Edrizio De La Cruz, immigrated as a boy, to the Bronx in New York from Santo Domingo. He worked as an airplane mechanic for six years, to put himself through Baruch College, envisioned himself working on Wall Street, and then pursued his MBA at the Wharton School. He heard no many times, but because he felt indebted to those who helped him when he was young, he committed himself to succeed. Edrizio applied that tenacity to attend the top business school in the country. Graduating, he took a on a new risk. Rather than return to his investment banking career, he took a calculated risk on starting a new company. He devised a way to improve the way remittances were paid from Dominicans in the US to relatives in his home country; people like his Aunt, who originally had sponsored him to come to America. That effort became Regalii, which allows for more convenience, transparency, accountability, control and savings in the paying of remittances to the Dominican Republic and other Latin American countries. And by the way, in Latin America the remittances market is $69 billion! In this podcast, Edrizio teaches a mini-course on business in the areas of selling, product development, and how to be a cause not an effect! He also gave his specific insights on what it takes to be an entrepreneur. On resilience: “When you are an entrepreneur confidence and conviction are 50% of the game, that you can battle through all of the challenges, and create something that people like….The ability to be resilient to overcome adversity, not to give up. When 'giving up' happens to people, they go back to a day job.” On being mentored:  “Most people want to give advice. If you are someone who is very clear in communicating your need for help, then most are willing to help. However most people don’t seek advice, especially among some sectors of the population. If a mentor gives me advice on something, then I follow up with them. I say "I applied your advice to my business and here are the results." Then they say: "My advice is going somewhere!”   TRANSCRIPT ! Kent(1:23): Can you tell us a little bit about your background? Edrizio: Yes, of course. I am Dominican by birth. I immigrated to the United States when I was a teenager in the 90’s with my mother and my brother. I lived in New York until I decided to go to business school in 2009 to the Wharton School.   Kent(1:44): Where did you come to in New York? Edrizio: I lived in Washington Heights which was predominantly a Dominican neighborhood. Then I lived in a bunch of different neighborhoods. Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, lived in a lot of different places. I love the culture here, New York. It’s very diverse and it is also very forward thinking. You really feel like there is a lot of opportunity. You soak in all that aspiration and ambition.   Kent(2:12): What was your neighborhood or town back in Dominican Republic? Edrizio: I grew up in Santo Domingo which is the warm sunny capital.   Kent: Tell us about your company and how you came to create it. Edrizio: Excellent. Regalii is a cross border mobile pay platform. In essence we allow immigrants in the US to pay all of the utility bills back in Latin America. The concept to me is very organic. As you know I migrated here from latin America years back with my mother and like any immigrant we always send money back. Thats the reason why you come to this country is to support the ones you leave behind. As the years progress I just noticed that the way we spent money back in 2010-2011 was no different than the way we sent money back in 1992 and 1993. It was the exact same process. You have to go through an agency , fill out a form, put the cash in, the other person has to go to the agency, fill out a form, send it online, get cash, and what I noticed is that my aunt and my grandmother who received the money on the other side will do this every month like clockwork.