Hello! I’m Humberto Quintanilla, an inveterate socio-economic entrepreneur. Bitcoin advocate and Nikola Tesla fan.

Here’s a photo of me, and also here’s my profile validated via Onename (blockchain validation)

tl:dr

Here’s the “too long, didn’t read” (tl:dr) version of my post:

I wanted to do a more insightful introduction with my professional career and experiences to show you my background and resonates with my previous and future posts of entrepreneurship.

I’m a storyteller, public speaker, I’m cofounder and CEO of Payzi and Emprendevision. Payzi is a blockchain based startup that is launching in Monterrey, Mexico (a city just below Texas, USA). Emprendevision is a startup that empowers people thru workshops, conferences and boot camps.

• I’ve pitched Payzi to Dave McClure of PayPal and 500Startups. Here's the post about that story.
• I’ve appeared in CNN Expansion news network (1st article, 2nd article) featuring my work with Payzi (formerly known as PulseBTC as shown in the article) and Bitcoin for the masses.
• I’ve helped local entrepreneurs to create their startups, validated their ideas and build traction.
• I’ve participated in the biggest hackaton in the world, Campus Party Mexico, where I secured place to show Payzi.
• I’ve given a conference in national television within Semana Nacional del Emprendedor, the biggest event for entrepreneurs in Mexico.
• I’m in the 4th Generation of High Impact Startups in Startup Studio, the best accelerator in Latin America.

The Main Issue

Some days ago, in his masterful post @daut44 gave a piece of advice that really made me think. He made me realize that my approach towards my entrepreneurship posts have been missing something very important: Credibility.

My core messages in Steemit are these two: empowering people to be entrepreneurs and invite people to Mexico by showing the world beautiful pictures and stories of the country’s magical places.

The latter is a no-brainer, I go out every Saturday and visit a new place, I take pictures and tell its story. But, with my entrepreneurship posts, I gave advices and tools on how to start or grow your businesses, projects or startups, without ever validating in Steemit my work, showing my story, my trajectory, my traction of startups.

So I decided to “start fresh” and show you my story, hoping that it can resonate with the path you’ve chosen in your life, or empower you to start doing what you’d like instead of keeping on dreaming.

My Story

2008, waiting for my plane from the City of Mexico to Madrid, Spain. Bored as hell. I grabbed a magazine featuring beautiful sports cars and I began to read it, quickly reaching the main article. At that time, I was in love with everything that involved cars, its class, the sound of the motor roaring, since I was a kid my love for cars has just grown stronger.

The main article of the magazine was: “Be an Automotive Designer, outside of Mexico” … bummer! Another thing that I cannot do in my own country, I thought. But then I saw the opportunity. I could go abroad and study that which I love, of course I’ll need a lot of money.

After that the goal was carved in my mind, I would study Automotive Design, no matter what. Thus, I devised the plan to make money and study in Modena, Italy, the pinnacle city of sports car design and creation.
I began to study International Business in a University in Monterrey. Perhaps not the best idea of all, because in 5 years, a lot of things change…

I took a class on entrepreneurship and I felt in love with the idea of being a rockstar entrepreneur like Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Jack Ma, and Mark Zuckerberg. Men who, despite all odds dared to dream and do what seemed impossible. They were able to gather ridiculous amounts of money by doing that which seems to make them happy and fulfilled. People acknowledged them because they were their inspiration.

Elon Musk

Richard Branson

Mark Zuckerberg

Jack Ma

I wanted that.

That was my turning point, looking myself in the mirror and think “what have you done so far? What are you going to do next? Do you have what it takes?”

Who dares wins

I began to work with GE, and then at Neoris, it was alright, both fine jobs, good working environment, great coworkers, but I just couldn’t see myself doing that any longer. Working for the man, a man who I wouldn’t ever know, doing things that would benefit only the pockets of the few.

Those works were a contract, and I signed a contract to start and finish them, and so I did. After those jobs where done, I was also done with working for someone else, and started to do it for myself.

Yeah, sure, we’ve heard it all before… “start a business! Live the life of your dreams, travel the world” well, let me tell you, it’s a long way to the top. This is a bumpy road, a long race full of killer-kungfu-with-shotguns-man-eating-bears, people who will not back you up, and competitors that will shred you apart without you even knowing it.

To achieve greatness, you’ll have to follow excellence. To reach excellence this is the recipe:

1. Discipline
2. Consistency

You’ll see these two quite often in Steemit users

Before I quit my two jobs, I had already thought about doing something which could be fun and I could monetize. I thought about Payzi (formerly known as PulseBTC) and its potential for escalation and its power to revolutionize things in Mexico, here we called “algo que pueda romper madres”, loosely translated to: “something that can break shit up”.

I thought about a wristband which you could use to make payments at festivals and transport, then blockchain was created and I decided to put the two things together. But, I had no cofounders, nor the knowledge to be able to bring my ideas to life. I had only my guts and stubbornness.

I had to gather a team of cofounders, but at the super early stage we were my cofounders did not take the full commitment. Why should they? Believing a madman that they could make a profit out of an idea that was worth basically nothing… thin air.

4 cofounders went on their separate ways and I stood as the only one believing in Payzi, until the right cofounder showed up and things started to pick up really fast.

We applied to a high impact acceleration process of Startup Studio, the best accelerator in Latin America, and got accepted….

This meant the world to me, because for more than 2 years we hadn’t had a single victory, a single toast to celebrate a win for Payzi. Things changed from this point on.

What’s next?

After applying to Statup Studio we got a massive boost in morale, skills and the will to carry on. We finally found the drive to get things going.

Startup Studio’s program lasts 20 weeks and we are on the 14th week. Things are going well, we closed our first sale with Payzi, we brought a cashless experience to a festival, where both organizers and attendees found major benefits by stop using money. They used our wristband to pay for their food and drinks and sellers used our mobile readers to receive payments.

I can’t say we passed with flying colors. There were many aspects on the festivals that we failed to foresee and implement, thus resulting in a semi-successful trial for Payzi.

Nevertheless, we are staying strong and will continue to hustle. Our main focus is to improve the user experience, improve the quality and functionality of the apps and web app, and keep building a strong team.

Endnotes

I hope my story resembles yours so this way you know that you can also endure the pain, you can also find your way and fight the good fight. Keep striving to reach your dreams, make short term goals to try to close the gap between your current situation and your desired situation.

Perhaps what you aimed for at first turns out it was not your passion but only a step that you needed to take or an opportunity that you needed to seize after all.

This has been my most sincere and elaborate post that I’ve made and I’d mean the world to me if you could give me your feedback and an opportunity to keep creating good content for you. I encourage you to make questions, suggestions, or anything of the sorts.

If you liked this post upvote it so that other people can see it too! :)

I’ll keep posting on Entrepreneurship and Discovering Mexico to give back what Steemit has given me.