If you are a host on Airbnb, maybe you would like to get paid before your guests arrive. Then you could beautify that room – so that it is worth what you are charging! Two Venezuelan/American friends founded Payfully https://www.payfully.co/, to help you do just that! The early ancestors of Luis Sculls were Quakers from England who came first to America and then later to Cuba. Generations later, when Castro’s communist government took over Cuba, their family with thousands of other Cubans, moved to Venezuela. (No, they did not all come to Miami). Luis Scull grew up in Caracas, Venezuela and came to America to attend college. Soon after, Venezuela descended into chaos under the dictator, Hugo Chavez. Luis entered the hedge fund industry in the Northeast where he thrived, until a Venezuelan friend invited him to bring his financial skills to co-found a ‘factoring’ company. Factoring means, to buy a business owner’s receivables at a small discount. The business owners they focused on were Airbnb hosts. In this episode, Luis talks about The entrepreneurial advantages of coming from a third world country (which Venezuela has become) What he appreciates about New York, and American entrepreneurs. How his immigrant experience/perspective gives him confidence and helps to perceive opportunities or obstacles. And talks to the immigrant with few resources. My favorite question: What he learned from his parents. And more … all in about 17 minutes

One of Luis’ favorite television shows when he lived in El Salvador was Beverly Hills.   After he arrived at San Francisco airport his uncle drove him around Pacific Heights, where all the elites live. Luis, thinking this was what America was like, kept spotting his house. Then his uncle drove to their actual house at 14th and Woodward in the Mission District, where Luis ended up in a bedroom with his step-brother, 2 sisters, and grandmother. By the time, he was 21 he recognized how hard he would have to work to accomplish his dream and that he would have to take responsibility for his own children’s dream to have a stable family. Today, after working 16 hours per day for many years, Luis is realizing both dreams, a beautiful family and running his own coffee shop – First Village Coffee on 123 Main Street, in Ossining, New York. It’s a beauty, the coffee machinery, the art on the walls. And the welcoming environment is like being at home. The coffee is locally roasted, in fact everything is sourced locally. You can find Luis there at 6am every morning, and likely until 6pm In this podcast, Luis talks about how he built his business, about what it takes to make it successful, what he learned from his mother – who owned a comedore (a small in-house restaurant) in El Salvador, growing up during the war in that country, and his humble advice – never give up. My favorite quote from Luis Corena You can’t stop You can’t let your dreams become just a dream And you have to make your dreams come true Sometimes you go through life just wishing This is it This is the one we have. You know, we either go our whole life just wishing – for something Yeah, I get up every morning I want to stay home with my kids I want to go to my kids’ soccer games I want to go to my kids’ graduation But I know, there are people counting on me right now. Whether it’s a muffin, a coffee, or just a “good morning” I am here. If you set yourself goals, you can achieve – what you want to do So, what advice would I give – “Don’t surrender”.

  Otto Berkes is Chief Technology Officer at CA Technologies, a 4 billion company with 13,000 employees in 40 countries. CA Technologies helps companies build software, run their applications, manage their cyber-security, and much more. Today he manages engineering teams, people like himself when he co-founded Xbox, the game console on which 40 million people still play hundreds of games today. Like many engineers, Otto is a curious tinkerer, interested to build, take-apart and put back together again, to not leave a problem alone until he can at least understand it better. He may have had an advantage over other engineers in his determination to grapple with a problem, to persevere – which came from the appreciation of having escaped a totalitarian communist country at ta young age. Otto’s father after seeing the stress to his children as they were indoctrinated at school, and the severe censoring his wife endured as a teacher, carefully planned for years, their escape. Finally, leaving all their possessions behind, they crossed the border to the West, where without language skills, friends or family, they built their lives.  Otto began school in Buffalo, New York, and moved around many times as his family tried different ways to succeed. During these years, Otto spent many hours at Radio Shack, learning how to build all kinds of electronic gizmos. And began to think like a programmer. Otto explained how he came to lead the team at Microsoft on Open GL and DirectX: “I joined a team that was working on a graphics standard called Open GL, that was focused on the engineering space to be able to do Cad-Cam.  The cost of the hardware technology decreased, so that it became possible to use 3d graphics hardware for games.” Xbox is short for Direct Xbox.  WE were looking for a way for some of the technologies that had been developed on the PC, and free it from the constraints of the PC.  You put a DC in the den or in your office, but not under a TV. How to resynthesize these technologies in a living-room-friendly environment.” I asked if game developers get to spend much time playing their games? “It’s a little bit of a myth, that developers in the game space, that all they do is play games. When you look at the science, it is hard software development. They either have a bunch of code in front of them or trying to overcome some glitch. It’s serious computer science and hard work. What is an intrepreneur? As an intrepreneur, one drives innovation from within.  You’re not starting with a clean slate, and you work inside organizational boundaries. How do you create something totally new in the context of something that already exists? There is not a single right answer, but a common thread is having a strong degree of teamwork. You need to build grass root support, to find people who want to come on board, and exert force as a force multiplier. You must look to the company to fund your investment.  Engineering help, to prove out the thing you are trying to build, and executive sponsorship. How did they approach Bill Gates? “Bill Gates has a strong belief in platforms, and Xbox is a strong platform for the living room. Certainly, that was our pitch, but we also pitched the underlying technology.  The DirectX graphics, the fact that we were strong with the developer community, and we knew how to build APIs, that is, we had operating systems as a core part of our DNA.” We took a very developer-centric approach. Our core competency was software, which made it easier for developers to create great content. We had an intense focus on the customer. That allowed us to anticipate the rise of the internet-related games in Xbox live. What is he working on today at CA Technologies? Otto created an accelerator, to incubate and fund 10 ideas inside of CA Technologies.  They project creators will be funded to focus only on their project.  Then those that show promise,

Francesca Cavallo and Elena Favilli, wrote and published a children’s picture book, Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls, 100 Tales to Dream Big. And they are creating their own story, moving to America to compose a picture book! That is 220 pages long! That has 60 illustrators! And yes, that made crowdfunding history with well over $1 million in purchases In this interview I asked Francesca not about the technical details of book contracts, and crowdfunding but how she and Elena created their own foundation for over 10 years, Francesca through learning to stand up in theatre, and how Elena created the first children’s magazine for the iPad. Their success came not by luck, but through humility, through focus, even through loneliness…, let’s go Francesca on the influence of being an immigrant entrepreneur. “Living in the country and being exposed to more work, then we realized that we could use the visual culture that we have, the sensibility of European design, but still merge it to Being willing to challenge your assumptions. How we think of European illustration, and how we think of American culture. “You’re in the middle.  You are not in your country and you are trying to fit in – but you never you feel you fit in, because that is not the country that you grew up in. So it is a variety of aspects.  Buy being in the country that you did not grow up with, you are naturally more focused on the reason why you moved to this country. We spent so many hours per day working on the project. Besides the determination, and the focus, part of it is that you don’t have many friends.  You moved to work on this thing, so all you do is work on this thing. “And you are kind of in the middle. You know where you came from.  You have a kind of curiosity toward the country that you came to live in, so it allows you to be creative.”    

Filip Valicia develops products for underwater robots and many other applications. He has also painstakingly laid out the process for you to develop your product. You can see this process at his website, The Product Startup. He also helps those crowdfunding a product – which is how I discovered his service. Filip escaped from communist Czechoslovakia, with his mother, when he was six years old. His fate, as a product developer guru was set into motion, when he was in a Greek refugee camp. One day, he found a discarded toy truck, with a missing back axle.  He found some other parts, from a discarded toilet and fixed it, pulling the toy truck behind him everywhere to carry his worldly possessions. Filip is a fantastic role model for anyone struggling to find their way in life. Growing up in Houston there was no support system of a Czech community. They didn’t have family or clan to lean on, didn’t have money to even get decent clothes so he could fit in at school, and really, felt like he was a failure even through college. But he kept pushing through, focused on developing a process that works regardless of his circumstances, always keeping the long game in mind. He shares: “All of your failures. All the things that you think you shouldn’t have done. I look at that as a data point.  It’s information you can use to make a better decision in the future. You are a wiser person now, than you were a year ago, because of having gone through that.  I’ve gone through so much, that there is little that can phase me, because of all the trials that I’ve had to go through. You have to physically experience through that pain, or triumph over that pain. Think of the longer term anyway, and continue plowing forward and it will make you stronger, and it will broaden your skill set. I get super frustrated sometimes because I’m not an expert in any one field, but at the same time, I can be more resilient, and I can act faster because I can do things on my own, and I can have a second or third job doing all sorts of random things, as opposed to people who haven’t made those mistakes as opposed to people who haven’t made those mistakes and haven’t learned those skills.” It starts with understanding who your customer is.  He shares his difficulties and the tactics he’s using to continually discover his audience and their needs. For example, his website audience is different than his podcast audience, and different than his live workshop audience.  As he strives to make his company succeed, and help his clients, he doesn’t accept any excuses, just like his mother never accepted excuses from him. See the details of Filip’s product development process http://theproductstartup.com/diy-product-development-step-by-step/ * Organizing your ideas * Spotting trends * Designing prototypes * Searching for patents * Getting data on your market and competitors * Advertising * Funding your idea * Finding a manufacturer * Creating an online store * Writing sales sheets * Shipping your product

Poverty is a hard place to be. Many of us, perhaps most of us, as we started out in life, lived for years one paycheck away from poverty, with no savings. Yet people do rise out of poverty each day. According to one my interviewees, poverty is big business. Apparently the various levels of government spend over 900 billion dollars every year, to pay for the food, housing, medical care, and other expenses for the poor. Yet the number of poor is not declining. In 2003 there were 23 million on food stamps and in 2012 there were 46 million on food stamps. Yet immigrant entrepreneurs, most who experienced harsh conditions and poverty, are able to create not just success for themselves, but a pathway, a model for others to follow. Despite language skills, a lack of connections, a lack of credit, or capital, they do break through. So, how do immigrant entrepreneurs break through, how do they rise from zero to hero. The one thing you always hear about, and I talk about it a lot is that they work hard, and work long hours.  Gary Vaynerchuk who invited me to his headquarters in New York city twice, for interviews out-works everyone. But what is the work they are doing.  Often it is learning.  How is Gary Vaynerchuk, who’s family came from the poorest European country of Belarus, able to teach so much about social media to his clients at Vaynermedia.  He learned it.  How is he able to create such riveting presentations?  He studied pubic speaking. How did Elon Musk learn about space rockets? He studied. When Elon first came to Canada from South Africa he got the highest paying job he could find which was cleaning boilers at a lumber mill. Elon said: "You have to put on this hazmat suit and then shimmy through this little tunnel that you can barely fit in," Musk said. "Then, you have a shovel and you take the sand and goop and another residue, which is still steaming hot, and you have to shovel it through the same hole you came through. There is no escape. Someone else on the other side has to shovel it into a wheelbarrow. If you stay in there for more than thirty minutes, you get too hot and die." So how do immigrant entrepreneurs learn They ask important questions.  They learn from other cultures. They read books. They pay attention to their experiences. Do you have a big question that drives you? All the time working, Musk thought that the most difficult thing was to be able to come up with the right questions.  The questions that would drive him to study, driven him to learn, drive him to work harder than anyone. And drive him to succeed. They learn from different cultures Being from a different country and a different culture makes them more equipped with people’s kills than natives. They use those different cultures to their advantage. Instead of giving up because they do not know the native language, they use their knowledge from different other cultures and languages they have been exposed to while they were growing up to their advantage. However, it doesn’t end here. They learn the native language and use it to enhance their communication skills which allows them to deal with people from different cultures, ethnicities, and countries with more fluency. Moises Annicchiarico from Teachlr was a French national who was exposed to Italian and Venezuelan culture and languages while growing up and this helped him with his work a lot. They learn from books This is the reason they do not hesitate to read books and lots of them. It helps make up for the street knowledge they lack in the foreign land and makes them understand people and cultures better. Take the example of AJ Rassamni, born in Lebanon, now a serial entrepreneur who came to America at a younger age and worked days and nights to educate himself. He ended up acquiring the very company he worked for. Now not only does he have a company of his own but he has two books to his credit as well. They Learn from experiences

Chiara Cokieng is a young entrepreneur and copy-writer, in the Philippines who thinks a lot. She told me she wanted to be an entrepreneur many years before she could spell it. She lifted herself up above her environment in two ways – she became a champion free style wrestler, and she began entering math competitions starting locally and then going international. She also wrote at quite a young age, a 100 page sales letter for her first employer, to find out if through a mix of storytelling, empathizing, and reason-why copy-writing, they could double their monthly recurring revenue. They did. I interviewed Chiara because I wanted to understand the thinking of entrepreneurs in emerging markets. She and I are both interested in the intersection of America and Asia startups adapting Silicon Valley principles to local realities. She’s been inspired by immigrant entrepreneurs like Steli Efti, Hiten Shah and Gary Vaynerchuk, and she reflects on the differences between typical business attitudes in America and those in the Philippines. Interesting for any entrepreneur in an emerging market – especially as she’s created opportunities for herself as a country manager for American based companies. Some highlights: How can immigrant entrepreneurs bring their experience/knowledge back to their countries? The moment an immigrant suddenly realizes: “I’m so fucking rich!” Why you can sell iPhones in the Philippines, where 70% of the people make $100 per month. Why it’s easier for your ideas to persuade someone in America than the Philippines What happens when there is less trust of each other, in your culture. What are the obstacles to that occurring in the Philippines? What to do when you realize you have sense of entitlement? Which is a big problem in all cultures What is and how she learned the entrepreneurial mindset? How attending international math competitions made Chiara recognize that you are the average of the five people closest to you. And why that is the best LIFE HACK Why she loves THE IMMIGRANT ENTREPRENEUR And most important.  How to really know who your customer is? Chiara’s website:   http://chiaracokieng.com/ One of Chiara’s blogs:  http://chiaracokieng.com/suffering/ The Immigrant Entrepreneur Facebook group  https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheImmigrantEntrepreneur/

Eric Siu, my guest today, practices patience like a marathon runner. Patience is simply an understanding that there are laws of nature at work. Patience is not an excuse to stop working. Quite the opposite, patience pushes you to not give up, when you don’t see immediate results. This is so valuable for aspiring entrepreneurs and immigrants to add to their understanding of an active patience, a proactive patience, so to speak. Eric Siu produces a seemingly nonstop stream of content.  So as I record this introduction, on October 12, 2016, at his Twitter account https://twitter.com/ericosiu he published 30 substantial pieces of marketing advice and news, many of them original. He snapchats more advice at @ericosiugrowth and blogs weekly for Entrepreneur Magazine. He hosts a four times per week podcast Growth Everywhere, and this July he co-founded the Marketing School a 10 minutes per day podcast with guru-status Neil Patel (co-founder of Kissmetrics and Quicksprout).  And Eric brings it all together at his digital agency https://www.singlegrain.com/. I was curious, why Neil Patel who as a marketer for 17 years, and a co-founder of Kissmetrics, Crazy Egg and Quick Sprout would pair up with Eric Siu, who has 3 years’ experience. This episode in which Eric shares his energy and insights, provides a clue. In this episode Eric talks about his path to becoming a seen everywhere marketer, and how he has monetized his efforts. He shares about his immigrant perspective as a son of Taiwanese/Hong Kong parents, the stories behind what he learned from his tiger mom, to under promise and over deliver, to not let some else eat your lunch. From his experiences as an immigrant entrepreneur, he learned to be patient, to let things grow naturally. He gives advice to immigrants, entrepreneurs, and to this podcast, The Immigrant Entrepreneur. Thank you so much for listening, and please do visit our website, where you can leave a voicemail or email with your questions and comments. And find instructions and links on how to leave a rate and review and even your questions on iTunes!  Thanks!    

Immigrant refugees appear every day. A dictator claims more power, an invasion occurs, discrimination grows.  Nations that could do something, do nothing. Some of the people in those countries decide to take their chances on a new land. When they arrive in that new land, some of them are welcome, some are unwelcome, but mostly they are ignored, left to their own devices – that is to say, they must start making a new foundation, and quickly, where they are. This episode is dedicated to two refugees among the 120,000 Venezuelans who fled to their neighboring country of Colombia, South America over the last month, to seek food, medicine, and safety, which followed more than 1.5 million Venezuelans who fled over the last 10 years. These two refugees, Katherine and Alexander, written about in the Miami Herald, said that back in Venezuela they could either work, he as an engineer, she in a bank, or they could wait in a line all day to get food, but you could not do both. So they arrived to the streets of Bogota, Colombia, with $250. Alexander could not apply for work as an engineer because he was illegal, and besides they had to eat today. For the same reasons, Katherine could not apply for a job or a loan to start a business.. So as you listen to this in September, 2016, they took their $250 and bought some corn flour and oil and a little stove, and began selling corn tortillas on the streets of Bogota. This episode is dedicated to this young couple starting where they arrived, standing on the street, in the rain, in a city that is not their own. Dedicated to the 1.6 million other Venezuelans who started over in some other land over the last 10 years, and dedicated to you, dear listener, whether or not you are an immigrant – after all, aren’t we all immigrants to this world – as you start over – as you begin some part of your life standing right now, where you are.   The lessons I’d like to focus on from four of my past guests are: Have the courage to imagine that you have power to change your condition. (Amel Derragui) Identify your natural talent – and strengthen it. (Steli Efti) Trust your family. Trust your ability to persevere. Trust the little that you have. (Jose Prendes) Outwork others. (Gary Vaynerchuk) Please visit our website, www.theimmigrantentrepreneur.com, to see links to their companies and read the transcript of this episode. The first is Amel Derragui a serial entrepreneur, who today creates opportunities for others here in New York, with her two companies Blink and C, as well as Tandem Nomads. Amel moved frequently in her life. In fact, she grew up in three warzones. Listen to her amazing story in episode 26.   Here she speaks of her experience as 14-year-old in Uganda, with the overflow of refugees from the Rwandan genocide of the Tutsis. Many immigrants are children, who have power; the power to imagine that they can better their condition   AMEL DERRAGUI   And then after that I went to Uganda where it was right in the middle of the genocides issues between the Tutsis and the Hutus and I was in a school, in the French school at that time, and a lot of kids that were refugees ended up in that school. The courtyard, where the kids would play during the break, it was like a warzone too; it was crazy because you had kids from every country but also from every ethnic group like Hutus, Tutsis, and thy would just fight. I heard black people insulting white people, I heard white people insulting black people, I heard kids saying to people who were black and white, ‘you are not white, you are not black, you are nothing’. And then you would hear Hutus and Tutsis fighting on their ethnic groups; like, what’s happening here? I was really shocked and this was like the third experience in my life on the road with issues, society issues and human issues at the end of the day. I started really thinking, ‘what can I do here?’.

Listeners - Please rate, review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Google Play. ((Instructions are on the right side of home page).  Thanks! Entrepreneurs often spend hours each day working in their home office. Why not enjoy better interior design and make it a positive place! Especially if the design fee is a low, fixed price! Jaime Gonzalez and his online interior design company, The Man Home (Listen for his discount for you, toward the end of this podcast!)  may be able to help you. Their target market fits the straight-forward business model and pricing: single guys who can use ‘a little help’ in how their apartment looks and feels. (That would probably be about 100% of single guys). The service works smoothly. Clients upload photos of their rooms and photos of the any furniture they wish to keep. Clients also fill out a survey on their design preferences. Designers do not visit the client's home. The designs are delivered online, for a low fixed-price, per room. Jaime’s story is of growing up poor in Latin America’s poorest Spanish speaking country. His family’s properties had been confiscated, and his grandfather was kidnapped. Jaime only had his guitar and mostly by teaching himself, earned full music scholarships to two top American universities, Loyola in New Orleans and The University of Southern California. After college he survived for five years, playing music in restaurants around Los Angeles. He did not earn much but he learned much, especially how to engage customers, and how to hustle. Every day he studied to build up his knowledge of finance and insurance which allowed him to start a successful insurance consulting firm – that today, funds this latest startup The Man Home! In this episode - Jaime talks about the imagination of an immigrant, teaching yourself when there are no teachers, finding the world in books, and the value of charm. Don’t forget to sign up for your big discount Jaime offered during the episode! And if you love this podcast - please subscribe, rate and review. Doing so will keep us highly ranked which will allow more people to listen.  Thanks!