Nicolas Bivero: 8-Year Side Hustle to Full-Time Founder at 44, Japan Intern to Philippines Director and PEO Industry for Filipino Talent - E529

· Founder,Southeast Asia,Philippines,Startup,Podcast Episodes English

"There is a bright future for Filipinos to work without having to leave the Philippines. Another interesting development is the return of Filipinos who had previously left. While I don’t know the exact numbers, I know it’s happening, and it’s fascinating. These individuals bring back their experiences, exposure, and best practices, enriching the overall talent pool in the Philippines. This creates positive feedback loops that will continue to grow and strengthen the country's talent ecosystem, as long as we sustain and support this momentum." - Nicolas Bivero, CEO & Co-Founder of Penbrothers

"We wanted to create those jobs here in the Philippines, to create opportunities for Filipinos to work with interesting foreign companies, startups, SMEs—whatever it is—without having to leave. And with COVID or after COVID, even more so, without actually having to move to Metro Manila. Before COVID, everything had to be around here or in the big cities, but now with the development after COVID, we can do it remotely. For example, we have a great German-speaking accountant in the middle of nowhere in Mindanao, which is great. She didn’t need to uproot herself or her family to get this job with a German startup." - Nicolas Bivero, CEO & Co-Founder of Penbrothers

"It was like, "We’re looking for opportunities in Southeast Asia to replicate what we do in Japan—go forth and figure it out." So I took my university training and essentially turned it into a research study. In the first month or six weeks, I focused on researching Southeast Asia—the countries, their economies, foreign direct investment laws, and whether we had any existing connections in the region. I went around the office, asking the older members of the company, "What exactly do we do? Do we have any prior relationships with any Southeast Asian countries?" On one hand, I aimed to learn as much as I could about Southeast Asia’s economies and opportunities in our sector, and on the other, I tried to understand from our experienced managers what we did and how we did it." - Nicolas Bivero, CEO & Co-Founder of Penbrothers

Nicolas Bivero, CEO & Co-Founder of Penbrothers, and Jeremy Au discussed:

1. Japan Intern to Philippines Director: Nicolas Bivero shared his journey as a Venezuelan-German, transitioning across continents and industries. His early exposure to Japanese culture through karate and aikido, influenced by his father, inspired his eventual move to Japan. Initially planning a six-month stay, Nicolas secured an internship at a 160-year-old Japanese logistics company after a chance connection through his uncle. This role evolved into an 18-year career, focusing on replicating Japanese logistics operations across Southeast Asia. Nicolas detailed his adjustment to Japan’s hierarchical corporate culture, his unique position as one of the few foreigners in the company, and his extensive travel across Southeast Asia to develop new business opportunities.

2. 8-Year Side Hustle to Full-Time Founder at 44: In 2014, Nicolas co-founded Pen Brothers with his best friend to address the challenges of global talent shortages by leveraging the Philippines’ vast pool of skilled professionals. Starting as a side hustle, Pen Brothers initially supported startups by hiring remote Filipino teams for roles like software development and business development. Nicolas emphasized the importance of retaining Filipino talent locally to combat brain drain, reflecting his observations of Venezuelan and Portuguese migration trends. By 2022, after eight years of part-time involvement, Nicolas transitioned to leading Pen Brothers full-time. He highlighted the impact of COVID-19 on enabling remote work nationwide, allowing skilled professionals in provinces like Mindanao to work with global clients without relocating.

3. PEO Industry for Filipino Talent: Nicolas dispelled misconceptions about the Professional Employer Organization (PEO) industry, noting its ability to provide high-quality, long-term roles. He cited examples of senior engineers and specialized staff hired through Pen Brothers, including one who earned a competitive U.S. salary while working for a startup remotely from the Philippines. Nicolas also shared his optimism for Filipino talent, emphasizing their English proficiency and adaptability. He stressed the need for continued government support for education and the importance of positive feedback loops in fostering globally competitive talent. He also discussed the return of some Filipino diaspora members, who bring valuable international experience back to the country.

Nicolas also reflected on Japan’s hierarchical work culture, how his father’s passion for martial arts influenced his professional journey and the challenges of scaling remote teams.

(00:53) Jeremy Au: Hey, good to hear from you. Nicolas is really excited to have you

(00:57) share a little bit about something that's always been mystifying (01:00) me, which is the PEO industry in the Philippines, and you've got an incredible founder journey. So could you introduce yourself?

(01:06) Nicolas Bivero: Yeah, no, Jeremy, thank you for having me.

(01:08) so my name is Nicolas. I'm originally half Venezuela and half German. So I grew up in South America most time or the larger part of my youth. I was born in Venezuela. I lived there for about 10 years. Then we moved to Germany.

(01:21) My parents got divorced. So we moved to Germany. My mother and I, and then my stepdad got the opportunity to move to Mexico City. So then we moved to Mexico. That was the 2nd exposure. I had to South America, different country. It's very different culture, actually, very interesting compared to Venezuela.

(01:35) So I did my high school there, finished my schooling, and then I went to Switzerland, to St. Gallen, to study. Had the opportunity of studying in German, in a Swiss university at that time, which was an interesting shift coming from South America to a very tiny city.

(01:50) But it was exciting. And after that, I got the opportunity of actually doing an internship in Japan, which ended up being an 18 year stint with a Japanese company, both in Japan and in the Philippines working for them. (02:00) So very, very short. That's my story.

(02:03) Jeremy Au: And, you know, you were out, you know, at the University of St.

(02:06) Gallen, which is, you know, across the world from Southeast Asia. And then you were in Tokyo and then now the Philippines. So can you walk me through like a little bit about, you know, that. Early switch to Asia. How did that happen?

(02:17) Nicolas Bivero: So the early switch to Asia was something that I had always wanted to do not full time not long Let's put it this way.

(02:23) That was more of a that happened and I can explain a little bit more about that But my father used to do martial arts. and so when I was six years old He basically put me into doing karate And so I had a very early exposure to a little bit of the japanese I guess Not culture, but certain things of Japan.

(02:42) And my father was well, he liked Japan a lot, because of his martial arts. So there was this exposure and I continued to do that. And when I was in Switzerland, as a student, I got very, very deep into martial arts during that time. I continued to do karate and then I added Aikido to it. And that exposure.

(02:58) Kind of (03:00) opened some idea in my mind. You know, I would love to be in Japan. I would love to spend at least six months there, train there, learn a little bit of Japanese, but specifically train martial arts in Japan with the Japanese teachers in a Japanese dojo and so on and so forth. So that's where the whole idea of going to Asia actually came about.

(03:17) And I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to do that. So the first time I came was, I think in 2021 my uncle was living in Japan, so I had the opportunity of doing my summer holidays with him and stay there and train. And I honestly fell in love with the country. So when I finished university didn't know what to do with myself. and at that time, it was also a little bit tough in, in Switzerland and in Germany to find jobs. So it was just after the dot com bubble. So it was a little bit. The market wasn't good for people coming out of university. And I honestly, to be very fair, I didn't know what to do with myself.

(03:51) So I decided, okay, let me do six months Japan. Let me like train every day, learn Japanese every day. And just get that experience and then go back to Europe. So I (04:00) went to Japan in 2023, did that for about five months. And while doing that, I kind of felt okay. This is great. This is a great experience. Why not add to this an internship?

(04:11) Why not add to this an additional exposure to the Japanese society and Japan itself? It can always be helpful and can. My idea was it will help brighten up my CV. So I applied to a ton of companies, Swiss companies, German companies, some American companies. Everybody told me the same, like, come back when your Japanese is better.

(04:30) and that was something I was not necessarily willing to do. and then I got good luck on my side. So I got the opportunity of doing internship. this was a gentleman who was Friend of my uncle and they had dinner together. And my uncle just mentioned that I was looking for an internship and they happened to be looking for somebody who spoke English well enough, for their international business expansion in Southeast Asia.

(04:52) And yeah, and they gave me an internship. It was the most surreal interview I ever had. Introduce myself, talk for five minutes, and then the person who became my (05:00) boss in the future said, well, you're hired. And I'm like, yeah, but for what exactly? What is it I'm hired for? What do you want me to do? And it's like, ah, we can figure this out.

(05:07) Just you're hired. The HR will deal with you. And I'm like, okay, why not? And that's how I ended up in Japan. It was also a very interesting first week of work because he wasn't even there. So I entered the office, walked in. They kind of knew I was coming, so they gave me a table, sat me down, gave me a computer, and said, well, we don't know what you're supposed to do.

(05:27) Nakamura san is not here, so just wait. And I waited for a week until he finally came back and then kind of told me what to do. So that was an interesting experience, but I got very lucky, to be very honest. and that allowed me to stay longer in Japan, allowed me to then continue training martial arts, continue learning Japanese.

(05:43) And honestly get the exposure to the Japanese society. I was the only foreigner at that time in the office in Japan, there was one more foreigner, but he was based in Singapore.

(05:50) So it was a very interesting exposure.

(05:52) Jeremy Au: Wow. And, you know, from there, you know, you spend time in Japan and obviously, you know, it's a big cultural difference, right?

(05:59) I mean, no matter how (06:00) much martial arts you do. So I was just kind of curious, what was that experience like? What was your, I don't know, first month as an intern like? And, you know, how did you adjust?

(06:08) Nicolas Bivero: Yeah, so that's it. I mean, it's been a while, honestly. So I need to think a little bit back about that.

(06:13) So the first month of internship was, I think I need to separate a little bit the personal side and the work side and maybe also the martial arts side, which goes into personal. So the internship was interesting because As I said, the first week, they didn't know what to do with me.

(06:29) So I was sitting there waiting to be told what to do. Then my boss came back and then explained to me that what he wanted me to do is replicate the businesses we have or they have in Japan, the company. It's a very old family business, 160 plus years old. So those business, those logistic operations in Japan replicate them in Southeast Asia.

(06:48) And so what I did, and that was pretty much the guidance, it's like, we are looking for opportunities in Southeast Asia, to replicate what we do in Japan, go forth and figure it out. And so I took my training (07:00) from university. And basically made it a research study at the beginning. So I went and looked at.

(07:05) So the 1st month or 6 weeks, I spent researching Southeast Asia, the countries, the economy, the foreign direct investment laws have we had any contact with them? So I went around. The floor asking older members of the company, like, okay, what do we actually do? Do we have any previous relationship to any Southeast Asian country?

(07:24) So I try to on the one hand, learn as much about Southeast Asia in the economies and the opportunities in our sector. And at the same time also learn as much as I could from our older managers on what is it we do and how do we do it? And do we do anything in Southeast Asia? So that was quite interesting.

(07:41) So I took it like a research project. So that's how I ran with it. And I guess over time, the opportunities in some of the Southeast Asian countries started crystallizing from that research and the presentations as well. I was making to my bosses. So that was on the work site and they gave me a lot of freedom, which was very interesting.

(07:59) Nakamura san (08:00) was literally a person who was like, listen, I hired you because I believe or I have the hope that you're smart enough. So now go forth and figure it out. So I thought that was great. That worked very well with me. On the personal social side, I mean, the martial arts.

(08:14) Martial art was very interesting because again, I was one of the very few foreigners in that dojo. So I would go after work and take the train for about an hour and go there and then I would be there, do it three times a week. And then afterwards, more often than not, we would go for dinner.

(08:28) and this dojo was interesting because It is also where a lot of young Japanese, youth from Vaseda University trains. And so there was an exposure on the one hand of older people, older than me a lot of business people. and then at the same time, a lot of students. So, that interaction was actually quite interesting and also to see how they interact.

(08:49) And because Japanese society is very hierarchical. And to see that also, not just at the work side, but also on the social side on the private side was kind of interesting exposure and gave me a lot of (09:00) learning. And at the same time, what helped me a lot there is because everything was in Japanese.

(09:04) So I was constantly listening to Japanese. Sooner or later, my Japanese got a little bit better, so that was quite helpful. It was a huge change. going from a European mindset to a Japanese mindset was a big difference. And that was an interesting adjustment.

(09:17) Jeremy Au: And what's interesting is that, you know, you spent many years in this Japanese company. Could you share a little bit more about kind of different roles, but also why you stayed in this company?

(09:27) Nicolas Bivero: Why did I stay? I enjoyed my role. My role was, as I said, business development in Southeast Asia. So the company itself, what they were doing and still do is they are originally an oil and chemical logistic company. So they have ships in Japan.

(09:42) They have tank trucks, they have storage facilities. So the big depots that you can see around. Ports and airports and whatnot. but they also have a chemical transportation and logistic arm. They had warehouses. So it was everything in logistics. So the whole supply chain. In oil and chemical (10:00) and that gave me a lot of opportunities to look at bits and pieces of that supply chain and say, okay, what can we do of that or what opportunities are there in Thailand, in Vietnam or in the Philippines or in Taiwan, or even in China.

(10:16) And so it allowed. There was a lot of room to explore and to experiment to say, okay, let's look at the local shipping in China. What are the rules? What are the conditions? Who could be our partners? At that time, the Chinese government was trying to bring foreign expertise into China to develop the.

(10:34) Cabotage business for shipping. and so doing that research that those analysis, building the business plans that was super interesting. And I enjoyed that. And so that was something that when they asked me, like, Hey, after the internship, do you want to stay longer? I was like, absolutely. Let's happy to stay longer

(10:52) I guess, new terms and conditions, but happy to stay longer because I really enjoy what I do. And the other thing of that job is it required (11:00) me to travel outside of Japan, not as often as I maybe would have loved to at the beginning, but at least once a quarter, I was traveling either to Thailand or to Vietnam or to the Philippines.

(11:11) Singapore, to do business development, to meet potential partners, potential clients and, and things like that. So I enjoyed the work itself. I enjoyed also the freedom of creating. So it was an entrepreneurship kind of approach, but working within a big company, big enough company.

(11:28) I mean, it's a billion dollar business company. So it's not a small company. So I truly enjoyed that. and the freedom my boss, my first boss, Nakamura san, and also my other bosses afterwards gave me of running with it and being creative and yeah, doing it. And so that's part of the reason I stayed.

(11:45) It got to a point where at a certain point, I think around 2010, I was a little bit like, well, do I continue? Do I not continue? So that was like seven years in, but then the opportunity of actually being seconded to the Philippines came about, we had already a gentleman here in the (12:00) Philippines because we had already one business here, one shipping company, but then.

(12:04) We built a second business in the Philippines, which I was deeply involved with. And then there were two different things. So one was shipping and one was a solar system integration company. So at that point, the Japanese basically looked at it and they had to make a decision if to have two Japanese here.

(12:18) Or one Nicolas and the reason why one Nicolas is not because I'm better than them, but it's because I set up the shipping company where I was part of it and I was part of setting up the solar company. So, therefore, I could cover both sides. And when they asked me if I was interested in that, I actually jumped on the opportunity, both from a career perspective, but also honestly from a, let's change a little bit.

(12:41) I like the Philippines. I always liked the Philippines, even since the first time I came here. So that was an opportunity I wanted to take with an eye of staying here two, three years, and then going back to Japan or to the next location. But I ended up.

(12:53) Staying here pretty much permanently. So that was a interesting move.

(12:57) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And that's the big move, right? Because not only did you (13:00) move permanently, but you also ended up co founding Pen Brothers which is the organization that you lead today.

(13:06) So was it like a side hustle? How does it overlap or how does it happen?

(13:10) Nicolas Bivero: Yeah, it definitely was a side hustle, by the way, approved by my company. So it's not that I didn't know what I was doing. and their feedback again, they gave me a lot of freedom. So their feedback was like,

(13:18) as long as it doesn't clash. With what you're doing for us as long as you're able to still do your, I guess, 120 percent work, we don't care. Do whatever you want. If that's your hobby. So be it. And that was actually quite kind from them. And I really appreciate it. And that's part of the reason why I stayed even longer with them than maybe otherwise I would have done. I mean, the opportunity came about, So there were two reasons I have always been a little bit fortunate in my life So on the one hand I had as I said built or part of the team Which built a shipping company in 2005 then a solar system company in 2010 11 By 2014 we had built or were in the process of building a third business here in the Philippines And for each one of those businesses you need (14:00) to have a different type of talent.

(14:01) So in the shipping, obviously it's seafarers, it's ship manning, ship management which is different than the manning part, procurement, operations and so on and so forth. So it's accounting and all that. So it's a certain type of pool of talent. And obviously Philippines has very good talent in that pool.

(14:18) The solar company. Was a little bit different because for that we needed engineers. We needed also very strong procurement, but more than that in solar, which was new to me, actually, we needed a very strong sales arm and business development capabilities from a sales perspective shipping, or at least the shipping we did was a long term relationship with one, two clients.

(14:37) So you don't do much sales. Once you close the deal, you maintain the relationship in solar though, because it was system integration. We needed to build a strong. Sales team and again, very happy with the team we built in the Philippines. And they're still there. I think the second largest solar system integrator for roof for commercial and industrial in the Philippines by now and the third company was again different.

(14:58) It was a training facility (15:00) for truck drivers and trucking. So very different pool of people. So that exposure to building different teams and the large pool of talent in the Philippines was something that opened my eye To what later became Penn Brothers with the opportunity and actually try to convince the Japanese of building a captured center in the Philippines, a back office, so to speak, for our Japan operations and some of our Singapore and other operations, it was always declined because they felt that it needed to be Japanese speakers and in Japan and all the other reasons they had.

(15:31) That being said, I truly believed in that opportunity that you can actually build really good support teams in the Philippines for global operations or companies outside of the Philippines. And you can see it in the Philippines with big and some of the big capture centers.

(15:45) And so in 2014, my best friend and co founder was growing his other startups. he had, I think series a, so he needed to scale. And it was a very broad spectrum of what he needed to scale. He needed from software development to (16:00) sales, to accounting, to I think even Photoshop editing. So I remember telling him like, Hey, why don't we give this a shot in the Philippines?

(16:08) There's really good people here. I have built. Extremely successful good teams with hardworking and committed people. I'm sure we can do that for your company too. And, he and his other partner were willing to try it out. That's how we started. And that's how the whole idea came about.

(16:23) And so we hired, I think at that time, two or three people, he was very happy. and then surprisingly, we realized that in our network, we had more people in a similar position that also needed talent and couldn't find it or already had a couple of Filipinos, but they were freelancers or independent contractors and wanted to have them in a group.

(16:42) In a format that was more conducive to everybody. And so that's how we started. It was never the intention to make this a ginormous company. It was more the intention of, well, you need help. I feel this is an interesting thing. I feel we can do something good here.

(16:57) and let's try it out. And then we tried it out. (17:00) It was a lot of extra work. that's for sure. so it very quickly reduced any time I had for, sport and stuff like that.

(17:08) Jeremy Au: Are you still doing martial arts?

(17:09) Nicolas Bivero: No. So I actually, to be honest, I stopped martial arts when I moved to the Philippines, because I.

(17:15) Anything, I found around here was too far away. I mean, Philippine traffic is intense. And then I met a few friends who I became really close to who were doing CrossFit at that time. and they were all about seven to 10 years younger than me.

(17:28) I was 33 when I moved here. Well, maybe not that much younger, but they were younger than me and I'm very competitive. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to compete with you guys. And so I did CrossFit for a while as a hobby.

(17:38) Jeremy Au: And what's interesting is that, you know, you spent some time building as a side hustle and then eventually did it full time.

(17:43) And that's a big jump to make. I think you were in your mid to late thirties when you made that jump. So how were you thinking about that?

(17:51) Nicolas Bivero: No. So actually I was planning to do the jump maybe in 2019. but then. I guess I decided to stick it out a little bit (18:00) longer finish 1 of the big projects I was doing for the solar business.

(18:02) So we set up a 4th company, which is an investment company. And so I wanted to still get that. Let's call it feather in the cap and experience in and then COVID happened. So my whole plan of leaving at a certain point in time, maybe 2020 got derailed because of COVID.

(18:17) So when COVID happened, oil companies suffer big times and I felt. That that would have been the worst time for me to leave the Japanese being the only representative they had in the Philippines, and move to my own company because at least in my perspective, that would have been very unfair.

(18:33) They would not have been able to send anybody else. I was their representative for so many years. There was so many things we had to do to save the company, save the jobs at the end of the day. So that I decided, well, this is priority. And I will stay until we get out of this. So I stayed longer.

(18:49) I stayed from until June 2022 is when I finally left, the Japanese and moved full time to Penn Brothers. And so if my math is correct, I was already (19:00) 43, 44. So a little bit older than that. but it was, it was needed and it was important to do that. I would have felt personally and also professionally very, bad or I would have felt that I did the wrong thing if I would have left mid COVID and just continued with my original plan.

(19:14) but the experience itself was good. I mean, it was an interesting part of the whole, experience of moving companies. it was on the one hand, I knew what I was getting into.

(19:22) It's not like I was moving jobs from one company to something completely new. I was moving to my own company. So you would feel, or I thought I was going to be super comfortable. I wasn't, I was actually quite, it quite nerve wracking. I felt also a lot of pressure and mainly self induced, you know, like, okay, now it's not a side hustle anymore.

(19:41) Now It's full time. So I actually need to deliver more than what I was doing before. now it's fully on me. I can't pretend, okay, well, this was a side hustle. And unfortunately it didn't work because I didn't have enough time. So there was an element of nerves and concern.

(19:56) Am I the right CEO? Because one thing is to run it. (20:00) And I wasn't running it alone. So we had a very good managing director for quite some time. We did an excellent job, but he also had wanted to move on and build his own company. So it was musical chairs that all came together at the right time, but still, you know, it's like, okay, am I actually the right CEO or I'm just pretending I am or feeling I am going to bring the company to the next level?

(20:20) Will the team. Like to see me now full time instead of only seeing me two or three hours a day in the evenings the mornings. it's all of those. Like, I guess it's human. You have concerns. You have doubts. So it was an interesting experience to be very honest. And it took a good while.

(20:34) It took about 3 to 5 months to feel fully comfortable And feel that I had a full grasp of what I was doing and needed to do. and that the team had also fully bought in to me, I think, I hope they did.

(20:46) Jeremy Au: And what's interesting here is that again, you started this hustle when you were around 36 years old, and then you did eight years of it, you know, as a side hustle and obviously doing a day job, working the evenings as well. And then you became full time in the same (21:00) company at the age of 44.

(21:01) So. you know, everybody, when they think of a founder, entrepreneur, they think of, I don't know, Mark Zuckerberg as a university dropout. I guess same thing in the, you know, I guess the martial arts gym, everyone's a young person. So did you ever feel older than a normal founder?

(21:14) Nicolas Bivero: No, not really. No. it's actually interesting that you mentioned that. I always had a little bit of a different approach or opinion actually on the whole entrepreneurship and founding companies. let me explain where I'm coming from. I did business development for the Japanese company and I was involved in at least six companies that we set up. it's not like the CEO and owner of the company was doing this himself, he hired people to do it. So I always felt that you can also create things and you can also build stuff without you having to do it yourself. fully 100%. I think what I'm trying to say with this is that different paths in creating and achieving things.

(21:49) and I chose maybe a more unique or less talked about path, but to be honest, I know by now, a good amount of entrepreneurs and founders who became founders quite (22:00) late or who continued doing it. they started maybe mid thirties, but then by mid forties that's already the second or the third company.

(22:06) And they continue, they do it with mid fifties and even sixties. So I find that very interesting. I think it doesn't have to be the Zuckerberg model. That's what I'm trying to say. it can also be done differently. I mean, look at, Elon Musk. I mean, he's still founding stuff, and honestly, he doesn't need to, but he hires the people to run it.

(22:22) So they're different approaches, but In my case, I thought the experience I had before with the Japanese of doing business development and setting up operations and hiring people was the foundation for me to then do Pen Brothers and also feel comfortable to move into Pen Brothers. that was basically my training field, my learnings.

(22:40) And that allowed me A, to do it, B, to actually have the guts of saying like, you know what, I have done this before for somebody else. I can do it now for myself. To have that confidence knowing that I knew what I was doing and had to do to make it happen. I mean, maybe not necessarily the confidence that it would always be a success, (23:00) but confidence that I knew what the bases are to setting up a company and making it work and then, yeah.

(23:05) And then I think the age, honestly, I don't feel 47 to be very honest. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel, but I definitely don't feel it.

(23:12) Jeremy Au: So there you are, you know, building Pen Brothers and what's the thesis behind Pen Brothers? So obviously it's a talent problem and obviously, you know, it's always hard to hire remotely. And then Philippines as a market is relatively unstructured.

(23:24) It's gotten a bit better over the years. But you know, what was your thesis of actually solving it?

(23:28) Nicolas Bivero: Yeah. So thank you for that question. There are two sides to our thesis. So the one side is the talent and finding you the right talent. So when you look at companies nowadays, one of the main struggles everybody has is finding the right people for the right positions at the right time at the right cost.

(23:44) So it's a lot of little puzzles that you need to put together because most companies don't have an endless amount of money. so it's not like, okay, I need X software developers and it doesn't matter what they cost. I can just pay whatever that's not how it usually works. So you have (24:00) plans, you need to execute on those plans and usually.

(24:03) The growing of a company, the executing of your plans entail as part of the plan, people, you know, be it software developers, be it more customer support, be it more sales, whatever it is, you need people and now finding the right people. Meaning to say the right talent in terms of language, of skills, of the quality of the personality.

(24:24) So the soft elements of building a good part of your team but then also finding them at the right, at the right cost point that all of that becomes difficult, specifically in the more developed countries and in the first world countries. I mean, they, for different reasons are lacking people. in Northern Europe, you have a large. decline in population of working population. So many people are retiring that they are, struggling and they can't fix this with immigration. they need to start looking broader. They need to start looking at, well, where else can I find the talent?

(24:55) Can I do it remotely? And I think COVID actually was a very big catalyst for this, (25:00) a very big help for everybody because everybody had to work remote at a certain point in time. So the whole remote. Concern is basically almost done. I mean, there's still some people who still believe remote cannot work, but honestly, it works.

(25:13) It's more a question of do you feel comfortable with it? And then the other side of the thesis, the talent and the availability of talent. that the companies need and the other side is the Philippines itself. Philippine has really, really good talent.

(25:24) There's a hundred I think it depends on the statistic, but let's say 110 million people. I think 50 percent of those people are below 26 on average. So there's a million people coming out of colleges and universities every year. So there is a very large talent pool of availability.

(25:40) Companies are struggling finding talent. some countries and companies in certain countries more than others, but there is that struggle. And on the other hand, there are really good Filipinos. And that's also the exposure I gained from working in the Philippines, building businesses in the Philippines and the Filipinos.

(25:56) Are not only the things you normally hear like (26:00) all the nurses, the seafarers, the mates, the cleaning ladies. No, no, no. I mean, there's everything here and you have amazing people here. So the thesis was okay. We have the talent. We know there's a lack of talent. How do we bridge that?

(26:14) And how do we bridge that very specifically without contributing to the brain drain? What we always strongly believed in is we want to create jobs in the philippines Not outside of the philippines because we could also have said well, let's set up an agency get the license Find people and ship them to europe or ship them to united states or wherever the talent is needed But that was not what we wanted to achieve.

(26:34) We wanted to Create those jobs here in the Philippines, create those opportunities for Filipinos to work with very interesting foreign companies, startups, SMEs, whatever it is, without having to leave and with COVID or after COVID, even more so without actually having to move to Metro Manila. Because before COVID, everything had to be around here or around the big cities and with COVID now with the development after (27:00) COVID, we can do it remotely.

(27:01) We have people nationwide. We have like a great accountant, German speaking lady in the middle of nowhere in Mindanao, which is great. She didn't need to move to a big city. She didn't need to uproot herself and her family to get this job with a German startup. so that was the other. Side of it, like, how do we do something which is good for the country and good for the people?

(27:21) And that stems from the fact that, as I said, I'm half South American. So my country lost in the last, let's say, 10 years, about 9 million people, depending on what statistic you read, they all left and a lot of them are never going to go back, even if the situation in the country changes. And then my co founder, Guy, is originally Portuguese.

(27:39) And until recently, Portugal was a net trained country. People left Portugal for opportunities to go to Northern Europe, England, or United States, or even Asia, to be honest. So that only changed maybe in the last six, seven years, something like that. So, that's, sorry, very long answer, but those three things.

(27:58) So the talent (28:00) needs, the talent pool, and creating something here. Yeah.

(28:03) Jeremy Au: And what are some myths and misconceptions about the PEO industry

(28:07) Nicolas Bivero: So let me start on the top level. the interesting thing about PEO, EOR, and so on and so forth. I mean, there are similarities and dissimilarities and every country uses, not every country, but a lot of some countries have different words for the same thing. So I guess what you call PEO and EOR, or what we call in some countries like United States, it goes under stuffing, you know, it's the stuffing industry, in other places, they call it offshoring or remote team building or in some other countries, they call it team augmentation, if you use offshoring in England, it ain't going to get you any clients because when you Google offshoring in England, you will get offshore wind farms then offshore oil fields.

(28:45) They use a different word again. I think they use EOR and staffing if I'm not mistaken. So it's very interesting. but anyway, I think the big misconception about the is that it's short term or low quality people. We have built. Long (29:00) term, relationships and hired people who have been with us for 10 years working for clients very successfully, very happy.

(29:07) And so If you want to, if you really build it that way, there's a long term component to it. it's not just okay, I do this for a year or half a year or short term and then the quality. when people think about it initially, they think, okay, what are like the lowest hanging fruits in terms of my org chart that I can do?

(29:23) Is it like, like basic customer support, call centers, or is it very simple data entry? But honestly, if you look at it and if you look at the talent we have here in the Philippines and also in other countries, to be very honest, there is very Good high level, even talent. I mean, we once hired a gentleman.

(29:40) I don't want to go into too much confidential details, but he was making even for United States an extremely high salary. But why was he hired? Because our client told us, like, listen, it's really not the money, but I can't find a person like that in America willing to work for me as a young, small (30:00) startup.

(30:00) But I need this person because I have the contract with a client. And so paying the same amount that I would pay in the States, in the Philippines, it doesn't bother me. What I need is the person and the person is excellent. so what I'm trying to say with the story is that there are really good people in the Philippines.

(30:14) And as I said, also in other countries. And so I think the misconception is that the pool of quality that you can find is much larger than people give it credit or think it is. The pool of really good talent that you can explore is, I mean, I wouldn't say unlimited, but it's very large.

(30:31) And I think that's one of the big misconceptions. It doesn't have to be the basic, most simple job. I think you can really look at your org chart and say like, well, I need a very senior engineer for architecture. Why not actually outside of my home country? Why actually not Philippines? And they do exist here and they are good and they're hard working and they're committed.

(30:52) Yeah, so that would be my answer. I'm not sure that's, that's what you wanted to hear, but that's what I, what I believe.

(30:57) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And let's kind of like (31:00) go to, you know, kind of like my second last question here is that You know, when you think about the future of, you know, kind of Filipino talent, right? So, you know, big diaspora, increasingly, I don't know, globalized, but also permeable because of, you know, remote work, you know, to speak English, which is good.

(31:18) There's language of the world. Adding in the previous episode, I described language lock, you know, some countries are landlocked. They don't have access to the ocean. Some countries like Japan are language locked, you know, they don't have access to English in the same way. So Philippines has English.

(31:32) I'm just kind of curious, what do you think is that dynamic? You think that's, you know, anything surprising or novel or, I don't know, secretive or, you know, contrarian, I guess, about how you think about how Filipino talent will play out in the next 10 years?

(31:47) Nicolas Bivero: So, that's a good question. I think the Philippine, this business and related businesses is going to continue to grow quite significant in the Philippines for the foreseeable future because Filipinos bring to the table a lot of advantages, (32:00) starting with the language, as you said yourself, there is a big advantage in speaking the global language of English.

(32:05) I hope that the Philippine government and future governments will. Continue to emphasize English as one of the most important resources the country has, or teaching English to the young people and then maintaining that language capability. That's, I think, very important.

(32:20) That being said, I think the future is also bright for Filipinos and Philippine talent, because as I mentioned, there is a lot of young people entering the work market. those people now more and more are getting exposed to global business practices, to global companies, to global ideas, to international competition.

(32:42) and that exposure by itself, I think it's helpful, and it's good. if you look at the BPO industry in the Philippines, the BPO industry is not as old as maybe some people think. I mean, I think it started like in the mid nineties. And so if you look at it, that exposure and the people who were trained during that time, those are now the senior people, or (33:00) maybe even the CEOs and the managers of big BPO's or other corporations.

(33:04) So now the more the young people in the mid level people get exposed. To global businesses, global talent. I think the more this will also help the Filipinos become better in what they do. And therefore it becomes, a positive feedback loop, you know, so they become better what they do that will help them again the next younger generation to even be better than the one before and all of that will make hopefully the Filipinos more and more or the Philippine talent more and more in demand because people will become aware that there is really good talent there.

(33:36) And I think if that feedback loop keeps Going there is a bright future for, Philippines and the Filipinos to work like that. And as I said, hopefully from the Philippines, not having to leave the Philippines. I think the other interesting part is that we're seeing now Filipinos who left.

(33:53) I mean, it's not maybe I don't know the actual numbers, but I know it's happening. And I think that's also very interesting because those people coming (34:00) back in whatever level they are, they will bring now that experience that exposure, those best practices that they were exposed to, and that they learn back to the Philippines and thereby again, grow that overall Talent pool in the Philippines. So I think there are a lot of positive feedback loops as long as we keep this going. And as long as we make it happen.

(34:19) Jeremy Au: Great. And you know, when we think about all of this for my last question is, could you share about time that you've been brave?

(34:26) Nicolas Bivero: That I have been brave.

(34:27) Well, I think the bravest I ever was, was taking an internship in Japan and without actually knowing what on earth I was getting into. so that was, I guess, bravery, but that was an easy bravery, so to speak, because I was very young. I was 24, 23. So I guess you're brave because you're naive and you're dumb.

(34:44) So you just go with it, not caring what's going to happen. so on the business side, I think. Every time you do something new, and it's completely new, it's something you really don't know if it's gonna work, if it makes sense, I think you need (35:00) to, dig deep and Be brave to do it and be brave to commit to it and try it out and also be smart enough to understand.

(35:07) Okay. When do I know if it was a success or when do I know it wasn't and I move on and I think bravery in my case. I mean, I think there's an element of braveness also when you decide not to do things, you know, there's a million good ideas. There's a million ideas. Oh, why don't we do this? Or why don't we do that? Or why we spend more on, X, Y, Z.

(35:26) And I think you need to also sometimes be brave in the sense of, and I'm not sure if that's bravery or if that's just. Having some guts to just say no more often than not. Otherwise, you just do so many things that you don't do anything correctly. And I think there is also an element of bravery there.

(35:41) And I tried to remind myself about that, you know, that it's as important to do things, but sometimes it's even more important not to do things and to just focus on what you're doing. I'm not really sure if that answers your question. I guess the best example is really my move to Japan. I think that was the bravest I ever was.

(35:58) Jeremy Au: Amazing. (36:00) I would love to kind of summarize the three big takeaways I got from this conversation. So first of all, thanks so much for sharing about your early move all the way from, you know, Europe to Japan. I thought that was a fascinating story about, you know, the moves in your life, but also being brave or naive or young.

(36:16) And also chasing how your love for martial arts kind of like pulled it all together for that early internship that, you know, you're waiting for a week. Well, he didn't know what's going on, so I thought that was a lovely story about that cultural adjustment and bravery. Secondly, thanks for sharing about, your decision to build a company in, when you were 38 and as a side hustle, and then eventually going full time at 44.

(36:39) I think that's such a amazing story for so many. Founders out there who are people who want to be founders, but they think themselves, am I too old or should I wait for later? So I think this is a great story for folks who are thinking about that. And lastly, thanks so much for sharing about, I think the Filipino telemarket and I think your vision for the future.

(36:58) I thought it was fascinating to hear (37:00) about. Of course, the understandable challenges that comes from the Philippines telemarket, but also interesting to see how you are approaching that solution and addressing that for many others as well. On that note, thank you so much Nicolas for sharing.

(37:12) Nicolas Bivero: Thank you, Jeremy, for having me. And yeah, it was great. I mean, I know that I talked more than you, but it was a great conversation. Thank you for that.