talk to my computerLike, if you think about it,
speech-to-text technology hasbeen available since 2017 and
(19:43):
most people they're not reallyaware of this, so you no longer
need to write emails.
You can talk to your computerand speech-to-text technology
will allow you to do way morethan your fingertips could ever
do.
Right, that's one.
And then continuously havebuilt and deployed programs in
your company to encourage peopleto learn more, and, of course,
(20:04):
lots of gamification and justhighlighting people who has
either gained a certificate or anew ability, a new skill set.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah, Now for the fun stuff.
Arturo, let's talk abouttourism in Costa Rica.
Absolutely, people that arevisiting what do they have to
put on their must-do list, theirbucket list, when they visit
Costa Rica?
Where should they go?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
When you come to Costa Rica, you definitely want
to spend some time in San Jose,get to see the city, get to know
the people, but then, if youhave some good time, say you
know, five days, six days, go tothe mountains, go to the
beaches, just enjoy the relaxingenvironment in Costa Rica and
we have.
As you mentioned before, manuelAntonio is a great area with
(20:51):
lots of nature.
To the south of Costa Rica, inone specific region of Costa
Rica, we have 6% of the world'sbiodiversity, which is just
amazing.
I mean, it's just impressive.
In natural reservations you'llsee crabs, monkeys, like it's
very usual for you to be in arestaurant and have a monkey
stealing your food which is fun,but not that fun if you paid a
(21:12):
lot of money.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, that's great.
Tell us about the food.
You know, what should someoneexpect food-wise when they visit
Right?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
So in Costa Rica we eat a lot of rice and beans and
combinations of those things.
Actually, the thing we usuallyhave for breakfast in Costa Rica
it is a combination of rice andbeans which we call gallo pinto
.
I think it's the same, verysimilar.
In Nicaragua they have theirown version, and throughout
different countries in CentralAmerica they have their own
(21:42):
version of these dishes.
You have to try the pinto witheggs, beans and then a little
bit of meat to have some funSour cream.
For sure, when you come toCosta Rica you have to try the
chifrijo and then the localcheese in different towns in
Costa Rica.
Man, you will love it.
(22:02):
And of course the coffee.
Costa Rican coffee is topcoffee on earth.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
It really is.
I live in Hawaii, as some ofthe listeners know.
Hawaii coffee is quite good,but Costa Rican coffee is.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Oh, absolutely Absolutely, and I'm glad to hear
that you proposed to your wifein Manila, antonio.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
It's just a, it's a very romantic, uh, beach town,
for sure yeah, absolutely uh,and then ziplining, of course,
is is a very popular thing ofcourse you have to do it and you
have to.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
You have to just sit in one of those little local
bars, have you know?
See the sunset, enjoy a beer orsome drinks.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Man, it's just beautiful, amazing arturo, this
has been a fascinatingconversation.
I've learned a lot more aboutcosta rica.
Costa rica as a really greatbusiness destination, a place to
put your developers, other,other people, the laid back vibe
, english speaking, anythingelse that I missed that you'd
like to add?
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yes, yes, I would say Costa Rica is known as the
Central American Silicon Valley,which is a good thing in terms
of reputation, but also in termsof the challenge it represents
for us in Latin America, inCosta Rica.
So, definitely a place you wantto check out, great place in
terms of stability, setting upyour own operation and then,
(23:22):
just you know, grow and have abeautiful, fun place to go and
visit your team every now andthen.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Amazing.
This podcast was sponsored byPlug Technologies PLUGGtech
Great way to connect talent allover Latin America with growing
US companies.
Arturo, thanks again for beinga guest on our show.
Thank you so much, brian.
All right, thanks everyone.
We'll see you next time.
Welcome.
Welcome everyone to anotherepisode of the Nearshore Cafe
podcast.
I'm Brian Sampson, your host.
This podcast is sponsored byPlug Technologies pluggtech
great way to connect talent fromall over Latin America to
growing US companies.
If you are interested in lifesciences, regulatory healthcare
(00:51):
and how it connects to CostaRica, wow, this is going to be
an awesome show for you.
Let me introduce Arturo Garcia,out of Costa Rica, the CEO of
Dynamic.
Welcome, arturo.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Thank you, brian, thank you for having me here.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
So, as we talked about, you're building a company
from Costa Rica that impactshealthcare in the States.
That's a lot in itself.
How did this get started, andmaybe even pre-company?
You've had a really interestingjourney in your life, in your
career.
I think our audience would befascinated by that.
Could you share more how thisall came to be?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, yeah, thank you , and I would call it kind of
like unusual.
So here's the thing when Ifirst went to college, I was
trying to become a doctor.
So I did medical school forthree and a half years and I
loved it Like I absolutely lovedit the science, the hospitals,
the technology for diagnosingpatients, all of that Right.
(01:50):
But after like three and a halfyears, my younger brother and
co-founder of Dynamic, our CTO,andres Garcia, came to me saying
hey, arturo, how about if westart a technology company?
It sounded super exciting, man,and he eventually convinced me.
So I was like all right, let'sdo this.
So I was super excited aboutswitching to software
(02:11):
engineering.
Now my dad, on the other hand,who had been paying for medical
school for three and a halfyears, wasn't so thrilled about
it.
So he said you know what,arturo, if you're doing this,
you're paying for it.
So I got myself a job and Ipaid for software engineering
school, which I ended updropping at some point, but
that's a topic for another time.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Cool.
What was the vision?
You're with your brother,andres.
Help us understand the day onevision.
We all know in entrepreneurshipsometimes things pivot, they
change over time.
But day one what were you guystrying?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
to build?
Yeah, no.
So, as I was saying, you know,I got myself into software
engineering and started workingon tech projects as a quality
assurance person, and then,after that, project management,
and then leadership in generaland then sales, and that's when
things got interesting.
Right, we started payingattention to the US market and
(03:08):
the boom in the mobileapplications world, and so the
vision was let's serve the NewYork market, which we had most
of our connections back in theday 2014, when we started
Dynamic let's focus on servingthe New York market with the
best mobile applications onearth, and that was the vision
back then.
I mean, this is 2014,.
Like, mobile applications havebeen booming since 2008,.
(03:31):
Right, and we had a lot ofexperience building mobile apps.
So that was the initial vision.
But then, at some point, westarted doing web development,
project management, digitalproduction, all of that and
eventually, at some point forthe past three years, we
switched to data and AI, so wecan focus on a different niche.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, Did you find a client and then kind of work
from there, or were you and yourbrother?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Because we had been working on IT services from
Costa Rica.
You know, since the early 2000s, we built a good from Costa
Rica.
You know, since the early 2000s, we we built a good network of
connections, you know,especially in New York, and so
we got ourselves our firstproject.
We started Dynamic in 2014.
Back then it was me, my brotherour co-founder in California,
(04:19):
by the way, sufjan and, ofcourse, a few old laptops and a
lot of Red Bull man.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
A lot of Red.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Bull, and that way we took this company like working
hard, not getting that muchsleep.
We took this company from zeroto a million dollars in just one
year.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Awesome, that's incredible.
You don't hear that very often.
How about the early softwaredevelopers that you brought on?
I'm assuming these are all guysfrom Costa Rica.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yes, yes, so the beginning of the company was
focused on Costa Rica and thenwe expanded to other regions.
But at the beginning we startedbringing the people that we
knew and trust people that knewwe would deliver the level of
quality that we wanted to offerto our clients.
And so we brought close friendsand, of course, family.
Dynamic is a family company, sowe brought on board family and
(05:13):
then, you know, at some point itwas 10 guys, then 20 guys, then
30 guys up to the point inwhich, nowadays, we're more than
100 people.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So I've been lucky enough to visit Costa Rica, but
as a tourist I wasn't thinkingany business there.
You know.
We quickly were in San Jose,but otherwise Manuel Antonio
ended up proposing to my nowwife, you know way back.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Oh yeah, you did that right.
You proposed to Manuel Antonio.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah, I proposed to Manuel Antonio, so it's got a
special place in my heart.
But I and I think we saw CloudForest and where they have the
coffee.
But, arturo, we want to giveour listeners a great sense of
Costa Rica as a business hub.
Yes, but maybe even before westart there, just tell us about
(06:02):
Costa Rica overall.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, so Costa Rica is this beautiful green country
in Central America, verypeaceful, green country in
Central America, very peaceful.
The country abolished the armyback in 1948, I think and ever
since we invested all of thatmoney into education and so
(06:24):
Costa Ricans were not used to anarmy, not used to seeing guns
and all of that right.
So we're a very peacefulcountry, generally speaking.
Three and a half hours flightfrom major cities in the US, so
not that big of a long trip.
Right, and then you'll get tomeet these just friendly people,
highly educated, in thisbeautiful green country.
(06:46):
The generally speaking CostaRicans tend to be good at making
conversation.
We're good at becoming friendsand building just genuine
relationships right.
As you can see, we have anaccent.
Like most people in Costa Rica,I had an education, basic
education that includes Englishlessons, but that's not usually
(07:10):
that great to make conversations, so we have to take courses.
Additionally, there's lots ofhigher education institutions
and, generally speaking, we havegreat universities Actually the
best and this is a fun thingabout Costa Rica, a fun fact
about Costa Rica the best andhighest quality higher education
institutions in Costa Rica.
(07:31):
Universities are free andmandatory.
Did you know that?
I can hear you.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
That's right.
And, arturo, what are some ofthose universities that are
maybe some of the ones that youpersonally like to recruit out
of?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Right.
So we don't really pay thatmuch attention to which college
you went to and we don't reallypay that much attention to
degrees generally speaking.
Essentially, at Dynamic, wewant to hire people with the
right knowledge.
We vet them properly.
They take technical tests withus.
We focus on values and we focuson their ability to be creative
(08:05):
.
The degree or what college theygraduated from, it's not that
big of a deal for us.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, tell us more about what the staff looks like.
So you've got about 100 or sopeople.
Are they all softwaredevelopers, ui, ux, devops, qa?
What kind of roles are theydoing?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yes, but keep in mind that we expanded to Mexico as
well, right, so nowadays we haveresources across Latin America,
but mostly Costa Rica andMexico.
In our company, most of ourdevelopers are nowadays
full-stack developers dataengineers, data scientists,
devops people for sure, lots ofthem UX, ui people, project
(08:48):
managers, technical leads likeyou name it right Everything you
need to grow an IT consultingcompany.
But see, that's the thing.
For the past three years, we'vebeen specializing more and more
and specializing in specificniches, including healthcare and
life sciences.
We no longer do that much workwhen it comes to mobile
(09:11):
applications, but we want tofocus more on data engineering,
data science, ai solutions thosekinds of things for the
healthcare and life sciencesindustries.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yeah, that's something I'd love for you to
dive in deeper.
Southern California, san Diegoarea, huge place for life
sciences, yes, and I'm surethere are people listening that
have maybe never offshored ornearshored and they're thinking
like, wow, I'm in a veryregulated space.
(09:41):
Is that even allowed?
Like, how does that even happen?
Can you break it down, likewhat this ecosystem looks like?
And the regulations, thecompliance how does this all
come together when you'reworking across borders?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
So there's information you're not allowed
to take across borders, butthere's ways to work around that
.
For sure, it's not animpossible gap to bridge and so,
as long as you have the rightcontrols in place good VPN
connections, security training,great security practices,
(10:17):
encrypted data and you havepeople accessing that
information in a secure way,that should not be a problem.
So companies that think youknow what, can I do this or can
I not?
There's definitely informationyou don't want to get out of
your country because of localregulations, and each country
has different regulations,especially when it comes to
(10:37):
healthcare and life sciences.
But then again, there arecertain projects you can dissect
, outsource and collaborate withpeople, as long as they have
good HIPAA compliance trainingand the right encryption methods
.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
So thanks, Arturo.
That really helped meunderstand how you guys are
doing some of this cross-borderand you're working across
different industries too.
You know life sciences, pharmaand so forth.
Can you share a little bit moreabout, like, maybe, how that
might differ from industry toindustry and how nearshoring can
(11:10):
make it happen?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Absolutely.
So.
Keep in mind that we serve allkinds of clients, right From the
earliest age startup all theway to mid-size companies and
then very large pharmacorporations.
They all have differentregulatory controls and policies
, right.
So your early age startup wantto take care of the data.
They want to control the data.
They want to control the data.
They want to share it with youin an appropriate manner, so
(11:36):
they want to be in control of itand you accessing it remotely.
They want to encrypt thatinformation and then want you to
use a VPN.
And then midsize companies whouses things like monitors to
keep track of patients' healthcare.
Those kinds of things youcannot share.
You want to keep in the US.
And then large corporationslike pharmaceuticals they want
(12:01):
to keep things very, very tightand so they set up very specific
controls and checkpoints andsecurity controls for you to
access their information and youhave to sign additional NDAs
with them.
Again, it's all doable.
It's just a matter of the sizeof the organization and how they
structure their securitycontrols.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Arturo, I'm imagining the culture of your company is
excellent.
You're a great leader.
Can you talk about how, maybelike advice for other companies,
like how to build a greatculture where you're able to
work across borders and makeyour clients happy and then also
you know Costa Rica is a morelaid back place than maybe you
(12:43):
know some other places in the USand how you're able to keep a
great culture, make your clientshappy, but then also you know
kind of match the right energy.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Right.
Right, and I think you alreadymentioned some of that, brian
it's all about keeping thingssimple, like the most simple.
You can keep things.
I mean you have lots of thingsyou want to take care of, right,
security, controls, training,those kinds of things right, but
you have to establish a goodcompany culture in which you
keep things simple and peopleunderstand that and they know
(13:16):
that.
So take, for instance, atDynamic we do have offices,
places that we go to work to,but then again, most of our work
is remote.
Our guys just meet every nowand then to share experiences,
to focus on a specific project,but they get to work from home.
And actually at Dynamic we callit work from happiness, because
our guys are allowed to workfrom wherever they have internet
(13:38):
connection.
And so we've had people workingfrom Europe, from the US.
We've had some of our guysgoing to South America and just
work for a month or two becausewe allow that.
And so as long as you keepthings simple and you focus on
the important things likequality, deadlines, good
communication, your client willfeel happy.
(13:59):
Brian, it's all about keepingthings simple.
You know you want to.
There's many things you have todo in a company.
You have to serve your clients,but you also have to give
services to your people, and so,as long as you focus on the
right things like quality,deadlines, budget your customers
will appreciate that you'rekeeping things simple.
And so, for instance, atDynamic, we have a policy that
(14:22):
we don't call work from home.
We call it work from happiness,meaning that you get to work
from wherever you're happy, aslong as you have a good internet
connection and when you havehappy people.
From wherever you you're happyas long as you have good
internal connection and when youhave happy people collaborating
with you.
They have the proper, theappropriate training and the
right values.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
They deliver on time, high quality work and your
customers will be happy, amazingand um, in your company, um,
could you give us a little moreidea on, like, the structure of
you see you've got leads andmaybe architects and VPs and so
forth.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
How do you kind of put all that together as there's
client facing roles, heads downroles, yeah, so keep in mind
that I'm an extremely practicalperson, Brian, and we can come
back to that in a moment.
But then again, I try to keepdynamic as lean as possible in
terms of company hierarchy.
Try to keep dynamic as lean aspossible in terms of company
hierarchy.
We don't think a project manageris a more important person than
(15:20):
a developer or a qualityassurance engineer.
We're all the same right.
We're all contributing tosuccessful projects and so, yes,
we do have people doing thedevelopment, we have a
leadership structure, we haveproject managers leadership
structure, we have projectmanagers.
(15:40):
But then again, some of ourprojects tend to be more lean in
the sense that at some point, atechnical lead could be acting
as a project manager and wedon't really need a full-time
project manager.
Sometimes we're building aproject for one of our customers
and we only need theintervention of a project
manager every now and then toset up the right project
infrastructure or the right bestpractices, and then, after that
(16:01):
point, we continue on our own.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, I wanted to come back a little bit on Costa
Rica as a business destination.
You know, one of the unfairthings is Latin America
sometimes gets lumped in likeit's one singular country right
and problems that maybe anothercountry experiences, you know,
(16:24):
has nothing to do with anothercountry in Latin America.
You know from internet outagesto you know, inflation and
unstable currencies orgovernments.
Can you talk about some of thatand then you know if there are
any challenges that you'retrying to manage within Costa
Rica?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Right, so that's a great question.
I mean, let's split that intothree parts, right?
So the country has the CostaRica has the longest democratic
record in Latin America over 200years of democracy, which is
great record in Latin Americaover 200 years of democracy,
which is great.
Lots of political stability.
The currency is super stable aswell.
(17:01):
So those are good things forcompanies to set up their own
team or their own branch inCosta Rica.
That is the reason why we havecompanies like HP, alienware,
ibm, you name it.
Lots of large, largecorporations in the US have
operations in Costa Rica.
So that's one part.
Then the other thing is I mean,yes, across Latin America we
(17:24):
have 650 million people androughly half of them are part of
the workforce.
Throughout Latin America wehave thousands of great
universities, very olduniversities with great
practices and great teachingprograms.
Costa Rica has the same as well.
And then about the culture sothe culture in Costa Rica is
(17:46):
very laid back.
We're very friendly, but thenagain, just great values overall
.
If you talk to Costa Ricans andyou have collaborated with
Costa Ricans you know that we'refriendly people and we want to
learn continuously.
Now, in that part, I would saythat not only Costa Rica, but
all of us, because of these AIchanges and these new
(18:09):
discoveries we're seeing on AIpretty much on a daily basis, we
have to train ourselves tolearn more and more and in a
faster pace.
Nowadays.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, tell us more about that, about AI.
I mean, we're in the middle.
It's changing so fast and everyday.
What does that mean for you,for your company, for the vision
of your company?
How is the?
You know?
What are you trying to do tomake sure you're ready for these
new changes?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Right.
So I mean there's so much tolearn in AI, in data and data
science, these kinds of things.
You're seeing discoveries on adaily basis, as I was saying.
So essentially, the way youaddress all of that is by having
the right company culture and aset of small good practices, by
having the right companyculture and a set of small good
practices.
So at Dynamic we have differentSlack channels for different
(18:59):
topics, because if you try toaddress everything in AI in just
one Slack channel, it's goingto become like one of those
newspapers that talk abouteverything and no one's really
paying attention to anything.
Right, that's one.
And then the second thing ishaving that new learning mindset
, and so that has to come fromthe upper management.
So, for instance, I made it apersonal challenge for me to
(19:22):
learn as much as I can about AIfor the past five years, and so
that's part of the reason why Idon't really write emails.
I actually don't type.
I try to keep my keyboard awayfrom me as much as I can,
because I talk to my computerLike, if you think about it,
speech-to-text technology hasbeen available since 2017 and
(19:43):
most people they're not reallyaware of this, so you no longer
need to write emails.
You can talk to your computerand speech-to-text technology
will allow you to do way morethan your fingertips could ever
do.
Right, that's one.
And then continuously havebuilt and deployed programs in
your company to encourage peopleto learn more, and, of course,
(20:04):
lots of gamification and justhighlighting people who has
either gained a certificate or anew ability, a new skill set.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah, Now for the fun stuff.
Arturo, let's talk abouttourism in Costa Rica.
Absolutely, people that arevisiting what do they have to
put on their must-do list, theirbucket list, when they visit
Costa Rica?
Where should they go?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
When you come to Costa Rica, you definitely want
to spend some time in San Jose,get to see the city, get to know
the people, but then, if youhave some good time, say you
know, five days, six days, go tothe mountains, go to the
beaches, just enjoy the relaxingenvironment in Costa Rica and
we have.
As you mentioned before, manuelAntonio is a great area with
(20:51):
lots of nature.
To the south of Costa Rica, inone specific region of Costa
Rica, we have 6% of the world'sbiodiversity, which is just
amazing.
I mean, it's just impressive.
In natural reservations you'llsee crabs, monkeys, like it's
very usual for you to be in arestaurant and have a monkey
stealing your food which is fun,but not that fun if you paid a
(21:12):
lot of money.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, that's great.
Tell us about the food.
You know, what should someoneexpect food-wise when they visit
Right?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
So in Costa Rica we eat a lot of rice and beans and
combinations of those things.
Actually, the thing we usuallyhave for breakfast in Costa Rica
it is a combination of rice andbeans which we call gallo pinto
.
I think it's the same, verysimilar.
In Nicaragua they have theirown version, and throughout
different countries in CentralAmerica they have their own
(21:42):
version of these dishes.
You have to try the pinto witheggs, beans and then a little
bit of meat to have some funSour cream.
For sure, when you come toCosta Rica you have to try the
chifrijo and then the localcheese in different towns in
Costa Rica.
Man, you will love it.
(22:02):
And of course the coffee.
Costa Rican coffee is topcoffee on earth.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
It really is.
I live in Hawaii, as some ofthe listeners know.
Hawaii coffee is quite good,but Costa Rican coffee is.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Oh, absolutely Absolutely, and I'm glad to hear
that you proposed to your wifein Manila, antonio.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
It's just a, it's a very romantic, uh, beach town,
for sure yeah, absolutely uh,and then ziplining, of course,
is is a very popular thing ofcourse you have to do it and you
have to.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
You have to just sit in one of those little local
bars, have you know?
See the sunset, enjoy a beer orsome drinks.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Man, it's just beautiful, amazing arturo, this
has been a fascinatingconversation.
I've learned a lot more aboutcosta rica.
Costa rica as a really greatbusiness destination, a place to
put your developers, other,other people, the laid back vibe
, english speaking, anythingelse that I missed that you'd
like to add?
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yes, yes, I would say Costa Rica is known as the
Central American Silicon Valley,which is a good thing in terms
of reputation, but also in termsof the challenge it represents
for us in Latin America, inCosta Rica.
So, definitely a place you wantto check out, great place in
terms of stability, setting upyour own operation and then,
(23:22):
just you know, grow and have abeautiful, fun place to go and
visit your team every now andthen.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Amazing.
This podcast was sponsored byPlug Technologies PLUGGtech
Great way to connect talent allover Latin America with growing
US companies.
Arturo, thanks again for beinga guest on our show.
Thank you so much, brian.
All right, thanks everyone.
We'll see you next time.
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