I am a chilean engineer driven to reduce inequality gaps and market inefficiencies by leading efforts that strive for technical, economic and social excellence.
I have always been fascinated by multi-domain problems which require integrating hard (STEM) and soft skills. I have always worked in cross-disciplinary teams and focused on time-to-value for the end customer. Hence, I have done work from scientific research and volunteering to sales, product and engineering.
Since continuous improvement is the ethos of Product building, this site will always be WIP 🏗️
If I could distill my work ethic into 3 guiding principles, they would be the following:
Write code - Talk to users
This Y Combinator lemma speaks about two sides of the same coin: building and getting feedback. “Code” can be extended to anything that implies making. From sales reps to customer support, anyone can “write code” in their own domain.
I had the opportunity of instilling this culturally with Encuadrado’s founders in 2021. The core company values were “Perfect Imperfection” and “11/10”. The first aims at knowing the exact moment when something is ready to be shipped i.e. the right amount of broken. The other, aims for the most extraordinary experience possible: more expensive and time-consuming. This healthy tension helps deciding when to ship effectively and then getting the feedback to prioritize again. Velocity of iterations should always be preferred over quality of iterations.
Aim for value and viability, not just output
Good teams ship, but that’s just time to market. Ensuring time to money is the tough part: delivering value (for the customer) and viability (for the business). Creating a culture around this is the hardest challenge in an organization.
Ravi Meta’s Product Strategy Stack changed the game for me. Leaders usually turn to goals to solve that issue. Well set goals are thermometers for progress but should not be ends themselves.
Achieving real outcomes is therefore a consequence of prioritizing & executing in fast cycles of 80/20 deployments. Prioritizing is simple - never easy - if you are talking to your customers. However, outcomes follow execution and execution will always eat strategy for breakfast.
Lead through passion and example
We should do our work to be alive and because we love it. The thrill of solving problems, setting goals, failing, learning and repeating until success is achieved is what drives us forward.
It is a leader’s responsibility to leverage individual desires for the organization’s mission. It’s not just aligning goals: it’s about unleashing individual natural forces and merging them together.
To execute on this, one must see and build a machine from a higher level and create levers to generate an outcome-driven, self-less and “carrying the water” culture.
It is my belief that the biggest lever one can pull is becoming unnecessary. Doing so has led me to coach more than 15 people and shape them to become better professionals, find their mission and help them lead through passion and example.
That being said, here are some projects I’ve been involved with that are near and dear to my heart. Click here if you want to look at my CV.
A light, opinionated Management OS for businesses.