Transcript
WEBVTT
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You have to learn to love the journey.
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If you're too much focused on the results or things playing out in a certain way, you'll be disappointed pretty quickly, and especially if you don't have something that drives you, a purpose beyond just the business itself Starting out.
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It's all about I need to get this next milestone and after I get this thing like dreams of raising capital.
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Then everything will be fine and in reality, each new milestone brings its own new set of challenges.
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What is going on?
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Lnm family.
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I got a special privilege today because I'm hanging out with some ballers plural two amazing women the CEO and COO of BuilderFi and BuilderFi.
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We're going to learn a little bit about that today.
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They empower construction SMBs by streamlining cashflow management, and if you're operating a business, how important and vital or painful cash flow can be for you.
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And so we have Ms Stephanie Del Valle.
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She has a curiosity in problem solving and a dedication to data-driven decisions, which y'all might know.
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I like curiosity and data-driven decisions.
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And then we also have Isabel Rodriguez, who has been out there.
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She launched a stone fabrication and installation business and this is where she experienced the pain that contractors deal with around just getting paid for all the damn hard work that they do.
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And so, if you're new here, I'm Jesse, and we're about to get an inside look at Stephanie and Isabel's path to success and the lessons they learned along the way.
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And now we're going to get to know Miss Stephanie and Miss Isabel.
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Ladies, how are we doing today?
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Fantastic Been, great.
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Yeah, so y'all are in Florida, correct?
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Yes, what part of Florida.
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Miami.
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Miami.
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Okay, everybody wants to know.
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Maybe not, I know, I want to know.
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Salsa, y'all dance salsa.
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Merengue bachata.
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All of it.
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Of course, is Stephanie.
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You and I had a phone call, we connected through LinkedIn, and what really stood out to me was not just BuilderFi, not just the service that y'all are providing, but how y'all got to this point, and so can y'all talk about how the two of you got connected?
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What's the story between y'all two?
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Because I don't think you're sisters, right?
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No, and maybe I can give you a quick story and then Steph can add a bit more.
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But yeah, so, as you mentioned, I was a contractor myself and grew a tile and stone fabrication business for a couple of years and faced a lot of what we're trying to solve to solve.
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But then after that I actually went to Atlanta and got an MBA at Georgia Tech, which is where I then spent about three years in technology, basically working with financial services companies at Salesforce, just helping them build their products, and that's how I also got into the cash flow management side of things and interested in financial technology.
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And so throughout that period of time of a lot of transitions, I had great friends, like Stephanie, who were by my side, very familiar with what I was going through as a contractor.
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At some point in time when I was getting my first commercial jobs and I was experiencing getting paid 90 plus days, stephanie and some of my other friends were there to sometimes be my builder and provide some help in that regard.
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So we've been friends for more than eight years now we're actually roommates, and so when I got into Builderify, I started out last year at the beginning of the year, just thinking about it while I was still at Salesforce, working with financial services companies.
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That was really when it stood out to me how important it is to build products that basically serve underserved communities and businesses.
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So when I started working on the BuilderFi idea, at that very point in time I discussed with Stephanie and after a few months I already had that a bit more past the idea stage.
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I joined an incubator program and then Stephanie was there every time.
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I came back from that incubator program and started working with me.
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I was a consultant part time and then eventually got so excited with the project that she decided to join me full time later in the year, and so Stephanie also had this great supply chain optimization and FinTech experience.
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She was at a FinTech company at the time and so I was resorting a lot to her in terms of what do you think about this?
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And it was so very organic for her to join me.
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So Stephanie is all that true 100%.
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I mean, for me it was a very natural transition because I was working, as Isabel mentioned, as part-time or more of a consultant role and I was not 100% in the business at the beginning and day-to-day ideation and plot, a tight end stage.
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But then after I was looking at the problem a little bit deeper and of course, as Isabel mentioned, I was there with her when she was going through her previous business.
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I was there with her in the going to the actual project, so I knew that it was a big problem and then it went deep into reviewing how it looks like today and it was still a problem.
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So it was something that definitely caught my attention.
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It was natural for me to say yes, I want to jump into this, I want to solve this as well.
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And I think one part of the story that Isabel is is that we're both from Colombia.
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We're actually from the same city in Colombia.
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We met here in Miami, so it really hits home and one of all people that are related to art culture.
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So that's also something that caught my attention and that I wanted to bring myself into definitely.
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There's a couple of things that I really appreciate about what you're doing and your background.
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I was raised me, my brothers, my family was like don't start a lot of problems, just be grateful for whatever you get.
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And while I believe that to be kind of a good way of thinking in business, if that's what you do, you will not be in business long.
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If you're just grateful for getting paid in 90 days and getting paid a percentage of your full billing and like renegotiating at the end to actually be compensated for your services, you cannot sustain a business.
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And so the fact that y'all seen and experienced that firsthand and you're providing a solution, a service to help people overcome that and like another end just the natural warmth that I'm feeling from you guys right now in this conversation.
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I'm sure you're having the same connection with a lot of the folks that you're interacting with in terms of helping them with their deal, because there's a certain way we talk, depending who we're talking to.
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Right, I'm in San Antonio, texas.
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I can go anywhere and not know anybody and there will be.
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I go to the.
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There's this Tito's restaurant that I love, man, they got amazing habanero nachos and every now and then there'll be a lady in there and she'll say, oh, mijo, go ahead.
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Like, go ahead, I'm waiting, I'm waiting picking up my delivery.
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Go ahead and sit down.
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She don't know me, but she's calling me mijo and I'm not her son.
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But it's just that little commonality, that nice little thread that helps us form some meaningful connections.
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So along those lines, in terms of, I mean, y'all have been your feet first.
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All in this isn't a side gig, right?
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Yeah, what are some of the touching stories that y'all have been able to experience, from like concept to launch to where we're at now?
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But before that, we're going to give the L&M shout out to Miss Andrea Pearson.
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L&m family member.
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Andrea sent me this awesome message that kind of got me hyped up.
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She said your show is absolutely phenomenal.
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I love your humble, enthusiastic approach to construction, business and work in the trades, and I appreciate the interviews.
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But I also love your solo casts.
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It's good to hear just from you too.
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That made me blush a little bit, because I'm getting all the attention in that one.
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Folks out there, l&m family.
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I love the comments, the stars, the likes, the shares.
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Send me a comment, send me a review, any and all the above, so that I can celebrate you in a future conversation.
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Well, I think it would be great to touch upon what we've experienced, but then also, I think it's really important what gives it all meaning, which is when we can see a customer that we've helped past just providing capital and more.
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How can we see their business growth and their personal situation?
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So I would start with the business, and I think all entrepreneurs can agree to this.
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It's you have to learn to love the journey can agree to this.
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It's you have to learn to love the journey.
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If you're too much focused on the results or things playing out in a certain way, you'll be disappointed pretty quickly, and especially if you don't have something that drives you, a purpose beyond just the business itself, and so I think that's really what pushes you through all the different stages, which all of them have their own difficulties.
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A lot of the time, people, when they're not yet entrepreneurs or are starting out, it's all about I need to get this next milestone, and after I get this thing like Raising Capital, then everything will be fine, and in reality, each new milestone brings its own new set of challenges.
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So I think it's all about learning and embracing them, and so for us last year it was just an idea, so getting something like this off the ground is not easy, because we have two components to it.
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One of them is the technology component and then the other one is financing.
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You want to bring financial products, then you need to have some capital to deploy.
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If you want to bring financial products, then you need to have some capital to deploy, and so in our case, we've explored all that we have at our disposal to make sure that we brought this solution and added value to our customers from day one.
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So a lot about forming partnerships very early on that can be a big resource when you don't have necessarily big amounts of capital to deploy and so leveraging a lot of those partnerships to get the product out there.
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And so we actually launched four months ago and have a handful of customers that we've been working on to just get them from point A to point B, where they didn't have access to capital.
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They were struggling with their businesses, sometimes resorting to solutions that left them worse off and just learning a lot about them.
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For us right now, it's a lot about working very closely with the customers that we have on board, and it's not a lot about necessarily going out there and growing like crazy at this particular point, but it's all about getting to know our clients very deeply so that we can make sure that we're building what really works for them.
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My goodness, so did I hear you right that y'all launched four months ago.
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Yes.
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So I've been like you, just go, it's so exciting I'm lucky to even be a part this early on y'all's journey.
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Okay, so I want to go a little further back Like y'all's journey.
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Okay, so I want to go a little further back Like y'all launch congratulations, cause that's, that's the.
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And I love, absolutely love your advice of like, focus on the journey, because sometimes it's a long, lonely road and there's work.
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It may not work.
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Nobody likes like.
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All of that's not easy.
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But before that hard part there was another hard part, and I'm assuming because I know I had this problem making the decision to leave behind an assured paycheck, right, leave behind the security of somebody else doing the business development, somebody else doing the follow up, somebody else doing the QC checks, like they don't have like.
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All I had to do was this one thing and I was going to get paid.
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I was going to get my check deposited every other week and you know what.
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I don't want to do that anymore.
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I'm going to go start this thing that I don't know for sure anybody's going to like, anybody's going to buy, and I'm not going to get checks anymore.
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The only way I get money is by going out there and delivering some kind of value, and I still decided to say, yes, y'all did the same thing.
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What was that like, when you knew you had an idea?
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I feel like there's three points we have an idea, then we know that you absolutely have to do it, and then you actually take all the steps to go all in.
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So what was that like in terms of saying, yep, we got to do this, and then saying, okay, that's it.
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Burn the bridges, we're doing this thing a hundred percent.
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Yeah, so I think I'll start just because I started a bit earlier and then Stephanie joined me in this journey, so I'll walk you through that exact moment where this was just an idea I was playing with at the beginning for me.
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So I was at Salesforce at that time, so definitely a very good job.
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My experience at Salesforce was a great experience.
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Where I grew along, I think, coming from always being a small business owner and then working in a big company for the first time ever.
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It really opened up my perspective in so many ways, and so I was actually very happy in terms of where my career was growing at Salesforce.
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But then, as an entrepreneur, you always have this deep inside that, no matter what, you're always thinking about new ideas.
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And then I just got as that it was time to go back to entrepreneurship.
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It started like a small voice and then all of a sudden I came across a program, an incubator program from the city of Miami.
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It was exactly for people who just had an idea and just were looking for a group of folks to share ideas with and kind of get it off the ground, and so it was 300 of us when we started that program by the end of the program.
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Maybe 50 actually made the decision to take it beyond that.
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But I would attribute a lot of making the decision to go back to finding that accountability group.
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Back to finding that accountability group and then, as part of that accountability group, actually Stephanie who was my roommate at the time just having someone to bounce ideas off and evaluate the opportunity, and then at that point I decided to launch a very simple, minimum, viable product, as they call it, mvp.
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And so for me, when I saw that tangible life side and then spend a couple of months actually evaluating the opportunity, talking to as many people as I could, that's when I just couldn't get off board.
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I think at that time it was on about like how can I say no?
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And it was and this is easy to make the decision to go full time, but it was just what I wanted to do, so to go full-time but it was just what I wanted to do, and then I'll pass it on to Steph.
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Yes, how about you, steph?
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Was it like super easy?
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Like, yeah, sure, why not?
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But for me it was a little bit different because it's my first time being an entrepreneur.
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My experience has been in startups and in high-growth companies and even global companies, but it was my first time taking that leap of faith, so it was something that we needed to evaluate.
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As you mentioned, I'm super data-driven, so I had to evaluate the opportunity.
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Is this an opportunity big enough?
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A big pain in the market?
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Is that true?
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And then, do I have the skills to make this happen?
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Can I do it?
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Am I the right person?
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Is this the right time?
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And then, is this the right partner?
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And Isabel has, like we've been friends for years and it was like the right opportunity at the right time and with the right person, someone that I trust 100%.
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And that, I think, is the most important thing.
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Where you're going in this new journey and a new business, it's just trusting the partner that you have, and we can have bad days, good days, and we'll always be back and hey, this was rough or this was great, and celebrate those successes as well.
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This was rough or this was great and celebrate those successes as well.
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So for me, that was like the journey taking that leap of faith and evaluating the opportunity and also leaving perfection behind, because, as you said, when you're in high growth companies or startups, even if it's a startup, you are hired to do certain jobs.
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So my experience has been always in strategy, operations and handling revenue teams, but here it's me doing a lot of different things and wearing many different hats and doing a lot of things I had no previous knowledge of or experience.
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Right right.
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So that has been a game changer and something that I still need to work on, leaving that perfection behind and just keep going and just do it.
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Just do it, figure out, do the damn thing, because you're going to learn anyways.
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Right, like if it doesn't work out, you learn.
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But not deciding is, for me, is the worst thing.
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Y'all have known each other for years, all the way back to when Isabel had the masonry business, the stone fabrication business.
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Was it apparent to y'all back then that y'all's different sets of experience, like professional experience, was like a pretty damn excellent combination to launch a business?
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Did y'all see that or that?
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That happened later.
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So I think that's the way I've conducted myself like throughout my life.
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I've been an entrepreneur since a very young age, always pursuing different types of ventures, and I've always been the ones to share with my network.
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I try to keep close people that I admire in different aspects, and I always find that just sharing ideas with my closest friends and even other entrepreneur friends brings a lot of value, and I try to do the same, and so for me, it's always about having that set of people that I know can have complementary skills, also different experiences in life, and I always try to bring those to the table.
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So I would say in my case I was pretty much aware of that.
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I mean, from Stephanie and even other friends I'm always thinking about who can I talk to that has experienced something similar, that has a different type of background, that can share a different perspective with, and that's how I think we're trying to approach in building our own team.
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Yeah, oh, how about you, stephanie?
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Was it like calculated or it just kind of made sense?
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I think it's awesome that when we're intentional about who we surround ourselves with and share our like, doing that knowledge, sharing the bouncing back like there's a force multiplying effect when we're selective about it.
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But so was it the same for you, stephanie, in terms of like how y'all's relationship began and grew Like oh yeah, this woman's got it going on and we've got to figure this out.
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It's very natural to me, honestly, like when we started working on this, it was like a natural next step.
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My perspective.
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But if you asked me, like years ago when she had her own business and I was in a total different industry I was in a skincare company, I was in this company in the US and I was doing my MBA so if you asked me at that time it wouldn't have made sense.
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But looking back, I see how all of those experiences that I had in the past, in my past companies that I worked for and past projects that I worked on, it all combined and made perfect sense right now.
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So that when that time came to take that decision and take that leap of faith, it was not like, oh, I'm just jumping off the cliff without really thinking about what I'm doing, but it was more calculated, this made sense.
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And with someone that has always has had this entrepreneurial um experience, then it might not have been like natural to me because it's my first business, but I've always known that I wanted to be entrepreneur one day and I've always worked in high growth companies and startups.
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So it was always in me.
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It's just that.
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Yeah, always in me.
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It was there.
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Yeah, it was there, it was there.
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Oh, okay, I got some more questions, but first, like technical question, because I don't know what.
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I said it at the intro and I don't know what it means.
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The BuilderFi helps SMBs.
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What is an SMB?
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I have no idea.
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Yeah, so it's small and mid-sized construction businesses and, to be even more specific, we're starting to help subcontractors, especially those who have grown into commercial projects or at least are thinking about going into commercial projects and growing from residential loan, just because they experience a different subset of challenges when it comes to getting paid and actually financing the cost of labor and materials to get bigger projects.
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And so we're starting out with that subset of construction small businesses and that's also led because I was one of those and so I have a lot of empathy about what they're going through, how hard they work to build these businesses and how sometimes these little details in terms of payment terms and contracts can truly derail their ability to grow.
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Yeah, Awesome.
00:22:42.911 --> 00:22:43.712
Thank you for that.
00:22:43.712 --> 00:22:45.295
Now I feel like we'll start with you, Stephanie.
00:22:45.295 --> 00:23:05.738
What advice do you have for other aspiring?
00:23:05.758 --> 00:23:07.069
entrepreneurs around, being the roommate of your business partner?
00:23:07.069 --> 00:23:08.732
That's a great question.
00:23:08.732 --> 00:23:10.155
So well, I think I mentioned this before.
00:23:10.155 --> 00:23:19.561
Before leaving that perfection behind and changing that mindset of I need to know it all, I need to be an expert in everything, you don't.
00:23:19.561 --> 00:23:30.419
You have just to try it out and do it and see how it goes, that experimentation, and have that flexibility or that ability to be to change very fast.
00:23:30.659 --> 00:23:41.037
And that's what happens every day, like the idea that we have maybe on Monday, today is not necessarily the same, or we were able to test oh, this doesn't really work.
00:23:41.037 --> 00:23:50.553
So having that flexibility, and then I think one other advice that I would have is prioritize, you know.
00:23:50.553 --> 00:23:59.199
So rest, because it's a long journey, you don't want to burn out and it's inevitable, but it's manageable.
00:23:59.900 --> 00:24:16.183
So for example, in my case I try to rest, at least on Saturdays, but have a little bit of time for myself so I can think and recharge and keep going without necessarily burning out and not looking forward to Monday and things.
00:24:17.191 --> 00:24:19.038
Yeah, awesome, thank you for that.
00:24:19.038 --> 00:24:24.980
How about you, ms Isabel, advice on being roommates with your business partner?
00:24:25.060 --> 00:24:32.561
for anybody out there that's considering that yeah, so I think that it's actually very popular in startup founders.
00:24:32.561 --> 00:24:37.602
You've got Y Combinator and those accelerator programs that require founders to move to a city.
00:24:37.602 --> 00:24:48.358
Usually, founders move together in an apartment and that's kind of where the first few months of startup building happened Building together.
00:24:48.358 --> 00:24:51.359
So I think it's very popular in startup founders.
00:24:51.359 --> 00:24:53.429
It makes sense for a few reasons.
00:24:53.429 --> 00:25:06.172
One of them it's a lot of the times you have limited capital and so you try to maximize resources as much as possible and so sharing a space for both work and and living if you have that possibility.
00:25:06.231 --> 00:25:20.285
Of course, people have different situations in life and start an entrepreneur at different stages on the lines, so that's obviously not applicable to everyone, but if you do have the opportunity, then it makes a lot of sense for startup founders.
00:25:20.285 --> 00:25:25.113
I can see how it's not so popular in other business ventures.
00:25:25.113 --> 00:25:28.582
I don't see myself living with, for instance, some of my construction business partners.
00:25:28.582 --> 00:25:33.781
We were all in different stages in life and that wouldn't be necessarily even required.
00:25:33.781 --> 00:25:42.234
But I think what's special about startups and the technology companies that are created from scratch and you have to build an architect, something that doesn't exist?
00:25:43.029 --> 00:25:50.720
it's the intensity that's required and a lot of the times in the first few years you're with your co-founders day and night.
00:25:50.720 --> 00:25:51.824
That makes perfect sense.
00:25:51.844 --> 00:25:53.190
The first few years, you're with your co-founders day and night.
00:25:53.190 --> 00:25:54.451
That makes perfect sense.
00:25:54.451 --> 00:26:00.463
So, like Stephanie said, you have an idea on Monday but by Friday it's transformed and evolved into something.
00:26:00.463 --> 00:26:11.898
But because you're in close proximity, you can kick through and iterate and test and evolve that idea super rapidly because you're sharing space.
00:26:11.898 --> 00:26:15.342
Duh, again, duh.
00:26:15.342 --> 00:26:16.623
Y'all are teaching me a lot.
00:26:16.623 --> 00:26:17.522
Thank you for that.
00:26:18.084 --> 00:26:32.789
So you've mentioned Y Combinator and this group, the incubator group, and so I imagine that gives you access to, like mentorship and other people that have experience in the same space, having dealt with the same types of things, which I think is brilliant.
00:26:32.789 --> 00:26:49.432
Right, like folks out there, if you don't, at least have a mentor or somebody that resembles a mentor, and a community, meaning a group of people that can feed into your idea, feed into your growth and challenge you you're slacking Like.
00:26:49.432 --> 00:26:50.575
You can make that happen.
00:26:50.575 --> 00:26:52.657
You don't have to start your own business to make that happen.
00:26:52.657 --> 00:26:59.693
You can do that right now In terms of paying that back, and I mean on a personal level.
00:26:59.693 --> 00:27:14.865
How do you, isabel, how do you either now or foresee helping, nurturing, grooming, supporting future entrepreneurs or folks that are earlier in their entrepreneurial path?
00:27:15.849 --> 00:27:23.936
Yes, I think that's something that I've tried to do always, even when I was younger, maybe at university, and exploring all these different paths.
00:27:23.936 --> 00:27:29.958
I think in everything that I've done, I've always tried to keep back and thinking of incubator programs.
00:27:29.958 --> 00:27:36.018
We actually went through texter, so we didn't go to y company went through texters and they have got very.
00:27:36.258 --> 00:27:53.715
They have this very nice principle which is give first, and I think that's pretty much aligned with the way I think about this, in that when you've been through a journey, you don't really know who's watching, and a lot of the time especially because we're talking about hispanic and and kind of it is.
00:27:54.317 --> 00:28:04.978
I always think about that and try to help anyone who reaches out or even doesn't, in terms of either going for something.
00:28:04.978 --> 00:28:58.230
I've done so, speaking of texters, a lot of the times, once you've done one of these programs, other founders that are interested in these programs will reach out and ask you questions, whether that's on how to apply or how the program works, and so I think that's one of the ways where we're already getting back no-transcript.
00:28:58.230 --> 00:29:07.173
So I always try to share from what I know, and if I don't know the answer, then maybe connect that person to somebody that I think would know the answer.
00:29:08.578 --> 00:29:11.310
I love it Because that's what we, I think.
00:29:11.310 --> 00:29:26.182
What I love about what you just said is you're actively sharing your experience and the lessons that you've learned in whatever way possible, right Like you don't have to be the unicorn to start helping people.
00:29:26.182 --> 00:29:33.145
You can help people right now and you're doing that, which I think is phenomenal, Plus the tech start, the incubator that y'all were a part of.
