[MUSIC]
A benefit of attending today and in future
years, is instant and full access of
the research report and executive
summaries which are in English and
Spanish, you now have
that through your RSVP.
You also have it on your
executive summaries via QR code.
So we want you to share
that with the world.
And by the way, there's a hashtag for
this event, Stanford,
S-O-L-E, State of Latino Entrepreneurship.
So we hope that you share that
wide to all your networks.
Now, it's an honor to introduce our panel,
which features alumni
of the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship
Initiative Education Scaling Program.
And I can tell you that our chairman,
Victor Arias, Chairman Emeritus,
Professor Jerry Porras, our board and
our team, we get really energized and
[FOREIGN] proud to report that
we have achieved critical mass,
as now we have 584
graduates of this program.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> If
you are a SLEI-Ed alumni,
please stand to be recognized.
Please stand to be recognized.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> Wow, that's what I'm talking about.
[LAUGH]
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> So we have a little factoid,
we have a 94% graduation rate for
this group.
>> [SOUND] [APPLAUSE]
>> [LAUGH] You should hashtag that.
So we're very proud of them and a little
bit more about this group, 584 strong,
employing over 30,000 across 31 states and
Puerto Rico.
Listen to this,
combined annual gross revenues for
this group, north of $3.02 billion.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> And
so if you do the math,
the mean is 5.17 million per business.
So we are very proud of this group.
Now, it's time for our panel.
Our moderator, Marty Chavez,
is a computer scientist, investor,
risk manager, and serial entrepreneur.
Over the past 19 years,
he has held multiple roles as partner,
management committee member, and
senior leader of Goldman Sachs.
Including CFO, CIO, and
global co-head of the firm's largest and
most complex business,
the securities division.
And he is also today a lecturer
here at Stanford GSB.
Our entrepreneurs,
let me tell you about these folks.
Latino entrepreneur, CEO and
founder of Wild Earth,
Ryan Bethencourt, who is leading the
plant-based sustainable food industry and
is note worthy for having backing
by the one and only Mark Cuban.
Latino entrepreneur, President and
CEO BEPC Inc., Oscar Casillas,
who continues to be one of the most
successful Latino entrepreneurs
in securing corporate
procurement with Fortune 500s.
Latina entrepreneur and
CEO of Abartys Health, Dolmarie Mendez,
who's transforming the entire
healthcare landscape in Puerto Rico.
And last but not least,
Latina entrepreneur, CEO and
founder of Agtools, Martha Montoya,
who is revolutionizing
the global agricultural industry
with breakthroughs in technology.
We welcome the panel, thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]
[LAUGH]
>> Let's sit under our faces.
[LAUGH] Why don't you sit over here?
[LAUGH]
>> All right
>> [LAUGH] Sorry.
>> Yeah.
[LAUGH]
>> All right.
Well, welcome everybody.
Thank you for being here.
It was a huge delight for
me to get to know these entrepreneurs
who have all built very
different businesses.
So, I won't claim that you're going to
get a representative sample of all
the businesses that were in the survey,
but they really are quite different and
they face different challenges, and
also some of them that are the same.
And so I thought we would key
off the results of the study,
as a way of guiding our discussion,
but really keep the focus
entirely on these amazing
entrepreneurs and on their experience.
So, one of the observations in
the study was the revenue growth
rate of Latino owned businesses.
14%, substantially outpacing
the growth rate of the US economy.
Fascinating result.
And so let's just start with something
that every entrepreneur cares about,
which is driving revenue growth.
So, I thought I'd start with you Dolmarie,
why don't you tell us about where you are
in your business and revenue growth, and
what some of your challenges have been,
and advice.
>> Advice, [LAUGH], so,
thank you for having us today here.
It is a pleasure to be
here sharing our story.
Now, we are in the growth stage.
We are crossing over from Puerto Rico,
which is a very significant,
and with two Fortune 500
companies as a client,
two pharmaceuticals and with our
national contact for the 50 states.
And so making it happen in
Puerto Rico is something, and
something like that is very difficult.
Specially because we are Latina
women in the health care and
tech space, and that is a challenge.
So I have to tell you that
first we went to incubator,
accelerator, and mentoring.
So we kept all our mentors
since the incubator, until now.
It is exactly what we are doing
now as part of the cohort seven.
And I can tell that that was a key for
everything.
We used 100% of our mentors, 100%.
So I can tell you that that
was the game changer in our
case because in Puerto Rico yes,
we have mentors but
I cannot find that kind of mentors
everywhere in every corner.
So, having the exposure to incubators,
accelerators and
try to get every available grant that we
have as a women owned company, Latina,
we know these advantages that
we have that we're classified.
We use all those
disadvantages are advantages.
So we are not into the drama.
So we use all the available-
>> [LAUGH]
>> Money there.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Yes,
I'm a Latina woman tech healthcare.
I have all the boxes checked to fail.
So that is our inspiration every day and
we use every mentor, we raise capital.
In 2018,
we raised 1.5 million after we won this
US company that was a competition,
that was a game changer for us.
And then we started to
learn about all this but
the people that were taking their
time to teach us were the mentors.
If you're not a mentor,
if you don't use your mentors,
if you're not open to feedback, and
you are not able to pass the knowledge
to your team, you're going to fail.
So that's advice that I can
give to everybody here.
Mentoring and knowledge transfer.
And be open to all the feedback
that you can get, positive,
negative, and take it from there and
make it work, make it positive.
>> Question on your mentors,
were they women, men, Latino, Latina?
>> My God,
I don't even know how many mentors I have.
>> Okay.
>> I have like a whole list, I keep all
the investors that are after The company,
the company with quarterly updates.
We keep them involved in our process
in every station that we are.
We just closed 3 million round, but
we were here and it was a tough round, and
I used my mentor assigned in the program
>> To raise my capital
to like face that for the whole process
because we needed while we were here,
we just closed that,
like, by September 30th.
There was a closing day and I was here.
So I use Mark and everybody in
that team as part of my process.
And don't worry,
as I understand you've also hired a couple
of men along the way in your company.
>> When I talk about them.
We're actually 27 and we are two women,
co founders, and 25 guys, they're happy.
>> [LAUGH]
>> They're happy today,
happy to serve you.
Yeah, we have a good combination for
30 group circle at all.
Now is very diverse because
we have tax incentives.
And we are under a tax incentive
agreement with the government to
because the government is our sponsor,
too and I have Jewish Russian.
What else?
Puerto Ricans I have people from
the States so it's a very diverse group.
>> One last quick question before we move
onto Martha, on the mentors I'm always
curious about this, I know many of
us have this Experience so I get
maybe 100 requests a day on
the internet for mentoring right.
Would you please have dinner with me,
would you please have coffee,
I'd really caffeinated if I did that.
And so my question is what do
the mentors get out of it?
So that it's a two way street
>> So usually you don't need to be and
I'm talking about my personal experience,
you don't need to
be a successful investor,
multi billionaire,
multi millionaire, you can Ask your
knowledge since you are in the first
stage because you can help the others
that are going to start that process.
So that they enable to just share
that experience with someone else.
It makes you a mentor because
you're just letting them know.
>> What you went through in order to
be what you are now and you can learn.
It depends on your mindset.
And so mentors and
investors are available for every stage.
So on when we were in our
technology development,
we had an early super early stage investor
that he knows our healthcare he takes
time to make money in healthcare.
So everyone in healthcare and
tech knows that they have to wait for
their money is not coming back that fast.
I'm sorry.
So maybe like three, five years.
But now we got an investor that
is not an early stage investor.
He's in FinTech healthcare
from New Zealand.
I'm in Puerto Rico how does that happen?
Again because I mentor put me
in contact with another mentor
that brought me that industry,
because you need to find your investor.
Someone like you cannot get money from
like every investor, they're invested for
every stage and you need in our case,
we needed someone that was like Okay,
working with women, I have
a 20-month-old baby and an 11-year-old.
My apartment partner has a 6-month-old,
another 10 and 8.
Yes, we're like kind of crazy because we
raise capital pregnant, but they love it.
[INAUDIBLE] So I raise money pregnant,
told them, I am pregnant.
You cannot see it.
But I'm seven months pregnant.
Not now.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Wow, you're good.
No
>> And they were like.
>> [LAUGH]
>> And he was like, okay,
Is that got a problem?
Now we're here at this point,
we cannot cancel the process.
>> [CROSSTALK] the problem
it's inspiring so [LAUGH].
>> And now with this one,
my partner was pregnant.
Again, another pregnant woman.
Anyway, okay, it's fine.
So, that is a thing that
you need to your investor,
they need to be involved, your mentors,
they need to be involved and
they need to understand that stage that
you are because the reality is that
the man,
they don't have the same experiences and
the same process that we have as women,
when you have to raise capital Yes.
>> It's not pretty at all.
It's very, is all rocky, rocky road.
>> And yet you have done it.
So Martha, why don't you tell us
about some of your experiences and,
a little bit about your company and
in driving, Revenue, growth,
and, whatever you want to tell us.
I think my role is a little bit different
because I'm a little bit older than you.
[LAUGH] A little bit.
Having been around doing business
before the traditional way was
an eye opener when I came to Stanford
because I was told you have to think big.
And so we decided, all me,
my talking that we're going to do
10 steps back, to move forward.
The whole Silicon Valley,
the whole world of the new economies,
they have technology.
And so the decision was tough to
shut down everything we're doing and
millions of dollars.
Cells, but
making very tinnie little bear margins.
Emm, even though with
the procurement mentorship
that we have in corporate America.
And our job,
my job was to come back to school and
become a student and that took me
a while because, my, I know, I know.
And then went to UC Davis to
confirm my business plan,
to ratify my business plan
because I'm in the ag industry.
One thing is the San Fran Silicon Valley
and the billions of dollars and
the ag industry is a completely
different industry.
>> Are you in the ag industry or
the machine learning industry.
>> Agricultural industry is my industry so
I have been all over the world
developing crops for many corporations.
You can name the country and you can name
the crop I most likely have done it.
From carrots to potatoes to onions,
you name it, I have been around.
And so coming back and
deciding to do this was two things.
One, I saw the economy,
I said it acknowledges the next trend.
And if I stay here, we stay here in this.
And I say we because there's
a whole team behind me,
it's a whole business of people.
If we stay here we're
going to grow very slow.
Yes.
>> While if we go into the technology
industry, maybe we're
going to go higher and
that's when I repeat,
I did the study here.
And the scalability is
ephemeral scalability,
and then moved to UC Davis and
eventually launched the company.
And the technology allow
us to do a global thinking.
Versus just doing shipments from
different only from certain regions.
And then the second part was adapting
to work with younger people.
Because that's where the technology's
younger people, and we're our way.
We're baby boomers.
We know what we're doing.
We have been doing it this way.
And so as a Latina or Latinos,
I have seen this going through.
We have been doing it too long for
so much, and how do we shift And
now, all our engineers are 21, 22, 23, 24.
And those are the ones creating what
we're doing, and letting them be free.
But having some rails
of business to let them
operate under the business
understanding that I have.
And that's how the growth
we're moving in to.
>> Where are those engineers located?
>> They're in rural United States,
they're in Wenatchee, Washington,
in Salinas, California,
there in Las Vegas, Macaca.
>> Wow.
>> Yeah, so one whole engineers, I'm so
proud of them, some of them, I mean,
they're computer science engineers
that had no internet access.
So they know how to code by hand, so
the creativity is there,
there was another asset.
And also because we could not afford
to pay engineers in Silicon Valley.
>> Yeah.
>> So [LAUGH] even when you sit in front
of investors, okay, what is the equivalent
of our engineers equivalent of one-
>> Yeah.
>> In Silicon Valley, so
it is fun to have only Latino engineers.
Throughout this whole
process of coding and
my brother is the one who
leads the whole pack.
He was one of the first
engineers of Amazon.
He was grabbed from Silicon Valley
to Seattle, and so he had that.
>> So he's the draw.
>> He is the draw, and the patients,
because we both come from
families of educators.
So we have the understanding
on how to train people and
how to entice them so
>> it's super curious how did
you find machine or
a computer scientists in the shortcut?
>> Well to begin with in Wenatchee
Washington when the Bitcoin came became
a big thing, Wenatchee Washington is
the center point of the Bitcoin and
so all these farming used to go down the
valley and you see farming Appala farms.
Now you see Lots of buildings which
are the farming of all these clouds.
Yeah.
And so you Washington University open
the school for machine learning for
people from kids to move from Seattle
to Wenatchee and nobody was moving, so
they had to go to the local colleges.
And guess where the local colleges the
kids who harvested apples and cherries,
which happened to be Hispanics And so
that has been one of our blessings,
having these amazing Hispanic kids
with ML and AI which is unique, and
then one at Washington in and with
Salinas who are training them on the ML.
They are decoding a side of it but
it's just a unique thing and...
We have an Angel investor who was
the leader, who was the pioneer of machine
learning and artificial intelligence,
a Latina on top of that.
So everything is being a Latina process.
>> So it was your business model,
that's unbelievable.
>> Thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> Right.
[LAUGH] [APPLAUSE]
>> [LAUGH] Fantastic, and tell us a little
bit about your business models.
The enterprise sales, the subscriptions,
how do you-
>> So it is, I have to share this is like
the Bloomberg dashboard.
>> Okay.
>> But of the fruits and vegetables.
>> Worked out well for
Bloomberg.
>> Yeah.
>> [LAUGH]
>> One way before
they call.
>> [LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH]
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, it is the Bloomberg.
You can see the fruits and vegetables,
nuts and herbs moving all over the world.
It used to be that we used to
eat only the fruits and
vegetable of the season.
And now as consumers,
we want to see it the whole year,
>> Yeah
>> Or the market moves continuously.
So we have data from all over
official governments and entities.
They're plugged in.
And so in milliseconds, you can see how
the potato businesses doing where how
the card businesses doing there how the
coffee, we just got her for Sunday coffee,
one of the largest roasters company in the
world to the coffee portion of it and so
on and so-
>> It's a per seat license [CROSSTALK]
>> license fee.
And then also it's a dashboard and now
it's a monitor the styling the monitors in
the different [CROSSTALK]
>> Is it $30,000 per year per person like
Bloomberg?
It's going to be good, [LAUGH] Yeah,
it's going to be good.
>> That's amazing, it's beautiful.
Oscar let's go on to you can you tell us
about your business and revenue growth and
how you're driving it.
>> Well I worked for
a major corporation for about 30 years and
then after that I decided to
just venture out on my own and
I took that leap of of faith and
said you know.
I needed to start my own consulting
business so, they became my first client
about three weeks after I left
the company I was back working for
them as a consultant, and as we needed
additional engineers to work on
different projects to help validated and
qualify Manufacturing equipment and
I'm talking about manufacturing
equipment that manufacturers medical
device and pharmaceutical products.
So these are large pieces of equipment
that are used in manufacturing operations
and in the US and Mexico, so I basically
as as they needed more engineers,
I begin to add more engineers
through my company.
So my my first year my first three
years was, I guess, pretty tough,
but we were about 25 people
my first three years and
So tell us about that toughness
like was it liquidity?
Was it lack of financing.
what was it?
>> It was having the money to be
able to make payroll every week.
>> So did you do that?
>> I just-
>> Pray.
>> I was on a very low budget myself.
>> [LAUGH] So I just invested
whatever profits we were getting,
I just reinvested back into the company
and used that money to make payroll
every week, and so every week,
we were short payment terms, so
we were able to turnaround the money
that was coming in and make payroll.
>> So that really helped us a lot.
I went to a local bank
after a few years and
open up a line of credit, and
I'm talking about years after.
And so one of the first things that
they ask when you're looking for
money is what do you have for collateral?
You know, so
Either you can put up your house or
you can put up your accounts receivables,
which, at that time.
More recently our accounts
receivables were in good shape.
So we use the accounts
receivables to be able to
open up a line of credit that
helped us As we continue to grow.
>> At what period,
you said a couple years.
>> It was, the first three
years were just really tough.
We'd financed our own, and I'm talking
about ten years after, when we really
had a huge spurt in our growth is when I
had to go out and seek a line of credit.
But throughout all those years We
were self funded so finance, so
I'd never went and got a loan to make
payroll and pay bills and all that.
It was all just taking the money
that was coming in and
reinvesting it back into the company.
>> You didn't use credit cards or
loans from family member?
>> We used American Express credit cards.
And the good thing about that
is you can pay after 30 days.
So some of our payment
terms were like 30 days.
So it was like, you know,
you get your money
>> Perfectly timed.
>> [LAUGH] It was tough,
but Never missed payroll.
>> Never missed payroll,
never, never missed payroll.
And that's what I told my staff
when I started hiring staff.
I said, you know what, one of
the things that you all will understand
is that we will never miss payroll.
We may not pay ourselves We
may not pay some bills, but
we will never miss payroll, you know,
because people depend on their checks, and
some people unfortunately,
live on paycheck to paycheck and stuff.
So they have to have the money every week,
you know.
So we made sure that we, and to this day,
we have never Never missed a payroll.
>> Wow.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> Yeah.
>> So tell us about your revenue growth,
who's driving that?
Are you the principal sale?
>> Yeah.
We do a lot of networking and
one of the things that I found
is that we need to diversify.
So my first client, they
continue to support us big time, but I
knew that we had to diversify our company.
So we started an IT
division of our company.
Because we knew that that
technology was changing, even for
the medical device and
the pharmaceutical companies.
Automation is coming in,
new technologies coming in.
So we knew that we needed to
diversify into that field.
So we started an IT division back in 2010,
and
we knew that it was going to be difficult
because that's not my background.
So I hired the talent.
I hired the people that had the skill
sets to be able to drive that division.
And now that division
this year will probably
be about 40% of our sales for
our total company.
So that division is outpacing
our life science division now.
With the diversification we're doing
business in 40 states in the US now so
we're registered to do business
in 40 states and all of Mexico.
So we're right now have about
220 employees in Mexico.
And we cover all away from
Reynosa on the border from Texas,
all the way to Ciudad Juarez where we have
our largest concentration of engineers.
We're doing projects in Oralez.
And just recently in December,
we opened an office in Tijuana.
There's a huge opportunity in those
areas because medical device and
pharmaceutical companies
are moving into that area.
So, the opportunities to move in there and
provide the services,
the engineering services
that we're good at.
I mean, they're there.
So we're seeking those
opportunities everyday and
trying to focus on some of those
things that those companies need.
And help them, and
then at the same time they help us.
>> How many total
employees do you have now?
>> We ended December
with 470 employees now.
So it's been a great journey for us.
One of the things that I learned through
the, I know we talked about sales and
increasing the sales and all that.
But one of the things that
I learned through this
scaling program here at Stanford
was focused on profitability.
It's not so much.
When I first came in, I said, well,
we want to be a $100 million company.
Well, what good is it
being a $100 million company if
your profitability is really low?
So focus on profitability because I think
that's what's going to drive the business.
So when I left the program,
we did two things.
The first thing is we went back and
redid our key metrics and
started measuring profitability
as one of our key metrics.
Because we feel that if you focus and
you create that culture,
that you have to focus on
profitability and increasing your.
That's what's going to help
drive your business, and
help you in the growth of the business.
And then the other thing that I
learned through the program is that,
I realized that I can't live forever.
So I went back and I said, well,
I told my wife I said, I think I need to
start thinking about an exit strategy.
So as much as I'd like to live forever,
I don't think I am.
But I started focusing on our now,
an exit strategy.
And we're looking at
several different options.
Last year we went through a very
grueling process of trying to sell
part of our company and learned a lot.
So, for you that are small business owners
that are seeking to sell your business.
If you want some advice, I'm more
than happy to provide some advice.
>> [LAUGH]
>> On what not to do.
>> [LAUGH]
>> I know this is going to be a short
answer to the question but
I love this fact about your company.
Tell us about the ownership
structure of your company.
>> Well, the ownership,
I own 51%, and my wife wants 49%.
>> Yes.
>> She's right there.
>> [LAUGH]
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> That's a beautiful thing.
>> And the only reason is like that, okay?
Now for anything other than, when the
attorney was first setting up our company.
He said,
one of you has to be the majority owner.
So I guess we flipped a coin and
I won, so.
>> Okay [LAUGH].
>> I'm glad it was fair.
Ryan, so tell us about your company.
It's also an amazing story.
>> Yeah, so I actually started a while
there actually with my co-founder of
Abril Estrada,
who's just in the audience right now.
She also went through the OBAN program.
Both Abril and I had this vision of
making better food for our pets.
So it's kind of just deep insight,
my background is I'm a biotech guy.
I came up through biotechnology.
I worked for big biotech companies, and
I actually helped start
a biotech accelerator.
Started learning how biotech could
actually make our world a little bit more
sustainable, a little bit
more healthy through food.
It was kind of a surprise to me.
I came from therapeutics, and
I had this really deep insight,
I was like, what are we?
I've grown up with dogs and
cats my whole life.
And I was like, they bring so
much love and affection into our lives.
And I was like, we certainly care
a lot more about what we eat,
how are we feeding them?
And when I started to look through
the FDA inspection reports.
And I started to go like, wait,
there was a recall of 100 million units of
dog food because there's euthanasia in it.
And I was like, how did the euthanasia
drug get into pet food, right?
Isn't it secure?
And so,
I kind of fell down this rabbit hole.
Abril and I started to look into this and
I was like, wait a minute,
they're like euthanized horses,
maybe dogs and cats in the food.
It was really disgusting.
And then I started to find out more,
I kept reading.
I was like, wait, there's also,
where do you think the expired meat goes?
In the grocery stores, right?
That goes to pet food.
When it goes bad,
it goes into our pets' foods.
And there were cases the FDA found,
and it's a couple of cases that
people were not taking off the plastic,
the styrofoam and
the plastic that it comes in when
you get a little ground beef, right?
Because it's not safe, right?
It's expired meat, it's gone bad, so they
basically put that into a renderer, and
it cooks the plastic and everything.
We know plastic is carcinogenic.
>> Mm.
>> If you heat it.
So I was like, how is this possible?
It's like, there's this safe food that
we mostly eat and then there's our pets.
Food is totally terrible.
And I started to look into
the sustainability aspect, it was crazy.
Most people don't know this either.
Like I seem to be,
sometimes it seems like I don't know
why people aren't talking about this.
Our dogs and
cats in the US consume 25% to 30%, three,
zero, of the meat we eat in this country.
Most people don't know that.
It's like crazy.
>> Big number.
>> It's a very big number, so I was there.
Environmental impact,
sustainability, health, and
I was like, why isn't anyone
doing something about this?
And so I was like, I'm a biotech guy,
like I shouldn't be doing like pet food.
I kept trying to give the idea away and
it just wouldn't go away.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Right, many of you know how it is.
It's like someone else should do this,
not me.
I love animals,
I care deeply about animals.
I care about our planet and
about the people on it.
And so I was like, okay,
I guess I have to do something about it.
And I started a plant-based
dog food company, right?
And most people were like,
plant-based dog food?
Most people don't know that
dogs are omnivores, like us.
They can survive and
thrive on a plant-based diet.
The important thing is
the proteins that go in.
They have to have high quality proteins,
we do that through a really
interesting simple insight.
We actually use fungi,
so yeast, plus plants.
Yeast is about 40% protein.
A good steak is about 30% protein,
so high in protein but super clean.
That was the that was
the really basic insight.
And so I started this crazy idea, and
I was like, no one's going to back this.
And I went to see a bunch of VCs,
I knew them because
I had kind of been involved in building
some other future food companies.
And they were like,
do you do a cancer startup or
you do a future of human food startup,
we'll back you.
You do this, we're not backing.
>> [LAUGH]
>> They're like,
we're just not backing you,
pet foods not interesting.
We love pets but
we don't think there's a problem.
I was like, okay.
And then funnily enough,
three women investors that I knew, funny.
I ended up talking to them,
all the male VCs initially that
I talked to except for one.
Aiden from Felicis basically
said this is a crazy idea.
No one cares about pets,
no one cares about the environment,
they're not actually
going to buy this stuff.
And Amy from VegInvest,
Lisa from StrayDog, and Sonia,
who was our first angel investor,
and we brought in Felicis Ventures,
they backed us.
So our first million,
we raised it off this crazy idea of like,
plant based dog food is better for
the dogs and for the environment, right?
And really crazy.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> [LAUGH] The women who understood that
people really care about their pets and
they're part of the family.
And they cared about the environment too,
and they're willing to back this mission.
We're mission driven company,
like we exist because people care.
>> Hm-hm.
>> Right?
That's why we exist.
That's why people buy our product.
We launched.
We wanted to get traction.
So I got-
>> You launched with just that 1 million.
>> We don't launched
with just that 1 million.
Well, so we started with 1 million.
>> Okay.
>> And I quickly learned,
I had no idea how to make dog food.
Neither did Abril.
And it turned out it was really
expensive to make dog food.
And it was really hard.
And in the Midwest people were turning
us away, going who are you guys,
this is crazy.
We're not going to help you with, like
building and scaling this crazy thing.
No one wants plant based dog food anyway,
and so we're like, okay, this is great.
And so basically we kept going,
and I was able to get onto Shark Tank.
Really crazy.
>> Just to clarify,
you're still at zero revenue.
>> We're still at zero revenue.
>> Okay.
>> Zero revenue, we have this idea,
we're having all sorts of problems
with the science, by the way.
So we're like bring this koji,
it's like a type of fungi.
We're doing some yeast stuff.
Our science was a mess.
We're having a lot of problems.
And we went to the Shark Tank.
And I got on the Shark Tank audition
like three different times.
I'm not an actor.
And so I was like, this is like
being an actor, going on stage.
All live action went on.
Mr. Wonderful made lots of great jokes.
3.6 million people saw us that night.
We became a nationwide brand overnight.
Mark Cuban actually invested on us and
backed us.
Which blew my mind.
One of the questions,
I can't remember if it was Mr.
Wonderful, Damon asked, they were like,
how much revenue have you got?
And I was like none, zero.
We haven't even launched.
It's like if you watch Shark Tank and
you're a fan,
you know that the ground rules are,
you need to make money.
You need to have a product on the market.
We had none of those, and
I was like, I'm just going to
get like fried up here on stage.
And then at least I'll walk off as
long as I don't do something really,
really stupid, I'll be okay.
>> Did your company even have
evaluation at that time or
did you raise it on a safe?
>> We did, no.
So we raised some safes and then we got
evaluation which I also got dinged for.
So I was able to tell
some really good stories.
And I was able to get great VC,
Felicis to lead our investment.
And then I was able to get
Peter Teal interested.
I basically told him I thought
I could help dogs live longer.
And he was like,
that's interesting, right?
Tell me more about that.
I was like,
clean food helps you live longer, right?
And so he's like, yes, I'm in.
>> Did you have science for
that claim, or did you-
>> Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, there's actually some
anecdotal science data.
>> Okay.
[LAUGH]
>> I didn't take him for a ride.
But I kind of threw the vision out there.
>> It's hard to take him for a ride.
>> Yeah, I had a little bit
of science to it as well.
We've seen some anecdotal evidence that
actually dogs' lifespans on actually
plant based diets, lentils, rice and
yeasts, they actually lived a lot longer.
Really surprising.
There was a dog that lived to 25
years of age, 25, 27 years of age.
It was really crazy, really crazy.
So anecdotal,
not deeply scientific but anecdotal.
And so, so we went with a huge valuation,
$11 million.
Everyone thought we're crazy.
No revenue, no product.
Mark actually said,
look, if I invest in you, will you
launch a product by the time we air?
And I was like, yes.
And that's when Abril was like,
what did you just do?
>> Depends on how you define launch?
>> Yeah, so we launched our treats
on the night that it aired.
We had a great night.
And then we've been scaling.
So since we've launched and
I think this is a really important
thing with the Stanford program.
What we learned was a lot
of insights on scaling.
It's really,
really hard to understand how to scale.
Especially if you're used to, in a Latino
community, you're used to seeing lots of
like plumbers and some doctors, and
those are successful people, electricians.
They build their businesses organically.
Scaling is not something
that you see anyone,
at least I didn't see anyone that I knew
when I grew up scaling a business rapidly.
And the Stanford program helped
me understand, the OBAN program
helped me understand how to scale
aggressively, and it's super scary, right?
So we embrace that fully.
We're like, we're going to do the scariest
thing we can possibly do, which is grow.
And we're going to grow, and
we're going to grow as fast as we can, and
we're going to try and
really be like this breakout brand.
We want to be the brand-
>> Grow with the tension to the top line.
>> So here's the catch.
>> Okay.
>> When you grow,
it's a delicate balance between your
margins on your cogs, and your growth.
>> Yep.
>> And so everyone's like, well,
you have to be profitable and grow fast.
>> [LAUGH]
>> The reality of it is, [CROSSTALK].
>> That doesn't happen.
>> It's a dance.
>> Trade off.
>> It's a dance, it's a trade off.
And so, I mean, last year every month on
month, we're growing 50% month on month.
>> Okay.
>> Right, so 50% month on month.
>> But you did deals directly
with supermarket chains or
[INAUDIBLE]
>> Get this, so
we learned it's a really
interesting lesson.
We went into retail, terrible place for
an upstart dog food brand.
Turns out the big four food companies,
you'll know them,
they'll just have different brand names,
Mars, Nestle, General Mills, Smuckers,
weirdly, are all dog food.
That's the top four or
five dog food companies.
Are also the top four or
five human food companies globally.
If we battle it out with them, they
know how to play that game on shelves.
>> Sure.
>> We're lost.
So we went direct to consumer.
>> Okay.
>> So we learned how to sell to consumers.
And we learned that actually,
this transformation that's happening in
the economy was really helpful for us.
And so we've been able to scale primarily.
Online, so we talk to consumers,
we provide them with lots of information.
If we're a bag on the shelf
we can't tell our story.
But, we've been able to tell our story,
and so.
Scaling has been super scary.
Everything breaks as you scale.
So, the business that you are at 5,
is not the business you are at 10,
which is not the business you are at 15,
we're currently at 20 people.
We're nationwide,
we're selling to all 50 states, we have
a total of 60 stores, mostly on West
Coast, some outside of the West Coast,
we have a handful that
are outside of the West Coast.
And it's really crazy,
it feels like an new company every month.
It's challenging.
>> You're selling on Instagram as well?
>> We sell on Instagram, yeah,
we do a lot of social media,
we sell through social media.
We had to learn a lot of
things we didn't know.
Abril came from the food world.
And, she knew how to make human food
products, but we didn't know how to
make pet food products,
it's an entirely different world.
And so we had to learn with
a lot of great people.
I mean, we built Wild Earth with
support from an entire community.
One interesting thing that I
actually learned was that,
advice comes from surprising
places sometimes.
I went into Shark Tank thinking that
would get us exposure, we'd get a check,
that would be great.
Mark Cuban, he and I talk, mostly email,
but talk about once a week.
And he kind of became a mentor
through this process, so
he's a very critical mentor.
Everything I did was terrible and wrong.
>> [LAUGH]
>> And
when he was silent I did a good job,
right?
So, I was like, okay,
at least I have something to work for.
But, it was a type of mentorship,
something that I really didn't have.
And so, I think that, for all of us who
don't necessarily have role models,
or people who understand how to
scale business, and I mean everyone.
I mean, I know this is a Latino program,
but I think that there's a huge
opportunity for us to build incredible
things that are positive for our world.
Whoever you are, a woman,
a minority, a white man,
it's all okay, there's incredible
things that can be built
if you will give yourself permission
to take the risk, take the chance.
It's really scary, that's how it
feels when you build a business,
yeah, it's scary.
>> Let's talk about some of those
scary moments for everybody.
So, we've all been entrepreneurs,
and I'll start with you, Dolmeri,
you talked about the brutality
of raising that $3 million.
And, I certainly remember
the experience of,
we're going to run out of money in two
weeks if we don't raise some money, so.
>> Yes, that's when I learned that 1
million is like $5 in your pocket.
>> Mm-hm.
>> So, we got, first,
we've been getting all the free
money available from the government.
And Puerto Rico is a US territory.
And we can request for
every grant available in healthcare, tech.
And we have many,
many verticals that we can go and
classify the company in many,
many ways, because of the technology.
We process clinical data for patients
in Puerto Rico, and now in the States.
And we manage provider networks, with
that I mean hospitals, private practice.
And I can tell you that in our case
studies, why we got the investment,
was when we proved to the investors that
33% of your lab results
goes to the wrong person.
Yes.
>> Mm-hm.
>> And we were like, my God,
how are we going to implement
our technology if the results
are going to the wrong person?
That doesn't make sense.
>> Mm-hm.
>> And that's how we stopped
the whole development, and
we spoke with a few mentors, as always.
And we decided to change
the development timeline.
And we decided to go as an identity
value data technology to start,
because we had to go back to the basics.
So, we had to fix the insurance
companies issues, the pharmas issues,
because they don't have access,
they don't have this visualization of what
is going on out there with the patients
who are using their drugs.
And then we said, okay, we have
everything to manage members, patients.
Then we present,
we pitched to a few investor, they said,
that's great,
we got 562 from our angel investor.
He believed in what we were doing.
I almost died because of a bad experience,
because of lack of data, I had a sepsis.
So, I promised that I was going to die.
But I had to fix this problem,
because I lived that,
I said goodbye to my whole family.
My weight was 81 pounds,
I lost my hair, and I almost died.
So, that means that I know the answers
that I have to ask, imagine someone,
a patient that they don't
know what to ask to a doctor.
Then, we went to insurance companies
with all these amazing solutions for
the solicitation of clinical data for
some specific market that they
need to learn about them.
And then they said, good, let's upload
into our technology of the providers.
My God, when we did, that was worst.
>> Yeah?
>> So, more than 51% of the providers
that are treating patients
are the wrong providers.
>> Don't they have documents?
>> No documents up to date,
no credentials up to date, no nothing.
You have generallies treating a diabetic,
a chronic diabetic,
or someone with HIV or
hepatitis C, disaster.
And the way that they classify that is,
there is no way that you can track
the provider that is treating
that patient, a whole disaster.
So, we went back to another
set of mentors, and
they said, chicas,
chicas is like girls, because,
I don't know why they call us like that,
they like it.
You have another problem,
because you need to fix,
apparently you have to do the same for
the patients.
>> So
you're running out of money at this point?
>> Yes, of course, we were negative.
But we didn't miss a payroll either,
because I found my angel investor,
he believed in what we were doing.
>> So, one angel investor.
>> Yes, one, yes.
>> Yes.
>> And he told me, I believe in this,
your vision, because you
are leaving everything you have because
of this, with a family, a good salary.
And he said, just tell me what
do you need and come here every
15 days for your payroll,
and I will give the money.
>> At what point did you move beyond
the angel investor's funding?
>> Six months.
>> Okay.
>> And, he kept us alive for six months.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah, and
we fixed the issue with the providers.
We had a great team of engineers, my
partner and I were not engineers at all.
And so, but we hired, we did the same-
>> Did your angel investor ever say,
you've gotta find another
investor at this point?
>> Yes.
>> Yes.
>> He said, I cannot,
I'm just an angel investor.
>> At some point, right, yes [LAUGH].
>> Yeah.
>> Or the bank.
>> And you found the other investors?
>> If you had a personal bank, yes.
>> You found the other
investors just in time?
>> Yes, but he said, I have a good friend
that he almost died because of another
dramatic situation, and
I am sure that he will be interested.
He has a 500 million equity firm,
private equity?
>> Yeah.
>> And I pitched him, and
he said the same, I almost died because of
something similar to what happened to you.
Good, do you want to give us money?
We need one million-
>> [LAUGH]
>> You made it-
>> Yeah, so-
>> You made it personal.
And was that the $3 million round?
>> No, that's $1.5 million round.
>> Okay.
>> Then, the government was in that moment
sponsoring us like their poster shell
company.
We went to Accelerator we went to South
by Southwest, we had a ton of red media.
And when we went back to Puerto Rico,
we were in all the newspapers,
media everywhere.
But they were not giving us money.
Hey, if you want us to be your
poster child you need to.
>> [LAUGH]
>> And we applied for everything.
Hey, we got 565.
>> That's it, that's-
>> So we close $1.5 round.
We fixed the issues with the providers.
But we didn't have money still
to pay $100,000 to engineers.
>> Yeah.
>> Because we compete with Silicon Valley
here.
>> Yeah, so
are you cash flow-positive now, or?
>> I will be next month.
>> Wow, wow.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> That is an amazing event.
And so, I think, Oscar,
you were cashflow positive with liquidity
challenges, but the whole time.
Is that right?
>> Right, right.
>> And so, Martha, what's your story?
>> Scary.
>> [LAUGH]
>> I'll tell you what's scary, though,
we all should be scared.
The real reason I started was traveling
the world and watching farmers go away.
We're losing farmers by the truckloads.
>> Yeah.
>> Not because of China issue.
It's just the business
model is not proper.
>> Yeah.
>> I tell people,
if you want to buy a potato or
tomato, you want to see it,
you want to touch it.
Same thing as in the industry.
You send that truckload,
and it has a price, but
it doesn't get finished until it
delivers into the distribution center.
>> Yeah.
>> So if it doesn't get delivered, or
gets rejected, it gets in a storm,
whatever it is, that farmer has to pay the
truck, the boxes, the cooling, everything.
So instead of making money, they end
up with a five to 10 to $15,000 bill.
>> Yeah.
>> So the old generations
used to work like this.
I mean, the baby boomers.
But the young generations are saying
this is not a good business model.
>> Tell us a little bit about the capital
raise, we don't have that much time.
>> So hear me there.
So what happened is that watching
all these farmers going away,
today's data is that we have
five million workers in Mexico
feeding 190 habitants in Mexico.
So you see that this balance,
that these are the people feeding us.
In United States, the same thing.
So when I saw,
traveling the world and seen that,
I said we need to do something about it.
And remember,
I was doing the business model.
And when I came here,
I say how do we not only raise our
from 8% to more percentage of growth?
But also, how do we help the industry?
>> Yeah.
>> And so, has a mission behind it and
we will say it's about the farmer.
But who makes the decisions
are the retailer buyers,
the food service industry buyers.
>> Yes.
>> And if they don't make the right
decision, it triggers down to the farmer.
So what we did is I found my angel
investors, women, that believe
in the social impact more
than the business side of it.
And so, between Jan and Marcella and
Betty, the three Latinas,
they understand that they're
supporting me, they're backing me up.
Because they understand that there's
a bigger mission than just the business
side of it.
>> And have you moved beyond
the angel investors, or is that-
>> We are finishing the angel investor,
we're still raising angel investment.
But I have to tell you that
when you talk about mentors,
mentors come in many shapes and
forms, right?
Mentors are also inside corporate America.
>> Yep.
>> And I have found amazing
mentors in that guide us.
>> Or even,
I'll give you an example of two days ago,
I called one of my bigger buyers
of one of the bigger retailers.
Because one of our angel investors want
to talk about a business model, and
she said yes, tell them to call me and
I'll tell them why your product is good.
>> Yes.
>> So that's an angel investor for us.
It's an angel mentor in
a different situation.
Even our buyers are my mentors
in some shape or form.
>> So in the one minute that we've
got left, a lightening round.
I know we didn't talk about this,
but just one bit of advice,
your top tip to everyone in the audience.
I'll start with you, Ryan.
>> Yeah, I mean it's literally
give yourself permission.
No one else will, right?
>> Yep.
>> So when you start a business, there's
many reasons why you should never start
a business, lots and lots of,
rational people don't start businesses.
>> [LAUGH]
>> But
you should still give yourself permission.
>> I love that one.
Oscar?
>> Just be relentless with it and
have a passion for what you do, and
never give up.
Always have that power to get up
in the morning and keep going.
>> Martha?
>> For me, it's the team.
Bring team members that
believe in the cost.
Because every single day you're
going to wake up with them.
And for them, but with them.
And when you say payroll and all that,
it's them who are going
to be part of that.
>> Dale Murray?
>> Yeah.
Yeah, so in my case,
I think that you need to be unstoppable.
Unstoppable, and and use all that
negativity on your favor and take it and
make it positive.
And and just let them talk, and
tell them we'll talk later.
And again, there's an investor for
every stage.
So you need to be with engaged investors
that really believe in what we're doing.
Not just take that money.
>> So amazing that we've got six
different business models, but
a unifying theme in this advice.
And I'll summarize it with the best
advice I ever got from my mother,
similar to what you said.
There's all the naysayers out there.
[FOREIGN].
And my mom would always say [FOREIGN].
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> Thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> Thank you.
>> Thanky you.
>> [APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC]
