Alex: Welcome everybody to another episode of the curiosity Code. Today we're thrilled to have Julian Torres Gomez. He is a serial entrepreneur, author and mentor in the digital wellness space. Julian has founded six startups. Impressive six startups, including the notable on top and Fitpal, transforming how we approach work and wellness globally. Join us as we dive into Julian's multi phase career, exploring the intersections of technology, health, entrepreneurship. Welcome to the show, Julian.

Guest: Thank you very much, Alex, for having me and very excited and looking forward to having a conversation about startups, venture capital and my experience doing a lot of crazy things throughout the years.

Alex: That's so exciting. Well, I mean, let's start with obvious thing, like six startups. Wow. Can you share your journey? I mean, I understand that it's a lot and maybe we can just go with the small bits, like how your journey looked like founding six startups in Colombia. Right. And what were the key lessons learned from these experiences?

Guest: Yeah, so I'm 35 years old. I was born and raised in Bogota, Colombia. And from a very early age I knew that I wanted to create stuff, but not in the way people usually create stuff for business, but rather creating as art. So my background is music. I eventually started out as a musician, an aspiring musician. I joined a band called Sonido Locale, and I wanted to make it out big in the music industry. So that's what I set out to do and started composing songs. I play the guitar, I like singing. And that was my first real attempt at a startup. And I, even though it's not a tech startup, it operates in very similar ways, creating songs that people will like, that will eventually make it out to radio and whatsoever. So very fast or not very fast. Four years after getting myself into that, from 16 to 20 years old, I found out that making in the music industry is way harder than making it in the business world. So I was very frustrated. I gave up on that dream and I went to university and started studying business. I didn't know why, but I said, hey, this is what everyone that doesn't know what to do with their life studies, I want to get it out of the way. I just want to have it to you and see what happens. So in that process of studying business, I started to venture out and build a couple of businesses. The first one a tourism agency. But not because I was passionate about tourism. It's because I wanted to meet people and people from other parts of the world. So I started a very personalized tourism company for foreigners. Visiting Bogota, you know, in Colombia, was not that common at the time. So I wanted to make it a whole experience for people. And it was quite an amazing business, but it took a lot of my time. So I eventually gave up, gave up on it because I needed to graduate from college. And then I invested and started a restaurant in college next to the university, which didn't do that well. So that failed fast. So that was like my third goal at the startup work. Then I didn't know what to do with my life, so I decided to go and live in China. For one year, I lived in Beijing. I worked several jobs as a market analyst at an import expert company. On weekends, I was a musician for corporate events and chinese weddings, actually making quite a bunch of money. And then in one of my travels to Korea, I discovered a very amazing product called the intelligent toilet seats. So, intelligent toilet seats are the toilet seats that clean your ass or the electronic bidets. So in my part of the world, at least in South America, that was not a thing. So I said, okay, this might be a blue ocean kind of thing where I might be the first person to bring intelligent toilet seats to Latin America. So I convinced the factory, the biggest producer of toilet seats in Korea, Dobidos, to give me a sole distributorship agreement so that I could sell and be their representative in South America. So I did that, invested a couple hundred thousand dollars on that business with some friends, but that eventually failed in the most spectacular kind of way because I ventured way too fast on the business, rushed to buy the units, a whole container of intelligent toilet seats, without going back to Colombia and testing the market and testing whether the things could fit into regular toilet seats. So to my surprise, when the container arrived to Colombia, we tried to sell it. Well, we eventually were able to sell the products because they were very appealing, but at the moment of installing them, none of them fit. So we had fucked up and brought the wrong kind of toilets to Colombia. We lost everything. By that point, Alex, I was very, very frustrated and pissed off at a dramatic, at trying to start shit. My parents were like, hey, man, just get a real job. Like get a stable job where you can just save up, maybe move out of the house, whatever. So I eventually had a lot of debts, so I took the first job that I could get my hands on and talk about connecting the dots, because that job that I took was at a head hunting firm. So in the HR industry, which is what I'm doing today. So by the time I didn't know, I didn't know what the hell I was doing, I just went into recruiting global executive firm called Boyden and did that for a year. And then I got the strangest of calls. Out of nowhere venture capital fund called me and said, hey, we're opening up this new position for an analyst, entrepreneur in residence, for our fund. I didn't know what the hell they were talking about. They just offered a little bit more money than what I was making at the moment. So I took the interview, and I told them everything I've told you so far, and they hired me on the spot. So I took the job without knowing what a venture capital fund was. So when on my first day at the job, I discovered that I had just landed on my dream job because I got budget to test out new ideas and to create stuff in the digital space. So that was my 1st, 1st experience of the digital world. Digital business models, what we today call startup, the startup industry. Right? So there at that job, eventually, I started to be very passionate about everything that I was creating. I created a bunch of projects, but one of them really took off, and that was Fitpel. Fitpel was a fitness app that lets you into thousands of fitness classes and courses for a single membership. So you paid one single membership, and you could go to thousands of classes and gyms. So that test and that MVP did so well that when I pitched it to my bosses, they told us, hey, we want to fund this. We want to give it seed money so that it can start. And they told me, julian, you need to get an entrepreneur for this, like, source someone. You know how to recruit people. Go out and find someone. And that afternoon, I remember, I was in my bedroom, I said, hey, I'm the perfect person for this. I invented it. Why isn't that. I'm gonna. Why. Why wouldn't I start it, right? So I went the next day and told them, hey, I wanna start it. Give the money to me and I'll start it. They told me, no, you're not ready. You're too young, blah, blah, blah. But I eventually convinced them, and they gave me the money. They made me quit my job. Obviously, they gave me the money, and that was my first capital raise in the startup world. $350,000 to start off. And then I met my co founder, Santiago. He's actually the co founder currently at Ontop also. So I met him. He was one of the first seven employees at Rappi. It's the Robbie is the Doordash, or the Instacart of Latin America. And he wanted to start something of his own. And when he saw that it was starting something to do with gyms, well, he was very passionate about gyms. He told me, I want to do this with you. So we set and ventured off to doing and building Fitpel together. We eventually raised, ended up raising like $4 million, built a great business with over 1000 gyms in our network. That business is still alive. Fitpal still exists. It has gone over. Great transformation, and now it is in the process of M and A with a big, very big organization. So it did quite well. In the middle of doing Fitpal, I also ventured out and co founded online therapy platform. So a platform where people could go and just book sessions with therapists, certified therapists. And that has also done pretty well by itself. I'm not part of it anymore, but it eventually raised capital and it still exists.

Alex: So that's like, sorry, how did you transition from fitness to therapy?

Guest: So I did a transition. I did it in parallel. Right? So I was doing the fitness thing, but I saw this opportunity of building it with other co founders. So I started off with them, but eventually just told him, hey, keep it, do it yourself, because I'm in Fitpal. It's doing very well. We raised money and it's taking off. So I didn't leave Fitpel.

Alex: Right, okay, so it was just another venture in Peru for sure.

Guest: In the process of building Fitpel, I also got a call from Penguin, random house, the editorial. They told me, hey, we followed your story pretty closely. Would you like to write a book? I said, I'm not an author. I'm not a writer. But they told me, hey, it doesn't matter. We're looking for fresh blood to write a book. So that's how I got the opportunity on the first contract to write my first book, la stupid esciva, or in English, collective stupidity, about how to transform ideas to reality and how to not let yourself be caught up in the collective stupidity that social media and the Internet world has set upon us. All right? That eventually became a bestseller. I got a contract for the second book. It's called Powerful Habits. It's all about managing your time effectively, getting powerful habits in your life so you can become more productive and effective, and how to overcome mental health issues. You know, by the time that COVID came. Right, right. Fitpal was not doing well. I was experiencing quite a ton of anxiety, panic attacks. I was having a bad time. And at that moment, I really made it a goal for myself to investigate habits, routines, things that I could do to get myself out of that uncomfortable state. Because I was having panic attacks. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat well. So I started investigating all that and eventually came up with a habit toolkit that let me recover from that situation and eventually gain enough force and momentum to start on top. So by the time I got better, I said, okay, fit pal. It's not what I want to do. I want to build something else. Because at the time, our equity was very low compared to our main investor. You know, I started this in an incubator in a venture capital fund. So I had little equity. I wanted to do something where I had the upside. And Santiago, my co founder, had the upside as well. So that's when we decided to start on top on August 2020, you know, so it's funny, because all the journey I've told you so far, and the thing with the mental health crisis and the habits and everything just powered us through that COVID situation and gave birth to on top, which has been a wild success compared to anything that we've done in the past.

Alex: So how did you come up with the idea on top?

Guest: So really, we had already been in the startup game with Santiago for five years, so we knew what worked, what didn't work, what VC funds were looking for. So when we decided to do something of our own, we sat down and said, okay, what's a big market right now? He said, okay, remote work. Everyone's locked down. Remote work. So what can we do around remote work? So when we started thinking, we remember that when we were starting to expand Fitpal to Mexico, we were having a hard time crafting contracts and sending money to the gyms, and they were all contractor agreements. So we said, okay, that's a hassle. So probably that's how remote work. That's the kind of problem that remote work has at the moment. A lot of contractors and people in different parts of the world and companies unable to send them money in an easy, convenient way. So we started connecting the dots, and we realized that the world desperately needed a platform which made it very easy to craft contracts between parties in different parts of the world and exchange money just as you would, as if you were in the same country. Right? So that's how we came up, came up with the idea. It's not something magical or a divine muse that just came over us. It's sort of like reverse engineering what works, what industries are hot, where's a big market? Where's a big. Where does a big problem live that we can attack instantly and start generating value? That's essentially how it started.

Alex: That's quite an interesting way to come up with an idea. I think that's probably the most efficient way to look at product ideas and come up with a product that will work, but at the same time, it's so big. Like, I imagine you must have faced lots of challenges along the way. What are the major challenges that you face and how did you overcame them?

Guest: Our best ally in this whole journey was ignorance. We didn't know what the hell we were getting ourselves into because moving money around the world, turns out has a lot of complexities, especially around compliance, money laundering regulations. So at the moment, we didn't know what we were getting into, and we were lucky enough not to know because we wouldn't ever build this company if we knew what we were up against. Sometimes in innovation, ignorance is just what you need to open up your mind and just go for it. As my chief compliance and risk officer says, I don't know how the hell you guys started this company, but it somehow worked because the challenges are everywhere. We are operating in a highly regulated space, so we are a regulated company, and we have to comply with american regulators, with FinCen, we have to be reporting transactions, monitoring transactions, making sure we don't get the wrong kind of people into our business, doing the whole KYB KYC in the correct way, getting the appropriate licenses so that we are able to move money and offer the financial services that we are offering remote workers. That's been one specifically tough challenge, how to move fast in a heavily regulated industry, because, you know, as a startup, you want to move fast, you want to execute stuff, but in the fintech space, you're not quite able to do so because you're likely to end up in jail, if you like, skip some of the steps. So that's challenge number one. Challenge number two, of course, is how to attract the right team and how to attract the correct talent, especially when you haven't raised money. So, fortunately, we've now raised a decent amount of money, so money is not an issue. But at first, we had to be very good on selling the dream. Why come join us? Why? This is the next big thing, like generating credibility, and that's a very hard part. In the beginning, it requires a lot of effort. It requires you to be uncomfortable with uncertainty. It requires you to be open, to do podcasts, interviews, go out on the media, not because it's cool and fancy, but because those kind of things generate credibility. And whenever someone sees your interview, your point of view, they say, hey, I can identify with Julian. I want to work with him. And that's why I do podcasts by the way, when you reached out to me, that's why I do this. We never know who might be listening to this. It might be my next CFO, who knows? So it's always good to put yourself out there. And a lot of fellow entrepreneurs don't like to do this. They say, oh, it's a waste of time, it's distracting, blah, blah, blah. Or maybe I'm shy, maybe I'm not good at talking. But in the end, this is about getting uncomfortable, getting out of your own way and just putting the work out there. I'm working here today because maybe I'm recruiting one of your listeners. Who knows?

Alex: Love it, love it. I share the same vision of how modern outreach and communication style actually help in the long run. And you never know. As you said, you never know. But so the question that I have. So did you bootstrap on top initially, like, just the two of you?

Guest: No, not at all. So we already had five years of experience with Fitpal. We knew that bootstrapping was not the way we wanted to go. We wanted to raise venture capital right away, and we went the fastest route we knew. We knew. So we got together with 30 founders that we knew from very successful companies in Latin America, and we told them, hey, we just quit our jobs. We're starting a new company. Are you on board with ten k us dollars? They said, hell, yeah. So that's how we raised in one week, $300,000 to start a new venture. And that's how we kicked it off. Then we brought on in a few funds, venture capital funds, at the beginning, and that's how we got the money at first to start doing things. Because the truth is, it's very difficult to start this kind of business without money.

Alex: Right.

Guest: There's so many things around it that you need a little bit of money to kick it off the ground. Right? So bootstrapping this kind of business is close to impossible, I would dare to say.

Alex: That's why I was curious.

Guest: Yeah, yeah. We were lucky enough to get into y combinator quite fast. So we. We were born in August 2020. We got into Y combinator December 2020. So we were part of the Winter 21 batch. It started in January 2021, and from there, we just skyrocketed. Because getting into YC was a pivotal moment. You start getting seen by the VC industry in the United States, and that's a game changer, because once you get seen, once you get that sort of verified mark that you're already in YC, it makes fundraising much easier. I'm not gonna say that it's super easy because you still have to deliver the results and make things happen. But it does help a lot.

Alex: How did you make it there? Like, any advice to other founders, we.

Guest: Really prepared, we prepared a lot for, for the interviews, for the application process. We got a lot of feedback from other founders. We got other founders to recommend us. We did mock interviews, I guess we did like 100 mock interviews for YC, especially because we had been rejected five times in the past. So with Fitpal, we applied to YC, we tried, we didn't get selected. So we already knew what didn't work. Again, it's just trial and error. Just going at it, going at it, failing and just getting feedback information and then using that information to get better.

Alex: Got it. So when did you actually launch the product? What was the product? What I'm trying to say, what was the MVP, what exactly functionality was back when you launched it?

Guest: My hands. We launched when we were born. We launched the next day.

Alex: Oh really? So you didn't have the technology?

Guest: We didn't have anything. So we had a landing page, pretty nice landing page. And we just went out and asked a few founder friends, hey, we're launching this, please be my customer, please. And we asked a few favors and started operating with my hands, with nothing else in my head and doing things manually. And in that way we started understanding very closely what each of our friends and their companies needed and we started building from that. So we had a technical co founder since the beginning, he started coding and we started building from what people wanted. And I think that played hugely in our advantage because we didn't have to wait for a few months and then launch and see what happened. We started selling, collecting money, generating revenue so that we could go and tell investors, hey, this is working. People are paying for this and just working lockstep from there.

Alex: So how does it work now? Can you just probably explain it in 1 minute? What is the difference between not using on top and actually using on top?

Guest: Yeah. So right now it's an incredible technology because we have a very big team of talented engineers behind it. We have 75 engineers and 15 people in product building this amazing technology that is quite simple on the surface but quite complex below it. I like to call it the iceberg. Right. What you see is just a tip. It's simple, powerful and global. What we do is we help companies hire and pay people anywhere on the globe. And what I mean by hire is all the paperwork, contracts, documents, all that nasty, dense stuff is automated through a platform that gets everything done for you so that both parties can sign the contract and then automates your payments, the company's payments towards the worker, right? So let's say your company x and you hired a couple of engineers in Argentina, the platform crafts the contracts that are compliant with argentinian law, gets them signed by both parties, and then just takes the money out of your account each 25th of the month or whatever, and pays that developer or those developers. And on the other end, those developers, we discovered we could offer them a bank account in us dollars, a wallet in us dollars where they could keep their money they're making from that job and spend it with a Visa card. Right? So we started creating financial services for that emerging workforce. So we're giving those remote workers the possibility of having a us dollar account and a card that they can use. So it's pretty simple on the surface, like helping companies get money from point a to point b. But below you have a bunch of cables and connections that really need to work. Like what, Kyb? So verifying the businesses are legit, that they're not going to launder money, verifying that people that you're paying to are clear and don't have any criminal records or whatever, so you're not committing a crime. Making sure that the route that the payment takes is the most convenient, the cheapest and the fastest, so that cross border payments can occur almost real time, which is something that banks cannot do. So we have to connect a lot of the pieces, the legal aspect to it, the technology that automates the payments. And if you need to modify, let's say, you did extra work and need to earn $100 more, well, the system has to calculate that and eventually factor that in for the payment to occur on the day it's due in the correct way.

Alex: Wow. I mean, like the company that I founded and I'm CEO, we fully remote and I am dealing with the hassle of payroll every single month. Like we have employees in, I think, ten different countries, like all different laws and different banks. And sometimes we're dealing with the countries such as Egypt and their bounce payments and it's just a hassle. And on top of that, you're paying like at least $15 per wire when you're sending away. Exactly. So, I mean, Julian, I'll try a product, I think.

Guest: Thank you. Yeah, I mean, we build this for people like you. When we were building it, you just described the pain points. I don't want to pay for a wire, $15 or whatever, it's a hassle. I don't know how to figure it out. People over the world, it's built out for people like you, Alex. So that makes me very happy to hear.

Alex: Awesome. Awesome. Well, congratulations on great products. It's quite a journey with ontop. Let's move on to other things. I mean, I have so many questions. When you were talking about inlap as entrepreneur in residence, I think I came across a few times over the past years the term entrepreneurial residence, but I'm not quite sure I get it. And maybe it will be valuable to the audience to hear a bit about this role because it sounds like, well, basically you try new ideas, but you have zero risk. And it's such a dream for the best job in the world, entrepreneur.

Guest: So that you can try out new ideas. So the entrepreneur in residence has to have, has to be a generalist. So you have to know about everything. Budgeting, doing the numbers, marketing, building a little bit of websites, like being able to bootstrap everything within the fund with the limited amount of money that you're going to get. Don't think for a moment that you're going to get hundreds of thousands of dollars to test an idea. They give you a couple thousand dollars, test it out, invest in marketing, see what the click through rate is, what the conversion rate is. Are people visiting the website? Are they asking things? Of course. Be a customer service agent, be everything. I remember I used to have my cell phone, my own cell phone number and all of the web pages. A couple years later I had to switch numbers because I was just full of people texting me or whatever. But the entrepreneur in resident is someone that really likes starting something new. Is scrappy enough, resourceful enough, creative enough to kick start something and data driven enough to know if it's working or not, and then present the results. So it also has a big component of research because you don't start every dumb idea that comes through your mind. You have to research, do a structured research that, by the way, helped me in the research creating on top about industries, what's trending, where are the venture capital money dollars flowing to, what's the benchmark like? What companies are playing in that space, organizing those thoughts and then selecting which ideas to pursue and test and coming up with a framework or a mental model of how do you know if something works or not? That's a big question. How do I know? How much time do I have to test? And I think I discovered a pretty decent formula that I have been replicating through the years and it works. So normally you need to test out, test something out for three months, operating on air for three months and make sure that it's growing at least 20% month over month. It doesn't matter how much money, whatever, just make sure that growth is 20% month over month. If that happens, there's something pretty special that you have in hand.

Alex: So that's a good sign of success, right?

Guest: Exactly.

Alex: I'm picturing myself in this role, like entrepreneurial residence. And you know, the biggest challenge I see, like, as much fun as you get from being there, how are you not being attached to those ideas and products that, you know, you nourish those, your ideas, you've proven them right, but then you're just letting them go. Like I see it's such a big challenge.

Guest: Yeah, it is, but at least on my experience, I had an investment committee every week. So I basically took all my dumb ideas, pitched them to my bosses that were very experienced in their startup world, and they crushed them. They said, no, that doesn't work, and I had to defend them. And eventually you learn how to let go and pass the page pretty quickly. So you come up with the next big thing, you're all excited, and then you get crushed, emitting back to the drawing board and need to bring something back. So after a few months of doing that, you just get unattached. Another thing that really helped me was meditation. I've always been into meditation, and, you know, meditation is all about detaching yourself from thoughts, not obsessing our thoughts, our feelings, just letting the river flow and pass by and understanding that change is constant. So when you start looking at startups from that buddhist perspective, you stop being enamored or in love with ideas and just start being in love with the process, you know, the creation process, and allow yourself to flow into the process rather than just obsessing over something really specific. And that makes a difference. And if you're listening to this and you're obsessed about an idea, it's not the idea that should matter, because ideas, in the end are replicable. What matters is the journey, the execution, what you do in between. Because a company is not just an idea. A company is a group of people with feelings, emotions, expectations, drives that you need to figure out. And if you learn how to handle that beast and configure everyone to pursue a same goal, a same motive, like a whole world opens up before you because you understand that you are not doing this alone. You're actually part of a bigger system and can use that bigger energy to accomplish what you always wanted to accomplish in life.

Alex: That's powerful. Thank you for sharing that. Let's talk about digital transformation. The reason I want to talk about it, because I see that you had an award. It's. I may be mispronouncing it, sorry, my. I think it's spanish. Right. Premier transformation. You can pronounce it better, digital impersarial. So as far as I understand, it's a word for digital transformation, right?

Guest: Yes.

Alex: And what I'm curious about, what are key factors you believe are essential for digital transformation in today's business?

Guest: Well, first, the most important one is a culture that embraces change. A lot of corporations, and I've also been a speaker and a consultant and advisor for a lot of big companies on this subject. They all want to hop on the digital transformation train because it's trending, because it sounds good, because it makes them look good on board meetings. But really what you need to develop is a mindset, a mindset and a culture within the organization that lets you explore these new pathways. So digital transformation is not just having a room full of post its and innovation quotes and whatever. It's actually a framework where you teach people how to execute things fast, not obsess about certain results per se, but rather obsess about the process involved in each of those actions. So what I mean by that is a lot of companies maybe want to employ certain process or digitize certain process, expecting a certain result and obsessing on a certain result when they don't realize that the important thing is how the decision making process is taking place and what the impact on the organization. So essentially what you need is to develop a culture and a team of people that can test and fail really fast and not get crushed down by failure. Because a lot of these big companies have people that are terrified of failure. They don't want to get out of their comfort zone because they don't want to risk their jobs. They like their stability, they don't want to be messed with. And they think if they place bold bets, they're going to be let go. So that's the first change you need to have. Let people know it's okay to fuck up, it's okay to mess up. It's okay not to be perfect. It's okay to propose things and be wrong, dead wrong about things. If that doesn't happen, digital transformation cannot happen. You also need to be very open to new technologies. So it's incredible how much the workspace is going to change in the next ten years with AI, right now that we have chat DPT in our hands. And all these llms, the way people are doing their job changes. Talk about people that whose job is to craft reports on certain topics. Imagine how fast you can do those reports with artificial intelligence. So there has to be a removal of fear around these new technologies. A lot of big companies just reject them and say, no, that's prohibited, we won't use that here, it's wrong. Instead, what you need is, okay, this is here, how do we use it to evolve? But that involves, again, a growth mindset. You can't have stubborn people that think they're the best at everything and that they're the right ones and that they have nothing to learn. You can have those kind of people adopt new things if they feel threatened, right? People who are usually stubborn or think they're right all the time are people who are scared, honestly, they're scared of being proven wrong and not being worthy enough. So literally, the work to be done for digital transformation to happen is psychological, it's mental, and it's cultural within organizations.

Alex: So fear is the biggest blocker for the digital transformation. But that's where the opportunity is for startups, because they don't appear to make mistakes. And that's why we see lots of cases when small teams actually crush large organizations where they've been sitting like for years and years and thought that they're uncrushable. All right, let's wrap it up with your view on future of fintech, particularly in relation to global payroll services and financial inclusivity. Do you have a picture in mind? Where are we all going with all of that?

Guest: Yes, I believe there's a huge workforce emerging. A huge workforce that doesn't like to work in the traditional way. What's in the traditional way? Traditional work, employment contracts that require you to be in an office on the same city, on the same geography as a company, that require you to be nine to five at an office. People are looking for flexibility, moving around, maybe not working from the same place each week. So there's a huge workforce emerging, and the current financial system is not prepared for that type of work relationship because that type of work relationship resembles more the widely known contractor agreement. 20 years ago, if you talked about contractors, you thought about people you hired in your house to do repairs or whatever, but right now being a contractor means so much more, means that you're not working on the same country as the company, but that you're still a part of that team and a very important part of team. And in a lot of cases, an exclusive part of that team. So there's a huge workforce emerging who doesn't have a clear legal framework on how to work that way because governments usually punish that type of employment and not call it employment because it's contractual work. So there needs to be a whole redesign of the legal system in a lot of places so that this work can be considered into the equation because it's not like it's someone just doing a job like painting the walls of your house. And that's it. It's people that are part of your company, your culture, that are having meetings with you and that also do not belong to the traditional sense of contractual agreements because, well, let's face it now, you don't have to have any uniform. You don't have to go and report in a physical place and say, hey, I'm here, and then check out when you leave. So that requires a new financial system. Why? Because banks are not willing to lend money to that new, working new workforce. Right. If you go to a traditional bank and try to ask for a loan, a mortgage or whatever, with a contractor agreement, they won't give it to you. So what we're after here is how do we create this new financial services offering to that huge emerging workforce so that they can keep their account, that is global, that is in a strong currency that they can use and take everywhere they go, and that can give them access to leverage and credit opportunities.

Alex: Yeah. I'm still so amazed with the idea and how scalable it is and how great it is for the listeners. You can check out the product at get on top.com. I mean, it's just great. Believe me. If you have a company and you deal with remote workers, if you're not yet facing the issue, you will definitely face an issue at some point when it's just hard to pay.

Guest: Listen, happy to assist anyone in the process. Our company is big. We are in a lot of countries in the world. But if you reach out to LinkedIn and LinkedIn, and reach out to me through LinkedIn, I'll reply, I'll help you out. Our company is all about hospitality. We're here to serve you. We're here to help you figure out how to make international payroll work. So if you're listening to this and need help, don't be afraid to reach out.

Alex: Awesome. All right, let's wrap it up. Julian, thank you very much for being a guest. It's been truly a pleasure. And for the listeners, as usual, don't forget to hit the like button and subscribe and see you next week. Thank you.

Guest: Thank you for the invitation. Happy to be here.