02
As successful software entrepreneurs, many people sought our guidance. We were happy to share our hard-earned insight on everything from software development, marketing, business development/partnering, company launch, sales, and more. We often recommend the Philippines as a place for excellent programming talent, reasonable prices, unparalleled company loyalty and dedication, and great people. However, the entrepreneurs found it highly challenging to duplicate our success there. We realized that they didn't know the culture, they didn't have the contacts and brand to attract great engineers, but mostly they didn't have that core team to infect the new hires with the right company culture. We quickly realized that having that core team to build around is critical. Worst of all, building and training the core team makes time and effort. Getting the right tools and processes plus developing a culture of participation instead of blindly following directions...all of this is critical to success, and it doesn't happen overnight. Upon realizing this, it was apparent that we could have to use our team there as the foundation to build teams for others. That is how we "backed into" building software for others.