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.

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/

Welcome IMMIGRANT ENTREPRENEUR listeners to this bonus episode.  Over the last year I have published podcasts every other Thursday. Because the number of listeners has increased, I’m considering to publish weekly. In the meantime, please enjoy these bonus episodes.

I have interviewed one hundred successful business people – some for this podcast and some for magazines. Some run major corporations – last month I interviewed a female CEO of a company with 90,000 employees – while others work solo.

I wanted to talk about what these successful people have in common. You might think in a podcast about immigrant entrepreneurs, that the common factor is hustling, innovating, persevering, which all are crucial to becoming successful. But it’s something different and at least equally important. As hustling and hardworking Gary Vaynerchuk is, and as much as he talks about those traits, he equally acknowledges this factor common to successful business people.

What do they have in common? They got lucky. The question is - how did they get lucky? Did they win the lottery? Did they make their own luck?

Now, not everyone believes in luck. In fact, maybe you don’t. You may think that you can plan out and execute every part of your life.

To unpack this let’s turn to Howard Marks, a gentleman I interviewed this year, who in 2014, took the time to detail the many ways he encountered luck in his life. He included those details in a well-known essay he wrote, Getting Lucky.

Now Howard Marks has the right to feel lucky, because the company he founded, Oaktree Capital, has $100 billion under management, as a global alternative investment management firm. But he also has the right to feel he made his own way in life, because he’s always worked hard and he is one of the world’s highly skilled investors. In fact, Warren Buffet wrote: “When I see memos from Howard Marks in my mail, they're the first thing I open and read. I always learn something."

His essay, Getting Lucky, is long, but I encourage you to read it. I’ll include a link to it in my show notes.

One type of luck he talks about is ‘demographic luck” meaning for example where one is born, or perhaps how wealthy one’s family is.

However, Mr. Marks is not lucky because he was born rich. He grew up in Queens, New York, and was the first generation in his family to attend college.

His luck was that he was born in America, the son of immigrants. (I wish I would have known that when I interviewed him, I would have asked him about his story, and asked to use it for this podcast. I did ask him about his youth. He said: “I learned to work. I always had jobs.” That sounds like a young immigrant entrepreneur!)

In his essay, Marks writes about his response to comments made by Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, who said: "Success is never accidental. No accidents, just planning; no luck, only strategy, no randomness, just perfect logic".

Mark’s response:

"That's all it took to get my juices flowing. I believe a great many things contribute to success. Some are our own doing, while many others are beyond our control. There’s no doubt that hard work, planning, and persistence are essential for repeated success. These are among the contributors that Twitter’s Dorsey is talking about. But even the hardest workers and best decision makers among us will fail to succeed consistently without luck.”

“What are the components of luck? They range from accidents of birth and genetics, to chance meetings and fortuitous choices, and even to perhaps-random but certainly unforeseeable events that cause decisions to turn out right.”

One of my interviewees, in episode 30, looked back in his luck in life. When Parviz Parvizi and his family escaped a war, 35 years ago, in the middle of the night, on horseback, through the mountains of Iran, they didn't know if luck would be with them. And even, when his family finally made it to America, there was no ticker tape parade welcoming them,

Jonathan Moyal cofounded Oliver.ai, to reduce the cost and stress for those applying for a visa to the United States, a problem many of their friends had faced. They promote themselves as The easiest and most secure way to get your visa for the United States.

Jonathan’s ancestry is so global, Moroccan, Jewish, French, American, with a Spanish last name, that he can have empathy for almost any tourist, student, or immigrant trying to navigate the visa system.

Their service is combination of software – which checks the applicants’ paperwork for errors or potential problems – and personal service which sets up appointments and guides the applicant through the process.

Although he comes from generations of old world entrepreneurs, famous for trading, his secret skill is in building his network of exchange. He explains exactly how his ‘favor bank’ works.

“If you go as a tourist to the old city, to this day, in Marrakesh, and you want to buy a pair of shoes, and he doesn’t have your size. He’s going to say sorry, hold on hold on, and he’s going to bicycle to the other end of the market, to someone who should be his competitor. And he’s going to grab a pair of shoes and sell them to you. 

So there is this network of exchange, largely based on trust, based on favors.

I realized that I’ve created a similar network of support in the investor community, the entrepreneurial community, and in the not-at-all entrepreneurial community – so that’s my secret sauce.  When I look at my success today – we just raised a round, it will be in the news soon – as compared to when I started out – I started out very alone. It’s not networking.  My mother calls it the favor bank.  When people need something, they come to me and I give it to them, I don’t ask why.  If I have the right contact for you and you are someone that I trust, I will not hesitate a second and will give it to you. Inevitably over time, it’s not that people owe you one, it’s that people trust you, so when you need something, you don’t need to feel ashamed to go ask.  That network has been invaluable to me over the years, and continues to grow.”

That’s why he wants to help you!

He also shares valuable advice he receive from his dad, who arrived in the US with about two dimes in his pocket.

I asked him if the French were really the way Americans perceive them.  As a board member on La French Tech, he was the perfect person for me to ask.  Guess what. The French tech scene in New York, is a lot bigger that you imagine.

See Episdoe 50 for my interivew in English with Moises Annicchiarico

Also see translation of this episode in the transcript below.

Moises Annicchiarico es el CEO y co-fundador de el popular Teachlr punto com, una comunidad, de cursos online, y clases en vivo online, y mucho más. Está creciendo mucho, y está ayudando a tanta gente alrededor del mundo. Tambien tiene plataforma para companies y universades.

Algunos destacados de la entrevista

En Teachlr.com

Teachlr.com es un mercado de conocimiento. Es un lugar donde cualquier persona que tenga alguna idea de algún conocimiento del cual se sienta experto y pueda compartirlo con otras personas del mundo, tiene la oportunidad de crear el curso en línea. Por otro lado, nosotros conectamos las personas que quieren aprender con las personas que quieren enseñar creando un mercado de cursos en línea con Teachlr.com

En Teachlr Organization

…permite tener una plataforma de e-learning totalmente personalizada. Esto es un software-as-a-service, una plataforma lista para que la personalices y la utilices a tu medida: puedes crear cursos, crear grupos, asignar esos cursos a las personas, asignar personas a grupos; puedes gestionar todo lo que es el porcentaje de avance, las evaluaciones, cómo vas entregando el contenido y entregar una certificación final.   También tenemos clientes cómo consultoras y centros de formación que están entrenando a otros a través de su propia universidad o su propia escuela en línea de Teachlr.

Cómo ganarse la confianza

…si haces un delivery de una clase en vivo tiene que ser mejor que un Skype; si haces un delivery de un video tiene que ser igual o mejor que YouTube. Entonces, tienes unos retos que debes enfrentar para que esos usuarios tengan confianza en ti y así des un servicio de calidad. Eso es algo que se trabaja día a día y que no se consigue al principio. Pero si desde el principio estás trabajando con la idea de hacer algo que funcione bien, así sea lo que llaman un MVP (un producto muy pequeño, mínimo viable), pero que funcione bastante bien, pues por supuesto que puedes crear la confianza si estás atacando la necesidad de una forma correcta.

Constryendo el Equipo

A partir de ahí empezamos a conversar y a convencer a amigos y a personas cercanas a que nos apoyaran de alguna forma. En ese momento no teníamos ningún tipo de capital y era muy complicado. Lo bueno era que estábamos tan entusiasmados con la idea que era muy fácil atraer a personas para que nos ayudaran. Realmente, el primer equipo que creamos era de personas que simplemente nos estaban ayudando y prácticamente no nos estaban cobrando. Después, empezamos a construir un equipo de desarrollo ya con la idea llevada a cabo parcialmente; por supuesto, no teníamos un Beta, pero teníamos algo que podíamos mostrar.

Los beneficios para iniciar y hacer crecer un negocio en un país donde hay retos.

También tiene que ver con el ojo con el que mires las cosas porque si nos ponemos a observar los factores negativos de Venezuela o de Latinoamérica, podemos ponernos tristes en algunas cosas; por eso también es cuestión de cómo se mire. Eso es lo que tiene que diferenciar la mentalidad de un emprendedor: tiene que ser una persona visionaria que puede encontrarse problemas en el camino, pero eso no tiene que limitarlo a empezar. También tiene que ser una persona que ve las oportunidades que se le puedan presentar en el escenario en que se encuentre. Al final se trata de adaptarse.

En lo que debe hacer un emprendedor.

Al final, todo depende de la forma como el emprendedor o el fundador interactúa con el resto de las personas para tener éxito. Hay emprendedores cuyo producto no tiene mucho valor, digámoslo así, pero logran  tener éxito porque en dos o tres reuniones cierran buenos contratos y logran arrancar su empresa. Como digo siempre: hay una gran carga en los fundadores y los emprendedores de romper esa gran barrera de crear un producto y crear una demanda y hace...

Sasibai Kimis has a good heart, lots of courage, and a wonderful laugh. Perhaps those are the ingredients to make one adaptable, which is Sasi’s secret power.

I asked her about her greatest skill that she could offer to listeners:

“I would say that I think my greatest skill that I’ve built over the years is adaptability.  I remember telling an employer once: ‘You can pick me up and drop me off anywhere you want around the world, and I’ll find my way.’ As long as you are smart, street smart, and you’re not afraid, you can try to make something work, and find what you need. I’m not sure what made me say that, I think it’s because of my experience in Ghana. When I went to Ghana, I didn’t know anybody, I didn’t even have a place to stay. I just arrived with a suitcase and I wanted to do this internship with the United Nations.  …. I think that I grew up in Malaysia with ‘the other’ and ‘being the other’.  I always felt no matter where I went, I was not afraid of being ‘the other’.

Sasi’s company, Earth Heir is located in the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. Earth Heir, works with craftspeople in Malaysia and the region using their traditional skills, but creates contemporary design pieces and corporate/customized gifts with social impact. These contemporary crafts and gifts are sold at the Earth Heir studio in KL and online. Earth Heir is focusing more on the corporate gifts market, which allows for larger purchases, and thus a bigger and positive impact on their artisans.

Sasi shares her moving immigrant story of her family to Malaysia, her grandfather was an indentured laborer, from India, and her immigrant journey from Malaysia to the West. She could have left her Malaysia behind. She succeeded at the elite Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, in the US. And she succeeded on Wall Street:

“Truly, my experience in the U.S. was the most affirming and confidence building experience in my life.  It gave me the tenacity to believe that I could do things, I could achieve things.  While I was at the University of Pennsylvania, I could take classes in pottery and acting and courses unrelated to my business degree, and met people from so many backgrounds.  It boosted my confidence as a person. That really helped me tremendously in my life.

After Wharton I didn’t know what to do, so I did the typical thing, investment banking. I worked at Lehman Brothers, and I was the only international person in the team. Everyone else was white. I was the only Indian. But I never felt different! I was never made to feel less because I was Indian. It was like, – hey – you passed our interviews, you did well, we’ll give you the job. It was so great, I felt, at least in America, I was rewarded based on merit."

And she excelled at Cambridge University in England, where she studied sustainable development. However, Sasi wanted to re-immigrate back to a country to create an ecosystem for social entrepreneurs.

“We wanted [Earth Heir] to stay in Malaysia because this region needs champions, that are making a difference.  It would be very easy for me to move back to the US, and do what I’m doing here. But I felt that if I move, then who will be here to help change the landscape. We’re not the only ones doing this here. But I feel like you need a nucleus of people who are doing something. That’s how change happens.”

There was so much in this interview, I had to cut out so much, to keep it under 35 minutes, which I prefer. Perhaps I will make a second episode."

Sometimes I wonder, what about those talented entrepreneurs who stay in their emerging-market country? In this episode we meet an entrepreneur in Venezuela, an emerging market - and one of the most challenging places to live and work today.

Moises Annicchiarico, co-founder of Teachlr.com, has visited America and other countries, but is proud to have started and grown Teachlr in Caracas, Venezuela. In this episode he shares his business and talks about some of the advantages and struggles of starting a company in a challenging environment.

Moises and his cofounder Ruben Benarroch, created Teachlr.com, in order to teach practical skills online, to people all over the world. Here are some key points of Teachlr:

Popular courses include Excel, Adobe, many computer programming languages, Project Management, and yes, How to Teach a Course Online! Many courses are FREE, and the average price for the course is $19.00.

Students love that they can directly communicate with their instructor, and can keep the content. Some course are one hour and others are over one hundred hours.

Their most popular markets are students in Mexico, Spain, Columbia, Argentina, and the United States.

If you have an expertise, you can teach your content there also?

Over 400,000 students have taken courses at TEACHLR.

Their second business, called TEACHLR ORGANIZATIONS, serves companies and universities. It provides secure platforms for organizations to place their private content online, where they can teach their employees. Some of their high profile clients are: Avianca, pwc, and Telefonica!

So what are those fantastic advantages to starting your company in a difficult environment:

You may be the only one providing a particular service.

You may have access to larger customers

You may have less competition for top talent to help you grow.

You may be helping your country, and even poor people throughout your continent.

Moises explains how TEACHLR enjoys these advantages.

I’m so inspired by Moises, in whom you can see the roots of an immigrant entrepreneur.

Watch in the coming weeks for this interview in Spanish!

Welcome to The Immigrant Entrepreneur.

This is a bonus episode. Two days ago we were listed #4 on iTunes New and Noteworthy, and #16 in the business category of PodcastChart.com. I want to give you new listeners a flavor of The Immigrant Entrepreneur by sharing snips of several awesome episodes.

A flavor of what makes immigrant entrepreneurs overcome all obstacles to create 1/3 of Silicon Valley startups, 27% of all business in this country.  What is the immigrant story behind Gary Vaynerchuk working in the back of his dad’s liquor store when he was 14?  What allowed Due Quach to a Vietnamese boat baby, who did not talk until she was 7 years old, to attend Harvard, then Wharton, and return to the inner city to teach meditation.  What’s behind serial entrepreneur and investor Hiten Shah’s drive to help people?

To introduce to our vision that immigrant entrepreneurs can be a bridge between the world they came to and the worlds they came from.  And between those succeeding and struggling because they have been both places.

I’m your host Kent Trabing

Our website is http://TheImmigrantEntrepreneur.com where you can subscribe, and find links, show notes, regarding each episode.

Our email address is [email protected]. I’d love to receive your comments and questions, as well as your story.

In my next episode I’ll be interviewing 2 entrepreneurs living and creating in Caracas Venezuela, who are going to talk about how to educate entrepreneurs in emerging market countries.  Adios!

Why is it important that you do the work you have chosen to do, and not someone else? How can you break through to the next level? How do you get out of your own way? How do you overcome negative self-talk?  Emily Filloramo lives to help her clients answers these questions.

Emily shares about the the decision to become an entrepreneur.  After a successful 27-year career at Pfizer, Inc., one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, she simply decided to do what she loved.

That is not what happened!  Emily was laid off in October, 2011.  She panicked, for maybe a day, and then tried for five months to find a new job. Then she did what many successful entrepreneurs do. She identified her own problem, and worked on solving it, in the belief that others face the same dilemma.

Today, Emily's clients call her a Be More Extraordinary MAGICIAN because of the transformation she helps them bring-about in their professional and personal lives. She helps them to get unstuck, unleashed, and be the woman or man they dreamed of becoming.

Emily performed magic on herself. Coming from Taiwan at the age of nine, she spoke no English. She grew up poor in Queens, New York, with as many problems at home as at school. Through hard work to get herself out of her circumstances, she attended Cornell University, and after graduating, joined Pfizer, Inc., but she kept inside herself a lot of unresolved issues. You can read about Emily’s journey in her excellent book: "How to PERMANENTLY Erase Negative Self-Talk So You Can Be Extraordinary

After being laid off, and unable to find new work, Emily invested in herself by training in a problem-solving approach called: Internal Family Systems.

In our interview she talks about gaining her first client, and the dramatic positive changes she was able to effect in his life.

After that she was off on her entrepreneurial adventure. She remembers: “You have to figure out, what is the real reason why you actually want to do this. Why? Why?  That reason has to be bigger than the money The money will follow if you’re in alignment.”

“When you believe in yourself, then take the first step. That first step is going to reveal the subsequent steps. As long as you have the goal plugged into your GPS, you don’t have to know how you are going to get there. There are going to be a lot of twists and turns, this is not a straight line.  You’re going to get rejected. Humiliated. I’ve done all of those things.”

“The reason I’ve been able to manifest these big speaking opportunities, is because I kept taking steps. It’s not like I just called someone and said, “You need a great speaker – can I speak there. There are a lot of twists and turns before you get to speak.”

Emily’s advice for immigrants or those with a difficult childhood:

“You don’t have to live in a box that mom and dad put you in. Some immigrants have shy parts, that don’t allow them to speak their truth. I know that they have a charismatic part, a confident part of them that can come out of them, and express themselves. I want to encourage them with my story. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I came here at the age of nine without a word of English and what do I do now. I speak on big stages to inspire them. Whatever you put your mind to, as long as you do the inner work of understanding who you are and erase that negative self-talk, then you can become unstuck, unleashed and become the man or woman you always dreamed of becoming.