FrankLicea

How relevant is this when AI has the ability to both write and debug massive code bases?

I imagine a future world where 100% of coding and debugging is done by prompt not by editing code.

Cool!

Still worth thinking through the application, it's a great way to think critically about your business.

When we first applied with Howdy.com, we didn't get in, but the process of filling out our application gave us some insights and clarity.

Second time we applied, we got in.

Sincere question, why do you think HN tends to down weight discussion on Visas or immigration?

In the last 4 years of operations in Latam we saw it a handful of times, all during the last 1.5 years of the Covid hiring mania. Mostly by big companies.

What’s telling is that we haven’t seen those offers since.

In fact we’ve seen rates negotiated down unfortunately.

- US companies are less likely to offer 15K/month, whereas before it wasn't uncommon

- Local Latam companies are having an easier time retaining talent

- Devs in Latam have lowered their salary expectations and often are putting regular salary increases on pause

- There's less job hopping between firms now

I co-founded Howdy.com (YC W21) about 3 years ago. It's a platform for building your own dev teams in Latin America; automate vetting, payroll, offices, equipment, etc. We're profitable and just closed a series-A.

Here's the kicker: My co-founder and I both have kids, family, mortgages. Here's how I did it in the years leading up to and during:

- I saved for years with the idea that I was going to use that money for entrepreneurship

- I was upfront with my spouse and kids about the amount of effort, risk and potential rewards; i could point to a successful dev/PM career as evidence that I could succeed

- Keeping the same standard of living was impossible, we had to budget for a new level of comfort

- We had runway timetable in mind to show some progress

- Our business approach had to be profitable from the start

Your business failure rate doesn't need to be 90% if you're flexible about the problem you're pursuing. We chose an idea that allowed us to bring in at least a little money to lengthen our personal runway. Once we had a sustainable business, it was easier to approach investors and pivot slightly to the market dominating, high risk/high reward version of our idea.

Hope this helps! Happy to chat about this with anyone who's interested in doing the same! f at howdy.com

Thank you Shorel! I think many people that object to the model haven't experienced these pain points themselves, either in the US or in Latam. But we recognize the model is not for everyone.

I had worked with a team in Colombia before and I speak Spanish, so we initially gravitated towards hiring people both in the Austin, TX and Colombia.

We found really great teammates, who spoke great english. We also loved the US timezones, it was possible to be more responsive to our US customers.

And finally, I was surprised at how much overlap in culture we had as software deveopers. For example pop culture like movies, shows, video games, anime, music, etc.

It was a really good fit!

Oops, updated!

Happy to jump on a chat on work through this together, I hope i can be helpful! Checkout my profile to see my email address and send me a DM! we'll get in touch.

Thanks for letting us know stg. Sorry about that, we'll look into it immediately.

In the mean time, I'm happy to setup you up on my end. Would you mind emailing me? You can find my email in my profile.

Yeah, we get the concern that Astro is just a middle man. Let me give a concrete example for why we think we provide more value than that.

We work with a few companies, whose names people would recognize, that feel more comfortable using a US business entity that they can sign contracts with to move specialized equipment, like locked down macbooks, installing special software on work equipment, or installing specialized local network equipment, etc..

These companies have physical security requirements that makes it tough for them to directly hire freelancers. Through our platform we bring those kinds of opportunities to our teammates that would be otherwise localized only certain US cities.

It's also common for freelancers to come onto our platform for various reason, 1) they didn't get paid by the customer or the customer withheld payment for onerous project tweaks 2) "contractors" were the first to get fired when times got tough, 3) "contractors" didn't get access to certain dev environments thus limiting their growth, etc.

We understand it's not a solution for everyone, that's why we describe our business model clearly, and people can decide if what Astro brings to the table is worth it!

Yeah, good point, of course direct freelancing is always on option. We believe that we provide enough info so that everyone can make a rational economic decision.

For example, the way customers pay is : 1) Customers pay for the developer's salary "en mano", which is specified by the developer, not us, 2) Customers pay for a standard benefits package and taxes (Health insurance, education, equipment etc.) and 3) Customers pay our 15% management fee (charged to the customer, not the developer)

That setup, of course, may not work for everyone, but we do have great companies, companies whose names we would recognize, that feel more comfortable using a US business entity that they can sign contracts with to move specialized equipment, like locked down macbooks, installing special software on work equipment, or specialized local network equipment, etc.. These companies have physical security requirements that makes it tough for them to directly hire freelancers. Thus we bring those kinds of opportunities to our teammates that would be otherwise localized only certain US cities.