The headers are so fine and Robinhood, you know, how do you differ from these mega platforms outside of just being, you know, Hispanic focus? Yes. So number one, we can name six or seven right here in the US, but they all have one thing in common is they don't speak the language, but more importantly, they don't speak the culture because it's not just about... Welcome to another episode of coffees because it's not just about speaking Spanish to the Hispanic and Latin. I think you just like convert their app into Spanish. Correct, yes. So there's a whole different, not only business, acumen that you have to understand, but also there's the culture aspect of how do you approach them, and they all have different cultures. I'm from El Salvador, so my culture is very different from people that are from Mexico, from Colombians, Venezuelans, right? Argentina's Peruvian, how are you able to talk to every single one, understanding another culture, but they're challenges and what drove them to come here to the US and make a life here? I feel like isn't El Salvador the biggest adopter of cryptocurrency in the world? Yes, actually number one. So, you know, Bukhale has made such a tremendous change in the last seven years in El Salvador. So he brought innovation, he's promoting a lot of technology, which allowed us when he took presidency to go out and was one of my business partners, Ronnie and my dream, to go back to El Salvador and how do we give back to our country? How can we go back and create a company and bring in bright minds because there are a lot of intelligent kids over there and making part of what we're building? Well, before then, the country was in complete you know, destruction. There was a civil war, then there was the the crime rate with the gangsters that were deported over there. But when he came up and cleaned the country, it was the opportunity. So we went over there, we created our headquarters, we got 22 amazing kids, our designers, engineers, developers, and about seven others that specialize in digital content and marketing. So for us as a big fulfillment to have gone back and the government received us with open arms and it gave us a lot of credits and a lot of benefits to bring innovation and be able to help out a lot of families over there. Now your story is very similar to mine, you're a third world immigrant. You came here at six years old. What do you remember most about that transition from you know, third world country, El Salvador, to coming to America here who it's actually something that I'll never forget something very memorable. When I was in El Salvador, I remember seeing the box and that said Criola. So it was a teacher that would come from the city into our town and she would uncover the blackboard and she had white chalk in that box and that's where we knew we learned our ABCs, our additions, multiplications right and our first words, first and second grade. When I arrived here to United States, it was quite the experience because when you walk into the classroom in the first day and this is why I teach my nephews and and nieces and every kid that I come across is you can't take things for granted because they don't understand how lucky and blessed we are here. I remember walking in and your name would be on the name tag on that desk. What I didn't understand is that desk belonged to me, it belonged to you. The next day that desk was there and everything you put in there was there. And opening the box of Criolas crayons and that smell, I can't forget that smell but it's the freedom of grabbing that and having endless white pieces of paper and you can draw all day if you wanted knowing that that paper and those crayons were ready to live ill for you right where things that in our country we couldn't. I don't remember we're having a journal or a mead paper dope and being able to write and draw as the privilege that we had here. So it's a big transition, a big change from enjoying something as simple as having your desk sitting down, being taught in an amazing air conditioning classroom and having all the tools for you to be creative. It's crazy because so many people probably listen to this podcast, don't even realize how blessed they are to just open up a box of crayons and absolutely or have endless pieces of paper. Yes. I know my kids for sure aren't that they don't realize how much of a blessing that is. True. You know and actually it's my business partner who told me you know one of his favorite things was back to school. I'll you know going back to school and and he mentioned that smell of crayons and he also is a third world immigrant from Jordan. So it's you know it's those small things that are just so big you know those blessings are so big. You know growing up here and you grew up probably poor did you ever think you would become an entrepreneur and let alone start a company that's about to go IPO. No when you come from a third world country you're very limited when it comes to your mind set right you you're not raised with be all you can be or you know you can become a thing you dream of. You only hear those those phrases in motivational words as a zero kid right it's always a lack of no we don't have we can't tough tough it up and so it's it was never an idea or a dream that started happen through the years almost raised here in California. So was that those kind of dreams happen like you went to high school you joined the Air Force right now after you joined the Air Force you started you started to study computer programming. Yeah it's actually that's what got me to join the Air Force it was either college and learn how to go into the computer world and pay or join the military at that time we had a good recruiter that came to Westminster High School and he saw me on the idea of why not join the Air Force where you can get trained computer programming and you get paid so did that it was very interesting like the camaraderie and all the leadership skills that we learned but I never did much like taking or following instructions those kind of like the you know show me the rules and abandon or break them and that's what got me to eventually leave after I served my term and I was introducing to the mortgage industry back when everything was taken down on paper you know at 1003 a bars authorization and having to fax it over to a client or a denarius I think was kinkos call back then and waiting 24 hours for them to send it back to you then you have to fax it to where each credit bureau and then wait another you know day or two to get those credit reports and eventually be able to price it was a lengthy process the visionary at the time a company was called Dietech funding converted to Dietech.com when the whole internet we were working with them yes so it was interesting how we saw that his vision was to transform the entire industry from something analog to digital so we started and he was Paul right? Yes Paul right I'm you an amazing guy Canadian and I learned a lot from him it was a great mentor and I was always knows never the right answer to him or I don't know so we had to figure it out right how do we all interconnect so it was when Microsoft are come out with Outlook and a little clipboard chat guy and being able to integrate with Equifax and Transunin and I can't believe you can't remember the other company TRW before it was called experience I'll say it with modems and being able to connect and obtain a query port and populate into a de antiquated black and green software screens which which is called DAAS at the time and that would be the new 1003 right the application so everything went from like a 90 day process and buying a home down to a 45 day eventually 30 days and eventually 21 days and same thing for refinance so I got a lot of experience at that time was fresh out of the military and everything was a challenge but we were able to group a very neat team and accomplish a lot of those things now now it's making sense you started in the financial sector with the computer programming background and then you're that's where kind of like was that the motivation of starting to narrow because you had experience in the financial space and in the tech space concurrently I think that was the motivation on understanding the what technology was going to do in various industries right and I knew that that's where I wanted to pursue and continue when Paul sold to GMAC for millions of dollars it was a sad day when he announced that but at the same time you know it was great for us we're understanding what the stock market did for many of these companies the evaluations on on financial companies yet a lot of you had technology and that's where the the inspiration came as to like hmm how do we go and create something where it's it's a it's a power play in the financial and also technology from there we went on and I created a patent the first application when mobile wallets were starting to become a thing mobile apps and being able to send digital gift cards to anyone to your mom your wife your friends so you sent a quick note in happy birthday here's a hundred dollars and that was your patent yes so the application was called gift center and successful for about three years and then sold off to a company at Australia which still runs under gift center and you know I felt very lucky very blessed because I remember talking to an entrepreneur and saying you know usually your first second their startup they fail like 90% of them fail so how lucky my team and I were blessed to be able to launch our first a startup and be able to get acquired a three years later we did regret it afterwards because you know we sold about 8.75 million and the company we sold it to have lifted and turned it and sold it for 38 million a year later so I mean that's a brilliant concept I can't believe you're the guy who started that company yes yes you know because I've used that oh fantastic now for me I was always a big fan of Paul Redham he was always like a mystical creature that I'd never have the opportunity to to meet and he was just the the biggest Titan in the industry at the time when I started the industry so you know I would I'm fortunate enough to meet with you and let me ask you what's the greatest lesson that you learned from such a great mentor from Paul is I remember that one time when I got interviewed by his right hand guide the time was Vince Boussole and Scott Redham and I walked into the floor it was right down the street right right here on MacArthur and Maine six floor on the Wells Fargo building and they had like 17 people working on cubicles but they had the entire floor filled with like 300 and something cubicles and I said wait so how many employees do you have so your number 18 why do you guys have like you know hundreds of cubicles here I remember he grabbed and he said because you have to visualize you have to get prepared for growth and for me it was something out 22 you're okay and I'm thinking like this guy crazy you're like how can you get cubicles computers and you only have 18 employees but all the sudden he's thinking it's just going to be hundreds of employees right and sure enough it was like nine months ten months later and that floor was filled second floor got filled third floor got filled before you know we had Dietek Esgro and over 600 employees within three years and so I don't forget the visualization aspect of it right it's like you got to see it in order to believe it but you got to see it in your mind first and for me it was very impactful wow so the manifestation of that reality he he manifests the Dietek being exactly yes that's cool that's cool and you know my mentor is similar to that now he you know he's he's always just ready by design and always growing and and I'm the same way I dream really big and people think I'm crazy but you got to start somewhere you know it's the crazy ones that make things up and it makes the world function yes exactly now when you ended up in the mortgage space during your early tech way when did those what what did those years teach you about the power of funding finance and innovation you know I learned early on that you know life along with many aspects in life they don't ever stay the same there's always change and you can try to stay where you're at but you'll become antiquated right or you can always try to adapt and learn same thing that's what's happening nowadays right with AI there's a lot of resistance right but if you don't adapt then eventually you're not going to be innovative and at that time when facts machines were the thing every one thought we'll just continue using facts machines but along came a little company called EFACS and that completely disrupting disrupting the internals I wrote a story called Fedco and my dad and I would go and he buy like the type writers and then the mechanical type writers and eventually a fax machine will few months later there weren't any more fax machines why because EFACS was something you can integrate it with your email and you get a virtual number and you're able to scan things through a scanner so then the market change and what do we what what were we buying scanners you were able by the HB scanners the IBM scanners and so understanding that when new things come don't put resistance is be able to learn be curious and if you adapt then that's where you'll stay always ahead and and innovate it yeah I mean like in my space specifically if you're not an early adopter you're and you know and on time adopter you're already too late and if you're late adopter you're out of business true so you got to be in anyone listed this podcast my advice is just being early adopter try new things like for me something comes out or I even hear about it I'm on it one of the things that I I like to do is like I'm on every single pilot of any of my partner you know any venture that are any investor or any partner of ours like I want to be on all their pilots just because I like to invoke that vision in the beginning then helps us with our pilots absolutely and we're always in this like beta mode anyways at our organization now what do most people get wrong about the Latino community when it comes to money opportunity and most importantly tech adoption yes you know what I it comes down to one word ignored and that's what I realized in in various industries they just tend to get ignored and that could be for various reasons right it could be you're judging the book by its cover from the beginning you know this person cuts yards for a living he doesn't have any money that person drives a truck and he goes out to Long Beach Port and delivers items to different places he must not have big amount to be able to buy home get alone saved and I think that's where they get it wrong it's we're hardworking people yeah we're not they may not be too savvy when it comes to how do you invest in the stock market how do you buy crypto how do you go and buy silver without obtaining the actual silver in your hands or or gold right or how do you invest in new startups it's opportunities that us being Americanized through the years we're able to learn for example you know you and I we've been blessed surrounded ourselves in a circle of people that are very successful that we've had mentors in the course of our lives that have impacted us and have taught us different things not not all Latinos in Hispanic have their opportunity so I would say to every entrepreneur out there a business owner brands is don't don't ignore us the collective power that we have it's amazing I mean if you look at the latest report from McKenzie Deloitte $4 trillion in GDP that's the purchasing power that just here in the United States alone Hispanics and Latinos have and they did something very interesting they came out or report the top 10 things that we let you know say Hispanic consume I don't remember all 10 of them but the first three it was liquor which is alcohol right two were pamper and three beauty products so I was like to say as Latinos we we love to drink right we love to make babies and three we like to look we love to look very good so I think all of those tie in to each other you get drunk you have sex and then you you gotta put on makeup to do it all over again to look good yeah right so yeah that's it interesting right so we saw that report and it's like huh so it wasn't like you know you got them by clothes or shoes it was like the beer the peppers and the beauty products and peppers the biggest consumers of peppers yeah exactly yes that's funny now you've talked a lot about making things simple credit life insurance investing buying a home where do you start when you're educating someone brand new to this entire financial world you know a simple as opening up a check-in account and I believe that the resistance starts there because yeah a lot of Latinos I know don't even have that exactly and the making them understand that in order for you to be able to leave a legacy to your children to your family you have to come in and adopt yourself and integrate yourself into the system right you can't argue and fight the system you can put all the money you want underneath your mattress you can catch on fire you could lose it it just just many things right but how do you leave what you created and what you work for so hard such as a home right if you can pay the mortgage offer 30 years that's a success but what happens when you're gone do you have something as simple as a living trust so that way the property doesn't get sold and probate if you happen to get sick the underroad and you made 18 years of mortgage payment unfortunate something happens and you're gone you move on then who takes care of the mortgage then so these are things that when you look at different families that have adapted to stop in the system for them it's like well I got life insurance that covers just the mortgage in case something happens to me so my wife and my children don't have to worry about but most Hispanic and Latinos don't understand that they think I don't want to be thinking about dying right now so why would I be wanting to get a life insurance so I don't see this as a life a vehicle for investment right they see it more as something detrimental like what if I die and I think that that's where professionals like us need to come in and provide that education and actually explain the benefits in a sense that they understand how they're protected right rather than no it's not just when you die it's how you're able to protect what you work for all these years right there's a study that's that read just last week I read it's at 80% of homeowners their children more than likely to go to college right because by the time they have equity in their home when the child is ready to go to college they can get you to get a second mortgage or get a lot of credit so that way they can help now their children fulfill their dreams which is get it higher education for a better life so you know and then also us kids we're the mirror for parents so we see our parent working having a home putting money and savings or investing in the market well you as a child are going to see that example and eventually be able to do that as you grow so I think that's the the hardest aspect is how do you teach them and sometimes the best way to teach them is by creating something that's very very neat and rewarding because there's a lot of companies out there in digital wallets they can do pretty much everything that dinero does but what we've done is set up rewards and mechanisms that for every action and transaction that you do with the engineer and with our business partners you do get rewarded and gamified it exactly yes I see now what does with digital banking growing like insanely fast it's the most rapidly growing sector right now but the in-person experience is really disappearing how do you make sure your community isn't left behind in that shift because they don't really understand the digital movement all they know is let me walk in the Bank of America let me sit there for three hours you know that's why Bank of America walk in there it's like a line of Hispanics yes true that's absolutely true it just comes down to creating good content they can put out there in their language and their culture to a public understand but also you know there's that high tech and high touch aspect of things too and especially in digital banking so what we have set up in El Salvador is a call center customer support center fully bilingual and they can reach out and any moment in case they need to figure something out right such as how do I add money to my bank account you know what places can I go to right so the the ability of what we've done lately is created partnerships where Hispanic Latinos tend to go or tend to be already so rather than partnering up with brick and mortar banks is teaming up like Wal-Mart CBS Walgreens right AIDS and 71 for example and you can easily go pay a fee of $399 and load up to a thousand dollars a day and give it to hand out hand it over to the cash register and the money gets uploaded within gets loaded up within a minute or two to your dinar account so therefore creating these brick and mortar stores that you're already shopping you're already there so minus well oh you know what I need to load a thousand dollars to my check-in account at dinarrow and so being innovative and finding those strategic partners that see the vision and are willing to create some sort of alliance so we can continue growing that that market segment now I am curious myself about the IPO process you've been working on an IPO what is that like taking a company public what's that experience been like for you who that's the stuff where creatives get stuck on right and I don't like the paperwork in the meetings and but what do you do is you surround yourself with people that know how to do it people that do they're more intelligent in that field and we're blessed to have met a great attorney has taken a few companies public he served with Arnold Schwarzenegger for about two terms when Arnold was governor here in California and you know he's he's also Hispanic and he sits on different boards of different Hispanic owned foundations so by doing all the legal paperwork and us providing the information that that they need in order for us to have everything and filing with our financials now it's about going after and doing our serious A so what paperwork does the SEC require for us to do so what round are you guys on now we have we're finishing our our serious until we're we're finishing our seed round yes and then from there we're at the end yeah we're at the end yeah recent our last 1.5 million from our 5 million race on seed round we're friends and family and then come March April of next year we will start now doing our serious A round and that's about 60 to 70 million dollars because that's what it takes in order for us to go ahead and and do an IPO towards the end of next year and it's exciting but like I said it's you got to be able to surround yourself with people that the know that they can do it and know we can continue focusing and what you're good at in the business now one thing we've talked about a few times is legacy now you're building your legacy and legacy is not just a business right it's it's more about you know leaving something that's long lasting lasting impression for the ages what does that word legacy mean to you personally to me there's just two important things right and legacy number one is setting that example that the immigrant Hispanic kid from Osagador came was able to to build something such as what we're building and surround yourself with the amazing people so to gather where we'll build that and create it then it sets the example that hey you know you can that person can and follow those steps and then we can serve as an inspiration and in many other fields it can be in you know in a health sector it can be in and just different industries right so making possible the ability for others to be able to follow and two most important for me is that fulfilling feeling I imagine sometimes you know talking about you mentioned the word manifestation right and there's manifestation but also imagine myself sometimes you know Charlie when you're in your deathbed and you're taking that one last breath is it when the question arise that fulfill my purpose do I leave a happy individual you know what do I leave behind what difference that I made and to me those are the important questions not so much you know they're living my kids with you know cars and homes and material things in a nice back account it's more like how much of an impact that you made not only your immediate family's life but you know in the world and whether be your your your culture whether it be the your people from your race or just everyone in general and what I like about what we build in the company in arrows that everyone that have come and be part of the mission that's the same mentality and the same mindset that they have is when I ask every single team members like what made you come to the narrow it's amazing how the same answer is because we want to be some part of something greater you know we have team members that have left government government jobs secure jobs we're making 200 thousand dollars a year and it was like are you sure you want to come and join us at a startup and you know she's a chief compliance officer she's different secluded for for the government credible witnesses in different court cases she's like I gotta be something I gotta be part of something greater something better and so that's that's to me that's a blessing and I think that that's what was most important for me and the people that have joined our team. A couple last questions for you this is a three-prong question what's a personal goal do you have for yourself a family goal that you have for your family and a goal that you have for Daenerys. So the first question was the personal goal my personal goal is to fulfill all our goals that were aiming for right now right mainly with Daenerys so then I go and fulfill that personal goal which is when I was a kid I grew up and I fell in love with the big old VHS video recorders and I wanted to be a movie director so maybe I want to direct the movie but definitely produced a movie yeah I don't think I'll leave this earth without that personal goal business goal business goal is to grow Daenerys not only as a company but as a brand right and yeah just make a big impact on everyone and have Daenerys be that company that is not only an example but that's empowering Hispanic and Latinos now more than ever without getting to political but I think right now it's that moment where we need to take whether it's a topic of adversity or obstacle or challenges or how we're seeing making that difference and making that change that we are here to contribute we are here to grow we are here to offer amazing experiences and cultures and loving people where we welcome all the ethnicities to be part of what we're building and most importantly just be part of us I think it's it's something that we forget as humans is that collaboration with one another yeah yeah and a family goal family goal who that's a good one you know what family I have a amazing children and they they're my life they're my reason why I got a son Jonathan and two daughters Angelica and Charles and I've had the privilege of enjoying their company for the last 10 years they live with me even though I want I want them to go out and leave me alone sometimes they they don't want to leave home right so I'm blessed I think if I have to say what a goal would be as far as a family goal there's eventually marry that low in my life you know I've been single for about 10 years that was the worst 10 years ago and I like the whole family aspect so I miss it and I would want to make sure that you know when I do pass on I at least someone amazing behind I hope you hit your goals one last question when you're in front of the pearly gates what do you think God's gonna tell you as you can see Charlie you did it yeah I love it Charlie you've been a blessing to have on this show I hope you everything won your goals hope the narrow just crushes it when it goes public if people want to connect with you how do they find you oh yeah please follow us on our Instagram I'm sure it's published in the podcast right yeah definitely follow us with the news and everything that's coming here within two months we're having a big launch event that's going to be which it'll be part of as well and love to have you that launch events gonna happen here in in December and also we want to make sure that everybody knows everything that we're creating and building so I think it's important that they stay tuned follow us on social media and yeah we're gonna do amazing things Charlie or I know you heard it first make sure when that stock goes public you grab yourself some thanks for tuning in guys God bless
