Episode 489: Building Through Failure, Reinvention & the Future of Money with Fernando Espuelas

Jamila Souffrant 0:00

Today's episode is brought to you by Vera, and I love that this sponsor fits so perfectly with today's guest because he's actually the one who built it. Fernando Esperellas is the founder and CEO of Birde Inc. and Vera is his creation. So, what is Vera? She's an AI money coach. She's privacy first, judgment free, and designed to be the financial tool that actually works for you, not against you. Vera helps you know what's safe to spend, shows you how to build towards your real goals, and navigate your finances without the overwhelm. And your data, it's encrypted, never sold, never shared ever. Try her for free at journeytolaunch.com/vera. That's J-O-U-R-N-E-Y-T-O-L-A-U-N-C-h.com/v. e r a. All right, let's get into this conversation and stay tuned at the end of the episode. I'm going to share with you my real takeaways and experience after downloading Vera myself.

Fernando Espuelas 1:07

Potentially, some of your listeners are entrepreneurs who want to think about the next thing. This is the internet in 1995, so there's enormous potential. When people use it; they adopt it. They immediately want to keep your kids are AI natives. They're going to grow up in a different world. For them, it's going to be as normal as the internet is for us, or or the phone, or whatever. Right?

Intro 1:35

Welcome to the Journey to Launch podcast with your host Jamila Souffrant as a money expert who walks her talk, she helps brave journeyers like you get out of debt, save, invest, and build real wealth. Join her on the journey to launch to financial freedom in

Speaker 1 1:53

54321,

Jamila Souffrant 2:02

If you want the episode show notes for this episode, go to journeytolaunch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this episode. In the show notes, you'll get the transcribed version of the conversation, the links that we mentioned, and so much more. Also, whether you are an OG journeyer or brand new to the podcast, I've created a free Jumpstart guide to help you on your financial freedom journey. It includes the top episodes to listen to, stages to go through to reach financial freedom, resources, and so much more. You can go to journeytolaunch.com/jumpstart to get your guide right now. Okay, let's hop into the episode. Hey, hey, hey, journeyers! Welcome to the Journey to Launch podcast. My guest today is Fernando Espelas, entrepreneur, media executive, and one of the most fascinating minds at the intersection of technology, culture, and money. Fernando immigrated to the United States from Uruguay at the age of 10, and went on to co-found Star Media Network, the first major internet portal for Spanish-speaking audiences worldwide. He's also been a prominent voice in media, hosting a nationally syndicated TV and radio program, and has spent much of his career focused on the Latino civic engagement and economic empowerment. Today, he's back at it as founder and CEO of Verda Inc. the company behind Vera, the privacy-first AI money coach that sponsored today's episode. Fernando, welcome to the Journey to Launch podcast.

Fernando Espuelas 3:34

Thank you so much, Jamila. It's a pleasure to be with you.

Jamila Souffrant 3:37

I am so excited to talk to you and learn more about your journey, and then it's especially what you're doing now with your company. But can you just take us back a bit? Because I know being an immigrant and migrating here has been a big part of your story. It's made you who you are. So can you just take us back and tell the journey, or is kind of where you started from?

Fernando Espuelas 3:58

Yeah. So my mom brought me to the U.S. when I was a little boy, fleeing some difficult situations in Uruguay at a time of political revolution and economic collapse. And my mom had two cousins who had moved to the U.S. in the 1960s, and they were kind enough to send us two plane tickets. And we came to the U.S. and landed improbably in Connecticut, probably because back then we were the Latinos in the state kind of thing. But it was, you know, it was the classic immigrant story. Very difficult in the beginning. My mom cleaned houses, worked in a factory at night, so I could go to school, and so she was sacrificed a lot so that I could get a good education, which was her goal and and my goal as well. And so I was lucky enough to get a scholarship to college and studied history, which perplexed my mom since she she knew that probably there was not a big future in history, you know. But that's the way I think about the world and. And also my optimism about the world and how people can really emerge from whatever situation-not from every situation, but many situations-with a lot of luck and hard work and good friends.

Jamila Souffrant 5:12

I'd love to talk a bit about your decision to major in history and what you thought you'd do with that, because I do find that that's so interesting. And like, especially as a fellow immigrant myself, and having a lot of friends where there's an expectation of our parents and grandparents who came here that they sacrificed so much that you know they want us to get the highest level of education for the most hopefully top paying career. So, what did you think you were going to do with your history degree?

Fernando Espuelas 5:36

I was so excited. History was my passion, even as a little boy. I think it was a way for me to escape my reality. So I spent a lot of time in ancient Rome and medieval Europe and you know ancient Japan and and so for me it was really an an intellectual journey. I thought at first I wanted to be a professor and that that would you know I could spend all my time thinking about history, but early on, I joined the college newspaper, and I really got the the bug for journalism. And then eventually, I became one of the top editors, and eventually, the editor in chief, and eventually the publisher. And then I started to run the business of the newspaper, and loved it so much that I realized, well, you know, I can always go back to history, but I'd like to go into business. So that opened up the door for me, having run the newspaper, to get a job in in advertising on Madison Avenue when Madison Avenue was where the advertising industry used to be.

Jamila Souffrant 6:33

So how did that then turn into your career in the internet and web and technology?

Fernando Espuelas 6:40

Yeah, so I worked in advertising for a few years and and really had a great time, but always there was always something I I wanted to do. It was back in that period of time, advertising agencies were sort of the brains of marketing and and the clients really looked to advertising agencies to really come up with the the strategy and and how to market, and that led me to being offered a job by AT and T when AT and T wanted to launch itself throughout Latin America, and they gave me the responsibility to launch the AT and T brand, and in that process, this was in 1994, 1995. There was the very beginning of the consumer internet, and I immediately got connected to it. I was so as a consumer, I was on AOL. I was just like, "Wow, this is the coolest thing that will ever happen. And so I had this radical idea at the time, which was: if we're launching the AT and T brand, we can talk about the 150 years of heritage, or we can talk about the future. Let's talk about the internet. So I came up with this kind of wacky idea, which was to create a website that had a search engine in Spanish and Portuguese. This sounds so bizarrely obvious, but it it was really the first search engine in Spanish and Portuguese ever created. I also came up with this other totally wacky idea, which was free web-based email, you know Gmail and all that. I I came up with it before all those guys came up with it, and so that's how we launched the the AT and T brand in Latin America, and that was so exciting. But in the end of the day, that was just one of the small things I had to do at AT and T. So I decided I want to do this full time, and so I I started my own company. Took my savings. I got together with a friend who was more of a finance guy, and we started what became Star Media, which you know in in the late '90s was the dominant internet company in Latin America.

Jamila Souffrant 8:33

So for you to have the vision and foresight, and then also just the know how to to implement that, the ideas that you had, I find so interesting because the way you're talking about how the internet was back then, how everything was new, and things that are so obvious now are not as obvious. And now I feel like we're in a new age of new things, like including AI, which we'll talk about. Do you feel like your that history degree and your love for history, learning how people innovated back then helped you prepare to like step into the new age of things better than some other people who could only see what was in front of them.

Fernando Espuelas 9:11

Yeah, I mean, it helps to be young, right? And and you know, you don't feel limited, and you feel like you can take more risks. But but definitely, you know, studying history for me was always so fascinating because it was, if you if you read enough history, you realize that things are not predetermined. That there are people, men, women throughout the ages in every part of the world who are having these. Well, what if it were different kind of moments, and then either they have agency or they don't. Obviously, we have more agency today than we did, you know, 100 years ago, or certainly 1000 years ago. And then they go out and do it, and you know, mostly fail, right? But every once in a while, they create something new and exciting that changes the world. And that was always for me very, you know, I always saw myself as like, well, I can do it. You know what? What am I going to do? I don't know. But I'm. I'm gonna. I want to be on the leading edge. I want to create things that haven't been done before. You know. I think also being an immigrant. You know, talking back to your question about. You know, my mom wanted me to be a lawyer. Like you wouldn't believe, right? That was like her dream day and night. But for me, it was really can I create something that doesn't exist and then make it happen? And the other thing that happened as a kid and then in college running this newspaper is I unconsciously I wouldn't have said it this way. I became quite good at building teams. I have I have skill sets and I have some talent, but I think my number one talent is picking people who are smarter than me, and putting the team together and creating the energy so people are really excited to create new things. So you know, I came up with a lot of products for the internet that now are common. You know, other people would have come up with them as well, but but really, my team were the brilliant ones who came up with other brilliant ideas, but then made everything work together.

Jamila Souffrant 11:06

I see, and also something that came up in looking at your your history is that you did have other jobs. You know, I saw that you worked as a gardener. You could tell me if I I got any of this wrong, but gardener, gas station attendant, you were a Woolworths clerk, a delivery person, as a teenager, or maybe a little older. But so, can you talk about how those jobs and experiences? Because as someone who's listening to you tell your story, I'm like, wow, you worked at AT and T, you launched all these businesses, and so that those are probably more high profile, maybe hopefully more well paying. But you started out doing a lot of other types of jobs that people who are listening now maybe do. So talk about those experiences and how that also shaped you.

Fernando Espuelas 11:49

Yeah, I mean, my first job was pumping gas in a gas station in Connecticut and making $1.20-five an hour. I think more than that, and then getting tips. I mean, this is you know people were tipping people at gas stations back then. I worked at a at a pet store. That was my highest paying job in high school. Paid me about $2.50 cleaning the cages of animals. You know, all those experiences were critical for me because I needed money. I needed to save money for college. I needed money to live. But it also gave me the sense like I need to go to college. I mean, I need to have a real career. It made me more ambitious, but it's also made me very human because I know you know when I go into a store, I don't. I'm not just randomly dealing with some some person I don't care about. You know, I immediately connect to them because I I've had that job and and I understand how hard it is and and how terrible a lot of customers are right and treat people so badly so I think it made me really human but also fed my desire to move ahead in life and and inhabit the world that I saw the parents of my friends I was the poorest kid of my friend group and all my and my friends' parents were so sweet to me. They would take me to the theater. They would take me to museums. They really brought me along. But ultimately, I you know when I we lived in a in a third floor walk up next to the the railroad station, and my friends lived in normal beautiful houses. And you know I always thought yeah I I can see myself away from the railroad, which I I knew the schedule of the railroad by heart, and in a nice place. And how do I do that? Well, I have to build it myself.

Jamila Souffrant 13:29

Yeah, and I find that that is usually it's helpful and it's necessary to see the possibilities. Like sometimes you can't even imagine what you cannot see in front of you, so to have proximity of people around you who kind of introduced and showed you to like, hey, this is what else, this is what's available to you if you if you do these things.

Fernando Espuelas 13:50

Yeah, yeah, no, and I think I think history also helps you with that because you know I was obsessed as a little kid with Alexander the Great. Why I don't know, but I was, and you know, he was a complete whack job. You know, he was like, "I'm going to do this, and he went out and did it. And the things he did were so improbable, even for for Alexander the Great. And it made me think. You know, ultimately, our ability to imagine a new future is really the limiting factor. I mean, there's physics, right? There's you know, there's the law, and there you know, there's some objective limitations, but mostly, in my experience, most people limit themselves. Mostly, people say I can't, or I won't, or it's uncomfortable to do something, or I'm not willing to suffer this part of the the journey in order to get to the better part, and there is fear, right? I think my mom and I lived in very precarious circumstances for for many years, where you know I I really didn't know if by we would have money for rent, that sort of situation. But you know, whereas some people reasonably might be crushed by that experience or feel insecure. Or seek security at all costs. For me, it was like, okay, I have to take a leap. I have to steady state, or or just an easy rise won't be enough to get out of this situation. I need to really aim for very high. So that was my own reaction to to things, and and I failed a lot. You know, like you know, when you read someone's resume, it's all about the success, right? But I've failed a lot. I've been wrong. I've betrayed myself by being delusional or trusting people I shouldn't. But the question is not will you fail, right? It's what you do to recover from it. And sometimes the recovery is is not easy. And sometimes you've got to face. I failed, right? Like it's easy. I went through a period where I was blaming certain people for certain things, and then I I'm over that, and I realize, yeah, maybe they were not great people, and certainly were not loyal, and blah blah blah whatever. But it was me, you know. Who's the constant in the Fernando movie? It's Fernando, right? And so if I don't take full responsibility for myself, even when I'm when I've failed, you know where do I end up? So I like to think that I'm learning about myself all the time, and and I you know I try to explore, you know sometimes when I mean I have anxiety like everyone else, and I have moments I wake I run a startup, I wake up often in the middle of the night, and I'm like, "Dear God, what have I done? You know, I I could be like a very well paid, safe executive at AT and T or somewhere else. Why do I keep putting myself in this situation? But ultimately, I'd like to build stuff, and I'd like to create stuff. So, the startup world is my environment, even if it's really painful,

Jamila Souffrant 16:43

right? It sounds like too, which is I talk a lot about financial independence and reaching that, and the idea of never having to work again unless you want to, right? And I've always I love talking to people who like it seems like they don't have to work if they didn't want to, but they choose to continuously build or put themselves in situations and and almost enjoy. I wouldn't say the struggle, but the friction of like like creating something new and and work, right? Like it like that the pride it gives you.

Fernando Espuelas 17:14

Yeah, I mean, I've always thought, and I I don't judge anybody because everyone's on their own journey and and has to make sense for them. But the idea of retirement sounds like you know, like lining up to die, and it sounds not that you should have the same job, or or I want to challenge myself for the rest of my life. I I want to find problems to solve. I want to fail, right? I want to because if you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough, right? You're not reaching that far. I don't want to fail that much, to be honest. But but but but you know what I'm saying. I mean, I I want to have. I think you described it perfectly. Some of that friction is what makes life exciting, and there's so many problems to be solved, right? It's I think we'd live in in a in a way a kind of tragic society, right? It's the richest country in the world, but we have 50 million kids living in poverty. That's unacceptable to me. Now, can I fix it? No, but can I contribute to it? Maybe can I can I at least help visualize what could be solutions to that and other problems? Poverty is not the thing I'm trying to solve, but but you know I'd like to think I can make some contribution. We have so much unhappiness in our society, so I mean, problems we have like a surplus of, right? And I never could identify with this idea that we're all working to create a better retirement. Again, not judging anybody else, but you know, for me, it's like I want to keep running through the tape. You know, I was telling a friend of mine, we go hiking every once in a while. She lives in Colorado; they have just the perfect hiking places there. And not to be morbid, but I want to die on a hike. You know, I you know I don't want to be in a retirement home waiting for the clock to to run out. I you know I want to be doing stuff.

Jamila Souffrant 18:59

Yeah, I think too. What happens? I mean, like you said, we're in this country that you know. For some, I mean, I think there's opportunity for everyone, but there are things systemically, all these things that prevent or create more obstacles for people, and the luxury, or I like to say, I have the privilege to pursue financial freedom and independence, that I one can do it, and two believe I can, so I take action towards that. Whereas some people just don't even, you know,

Fernando Espuelas 19:29

yeah,

Jamila Souffrant 19:29

they just for whatever reason can't. And the idea of working, most people like even if they're hard workers, are not working like in a job where they have the capacity to think bigger, right? They're tired at the end of the day, and and like I think most people want to reach financial independence to get away from situations and people and jobs they don't enjoy. But I think ultimately people do want not necessarily to be productive, to like give back to the capitalist society we're in, but to be helpful. I do think that

Fernando Espuelas 19:59

yeah.

Jamila Souffrant 20:00

That that's what keeps us connected, you know.

Fernando Espuelas 20:02

Yeah, I mean, I think you you hit the nail on the head, right? There are structural issues that that many people face, and they don't magically go away because you have willpower or or a vision, right? You have to work through that. But I don't know. This is easy to say, but I think if you're living in a in a in a part of the country where there's little opportunity, you can't stay there, right? And as hard as it is to get up and go, you got to get up and go. And if you're at a point in your life where you need more education, whatever that means for you to get ahead, you've got to figure that out, right? You can't sit back and say, "I, you know, I'm lacking this thing, which is real and it's hard to get, but I won't get it. Therefore, I'm I'm stuck here. You know, I saw the the really tragic situation of deindustrialization of the U.S. when you know jobs started to go overseas and there were people who had been really solidly middle class who had worked at GM or Ford or some other industrial company, and those jobs went away, and you know they were left with nothing, right? In many cases, in company towns, where you know all the the nonsense of oh, people should learn how to code, you know, come on, give me a break, right? You know, so I know that depending on the time in your life, it's hard just get up and go, right? But for younger people in particular, I think you got to own it. You got to own your life. You got to own your future, and be super strategic about it. And maybe you got to go slow because you have few resources. But you know, you got to figure it out. Sitting down and and and waiting for things to happen is not a strategy, and it's not a recipe. I think for success in any in any way, shape, or form.

Jamila Souffrant 21:41

Yeah, and so now that I mean you built your own company, Star Media, now you are involved in what, like it's the new age. I don't know how new. I feel like maybe you can give us a history of AI and just like this new wave that we're in, because I do find that even for my kids who are only 1210, and eight, like they know about the AI tools and they're using it already. And so I just think it's something that we cannot ignore, and it's happening. And so what do we do? Just like the internet back in the day, like it's happening.

Fernando Espuelas 22:16

Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. So I I so identify with this new era we're in, because it was the era we were in in the '90s, and the internet seemed like it cannot be that it's so powerful, and it will everyone will use it. You know, I spent over a year where I couldn't get financing for Start Media because people didn't believe that the internet would be big in Latin America. I mean, as ridiculous as that sounds, you know. So AI has been around for quite a while in different forms. The development of it started all the way back in the 60s. What's changed in the last, call it three to four years, is that large language models, which are the technology behind ChatGPT and Clod and those kinds of products that are now available, reached a level of maturity that regular people could use them without having to be programmers or technologists, and so what's happened now is that that technology is advancing at a very very rapid pace to the point now that AI is being used to create the next generation of AI. So it's even faster than it was before. So I think if you're a person in our society thinking, "Oh, what do I do? I think you should look at it from this perspective. It's a tool, and you better be good at using whatever tool makes your life better. And using AI for your life is something that you know it's optional. You can opt out of it, but you're not going to be competitive. I think now there are two schools of thought about AI at least, but one of them you've heard some of these people. They're kind of crazy. There are other AI CEOs, and they're like they're like thrilled that humans are going to be taken out of the equation, so they can make more money, and and it's all about the technology. I think that's borderline evil, to be honest. The other school, and I'm part of that school, is ethical AI, and my whole orientation is that AI is here to build human potential, not to destroy it. Having said that, there will be like when horses were replaced by cars, when you know you know horse-drawn plows were replaced by tractors, jobs will change, and some jobs will go away, and new jobs will be created. I think that the mass panic about AI is overblown. There will be change and it might be rapid, and because frankly we have government structures that are quite incompetent in dealing with with change and transformation, and frankly the real issues with people, right? You know our politicians are mainly focused on other things. It's going to be a bit messy, but I think as an individual getting used. Using these tools to enhance what you already do, becoming not afraid of the technology, but understanding how you can use it to enhance your life, and and it might be as simple as you know what what I work on, which is using AI to help people manage their money in a more intelligent way. It might be if you work in an office using AI to get better research, better writing. You know, a whole bunch of really important but basic things, and it could also be an important tool if you have a business idea, for example. I constantly test my ideas using AI, you know, and I create conditions and I ask the AI to to essentially repeat it back to me with knowledge and and what's happened in this industry and you know what are the risks and so forth and so on. Not that it's you know AI has some problems still in terms of technology; it hallucinates, which is a fancy way of saying that sometimes I make stuff up, right? But I think it's it's going to be with us, you know, in different forms. It'll keep evolving, but forever more. The same way that we can't imagine. I mean, most of us cannot imagine life without the internet, right? Or our phones. If we can't find our phones in in about 30 seconds, we're having some sort of emotional reaction, right? So this is similar. And by the way, potentially some of your listeners are entrepreneurs who want to think about the next thing, this is the internet in 1995. So there's enormous potential.

Fernando Espuelas 26:26

When people use it, they adopt it. They immediately want to keep using. Your kids are AI natives. They're going to grow up in a different world. For them, it's going to be as normal as the internet is for us, or or the phone, or whatever. Right. So they're fine. They're gonna figure figure it out. For people who are older than kids, I think it's it's really and entrepreneurs in particular, or someone who wants to start a business, it really shortens the amount of research you have to do and and the analysis and the understanding of of competitors and markets and so forth and so on, so that you can get a much sharper idea much much faster.

Jamila Souffrant 27:05

I agree, and I think too what's happening is while AI may be able to process faster and shorten the time frame of task for yourself, as someone who is giving input and asking the questions, you have to be a thinker still. You have to be almost an architect. Like you still need to be fully present, where you can discern. Also, right if if it's telling you something that you disagree or you want to push back on, so it's just it's you still need to be human, and your brain still needs to work, and you have to have these decision trees yourself in order to get the optimal results, right?

Fernando Espuelas 27:40

100% I mean, you know, we can all use a calculator, but we know when we must multiply and divide, right, and add and whatever. Exactly what you said. You know, it. You need to be fully present in your own humanity, your own imagination, and use it as a tool. We could press nails with our thumb, right? But that that's not very pleasant, and it's not very efficient. But that's why we have a hammer, and this is like a super hammer for our brains, effectively.

Jamila Souffrant 28:09

Right. So tell me more about Vera and the like the problem that it's solving. Why you created it?

Fernando Espuelas 28:15

So I'm I'm Gen X and have two Gen Z kids, and in having conversations with them, I just assumed that my experience. I came out of college with a history degree. I got a nice job in advertising in New York City, and I went up the corporate ladder, and and so on and so on. Right, and you know they really educated me that things are quite different now. That there is a sense of of pessimism. That there is there are structural challenges. That jobs are not as easy to get as they used to be, you know. Essentially, that there's a sense of anxiety among Gen Z and millennial people about the future, and there's structural reasons, right? Housing has exploded in price, so buying a house, which used to happen in your 20s, now is not happening until your 40s, so forth and so on, right? And so, when I started to do some research using AI, actually, and found that there are two and a half billion people on Earth that are Gen Z and Millennials who are having this same issue in different ways, different cultures, different countries, I said, "Well, okay, this is a massive problem because it's it's people living with anxiety, people living with a sense of limitation, people not seeing a brighter future. I mean, you gotta see a brighter future in order to make it happen, right? If you think you're in a dark box and that's your reality, you're not getting out of the box, right? You've got to imagine what's outside the box. So I started working on this idea that maybe there was a way to use AI to help people deal with that anxiety by providing them with very high level of advice, how you know objective, not advertising driven, not promotion, not stealing their data, but really creating an AI that was loyal only to the user, not to to us as a company, and. Then, if we could add an ability to to manage your money literally, so we said, oh, we need. It's not just the AI. It's not just a financial coach. It's not a bunch of features that let you know when you can spend money or save more or so forth. It's actually we need a bank. We need a modern bank that's not beating people in the head with fees and you know weird disclosures, and you know everything is mysterious. But at the end of the month, you're paying 25 bucks to have a bank, you know, keep your money. It's kind of insane. So Vera Money is an AI banking platform that provides completely personalized service. Think of it as a private banker. Now, to have a private banker, you have to have at least a million bucks, and then you have you know Mary or Larry at some place that you pick up the phone and you ask for advice, and they they say have you thought about this that or the other thing? We want to serve people that don't have a million dollars, or most 90% of all people, but have that level of quality service and information, and so we launched Vera Money. It's been quite successful. People are really engaging with it and and having these very valuable conversations. and And now we're in the process of launching the bank. It's free, by the way. And you you have a debit card, you have a checking account, you have a high yield savings account, and now you can run all your money through Vera, and you can talk to Vera, by the way, and she's very nice. We spent over a year developing her personality, so she would be super smart, but also really nice and non-judgmental.

Jamila Souffrant 31:34

Right. Okay. I'm I'm loving what you're hearing, and then I'm automatically thinking and having questions to understand more how it works for the user. So I download Vera. Hopefully, you know we'll share the link, and you download it. And what happens? What are you able to do?

Fernando Espuelas 31:50

Yeah. So so what you do, you can just start talking right away. You don't have to pay. There's subscription. It's free, right? So about the way that you get most value is you connect your your accounts, your checking account, your your loans, your credit cards, and it's all secured. It's using Plaid, so that the data doesn't get stolen. And we have a banking grade platform that you know because we we're a bank now, so you know it's a very secure environment. And so immediately, Vera is able to give you insights based on what you've shared, and then that's when the value starts to to be created for for the user, which is you tell her your goals, and they can be general, like I want to save more. They can be super specific. I'm saving for you know a trip to the Caribbean, or I'm trying to buy a house or a car, or I'm trying to to pay back my credit cards fast, or whatever those things are, and then she creates instantaneously. By the way, a strategy for you, and then you can you know there are goals. You can see those goals when with the banking services that now are coming online. You can create multiple savings accounts, so you have a savings account without doing anything except selling her to do it for your student loans, a savings account for your vacation, for your house, whatever those things are, and then you're able to essentially be able to be in complete control of your money, but lean back. You don't have to be thinking about it all the time. She, you don't miss a bill because she reminds you. You know, a lot of people have subscriptions that they don't use. They don't even know they have them. I I found many, and when I did this, she will tell you about them. She will help you unsubscribe if you want to, and and you can have conversations about anything. So you know, my fear is about money, or my fear is about life, or you know, I'm unhappy with my job. You know, well, let's let's talk about that. Let's explore that. And we have a bunch of services that are going to roll. I don't want to pre-announce them or anything, but you know that really will help people deal with this anxiety in a holistic way. You're looking for a new job. We can help you do that, and those sorts of things. Even certain things which haven't haven't been launched yet. But you know, you you and your partner share household expenses. Maybe it's a roommate. Maybe it's a romantic part. Whatever. How do you do that? You know, you both have different accounts. You have to stay at the end of the month. Well, Vera will be able to do that, and then essentially take the money from your account, and you know you don't have to worry about it. Things are getting paid and split up.

Jamila Souffrant 34:16

Yes, and I want to highlight too because you mentioned a couple things. Maybe people are not aware of like Plaid that is secure, yeah. Because I think the first thing that people who maybe are hesitant about using AI in a tool like this are is are going to think, well, I gotta I gotta connect my accounts with like what is Plaid? Like, how do I know that's safe? Is my money protected in this bank? Is it insured? FDIC insured? Yeah,

Fernando Espuelas 34:38

yeah, yeah. Let me let me glad you asked. I'm just like rambling on like an idiot here. Yeah. So sharing your money with ChatGPT is a really bad idea. ChatGPT does not protect your. For example, there are others that don't do it. No, doesn't protect your data, and we'll use your data to sell you ads, and we'll sell your data to other people who are trying to sell you stuff. So that's a good instinct. Vera doesn't do that. This is the whole point of it. It's all about trust. So we don't sell people's data. It doesn't go anywhere. We don't even see it. Like we don't see it. Plaid is a technology which all banks in the United States use. It's completely secure, and it means that when when you connect your accounts with Vera, it uses this technology plaid that talks to your bank account gets the data. It never-it's not out in the internet. No one can steal it. It's completely secure. Every bank has signed up on it, so you can imagine it's very, very secure. And if you deposit money with us, it's FDIC insurance. We have a banking partner that has a federal banking license. It's a it's a federal bank. If we go out of business tomorrow morning, the money is still there. We don't have it. The bank has it under with FDIC insurance. So it's completely secure. It's not dependent on us being good people or successful or anything like that. It's meant to be fail-safe for people. For me, the biggest nightmare, the most terrible thing I could do is that I would lose $1 of anybody's money, and therefore we've structured a system that's completely compliant with federal regulations so that it's it's always secure. All data is encrypted, for example. So even if someone were to break through, like they could break into your bank, the data is kept in a in an encrypted way, meaning there's no data to steal, right? So, so we've done things in a very very serious way in order to to build trust and to make sure that we never fail people. So imagine if your bank wasn't. How can I say this? What if your bank didn't hate you, right? Don't you feel like your bank hates you? You know they don't treat you very well. You know they they don't know who you are. They don't tell you anything about your money. They just hold it and charge you fees. What if a bank was really brilliant and and focused only on you and knows everything about you? And by the way, no one knows what Vera knows about you. Only Vera and you know that because everything is part of one encrypted file, and so you can tell her your most private thing, your most your you know I want to be you know the CEO of this company or I want to be a doc, whatever those things are, and Vera can use that. She never forgets a conversation, by the way, unless you want her to forget a conversation. There's a little window where you can say, "Forget this, forget this. You know, whatever. You're totally in control. There's a high yield savings account, as you. I'm sure you talk about this in your show that most bank accounts pay nothing, right? Like zero, 1% maybe if you're lucky. So, one of the products that's launching with the bank is autosave. So when you set up auto save, by the way, which is once again you talk to it. It's not like forms you fill out or anything like that. She will Vera. We call her she, even though she's technology. But Vera is always looking for more savings. So she's constantly saying, you know what? All these things are taken care of, including your fund money, because Vera's not based on scarcity, you know. Most budgeting apps are like if you don't spend money on coffee, magically two years from now you have a house, right? That's nonsense, right? It's based on abundance. How to create abundance in people's lives, and savings are part of abundance, right? So she will find, for example, you have 70-five cents sitting here. Let's move it to to savings. You didn't spend 200 bucks on something you you you know you were going to take this trip. You didn't do it.

Fernando Espuelas 38:24

Don't let it sit in the in the checking account where it's going to be spent. Let's move it. You you're always in control. By the way, Vera doesn't move money. You move the money. Vira does it. But there are things like that that once you you you stop thinking of the bank is this this thing you have to do because you can't keep your money, you know you can't pay your bills in cash and so forth. But suddenly, it's an intelligent platform and intelligent being that you can relate to, and and is only there to help you. There's no other purpose. Then things get get different, right? They transform for most people.

Jamila Souffrant 38:57

And tell me how it happens to be free. That's the next thing I'm thinking. Like this sounds amazing. Like I, yeah, I'm looking forward to downloading it. But yeah,

Fernando Espuelas 39:05

yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's no secret we we have this on the website because we when we did research, we spoke to over 1000 people to understand what they needed. It's not just like oh, Fernando thinks you might need this. We we really did. Usually there's a subscription right that you have to pay for, or I'm selling your data for advertising, and there's either advertising on the site, or much more valuable than putting an ad is I take all your personal information, and I sell it to a data broker for a lot of money, who then sells it to advertisers and to marketers to sell you stuff you don't need. Right, that's basically how these things are done. We don't do any of that. This is very simple. When you use our debit card, merchants pay us a fee. That's it. When we have mortgages, which we're working on with the mortgages, the whole thing, which is really interesting, is because we know so much about that user, and their goal is to buy a house. We're able to let them know, you know, and I'm. Proactive basis, you know, you probably now can qualify for a mortgage at this level. Whatever, we will pre-fill your forms. You'll be able to upload all your documents once, and then the AI will assemble them, and then we will go out. AI will go out and find you the cheapest mortgage available. You know that that sort of thing. Anyway, how do we make money? Each time you use our debit card, the merchant pays us. If you get a mortgage through Vera, the mortgage bank will pay us a fee. We're never charging you. We're getting paid from other people that use essentially engage with us.

Jamila Souffrant 40:32

And I'm assuming too, it's not all or nothing where you have to like jump all in in all the things that it offers. Right? You can start out slow and kind of test it out to see.

Fernando Espuelas 40:41

You can do whatever you want. You don't even have to connect your accounts. You can actually talk to your and tell her these are my expenses, this is my income, this these are my goals, and you can do that forever. You don't have to do anything else. I know this sounds too good to be true, but I'm really motivated by helping people, and and we have to have a really good business to do it because otherwise it's not sustainable, and and we're not volunteers, and we're not saints or anything like that. You know, I'm okay. I'm a capitalist, and I want to build a successful company. But I really, really believe that if we over service the customer and we give them a really great experience that makes their lives better, they're going to be with us for a long time. They're going to tell their friends. They're going to bring their family, and will be very successful without having to sell your data and exploit the customer. I mean, I know this is so basic, but my team is is this is my number one criteria. After you know, do they have the talent? Are they good engineer? Are they good whatever? Right? Is you know, do you buy into this mission? Because this is not just another job. If you don't have that passion for solving this problem in people's lives, then you know there are lots of other places you can work. But you know, so so we're really mission driven, and that makes it super exciting. And you know, going back to why keep working because missions are exciting, and if you if you are serving people, and I'm, I'm a you know again I'm I'm not a doctor I'm not a lawyer I'm you know this is what I do that's really super interesting and exciting and it feels good and and and it's really challenging but you know I love it

Jamila Souffrant 42:13

yeah and no it sounds as you're talking you know a lot of things are the way they are because that's just how things have been right like that was a standard before. Yes, and then you know I see more than ever. You know, new apps or new things launching, and I know that so many people, including myself, at times, right, a little hesitant. Like, hey, like, what is this thing? Like, some people still keep their money under their mattress. Okay, they don't even have a bank account, right? But I do, I do really believe in the sense of needing to move forward, and or you'll get left behind.

Speaker 2 42:47

Yeah,

Jamila Souffrant 42:48

and especially if there's an opportunity to you know test something out, there needs to be calculated risk taken. I believe to in order to progress in your life, and so I just find that whether you know hopefully journeyers will check this out. The link journeytolaunch.com/vera We will put that in the episode show notes, and I'll send out more information if you're on my list about it. But I just think, especially if there is a low to no risk of trying something, then it feels like why not? And so I sound this. I mean, I'm excited to try it and share my results with my audience too. But I just think that you have to sometimes move forward with what's going on in society as they go, because, like you said, back in the day, there are people who were like, "Oh, the internet's not happening. No one's or no one's going to have a cell phone. All like, you know, that's not going to work. And look at where we are now.

Fernando Espuelas 43:42

I think there's a lot of anxiety, rightly so, in society about AI. But Vera's not coming out for to get your job. AI is going to exist regardless, right? It's being developed. It'll just get. The question is, can you use its power for yourself to build your life? And that was really where we we said, hey, Vera is something that has to serve humanity, and I don't know. I'm I'm very optimistic. I'm, you know, we're we're excited by what we built. It's taken us a year and a half to get to the point, but people really love it. People are really using it, so it's it's very nice.

Jamila Souffrant 44:16

Yes, and the last thing I'd like to highlight as I'm reflecting on our conversation and learn more about you, because I always like to ask people about their beginning, what they maybe majored in or didn't major in. But I just love that you were a history major, and your love for just reading and learning has taken you, you know, to be this this entrepreneur and this this tech startup and in the tech world, making these changes. Where I just hope it gives people motivation and encouragement for wherever they are on their journey. That I think if you're just interested and curious in life, and you apply all the things, right, all the things that happen to us, all the little jobs we've had or experiences, how that can shape you. To become a person, maybe you don't create the next big app or tech thing, but you you create something for yourself based on these experiences, right? That you've had. So I think it's really inspiring.

Fernando Espuelas 45:10

Oh well, yeah, thank you. And and I always have lived by the premise that you're the author of your own life, and so sometimes I think it's happened to me. It happens to everyone. You feel like things are coming at you, and you can't control them. And sometimes that's true, but but ultimately, you're the only one who's going to make it happen. The cavalry is not coming to save you. You're the cavalry. So I hope that people listening to us today don't take away the oh he's a tech guy, and and so that's kind of like a Martian kind of thing, I mean, it sounds like the beginning of a of a funny movie, right? But I was a poor kid, you know, with no money. But I always saw myself in a different situation, a different world, and and it took me a long time, and it was you know lots of stumbles and mistakes, but I was able to build a different life for myself. And I think I don't think my of myself as particularly special, so maybe obstinate and refused to give up, but many people do that every day in their lives.

Jamila Souffrant 46:08

Yes, well, Fernando, thank you so much for sharing your story, for sharing more about Vera Money. If you want to check it out, hopefully you do. You can go to journeytolaunch.com/vera V E R A. We'll also link that in the episode show notes, and thank you so much again for coming on the show, Fernando.

Fernando Espuelas 46:25

It's been my pleasure, Mila. I would love to talk to you again, especially after you try Vera. It would be nice to get your critical feedback. We're always trying to improve, so thank you so much. Thanks for your time. I really, really enjoyed our conversation.

Jamila Souffrant 46:36

Okay, before I let you go, I wanted to come back and talk a little bit more about today's sponsor, Vera, because I actually downloaded the app myself, and you know I don't want to tell you about something if I can't use it myself. And I love that I was able to quickly download it, connect it, and import my information, and it really took no time at all. I had a real picture of what was going on with our finances and especially our spending. Now you don't have to connect your accounts if you don't want to. It's optional. Either way, you'll get benefit from using Vera. But what I really liked about connecting my information is that I was able to get a real picture of what's going on with our spending, and I really like the way I can talk to Vera. Like you literally talk to her, and she talks back to you and picks up on what you're saying, you can ask her questions about your spending. And so, one thing we know that we do a lot is we spend more on going out to eat and fast food in the summer months because we're home and we typically out and about, and it's easier just to pick up food on the go. So, asking Vera about those trends and where we can save money or at least fit it into our budget better was really cool, like that back and forth. I also asked her to help us save more money for an upcoming trip that we had planned, and I'm excited to continue to use it and to see what else it can help me with. So I would say you should download Vera, give it a try. Your information is safe. It's free to download. It does not ask you for any money, and let me know what you think. So go to journeytolaunch.com/vera. That's journey J O U R N E Y T O L A U N C h.com/vera to download it for completely free. Get you a money coach that's gonna talk to you and let you know what's up, and let me know how it goes. All right, journeytolaunch.com/vera Don't forget, you can get the episode show notes for this episode by going to journeytolaunch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this, and you can still grab your Jumpstart guide for free to help you on your journey to financial freedom by going to journeytolaunch.com/jumpstart. If you want to support me and the podcast and love the free content and information that you get here, here are four ways that you can support me and the show. One, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast wherever you listen. Whether that's Apple Podcasts, that purple app on your phone, your Android device, YouTube, Spotify, wherever it is that you happen to listen, just subscribe so you are not missing an episode. And if you're happening to listen to this in Apple Podcasts, rate, review, and subscribe there. I appreciate and read every single review. Number two, follow me on my social media accounts. I'm at Journey to Launch on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and I love, love, love interacting with journeyers there. Three, support and check out the sponsors of this show if you hear something that interests you. Sponsors are the main ways we keep the podcast lights on here, so show them some love for supporting your girl. Four and last but not least, share this episode, this podcast with a friend or family member or coworker so that we can spread the message of Journey to Launch. All right, that's it. Until next week, keep on journeying, journeyers.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai