About Me
Last updated February 27, 2024 from my home in Bogotá.
If you want to know more about my work, check out my LinkedIn. If you want to know more about me in general, here you go 👇
The Basics
I’m precisely 34 years and 321 days old. I was born on January 1st, 1991 which isn’t that great since it’s quite hard to get any kind of celebration going when everyone is traveling, hungover, or both. Logically I had to do something about it so I’ve celebrated my birthday on April 20th since ~15 years ago. Some years I’ve celebrated my birthday on 3 different dates!
My parents are both Colombian and I was born and raised in Bogotá with my sister Paloma (or Paloca, as my kids call her). I’m happily married to my lifelong girlfriend. As of today, we’ve been together for over 14 years. We got married in 2018 and had Franco and Luca (the super twins 👶🏼👶🏼) in 2022. They are rambunctious, amazing, uncontrollable balls of chaos and joy. Not coincidentally, we don’t have any more kids. Also, having twins is great exercise: I lost 14kg since they were born (and I’m a voracious eater, especially when it comes to rice).
Hobbies and Passions
Technology has been a lifelong passion. I never liked soccer (quite rare in Colombia) and grew up glued to whatever videogame I could get my hands on 👾. Fun fact, I learned English through online gaming! Since I spent so much time in front of computers I ended up loving tech and being quite a proud geek. Other than gaming, I enjoy a good beer (even better in good company), making friends, traveling and a good BBQ. Most of all, I love spending time with my family, both immediate and extended.
My other great passion is being a Maker. I love to create new things: companies, work projects, household renovations or furniture, prototypes, cooking recipes, activities, games for the kids, you name it. I’m the kind of guy with a rack full of tools, a 3D Printer and a Raspberry Pi, constantly tinkering 🧰.
Work = Play
I’ve been blessed with working in my passions and making decent money while at it. Most people know me not for my tech side but because I build companies. I’ve created 4 companies, of which 2 went broke and 2 I managed to sell.
- The first was “El Palomo”, a subscription service for flowers 🌻. I managed to go bust in less than 6 months. Great experience on what not to do when building a company.
- The second was “PrestaGente”, an online payroll loan lender that used Blockchain (the tech, not any given coin) as a differentiator. This one went a little better, but I never liked the actual business much and was not good at fundraising at all. We sold it to a Colombian investment firm.
- The third was “Beriblock”, a Blockchain-powered document signature SaaS. This one simply never went well, the product-market fit was never there and I learned a ton about finding the correct partners for a business and not outsourcing core business capabilities. Went bust.
- Finally, “Finco”: An Automated Valuation Model for the Latin American real estate market. Finco did awesome! At our peak, we were doing close to 100K valuations yearly. About ~3 years in my partner Oscar and I sold it to a Puerto Rico company called Red Atlas for ~5X the investment we had raised.
Building companies has been a family tradition for a couple of generations now. My dad is a successful entrepreneur (currently building new ventures as well!) and his father before him too. I’m constantly on the lookout for new opportunities, although lately, I’ve been more interested in less tech-heavy businesses.
I code in Python and Javascript/TypeScript, but life has made me specialize in Data Science. I try to do Backend and Frontend development often to keep my skills in check. I have had to code for my startups, but I also do consulting (particularly in entrepreneurship and Data Science) and employ myself to work with amazing people I can learn from when not building a company, so I’m mostly busy on one project or another. I did take one nice sabbatical with the babies when Finco got sold 🤩.