Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - How She Scaled Howdy From $400 Left to $50M in Recurring Revenue | Entrepreneurship | How We Profit | E11
Episode Date: September 23, 2026When Jacqueline Samira started her business, she recognized a massive market inefficiency: U.S. tech companies were struggling to source and retain experienced talent, while skilled professionals acro...ss Latin America were being overlooked. She built Howdy to bridge that gap and help companies build dedicated international teams. In this episode, Jacqueline shares how she built Howdy into a $50 million recurring-revenue business, survived a near-collapse during COVID, and scaled the company through strong retention, smart funding, and a simple staffing model. In this episode, Hala and Jacqueline will discuss: (01:36) Howdy’s Core Financial Model (05:20) Revenue, Payroll, and Cash Flow (10:25) Starting Howdy and Surviving COVID (21:15) Raising Capital After $3 Million ARR (31:10) Ideal Customers and High-Touch Marketing (40:08) Retention, Referrals, and Customer Expansion (43:24) Why Psychologists Recruit Howdy Talent (50:57) Expanding Howdy Across Latin America (54:33) How AI Is Reshaping Hiring (57:34) How to Copy This Business Model Jacqueline Samira is the founder and CEO of Howdy.com, an Austin-based company that helps U.S. tech companies hire and manage teams across Latin America. Before founding Howdy in 2018, she built her career in sales and operations, including leadership roles at Y Combinator-backed technology companies. Howdy joined Y Combinator’s Winter 2021 batch and has appeared on the Inc. 5000 in 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026. Jacqueline was also named to Inc.’s 2026 Female Founders 500 for leading Howdy’s expansion into Mexico and Peru and establishing a branded office in Guadalajara. Sponsored By: Indeed - Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/profiting Shopify - Start your $1/month trial at Shopify.com/profiting. Northwest Registered Agent - Get a complete business identity with Northwest. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/YAPFree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Mindstone - Master practical AI skills without the complexity with Mindstone’s AI Competency Programme. Head to experience.mindstone.com/yap and get 10% off. AT&T Business - Stay connected with reliable, secure internet built for entrepreneurs. Switch to AT&T Business at business.att.com. HoneyLove - Treat yourself to the most advanced bras and shapewear on the market. Save 20% off Honeylove by going to honeylove.com/PROFITING! #honeylovepod Freshbooks - Manage all your business finances in one place. Right now, my listeners can get FreshBooks for less than $3 a month for your first four months — that's 90% off. Head to FreshBooks.com/podcast to get started. Walmart Marketplace - Reach millions of active online shoppers and get ready for holiday demand. Apply to sell today at marketplace.walmart.com/yap. AG1 - Get a daily health drink that helps maintain energy, support gut health, and support immune health, all in one simple scoop. And for a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at DRINKAG1.com/PROFITING. Resources Mentioned Jacqueline’s Company, Howdy: howdy.com/experts/jacqueline-samira Jacqueline’s Website: jacquelinesamira.com Jacqueline’s Instagram: instagram.com/jac_samira Jacqueline’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacquelinesamira Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap YouTube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Newsletter - youngandprofiting.co/newsletter LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Podcast, Business, Business Podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Starting a Business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side Hustle, Startup, Mental Health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth Mindset, Passive Income, Online Business, Solopreneur, Networking
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People were just like leapfrogging from like job to job to job to job.
And I was like, this is so insane.
Like this is such like a dumb problem.
for startups to have.
I mean, imagine you raised $2 million and you can't hire people.
How is that possible?
So I was like, this is a dumb problem to have.
There's smart people all over the world.
Why isn't there a solution?
And there was.
There was tons of solutions, but it was overseas.
Jacqueline Samira is the founder of Howdy,
a company helping US businesses build teams across Latin America.
Today we're breaking down how Howdy actually makes money,
what global talent really costs.
We have a 15% margin on everything we do.
How much money did you end up raising in total?
We raised $21 million.
Looking back, do you feel like you raise too much money?
I would say if you have the ability to not fundraise, it's always better because one of the things that I see you do is billboards, which is really unique.
The billboards are like $1,000 dollars a month.
Oh, wow.
For one.
Really?
That expensive?
We were thinking if we could create this unique algorithm.
This company is going to have this type of grading based on the type of employees that they want.
and then people are going to have this grading based on like the type of employee there.
And we both realize we're like, well, you're not an ML expert and I'm not like a psychologist.
So our very first recruiter we hired was actually a psychologist.
Because especially when you go through the vetting process, you are clearly smart.
You clearly know what you're talking about.
So failure only happens when there's a...
Jacqueline, welcome to Howie Profit.
Hi.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
Me too.
I was seriously looking forward to this conversation.
So we're actually friends.
We're in an entrepreneurship peer group.
You're somebody who I really look up to.
You're one of the smartest women that I know.
And when I started this series, I told you about it right away
because I was like, you need to be on how we profit.
Because, yeah, bam, she is such a badass.
She has grown a company to $30 million in annual rent, probably more now.
$50 million in ARR.
Like, oh my God.
Like, that is absolutely incredible.
incredible. And so the company is called Howdy. You're like kind of famous in Austin. Everybody knows
you in Austin. But for those of us all around the world, tuning in. What is Howdy exactly?
So we are a company that builds software development teams in Latin America. So we have 11 offices
throughout Latin America from Mexico all the way down to Argentina. And we like to think of them as
co-working spaces where we build teams for U.S. tech companies. Really cool. So an enterprise company
contacts you because they want like more IT folks on their team.
You stand up like a literal team for them in Latin America.
Yes.
So we stand up.
It can be as small as a small startup saying I need one person to a big enterprise company
that's like I need a team of 50 or I need a team of 100 and we can service them in any
of the locations that we're at or we can even open up a new location depending on the size
and volume.
Very cool.
So would you consider your company like a recruit?
company or a workforce management company? Like, what do you consider it? I consider us full stack.
We do everything. So to some people, we are recruiting. We're office space. We're logistics.
We're HR. We do it all end to end. A lot of times that when people come to us, they have a problem with one of the things. So they have a problem. Maybe they set up an office in Columbia, but they can't find the talent that they thought that they could get. Or maybe they just don't even know where to start. So we are a one-stop shop for every.
and how we help people. It just depends on usually what their pain point is. Okay. So I know you're so
smart. So you're probably like you've got different product offerings in your business. So like walk us
through that in the easiest way that you can. Like what are the different offers that you have?
Actually, funny enough, we don't have different offerings. We have one main offering. Okay. And we designed it
so people can hire one person all the way up to thousands of people. And so the way that we have built. And so the way that we have
built it is we make it so that every one person has like a built-in cost. So think about it like,
you come to me and you say, I want to build a social media team or I want to build a software
development team because I've got this idea for this great app. And so we would sit and work with
you and say, okay, so probably need this type of person, this type of person, this type of person.
And then when we present you a person, we'll show you they're all in cost.
Okay. So I'm just going to do round numbers here for it. Let's just say it's a hundred
thousand dollars. Now, the amount of money that that person gets is usually roughly around 60%. Yeah. And then
about 25% of the 100,000, so let's just say 25,000 goes to supporting the individual. And then 15,000 goes
to Howdy, like specifically. Got it. And then that scales up and it scales down. So if you only need
one person, we'll put them in a co-working space and part of that co-working space is they get a
dust, they get equipment. If you want a big office build out, well, it's like, okay, we'll frontload the
cost ourselves, but we are anticipating making a certain amount of money over a certain period of
time. So that's it. And that's like the all in, everybody gets the same type of thing.
So whether it's one employee or like a full scale team. Yeah. That's really cool. And so you were just
kind of talking about the way that you make money on the deal. Go deep on that. Like how do you
actually make money at Howdy? So my background, taking it a couple steps back, has always been in sales.
And for me, one thing that I always felt I didn't align with companies on was if they did these like long term contracts.
Yeah.
With companies.
And so the sale would be very aggressive and it would basically to get them to the point where you're handcuffed into an agreement.
There's big enterprise companies that people sign up with all the time.
I'm thinking of Salesforce like off the top of my head.
And it's like you're locked into a two year agreement or a three year agreement.
And it's like you get six months into it or 12 months into it.
If it's not working for you, you're stuck.
and that sucks. And like, there's no onus on the company to make sure that they're still delivering
exceptionally well. So what I wanted to do was make it so it was easy in, easy out. If they wanted,
there was no front load, like there was no cost to start recruiting. There was no cost to sourcing.
There was no cost for you, if you were hiring with me. But my goal was whoever you hire,
you're going to love them. And then we are going to support you in the background so much so
that you never say, you know what, Jacqueline, we love that. We love that.
person that you found for me, but we no longer want to work with you anymore. Like, we need to be able
to provide so much value to you that you think of us. Don't cut you out. Yeah, they don't want to cut us out.
And so I designed it like that. And we started very small with the idea that, like, we had to earn your
business every single day. Yes. And continue to earn your money every single day. So how we actually
make money is, yes, like, if you look at the, if you look at the scale of things, we always tell people
up front, it's 15% to us. Yeah. Like, we have a 15% margin on every single. So, you know, like, we have a 15% margin on
everything we do. And if you are not happy with the value we provide and everything else,
then, like, you don't have to work with us. Now, of course, there's other things we do in the
background. So 25% goes towards the individual. And of course, there's economy of scales.
If we build out a big office, maybe there's health insurance discounts we can get once we hit
100 people. Or there's equipment perks or laptop perks, like buying brand new MacBook pros in
South America is 50% more expensive than in the United States because of all the import taxes.
But there are some vendors that will cut us a deal and they'll help pay us for some of those
import taxes. Like they'll carry the burden if we have a certain volume with them.
Nice. And so our business ends up making if we do it right and if we scale at an appropriate
size. But that's, you know, some of the levers we're looking on in the background too.
Oh my gosh. There's so much to dig into. There's so much. Okay. So let's talk about how much
money you're making. Break down how much money you're making a month and how much revenue is actually
going to pay all the workers that you source for companies and like what that means logistically.
Do you pay them first? Do you get paid first? Like how does that all work cash flow wise?
So cash flow wise, we charge people. We charge our customers every Friday for the work done in arrears for that
week. So it's a weekly payment that they pay us, and we did that in the beginning to help with
cash flow. So the idea is like if we get paid on Friday, hopefully it enters our bank account
Tuesday. And depending on the country, most people in that America get paid on the first of the
month of every month. So it's just once a month payment. It's cultural down there. We explored in the early
days, do you want to do bi-monthly? Do you want to do weekly? Do you even want to do daily? Because
there were some payroll providers here in the United States that had this concept of, hey, earn your,
paycheck every day. And so I thought that might be a unique differentiator for us down there in the
market is to do some sort of different things with payroll. But it turns out in a lot of places we
operate, people like to get all of their money on their first, pay their rent, pay their bills,
and then everything left is what they would consider their spending money. Okay. And so that's how it
works for them as far as like the money that we get from customers. Usually we're in a place where
our working capital swing is something where we raised a lot of venture capital. So we have enough in
the bank to always pay people and we're just constantly making sure that our accounts receivables
is paid on time. Luckily, we have a payment by credit card option. And even though we take a 3%
hit by doing that, it's okay. Like we would rather take the 3% hit. We would rather take the 3%
hit but make sure we get guaranteed payment than doing any kind of net terms. The only time we agree
to net terms is if it is a publicly traded company and it is just one of their like, hey,
if you're working with us, you have to agree to this. Yeah. And in those scenarios, they'll be more
flexible by putting down a deposit. So if they ever miss it, then we can pull from the deposit.
Got it. And net terms for those who don't know is basically saying like they have 30 days to pay
you once you send an invoice or something like. Exactly. And so in those scenarios too, we might even
pre-bill them for the like on the first of the month so that we get paid by the 30th.
Yes, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, very interesting stuff. Let's go back to actually how
this all started. So you started the company in 2018. You had a really great sales background.
Did you have IT experience? Like, why did you start with IT teams? That's a great question.
So, no, I wouldn't say I have direct tech experience whatsoever. My mom's a computer engineer.
and my uncle owned a computer store.
So I would say that I had a strong affinity for technology
and I knew a lot about it.
And I was raised with it.
I was very comfortable with computers,
but I just didn't ever have the passion.
I was going to go into investment in banking.
I graduated university in 2008.
And so that all imploded.
And I decided to just get a job in sales
while the markets were recovering
and then I was going to go back into banking.
And I ended up really liking sales
because I realized,
especially enterprise level sales, they have these complex problems, and selling was really just
providing a solution for them based on what you had. And so it felt like it was a puzzle that I had
to put together. It felt like fun game theory, if I do this and they do this and they do this.
And so I ended up staying in that. And I ended up in Austin, Texas. And in Austin, this was
2011, there was this emerging tech scene happening. And I thought, I was like, you know what,
that's cool. I can, like, marry my experience with sales, with my affinity and relationship with
technology, and start leading sales at tech companies in Austin. So a couple years later, I joined
a mid-size tech company, and I was leading their sales team. And when I was in it, I went from
that company to another smaller startup. I started to notice a trend.
And that trend was that the teams were really bifurcated in this like people that were super grateful for the job, super grateful for the perks.
And then people that like they could just leapfrog to new opportunities because so much capital was coming to the city, so much money was coming to the city.
And there was just like infinite demand for senior software developers.
And especially like the dedicated senior software developers on the team, like you would have some that all of the work would fall on their plate because other.
people were like, oh, I'm going to leave at three or I'm going to go and find another job or,
you know what, like, I didn't get a big enough raise this year, so I'm just going to go take this
other opportunity. And so it's like it was hard for startups to keep long-term technical
talent because of how much money was coming in and how many opportunities were coming in. People
were just like leapfrogging from like job to job to job to job. And I was like, this is so insane.
Like this is such like a dumb problem for startups to have.
I mean, imagine you raise $2 million and you can't hire people.
Like, so ridiculous.
How is that possible?
Yeah.
So I was like, this is a dumb problem to have.
There's smart people all over the world.
Like, why isn't there a solution?
And there was.
There was tons of solutions.
But it was overseas.
It was in India.
It was in Asia.
It was in the Middle East.
It was in Eastern Europe.
I mean, it was literally everywhere.
But in our time zone at the time, this was 2017, 2018.
So Latin America.
international hires, although it's like pretty popular now, back then it wasn't very popular.
Back then it was not very popular. And if it was popular, it was more on like the freelancer
marketplace. It was like, oh, I've got a guy that I found on Upwork or I got a guy that I found on
TopTal. But tech companies needed teams and they needed dedicated members of their product team that
wanted to not be like a mercenary. Freelancers had this more like mercenary, like I'll come in,
I'll do this thing and I'll leave or I'll keep doing it for you. But like I'm my own
person. And so I was like, surely there's got to be like a whole, this is like a missed opportunity
that we're not, we're not looking into. So that's when I jumped into it and just started.
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It's amazing because that sales background gave you the ability to like understand
how to create offers, I'm sure,
because you saw how other tech companies were kind of packaging their offers
and presenting their offers.
to potential clients, and you were able to kind of see the problem. So you co-founded Howdy with somebody
in 2018. Actually, so I technically, I started it myself. Okay. I have a co-founder who I was
trying to bring on board with me in 2018, and we did ideate it together and we innovated the idea
together, but he didn't join me for a year because he was actually, the company he was working
at was getting ready to go public. And so he wanted to kind of follow that journey. You got your
co-founder a little later once you were a little less risky. Now, you did have a little bit of a
rock bottom moment. You were nine months pregnant. You had $400 left. You had invested everything into
howdy and you were basically running on your last dollar. Tell us about that time and how you got there.
Oh my gosh. That was so hard. So, okay, this was 2020. We were doing pretty good. We had not raised any
money, we were bootstrapped. I had saved $150,000 from my previous sales career. I was 32 at the time,
and 100% of that money went into the business. And we were growing steadily, but it was February
of 2020, and we had just gotten a couple like really big, let's just call them orders, right? It was
like to build a team. Yeah. And my co-founder and I, we were so excited. We weren't paying ourselves
really anything yet. I was living off of that 150,000, it was also my savings account, so it was
living off of it a little bit too. And so we got these couple orders in. I was like, yes, this is
going to be awesome. Like, I'll finally be able to start, like maybe taking a little bit of a paycheck.
And then COVID happened in March. And everything went, like everything was put on pause.
And so all of those like orders for the teams basically just disappeared. And then the,
the few people we did have at the time, the companies that were employing them basically told us,
like, hey, we might need to pause operations.
Oh, man.
We don't know what's going to happen.
And so not only did we not get the orders, we also had, like, existing.
And so that was like, it all went away.
Like, all the money went away.
Everything went to, like, keeping this business afloat.
And it was May 3rd when I had my son.
But I remember, oh, God, I want to, like,
cry thinking about this. So I had a baby shower planned for the end of March that got canceled.
Oh, no. And I was like, they were like, oh, you know, because we were thinking things were going
to reopen back up. And it didn't. And they're like, oh, maybe we'll do it later. We'll do it after
the birthday. I called one of my friends and I called my mom. And I was like, I really hate to be this
person and I'm so embarrassed. But I like really need those baby shower gifts. Like I don't have
anything for the baby. And I don't have any money to buy anything for the baby.
like, can you please just like tell everybody that was going to come if they could still send
the gifts? I would be super grateful for that. And so it was like a very like embarrassing like ass,
but like of course my friends showed up and like everything was, uh, happened and then I had my son.
And then fast forward to June, then it was like it was like the lowest low. And then going into June,
everything, I think people realize like we're not going back to the office.
We're locked down.
We've been doing this remote work for three months.
It hasn't hurt us.
Our business hasn't imploded.
Maybe remotes where it's at.
And then it was almost as if, like, everybody that paused their business, everybody
that paused their orders came back with like a vengeance.
And we like, it was crazy.
June, we started to like just take off.
I'm so proud of you and that you were able to stick it through that really hard
moment.
People don't realize like when you're an entrepreneur, a lot of people work for
entrepreneurs, right?
And they don't realize like how much risk the owner took to create that business.
Like you put all your money in the company.
I did the same thing with Yap Media.
I paid myself $60,000 for many years.
I actually am buying an office and I had to look at my like, I had to send tax returns
for 2023, 2024.
And you can even forget as an entrepreneur how little you made, right?
In 2023, I reported like $100,000 personally.
And then the next year was like 900,000.
It got so much.
It's like if you just, you just like wait a little longer, you know, it just skyrocketed.
So it's it's just so like it probably feels so good to just look back and be like, man,
I'm so glad that even when it was so hard, I did not throw in the towel.
Oh my gosh.
It was, yes, 100%.
I think being pregnant, being nine months pregnant helped me not throw in the towel because
I'm like, who's going to hire me?
I'm about to go on maternity leave.
Yeah.
Like quitting wasn't an option because I didn't even know where I would go at that point.
And so I was like, well, I didn't even consider the option of throwing in the towel until like maybe it would have been like three months post postpartum.
Well, thank God you didn't throw in this towel and look at you now.
How much is your company valued at?
A hundred and how much million?
Yeah.
I don't even know.
Like a hundred and something million?
I don't even know.
I mean, does anyone want to pay for that?
No, I'm choosing.
I think I would say like 150 easily.
That's 3x revenue, which is a very, very modest valuation.
That's absolutely incredible.
So you ended up raising VC money.
Yeah.
But that was after you were already like $3 million A.R.
So why did you decide to raise that VC capital?
Was it so you could have money to pay the employees?
Yeah, it was the, we were, so we were at a place in our business where the working
capital swings were starting to get scary.
And so we thought we're like, do we take a little bit of money?
Do we take venture?
What do we do?
And so my co-founder and I were like, you know, I feel like there's a really big play here
that we could just go big with this company.
But we kind of let fake decide for us.
So we applied to Y Combinator.
We had applied to Y Combinator the year before we didn't get an interview.
And we're like, you know what, let's just do one last application and see how it goes.
And if we get in, then we'll go down the venture rat.
out. And if not, we'll continue to make it a lifestyle business and we'll just be, we'll just
try and save up more and more money as much as possible or not, or intentionally not grow as fast.
And so we applied to YC. We got an interview. We got in. And so that, that decision chose that
that life for us. Yeah. It's so funny, I don't really know much about YC. So it's like, what does it
stand for a Y Combinator? Why Combinator. Okay, what is the benefit of being in that?
Oh, man. Mostly fundraiser.
Okay. Mostly fundraising. So they have created such a beast, a machine. So they're a venture firm. They
kind of rewrote the rules for tech companies way back when Paul Graham and Jessica, his wife,
started it. I'll try and give like the simplest way to describe it. They make such good bets on
companies that they are the best performing venture capital firm because people think of them as an
accelerator. They're a venture capital firm.
They are 5x better than the next best one you can think of.
And Paul Graham calls it Black Swan Farm, Black Swan Farming,
where he'll bet on 10 companies or 100 companies,
assuming one of them are going to be the anthropic of that batch
and just be worth billions and billions of dollars.
And they've gotten so good at identifying the companies
that so many businesses, so many investors,
just invest in every single way C company.
So just by going through the program,
going through the accelerator, being accepted,
and then, of course, they teach you,
they teach you how to market,
they teach you how to go to market,
they teach you, they know what is like,
they have their finger on the pulse
of how consumers and how investors
and how everybody's thinking,
that even going through the process,
you learn so much,
but at the end of it,
they have this pressure cooker
where they have this thing called demo day.
And you're basically put in front of 4,000-plus investors,
and then those investors get to have
the opportunity to invest in you. So at the end of YC, at the end of our three months, I had 93
investor meetings. Wow. Which is crazy. Yeah. I never would have had anything like that if I didn't
go through. I mean, I was trying to get investor meetings prior to getting into YC. No one wanted to talk
to me. The moment people even heard I got in, then all of a sudden, like, my email was blowing up.
So you just, so like there was some sort of application and interview process to get into YC?
Yeah, so they have an application form. It actually hasn't changed. I don't think. I don't think it's
change and you go through and ask you a bunch of different questions. It's actually a really
great exercise. Like if you want to get very clear on your business, do the YC application. You don't
have to submit it, but it like really gives you clarity on your message, your market, what you're
trying to do. And then there's a video, a demo video that you have to do. Very cool. Very cool.
So how much equity did you give up? It's the same deal for everyone. So it's 7%. Oh, that's not bad at
all. That's the only amount of money that and you, how many you got? Oh, I had,
No, for YC.
Just from YC.
Just for, so you give up 7% for YC.
They give you, I think our deal was 125,000 or maybe it's 150,000.
But how much money did you end up raising in total?
We raised 21 million.
Okay.
So we did $2.9 million out of YC.
And then a year later, we did another $18 million.
And so how much equity do you own now?
So I have roughly 35% of the company.
And my co-founder has like 23%.
Okay.
So we started 6040.
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Looking back, do you feel like you raise too much money? Are you,
happy with the money that you raised? Do you have advice to people tuning in in terms of when they
should raise money and when they shouldn't? I'm happy. Like, I don't regret anything that we did.
And we still have nine million bucks in the bank, which is what helps us, like, as we grow,
if we want to make, like, big bets or big investments. We are now cash flow positive.
We were cash flow positive before YC, and then we took all this money and we invested it a lot.
And then now we're just back on the other side of being cash flow positive. Now, do I
regret doing it. The thing is when you raise money, easy and easy go, like easy out. You
make bets, you make investments, you do things, you hire people. And I think you make decisions
that a non-venture-backed business would make that sometimes work, but most of the time they
don't work. So I would say if you have the ability to not fundraise, it's always better because
you just make better business decisions.
Yeah.
And especially in this day and age, like, people are raising a bunch of money so they could do a thing
and so they can sell.
We were never of this mindset of like, let's raise a bunch of money, do a thing, and then sell.
We were like, we're in this for the long run.
Like, these are people we're talking about.
These are families we're talking about.
But we wanted to make a really big business.
We want our business to be like a ta-ta or like an accenture.
Like, that's what we see.
And so I think we were lucky that.
we got venture capitalists that are very, they're in it for the long run.
Most VCs have this like seven year, five year time clock.
And they're like money in, money out.
And so we were very fortunate that we got the right kind of investors for us.
And that's a big, I would say that that's more important than whether you should raise or not
raise.
It's like who you have on your cap table makes all the difference.
Yeah, because they also give you good guidance.
Do you feel like you get good guidance from your board?
I feel like it's such a treat.
Everyone I hear that talk about board meetings, they're like, oh, I've got to go to a board meeting or oh, I've got to like do this thing with the board meeting.
I'm like, yes, I get to go to a board meeting because I'm going to go and talk to these like really smart people that have so much access, understanding knowledge, and I'm going to present them all of our wins but all of our problems.
And then they're going to help us think through it.
Yeah, and they have incentive.
And they have incentive.
And we're all aligned on that incentive.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
I feel like one of the reasons why I may want to raise money.
I've never raised money.
And I've even talked to you about it, and I feel like you're like, you don't need to raise
money.
Don't raise anybody.
But the board, to me, sounds so great.
Like having experienced people who I think the people that would invest in my company would
likely be people who are from the industry helping me.
So one thing that's great about a board is that it does exactly that.
Now, where it is bad is like the board is now all of a sudden your boss.
Yeah.
I don't really want a boss.
I know.
So there's also that.
there's, you know, depending on how you set it up, obviously, like, you have a lot of smart
people in your life that would make it so that it would be very hard for the board to fire you,
but, you know, a board does fire the CEO.
And there's other ways to get capital.
Like, you can just get a line of credit.
Yes, exactly.
You don't have to get an investor.
Yeah.
Okay.
So you raised money.
Let's talk about your customer.
Who's like your ideal customer?
Oh, my ideal customer.
I love them so much.
They tend to be growth, stage, or bigger tech companies.
with a senior technical leader who has been around the block.
Okay.
So they've been a leader for 10, 20 years.
They know how they're, it's just they have this like knowledge and confidence of what they're
looking for and what they know.
So they really see the value that we provide.
And then when they are interviewing the teammates and when they're interviewing the people,
it's just there's so much clarity.
And so we love them.
And they usually come with more of a team-based approach.
They'll say we want to, we need to build.
like this team of three or this or that. Now, of course, they can always come and say, like,
we just want one person to see how you do there. Yeah. But they, they just have a lot of experience
and with that comes wisdom and that really works well for us. And how are you typically finding that
client? Like, what are the ways, one of the things that I see you do is billboards, which is really
unique. What the billboards have done for us is they have elevated our brand in a way that, like,
We're huge. We have 11 offices. We have, you know, over 600 people, but people don't know we exist. And
when we started doing the billboards, they started to realize like, oh, wait, you guys are big.
You guys are capable because what would kill me is I would go on a sales call and it would be a
company that would be a perfect customer. Yeah. And they're like, yeah, but we need to go with someone
with a little bit more like experience or we need to go with someone with a little bit bigger.
and they would name a company, and I'm just like, gosh, I know their talent is not there.
And so that would kill me.
And so one of the things that me and my head of marketing were talking was like,
how do we build up our brand so that people don't question our size and our capabilities?
And one of them was billboards.
And then the other thing is like you see billboards all the time.
And it just is noise.
It's just noise that you bypass.
And so we just thought, well, we don't need to sell our message.
We've got a great domain, howdy.com.
we just need people to go to the domain and see what we do.
Yeah.
And so we're like, how do we get people to go to the domain by looking at our billboard?
Well, let's have fun with the billboards.
Let's like put jokes or like do something that's a little bit shocking so that people would be like, what does this company even do?
It's so smart.
And I'm guessing you do it in cities that are like tech hubs.
Yes.
So right now, our main focus is Austin because we're in Austin.
We are going to do a big billboard play in San Francisco.
But I mean, holla.
The billboards are like $90,000 a month.
Oh, wow.
For one.
Really?
That expensive?
Think about it.
So every single tech company is kind of hyper-focused in the Bay Area.
Yeah.
And then all the people that, so if you're servicing a tech company, you want to advertise
to tech company.
So they're all right there.
And then 200.
So YC, just to go back to the YC example.
Yeah.
They accept 250 companies roughly.
They don't have like a number that they do, but it's roughly 200 to 300 to 300.
companies every batch. They do a batch every quarter. So every quarter, there's 200 to 300
companies that are getting $500,000. So it's like, and then they're getting all the other
investor money, right? So there's just so much capital flowing. And then they're all competing for
these like billboards or trying to like, you know, hey, we exist and we do this thing. Yeah.
So it is a hard market to market in. It's a hard market to market in. But the billboards,
in my opinion, is like genius, especially if you can put the billboards exactly,
where your target audience is because then you just seem bigger than you are. I have a great example
of kind of marketing to like a very niche audience as well. So for me with my podcast network,
I'm looking for like the biggest podcasters in the world. So what I did is I created a,
I think I told you about this in our peer group, but I basically created this like newsletter
that would only go out to the top 1,000 podcasters in the world and I scraped their emails and I sent
them and opt in. And I was like, hey, like, do you want to get, like, industry knowledge from me?
Like, I want a podcast network. People kind of know who I am in this industry, too. And it's like,
I'm not going to publish it publicly. You'll only get it if you opt in. Yeah. And then people would
opt in to, like, my pod flash newsletter. And I would just, like, tell them how to monetize,
like all those gross secrets that I had. And then I'd have people like Alex Tramosey and Ed Milette
opening up my email 10 times, you know? So I feel like any way that you can make yourself just seem
bigger by directly getting in people's email, like being on the billboard is just so powerful.
Totally.
How else are you marketing and getting clients?
So traditional outbound.
That's another way.
I would say our biggest growth hack in the beginning was word of mouth.
Yeah.
It's not anything that we did that we could do.
It was just if we did a good job, our customers liked us, they told other people.
So like one tech founder was like, oh, I've built this great team with this company,
Howdy, told another, told another, told another.
and that's how we grew so quickly, was inbound.
Once we started to want to invest more on top of it, we did do meta.
We tried to do meta.
It was horrible.
Yeah.
Like, I make this joke that I would have done a better job if I would have just taken $80,000
because that's how much we were paying on these, like, digital platforms, put it in a warehouse,
light it on fire, film it, put it on YouTube, and then market that.
Like, that, I think would have done better than our stupid.
Yeah, ads are really tough.
They're so, especially for our business.
Like, we, we, yeah.
So that was not good.
So we started doing like hyper-targeted campaigns.
So the first thing we started to do was events.
We got a suite at the Moody Center in Austin, and we started targeting our ideal buyers
and offering them tickets to our suite.
And then some people would take us up on it.
And when they would come, we purposely and intentionally did not do business.
We would just say, hey, we're just here to host you.
We want to just like make sure you guys have a good time.
And then of course,
So smart.
Psychology.
Like people are like, wait, but like, I should probably at least hear you guys out.
And so a lot of people would then give us the opportunity.
Our whole thing is we just want people to hear what we have to do.
If you can just hear, give us two minutes for us to explain what we do.
If you're interested, great.
If not, it's not, we don't need to sell you on anything.
Either you want to work with us or you don't.
Yeah.
And the Moody Center, if you guys don't know, like it's a place where in Austin there's, like,
concerts and things like that.
So you've got a private suite.
Yes.
That's like kind of like everybody wants to be in one of those sweets in Austin and you host them and wine and dine them.
It's so hard.
I mean, it's so hard to turn down.
Like imagine Tim McGraw is coming up, right?
Yeah.
Big time guy.
And it's like, hey, ha, do you and, you know, plus one or you and plus three when I join me to go see Timmergraw?
Yeah.
It's, yeah.
So that was big and that ended up working out well.
So then we got a suite of Oracle Stadium for the Giants, San Francisco Giants.
And that's like our big sweet play in San Francisco.
We were trying to do the Chase Center.
We were trying to do a couple other things.
But, I mean, it's very, very, very pricey.
So those are our two kind of business development plays that we're doing right now.
And then traditional outbound.
So LinkedIn, outbound email, outbound, outbound cold calling.
We also would host like what we would call like bespoke micro events where, for example,
our next one, I'm only thinking of the future.
we're bringing in this big ahituna, and then we're having a chef from, I think, Uchikum
and do this special, like, cutting of sushi.
Oh, very cool.
And so there's 10 seats.
So it's like very, like high touch, fancy events, basically that you're doing for your clients.
So interesting.
We did, we also did hog hunting out of a helicopter.
Oh, yeah, you told me about this.
So that was another one.
So we do like these crazy, unique, high-end, expensive events to really bring in the folks
that we want to talk to.
again, no pressure, just so that they can give us an opportunity here what we have to do.
And then also we're doing, we just launched what we're calling a CTO studio and a CEO studio where it's like an in-studio,
not a podcast, it's more of an interview for how they're building in the age of AI.
And that's been lovely because we're getting just insight, market intel, that's been great
and it helps us move with the industry.
But then also it builds relationships with the people that we're talking to as well.
And you're filming them like super high quality film.
that then they can use in their own marketing and things like that.
And we'll give them all the raw footage.
We cut it and clip it and do it.
And we show it to them too because we don't want them to be like,
actually, I don't want them, I don't want you guys to publish anything about this.
Yeah.
And so, but it starts from like a journalistic standpoint.
Like we want to know what you're doing, how you're doing that this industry is moving so fast.
Things are happening so fast.
How are you doing it?
Okay.
So we talked about your kind of.
of high-touch marketing play, retention is really important to you and referrals and expansion.
This is like your framework for product market fit, basically. So help us understand,
how are you ensuring that you're expanding with customers, that they stay with you a long time,
that they're telling their peers about you? So we have on the back end of our business,
so once you hire someone and they start working with you, we have two people that,
support every single account. One of them is called an engineering, well, we call it technically an
engineering manager. Internally, we call it an engineering mentor. These guys were former technical
leaders at U.S. tech companies that are based in our offices throughout South America. And then we, of course,
have an account manager. The technical mentor is really there working one-on-one with the engineer
to support them, because what we've realized is it's not a technical gap that they have, but it might be a
cultural gap or communication gap or the way that certain companies work in the U.S.
is just so foreign to other places.
And so it's there to help them bridge the gap.
But then also turning around on the customer side of things, they have almost like an
extension of their team, like an extended leader that they can kind of debrief with.
So for example, say like I'm the engineering manager at Howdy and you're the technical
leader at your company and you're frustrated with your team.
Rather than just being frustrated with your team, you could come to me and
say like, hey, I'm frustrated with my team. I feel like they're not delivering fast enough.
I feel like I gave them these expectations three different times and blah, blah, blah, blah,
right? I have the direct relationship with the – you also have the direct relationship with the engineers,
but I'll go in the background and see what's going on. And it turns out, oh, there's this third-party
product manager that's injecting all of these, like, tasks that you weren't even aware about.
And so it's like – it's this, like, helpful added element that allows you to share.
share like your thoughts and your concerns while also like having someone on the ground to support
both sides. So that works really, really well. And I will say that people will tell me like,
they'll be like, these engineering mentors are your secret sauce. What? You should tell people about it.
And we try to. But the problem is when we introduce it early in the conversation, people are like,
no, no, but I don't want manager. We don't need that. We don't need that. Like I'm the manager.
I'm going to manage the team. I'm like, yes, you are. But like think of us as like your technical
therapist. I don't know. Trust me, it's not an added cost. It's there as a benefit.
People really value that. And then on the account manager side, of course, then it's just
like your go-to contact for anything as it relates to your account. And then any other support
that you want. So yes, with that, they share with their friends. And also, too, with like the developers
themselves, like if they're feeling that they weren't, I don't know, like received well or
taking care of or they feel like they're getting taken advantage of from the customer.
Those are things that we can help navigate so people aren't living in this like isolation,
which it can feel like that when you have distributed teams.
Yeah.
Well, that's really awesome.
It sounds like you really care about the experience and making sure that the teams perform
and that your clients are happy so they tell their friends and so they keep hiring more
with you.
That's ultimately the goal.
That's ultimately, yeah.
So part of it is hiring on your side, good people.
Yes.
And you guys are really picky about who you hire.
You have a really extensive process.
From my understanding, your recruiters have like a psychology degree or something.
Talk to us about the recruitment process and why you have recruiters that are also psychologists.
Yeah.
So it's a people business, right?
And when we were first starting out the business, my co-founder, Frank and I were thinking,
we're like, you know, we should create this algorithm.
And this algorithm will be like, okay, this company is going to have this type of like grading
based on the type of employees that they want.
And then people are going to have this grading
based on the type of employee there.
Because there's some people that like,
I just want to go to a job and I just want to get all my tasks
and I want to do my job and I want to leave.
And other people want to be.
So there's just like, there's so much nuance, right?
Yes.
And so we were thinking if we could create this like unique algorithm
that we could do it and match it.
And we both realized we're like, well, you're not an ML expert
and I'm not like a psychologist.
So our very first recruiter we hired was actually a psychologist.
And we were like, hey, her name's Millie.
We're like, Millie, help us with us.
Was she also a recruiter or she was literally a psychologist?
She was a psychologist.
She had just gotten her degree in psychology and we're like, hey, instead of going into that,
she was a friend of one of our first engineers.
And so we had an opportunity to talk to her.
We're like, can you help us with this?
Can you help us?
We'll teach you how to recruit.
But can you use your expertise to really understand and identify and build out a profile
of the person so that we can match them correctly to opportunities that we're getting on our side?
And so it started with one, and it worked so well that everybody since then has been
psychologists that we trained to be recruiters.
That's absolutely incredible.
And so what is the benefit of that?
I know you're getting like, why is personality, I guess, so important to you when you're hiring?
Because, you know, we, especially when you go through the process, when you go through the vetting
process, you are clearly smart. You are, you clearly know what you're talking about. So failure only happens
when there's a personality mismatch. And there are some people that want to feel like they're in a
pressure cooker when they're working. There are some people that absolutely don't. And so knowing that
and knowing people's motivations and knowing how people work well together, it helps for the longevity
of their relationship at a partner.
And you also have physical locations.
How important is that for all the employees that you hire?
And are you actually hiring them?
Or like what, how does that work?
Like, are you hiring them or are the companies hiring them?
So we're hiring them.
Okay.
So we have physical locations.
It was surprised me.
When I first started the company, we had physical locations because this was
2018, 2019, when everybody had an office.
You know, just not having an office was not really a thing.
And so, but then when,
COVID happened, everybody got out of their leases. And we had actually signed to start like two more
offices, but we put them on pause as well. And because with everything else that was going on pause,
but then when things turned back around, I asked all of our engineers at the time, their thoughts on it.
And so we had this like resounding response where they wanted to have an office. And the reason being
is because especially in South America, the culture,
is they have smaller homes. Like they don't have these big mansions on these big lots like we do in
America. They live in condominiums. They live in apartments. They live in big city centers.
And so like having just like 500 square feet extra to like put an office in is not like a luxury
a lot of people have. So they want to go out. They want to leave. They want to go and have like an office
space they can go to. And of course some people do. Some people have their own office. But we wanted to
basically give people the option to be able to leave their home so they weren't stuck and cooped up
in their small tiny apartment or small tiny condo. So we ended up doubling down on office space in COVID
as a benefit to say like, hey, especially in these places, we're COVID safe, here's how we're doing
it. But this is what we're going to do and we're going to do these meetups. And we ended up
changing the design of our office where we had more of like a communal meeting place where it's like we're
going to have great coffee. We'll have great after hours. We'll have Xbox. We'll have all these things so you can
come and you can work on your laptop in a little corner or you can go into like a phone booth.
But at the end of the day, if you want to just be around people, because we're also like cooped up,
you can be around people.
And so when you hire somebody, are they typically working for one company or are they like moving
from company to company and like how long do you typically want them to work with you or hope that
they work for you?
We are mission is to make it be the last job that a person's ever had to get and so that they
can work for the rest of their lives with us.
we have them as dedicated resources to one company.
And we don't ever pool them.
So our agreement with a U.S. tech company is once we find a resource for you, that's your resource.
Now, if that resource doesn't want to work for you anymore, they have free will.
They can quit.
They don't have to work for you.
And vice versa, you do too.
Like, you don't have to keep them employed.
So, but it's the employee's decision or the professional's decision whether or not they stay or leave.
Now, if they get fired, do they do?
then they go to another company, or do they get some sort of evaluation with you guys first
before you bring them onto a different company?
So when they get fired, they move over to what we call our roster.
But in that period is when we evaluate.
Most of the people that we hire, we deem, hey, this is, these are howdy engineers.
Now, if there's anything that happened throughout the relationship with the customer that makes us question,
then of course, like, we put them under more scrutiny.
But for the most part, the goal is it doesn't work out to no faults of their own.
And then we find them a new home.
Got it.
And then when you get a new client, are you always proactively hiring in these areas
to like have people ready to go or like how does that work?
How are you projecting how many hires you're going to need?
These are like the tough levers that we're always looking at.
but I would say that there are a few core competencies and job roles that everybody's always
looking for.
Okay.
And so we always have open pipelines for those, and we're always running those.
And then we basically have what we would call, like, Howdy Approved Developers.
And at any given time, we have like a pool of people that are not hired with Howdy,
but are ready to be placed with open opportunities that they match with.
Yeah.
And you recently, maybe not recently, but you acquired like a Brazilian company, right?
Tell us about that.
Yeah, so we acquired in 2023 a Brazilian talent marketplace called Geekhunter.
Very impressive company.
They have over 400,000 software developers on the platform, and they were servicing 13,000 Brazilian companies.
Wow.
They got hit really hard by COVID, and they were not that capital-leaf backed.
And so, unfortunately, we kind of, like, saved them a little bit.
So you got a good deal.
So we got a great deal.
And they got a great deal, too, because it was a mutually great experience.
change, I would say. And so now we have this platform. It's not in the U.S. yet. We're hoping to bring it to
market soon. But we, it's still primarily a Brazilian-focused market, but we do use it to source
in Brazil. Nice. Okay. So let's talk about expansion for Howdy. Do you think about other markets,
like, are you like totally set on Latin America, or is there more to go in Latin America in terms of
like other pockets of Latin America where you can focus. All. I mean, there's other pockets in
Latin America we can expand to. We can get bigger in our existing markets. And so right now,
we have one office in every city that we operate in. My dream is that we have multiple offices.
And where are you operating in right now? So we are, oh my gosh, we're in so many places.
So we're in Uruguay, we're in Argentina, we're in Brazil, we're in Chile, we're in Colombia,
we're in Mexico, we're in Peru. And are you renting the offices there? Or are you buying these
properties? I wish we owned them. No, we're renting. I was going to say you could
be like in the McDonald's real estate business.
Could you imagine?
I wanted to be.
I was wondering.
I was like,
damn, if she owns all those properties.
Could you imagine?
Yeah.
I know.
I think if we were still bootstrapped,
that would have been a path we would have gone down.
We did end up buying the office space we're in in Austin.
Got it.
Beautiful.
Beautiful place.
And we presented it to the board.
The board agreed with it.
They feel like owning outside of the U.S. is a little risky.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
And then what about other product, like other,
niches in terms of like right now you do IT teams, but what about like marketing teams or finance
teams or HR teams? Do you ever think about other business lines that you can support with?
So we do all of it. We do that. Yeah. So we staff any role that can be behind a computer,
we can staff. But we what we, so a couple years ago in 24, we changed our marketing approach.
We changed our website and we made it look like we could do every single role. But then we
when you're all things to all people, like you become nothing to no one.
Yeah.
And so what we realized is, I would say about 12% of our staff is non-technical.
And like our staffed employees are non-technical.
And that is mostly through our existing partners that we inform them that we can do it.
So it's kind of like that land and expand approach.
Yeah, that upsell.
Like that's what you upsell to, but your core thing is IT and that's how you get your
foot in the door.
Exactly.
That makes a lot of sense.
And then vice versa, sometimes when we're doing outbound and they're like, oh, I don't
need help on this. I mean, they show their jobs what they're looking for and we'll say,
oh, well, you know, you're looking for EA or you're looking for this or you're looking for
that. Like, we can also help with that. And sometimes they let us work with them in that capacity,
too, from that way. So I learned a bit about your philosophy in terms of scaling businesses.
And I loved it. It was nail it before you scale it. Tell us about that. So when I started the
business, we started very, very small. And my philosophy has always been nail it.
before you scale it because I had been a part of big tech companies that they're like, oh, it's fine,
like let's just build the plane while we're flying and let's just duct tape it. And what ends up
happening is implosions. And whole product lines can get turned off because someone just didn't
consider these like small, tiny things. And so we very intentionally did that with Howdy.
We only hired one person for one company, another person for another company. We didn't even tell
people that we were doing this because I wanted to make sure that like all the payroll was going
through that there was just no unknown things. I love that. And I do something similar with my company,
but instead I'm the getting peg. So we have like a marketing basically company, a digital media
agency. And so anything that we do, we first nail it with my account. It's like, can we make
Hala go viral doing this? Does Hala's account grow doing this? And we don't offer it to our clients
until we do it for me first. That's amazing. And then of course, then you can just prove it.
And you're like, look at how we do it. Yeah. There's a social proof. Yeah. Amazing.
I do want to talk about AI.
Do you feel like AI is disrupting your model in any way?
Do you feel like people are hiring more slowly or they're hiring differently?
And I already know that you're doing things related to AI to kind of even expand your offers just because I know you personally.
But talk to us about what you're doing because AI is here now.
Man, so I went through like a stage of depression when it first came on.
Because I was like, is my whole business going to inflode because, like, coding is obsolete.
And fast forward six months, I was like, no, like, yeah, maybe AI can do the code.
But it's just like when Microsoft Excel was invented, right?
Just because, like, it can automatically do mathematical equations.
Like, it doesn't mean we don't need accountants.
We need more accountants now than ever before.
Yeah.
And so what I realized was, oh, my gosh, we've just empowered so many, like, we've unlocked the barrier to entry.
More people can create.
More people can build.
more entrepreneurs can exist.
More people can start businesses because they can ideate without having to get investment.
And so it's like, wow, there's going to be so much.
But there still needs to be people in the background that are more like the puppeteers or the architects or like security.
There's so much with tech that there still needs to be management of it.
So I feel like what has changed with our business is the type of person that they're looking for.
and they are a lot picky, a lot pickier with who they hire because it's one person doing the job of 10 now.
Yep.
And so like that one person has to like really know.
But we've gotten a tailwind from it because people, even though they are hiring one for 10,
they still have a budget for 10.
So they just expect 10 people to do the work of 100 people.
Yeah.
So that makes a lot of sense.
And then you're also upskilling.
Yes.
you're hot, what do you call them?
We call them our howdy professionals
and then our shorthand for it is HPs.
Okay, HPs. So how are you upskilling them with AI?
So we hired a PhD, we hired a professor.
He has his PhD in machine learning and quantum computing
and he was teaching at a university.
And what we have, so he works for us full time
and he builds modules and courses.
And he's just constantly running them
and he's constantly building new programming.
And we are teaching people
one, how to like use AI agents to build, but then also like how do you even build small
language models yourselves and how do you do like proper harness engineering and eval engineering
and all this like very like heavy technical stuff and it's just constant.
Now one of my last questions to you, if somebody's tuning in and they want to copy your business,
maybe not in IT, but standing up teams internationally, I have people in Nigeria and India.
and Algeria, you know, and I found a lot of success with international hires.
Now, if somebody wanted to start like a similar, like, agency, what advice would you have for them?
I would say go to the country that you want to build in. One thing, so God, thank goodness,
there are things like Claude and Chachibouti T now because it is just a wealth of information that we did not have back then.
But we learned so much just being on the ground across the table from an accountant in Uruguay,
from a lawyer in Columbia.
Like when you're meeting people in person,
the scariest thing about doing something like this
is the unknown unknowns.
You have all these preconceived notions
of what you need in the United States,
but every country operates differently.
And so they will bring up things
that you will never even think to consider
or ask when you're in person
rather than doing a call or a Zoom.
There's just more exchange that happens.
I think people are a lot more guarded
when they're over a virtual.
Yeah, totally.
So go in person, talk to people.
People are so friendly and they're so grateful.
If you're willing to make the investment,
if you're willing to go there.
And it's fun, too.
You could experience a different culture.
You have a deeper understanding, too,
of the people that are there,
what motivates them.
Do they like this?
Do they want an American company coming in?
Most people, yes,
but you'd be surprised.
Some people are like, no,
like don't bring your money here.
So.
Really?
I love this business because I feel like
it's actually something
that you can start quite small.
Yeah, you can.
You could start it virtually.
Yeah.
You don't have, like, I agree with you.
Like, eventually if you're going to scale it, go there, figure out where you're going
to open up your office and all that.
But, like, you could start this slowly.
And it's like such a great way to build like a really successful business.
So really cool stuff.
Especially too, if like you are an expert of something, you're going to recognize who else
knows that skill set.
And so.
And what the gaps are in terms of hiring in the U.S.
Yep.
Oh my gosh.
There's so many more questions that I want to ask you.
but we don't have a lot of time.
So I'm going to end this with one simple question.
What is your secret to profiting in life?
And that can be beyond just business.
Mindset.
Mindset.
Mindset.
You have to believe it to achieve it.
Because if you don't, it's not going to happen.
I totally agree.
Jacqueline, where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do?
You can find me on LinkedIn, Jacqueline Samira,
or on Instagram or X at Howdy Jacqueline.
Amazing.
Thank you so much for joining us on Howie Profit.
Thank you.
And that is how Jacqueline and Howdy Profit.
Today's big lesson in a recurring revenue business,
getting the customer is only the beginning.
Howdy makes its model work by continuing to add value long after the hire is made.
That focus in retention has helped turn a 15% margin into a scalable business
doing roughly $50 million in annual revenue.
And as AI changes how companies hire,
Jacqueline isn't betting against it.
She's adapting, upskilling Howdy's talent and preparing for a future where companies may hire fewer people,
but expect each person to deliver far more.
The real opportunity is not just finding global talent.
It's building enough value around that talent, so customers want to stay and tell their friends.
Thanks for listening to How We Profit, the Young and Profiting series where real entrepreneurs share real numbers,
real margins, and the real stories of how their businesses actually work.
And before you go, YouTube has one more conversation it thinks you're going to love.
Go give it a watch, then come back and tell me your biggest takeaway in the comments.
This is your host, Halitaha, aka the podcast Princess, and I'll see you in the next one.
