Kevin Holmes (00:28)
Welcome everybody to the Founders Network podcast. I am privileged to have as my guest today, Barbara Bibas-Montero, who is a FinTech operator and investor, best known as co-founder of SafetyPay, where she served as COO, CMO, and was a board member for nearly 15 years, helped scale that company into a global cross-border payment platform.

and had a successful exit 441 million acquisition by PaySafe. Currently, Barbara is managing partner at Seed Funders, where she invests in mentors, early stage founders. So she's got a background in fintech, e-com marketing, social impact investing, and early career formative years at American Express. And at one point had her own marketing consultancy. So anyhow.

Barbara, thank you for being here today for the podcast and thanks for being a great mentor to the founders at Founders Network in our Miami chapter and globally. Really appreciate you doing this.

Barbara (01:14)
Thank

Sure, Kevin, it's been such a pleasure getting to know you and working with you. I love Founders Network. It's such a great ⁓ organization. And I've got to meet a lot of wonderful people. founders have to support each other. So you're doing a great job on that. Thank you. Yeah.

Kevin Holmes (01:37)
Well, thanks for being part of it. But we're here to talk about, you

know, more of your background and what you've done. And you've got like some really, you've got a really amazing story that I think people should hear. you know, one of the things we talked about prior to this was like, never give up. I always, I append that to say never fucking give up, you know, this is an important one. So, but.

Kevin Holmes (02:04)
But before we get to the wisdom gained and the lessons learned, ⁓ maybe we can just set the stage if you want to give us, and the listeners, more of your story. How did it start? Where did you begin? Where did you grow up? And how did you find yourself where you are today? Let's start there, and then we can go back and, yeah. Very beginning.

Barbara (02:07)
Cheers.

Okay, yeah from the beginning.

Very beginning. Well, I think very beginning, I found that I, I was kind of entrepreneurial from the beginning. It was in my my personality. I love going door to door making little things selling it to two. I was five years old. I was selling things to neighbors and, you know, then I got into washing.

Kevin Holmes (02:42)
wow.

Hold on, what were you selling at five years old?

Barbara (02:47)
I was artistic, so I made things. Like I just made little art pieces and I don't know, it could be Girl Scout cookies, I don't know, it would be anything. If I could get door to door selling and I just love the engagement and then having a win, that was just, that sparked me.

Kevin Holmes (02:57)
Right.

So you're a Girl Scout Cookie success story ultimately. ⁓

Barbara (03:06)
No, I didn't like selling Girl Scout Cookies

was more into creating things, making things. And then as I got older and could manage a hose, I started washing cars. So my brother and I would go around and wash cars, did that. And then I don't know, I did babysitting. I was just very entrepreneurial and loved that aspect. So I think that carries over into

kind of liking getting the reward of making money. I don't know. I guess that was it. A win. Then then I was there was this artistic side that of me and so I ended up volunteering at a day camp to help the art director and then each year I couldn't get paid and by the time I turned 16 I

I ended up getting the director of the art department for the camp. so that was, you know, managing kids and people and it just at 16. So that was sort of the launch of it. My mother always wanted me to be an artist, but I knew that there wasn't going to be a lot of money in that. so I ended up getting into marketing and travel and things like that. So my early career was

airlines, hotels, and finally I landed at American Express. And then that changed my world and ended up leaving for a bit, going for my MBA. And then I got back to American Express. They hired me back. And it was the Latin American division. And there was this team we worked with.

that was trying to start business in Latin America. It was very hard, very volatile, lots of the...

Kevin Holmes (04:40)
Runaway inflation and yeah.

Barbara (04:41)
economic situations

and geopolitical things and it was tough. And we came across maybe having to close down that division a few times while was there. They ended up reducing staff and I was one of the ones that, you know, was stayed on, but the hours were incredible. I mean, we 14 hour days, no weekends off trying to save the division. And that's where I had met my husband, Manuel Montero. And so we found that we could work really well together.

And of course, one thing led to another and we ended up getting married. So we left him at Amex and I went on to Coober's and Libra and as a director of marketing there. And next thing I know, we were transferred to Spain because Manuel had stayed there and he became the GM of American Express in Spain. So we had a stint there a few children later. I actually...

Kevin Holmes (05:32)
Where in Spain were you?

Barbara (05:33)
And Madrid. Loved it. Yeah. It was hard to work there, but as a lifestyle, it was fantastic. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. They don't do siesta They just work right on through. you're, you know, sometimes those business dinners would go on, you know, they would start eating in Spain until 10 o'clock at night. You're not getting out until 1 a.m. And that was a lot of the scheduling for Manuel. And ⁓

Kevin Holmes (05:34)
Did you like it? Yeah. The siesta.

Mmm.

Hmm.

Barbara (06:00)
But anyway, in the meantime, I ended up starting my own marketing company, direct marketing company. Manuel ended up leaving American Express going on to another company. And I ended up with this marketing company getting the American Express account because my old boss became the new general manager. So I ran a direct marketing company sold to

customers of American Express with billing stuffers and catalogs and I was selling all sorts of merchandise back to selling things like door-to-door, you know, full circle. And that's what I was going to say, like when I think back of telling my story, there's a theme that I think we all go through that, you know, all of a sudden you look up and like, yeah, there's something here. You do all these different things, but you sort of realize what your track is and that's what it was. And it did very well in the beginning. Like I went from

Kevin Holmes (06:33)
Hmm.

Mm.

Barbara (06:49)
six months out, had, I think it was 1.6 million in revenue just off of this little business. And then economic conditions changed. They went through a big recession. There was like, the famous word was La Crisis, which means crisis. and next thing I know, went, you know, skyrocketing upwards. And then it was like, barely breaking even to get out of it. But thank God I did. And so that that experience alone was the most that was better than

Kevin Holmes (06:54)
Mm.

Barbara (07:16)
an MBA. was like, real world like crisis, how you manage pivot, you know, all those types of things. So I kind of had a head start, not only with Amex and closing the division, but then also this this company, we ended up moving back to the US. And I did that's when I started marketing consulting for small businesses. And I mean, it was good. I'm, you know, I had young kids. And

Kevin Holmes (07:17)
Yeah, real world NBA.

Yeah.

Barbara (07:41)
Manuel was working on other projects and we ended up, he ended up getting involved. I helped him a little bit, but he actually started the first kind of internet in Spanish during the, for the Latin American area, sort of like an eBay of products and it gained traction and the crazy story, you just never know with life.

Kevin Holmes (07:58)
Hmm.

Barbara (08:04)
is that as he was starting this up with a couple of guys, it was called Fiera. And he was looking for funding, and he's riding to Mexico to get to talk to some people about opening up there. And he sits next to a gentleman there that in first class.

He's very passionate about Fiera, all this type of thing. And he goes, you know, I want you to talk to my boss. Do you have time while you're visiting Mexico City? He said, yeah. He ends up meeting Carlos Slim. I loved it. by the time he got back, he had funding, a letter that they were going to fund it for $24 million. That was Manuel. Just the passion he had, you know, whatever. was just...

Kevin Holmes (08:41)
Wow. Just, serendipitous. Yeah.

Barbara (08:46)
was unbelievable that we all were like, wow. And so next thing you know, he's going from a small little group to 150 people and they built that software and everything was go, go, go. And then dot com era hit. And he ended up having to sell that. So he got his entrepreneurial experience at a corporate. So here we are, there are two experiences. Fast forward.

Kevin Holmes (09:08)
Yeah.

Barbara (09:11)
we decided corporate life, we're not going back there, boy. So, and we both had the experience of it and we both helped each other in those experiences, but now.

we decided to do it together. And we started around the dining room table and we just had ideas. We had about five ideas. One was in, you know, was kind of the music industry with a partner, but Napster came along and then there was another with filmmaking and that fell through. We had products from Spain to import.

We even went ahead and got our liquor license so we could sell Spanish wine and paella and all these things, the different things. One by one, each thing kind of fell. And then there was this one little nugget. It was a guy that had approached Manuel at Fiera who was trying to start up a payments company who was in Chile and he just wanted to buy a computer part.

in California, he had no way to pay for it. So he asked Manuel if Fiera would just give him a letter saying that to for an investor to say that Fiera would accept the payment system. So they had a vehicle to, you know, test it out, beta tested, I guess. And with that letter, he got funding from a group of investors in Puerto Rico.

Well, then you know what hit the fan? Fiera had to close. It sold off as ⁓ a shell company. It was a bloodbath for a lot of companies. Dotcom bust, victim of that, know, whatever. You gotta move on. And because of that niceness, you know, that kindness that he offered to this man with the payment system. ⁓

Kevin Holmes (10:35)
Dot com bust you're referring to.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Barbara (10:52)
he got this random call from that same gentleman and said, would you like to be our CEO? And that's when all full steam ahead went into that payment system that eventually became SafetyPay.

Kevin Holmes (11:00)
Yes.

I love that story. love the, ⁓ like the serendipity of meeting Carlos Slim, who's I think billionaire in Mexico, the cement, doesn't he own the cement, ⁓ big cement company or something like this or industrial everything. Yeah.

Barbara (11:09)
Yeah.

Robbie owns everything,

but it's mostly communications. Yeah, communications, yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Holmes (11:19)
Yeah, OK, thank you. Yeah, I knew I knew the name and then

so serendipitous goes and I hear that story so often where it's just like couldn't plan that you couldn't put that in a business plan. You couldn't have put that on your calendar as like you know, or a rock or an OKR, you know. Our tactic right, but just showing up and going and then look what happens and then. Yeah.

Barbara (11:40)
I think showing up is important. You just give

up and keep showing up because you just never know what's going to pop up. And be passionate. Because if he wasn't passionate with that guy on the plane and got the vibe from him to showcase the concept, it never would have happened. But anyway, it was very serendipitous. Yeah.

Kevin Holmes (11:46)
Yeah.

Mm.

Yeah. Yeah. And

there's the idea of the knowing yourself, right. And the, looking at across varied experiences of selling art door to door and, then, you know, finding out that now you're the director of the art camp, you know, later, and now you're the, um, doing your own marketing direct, right. Which is kind of art door to door in a way, right. On door hangers or whatever. Um, I don't know, kind of print if you're doing prints and that kind of stuff or, yeah.

Barbara (12:23)
Yeah.

marketing was perfect for me.

It taps into the creative. It's much more analytical now, but it was, you know, I got into advertising PR, you know, a lot of data analysis, you know, just tapped into so many different things. It's a, it's a, it's a nice modality to, you know, if you if you're multi dimensional or any of that, really good. Yeah.

Kevin Holmes (12:31)
creativity.

Yeah. I mean,

I think like your story is like very common in the sense that, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs have these stories of us earliest memories. was selling the cliche of selling lemonade, right? and there's a creativity too, of entrepreneurs that you mentioned when you and, Manuel, like both realized you couldn't work at Amex and you couldn't go corporate anymore. At founders that work, we call that unemployable. You know, founders realize they're unemployable. They just want to

do their own thing. So you guys have that moment.

Barbara (13:16)
Yeah, my father had a word for that. You you hit a wall with corporate, you know, if you're not going to be advancing into the upper seat, you know, you're just hanging out. he goes, ⁓ he used to call it, he cracks me up because he's very funny. But he goes, yeah, they're po po. You know, you get to the point where you're po po, P-O-P-O, means pissed on and passed over.

Kevin Holmes (13:23)
Hmm.

Mmm.

Barbara (13:40)
So that was a father, that was my father-ism. ⁓ He also said never give up. So that was one of his other, yeah. Yeah, but yeah, that I think a lot of people now are going through that now. It just gets to the point where you really want to do this soul sucking, you know, it's like, it's...

Kevin Holmes (13:43)
That's great. Yeah, that's a good one. ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah. Well,

they're, they're also getting laid off in droves as well. So they're being forced to, to confront that. and then just, I wanted to also just also reiterate, the serendipity of this one payment company and like, somebody put it to me once where like, you never know who's going to be in a position to help you in the future. So like help others and like, you know, do what you can to help others because it will come back to you. so that totally did. And this was the origin story of

Barbara (14:05)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

it

Kevin Holmes (14:26)
Safety pad.

Barbara (14:27)
Yeah, it was. this gentleman is now, well, he just left his, he was a 27 year old kid, you know, brilliant. And we took him in and the three of us sat around the table and in the small, you know, the dining room table basically, and started this thing. And he was more IT oriented. And I did the marketing and

the writing, a lot of writing. That's where my English major thing came out because I was doing all sorts of decks and things and you know.

Kevin Holmes (14:50)
Hmm.

Barbara (14:57)
went on to do white papers and business case studies and all that thing around the concept. Whereas Manuel took on, of course, finance and money raising. then Adrian was our guy, who actually ended up becoming the CEO of Alvianca Airlines. And he's done great things, so it was a pleasure to work with him.

But yeah, so what else happened? So then we got on track and I guess the one by one, we started hiring the old team from American Express days that we went through hell together and came out and we had those same people came back and became founders or.

Kevin Holmes (15:30)
Mmm.

Barbara (15:38)
business advisors, our old boss, the head of division became very involved, Bernie Hamilton and his old roommate from Notre Dame joined our board. it was just, and even getting the first sale, we had to do a lot those first five years. It wasn't easy, we had work, the concept was to work with the online banking platform and then the mortgage crisis hit.

And then we were trying to knock on the doors of banks and say, we're your pal, we're not trying to compete with you. And we'd go pretty far with them. then almost, know, political things, economic issues happen just like the dot-com bust. You know, it happened with banks and the mortgage crisis and KYC and...

Kevin Holmes (16:14)
Hmm.

Barbara (16:18)
MSBs, have to get the money, the licenses that we had to get for every single state. And was just becoming cost prohibitive and difficult to work with banks. At one point, a bank took in all our information. And what do they call it? It's not cannibalization. I forget the name for it. But they basically ran with it, said, OK, we got it from here. And they just took the whole concept and tried to replicate it. They couldn't. So I won't mention their name. But yeah, that was shocking. And what are we going to do? Sue them? We didn't have enough money.

Kevin Holmes (16:40)
Mm.

Barbara (16:47)
to do that. So there was all sorts of things like that. And then finally, we realized our sweet spot was Latin America. And it was one of our colleagues or, you know, employees that whose father-in-law was head of BBVA in Peru and the rest is history because of that connection. And we got in and then

Kevin Holmes (16:48)
Yeah.

Thanks.

Barbara (17:09)
We almost lost him, but he took him out to a soccer game and to dinner. And then he got back on. then once one bank is on, the others start to follow. And then all of sudden, once we got the banks, we got the credibility. Then we got the merchants, and everything kind of just fell into place. And the funding, we were drip funded for so long, it was awful. We were like.

Kevin Holmes (17:25)
Wow

Barbara (17:29)
have to be resuscitated every day. I think we almost died on the vine seven times or something like that. We just didn't know we're going to make payroll. didn't know. We had some con artists. Everything was thrown at our feet to trip over. somehow the team didn't want it to fail. We kept trying. And then all of a sudden, the funding finally came in. And I think it was $7 million from the International Finance.

committee from the World Bank and that was the big game changer credibility you know and some runway for a while and then

Kevin Holmes (17:58)
Mm.

Yeah. How long did

you have to go in this kind of eat what you kill mode? How many years or? Yeah.

Barbara (18:11)
Here's, here's. But we had a great

board of directors and they were also investors. So it would be like we'd be running out. And then, you know, they had this famous trifecta of the three investors that, okay, if you go in, I'll go in. And it was that kind of thing. And that saved us. But it was smart because I think that's good for investing, you know.

Don't be the sole investor to save the company. You're going to put skin in the game. I want two other guys to put skin in the game. And I thought that was pretty good. Yeah, investor and board. When the IFC finally gave their money, three weeks later, Manuel was gone. He had a massive heart attack and died. And that was like.

Kevin Holmes (18:38)
Uh-huh.

And these are all board members as well or? Okay. Yeah.

Mmm.

Barbara (18:55)
Wow, that's when the team really came together. That was unbelievable. I'm so touched by how people did come through because it wasn't the losses weren't.

Kevin Holmes (18:58)
Mm.

Barbara (19:05)
you know, obviously Manuel gone and we all, you know, cared about him, loved him. But it was more like we didn't want to see his death go in vain. You know, that's where the team really came through. And we had to make we had to also by contract, basically, key man was gone.

Kevin Holmes (19:11)
Mm. Mm. ⁓

Barbara (19:21)
we legally had to get back all the money, which a lot of it was spent already. We had to make controls and things. And so that was hard, but they gave us an option. If you can make these numbers in the next few months, then okay, we'll think about it. the board members that were investors really worked at it. Everybody came together. We also had 80 employees by that time in 14 countries. So there was gonna be a major hit for all of us if that money had to go back and then we would have had to owe that money.

Kevin Holmes (19:25)
Mmm.

wow.

Barbara (19:48)
It just, I can't even think about what that would have been. But the key people, I remember this RCFO and our attorney came to me and said, we're gonna save for this. And they basically propped up to take over to manage it. And they made me COO and the board of directors voted me in just until we could get another CEO. I knew I was not up for that position.

Kevin Holmes (19:51)
Yeah.

Thank

Yeah.

Barbara (20:14)
was tapped to stabilize and I did the best I could and it worked and, you know, very emotional tough time, but you know, everybody. Yeah, but then.

Kevin Holmes (20:18)
Yeah. I can imagine. Yeah. It's remarkable

that you guys, you know, you could totally easily see the company collapsing at that point, right?

Barbara (20:31)
Easily and it came so close it came very close but just I mean the team like they were doing vigils in Peru and Colombia for Manuel and they've just like no we got to make those numbers and everybody came together and and we just had a banner year we finally

Kevin Holmes (20:39)
Hmm.

Barbara (20:48)
broke even, made profit, know, because we were sort of limping along as a break even, you know, for a while. And so, and then it was just that board meeting at the end of the year and we didn't know if we were going to get funded again. you know, then we all had to leave after the presentations and they deliberated and came out and told us we're in and. my God.

Kevin Holmes (20:52)
Yeah.

I mean, it's

almost like a Hollywood movie script in a way. Yeah.

Barbara (21:13)
It was hard for me. Yeah, it was. But I'm so grateful for everybody. And people

left. yeah, I had to step down. That's when I became a board member. That was my, if I have to step out of the company because the new guy that was coming in didn't want to work with founders. And that's kind of a thing I learned.

Kevin Holmes (21:32)
Hmm. that's interesting.

Barbara (21:35)
But it is

Kevin Holmes (21:35)
Yeah.

Barbara (21:37)
interesting because when you get that second tier group coming in that has to really scale it, founders sometimes get in the way. I don't like to believe I wasn't really that way, but I did try to help as best I could. But I think it was probably hard for the guys to see the remembrance of Manuel through me. And that was probably hard. Then I get it.

Kevin Holmes (21:44)
Yeah. Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah,

yeah, it's natural to have people want to bring in their leadership and whatnot. ⁓

Barbara (22:01)
Yeah.

And

without somebody, you know, balking over it. But then I became a board member and I was on the board of directors for about two years, I think. And then finally I was to step down and, you know, they took it from there. And so I really want to say, you know, it's like a marathon race. You know, you just hand over the baton and then let the next person run. And so Manuel handed over his baton in a big way.

Kevin Holmes (22:33)
In

a big way, yeah.

Barbara (22:34)
We all carried it.

I carried it for a few months. And then it was time for me to hand the baton on. And I just want to say that the team, a lot of our original team left and they started their own payments companies. I'm still in touch with them and very proud of them. One was an intern. He was unbelievable.

Kevin Holmes (22:47)
Mm.

wow.

Barbara (22:51)
And so I credit the next four years, I think, or five years when I was stepping away, that they took it to the next level. And it wasn't easy, but I really commend them because they made it happen. And I cannot take credit for that big sale, other than that I got them to a level where they could run with it. yeah.

Kevin Holmes (23:09)
Yeah. Well, zero to one is an art in itself.

it's the heavy lifting, the birthing, the new, ⁓ that actually is what Founders Network is all about. And there's very few cases actually of Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs. The rule is more that you have the zero to one CEO, co-founders, and then you have the...

Barbara (23:18)
Yeah.

Kevin Holmes (23:35)
the rapid, the hyper scale or the public company CEO, right? These are three different personas, rarely just one. And so it's actually typical. Yeah.

Barbara (23:43)
It's very true. Yeah. And that's what

they brought in the big guns and this this gentleman had had many exits and experiences and they just wanted the exit and he did everything.

Kevin Holmes (23:52)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Barbara (23:56)
by the book to get it to that point, he managed it. And he and the new CEO got along really well and they worked well together and the board became all good friends. so they took it and ran with it. So.

Kevin Holmes (24:09)
So help me out with the timeline

here. What was your tenure up and to that point where you rolled off the board?

Barbara (24:16)
I think I was off wait, I think I was off the board in 2016. So when Manuel he passed. Yeah, my Yeah, well, we I mean, the company technically got

Kevin Holmes (24:22)
So about 10 years?

Barbara (24:28)
incorporated in 03, end of 03. We didn't really get a lot of traction until five years later, where we started, we had proof of concept and you so that was like 07, 08, something like that. And then, and then we, then we hit it with Peru and got that traction in Latam. And then we opened up in Europe. So then we were really cranking and the investments were starting to come in, but trickling in.

Kevin Holmes (24:32)
wow, okay.

Yeah.

Barbara (24:56)
but it seemed to be hard to sustain that because it was a drip-funded type of thing which kept us on the noose the whole time. ⁓ And so then when the IOC came in which was in 2013, that's when we could breathe a little and we're ready to take it to the next level. We had everything in place to storm the castle basically but you know was just like...

Kevin Holmes (25:00)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Barbara (25:20)
So yeah, the timeline for me was, you 03 in the beginning to 2013. By 2014, you know, that's when I became COO and I stepped down, I think, the beginning of 14 and was director for about two years.

Kevin Holmes (25:22)
you

Yeah.

Well, anyways, it's over a decade. It's closer to a decade and a half. And I want that to be clear to founders, right? That that's what you should expect. You should plan for, right?

Barbara (25:40)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you

want to have good investors that believe in you. They kept us alive. I don't know. ⁓

Kevin Holmes (25:59)
Tell me

about that, when you reflect on that group that kept you sustained, like how'd you find them? How'd you get to know them? How'd you build a relationship? How did you sort of, you know, keep them, get them so deeply involved and committed to you guys?

Barbara (26:15)
Well, lot of it was our days in American Express. So one of our key early founders was the ex CFO of American Express Company, you know, and we knew all that, you know, we were, that's like a tribe or a family in itself. And so the old, our old boss from, he was a,

Kevin Holmes (26:29)
Mmm.

Barbara (26:33)
in finance and started the Latin American Division up in New York. I actually sat next to him when I was working there in New York and we were friends and then I went off to grad school and I got recruited back when he started in Miami and so he I got the job again and so it was good back Bernie Hamilton I was able to be back with Bernie and Bernie introduced me to Manuel the rest is history yeah he's very much in my

Kevin Holmes (26:58)
⁓ was he officiate

your wedding or? Yeah.

Barbara (27:03)
He was at my wedding. Yeah,

it was an Amex reunion basically. And then, you know, his good buddy was the CFO of finance at one time in for American Express. And then we had an ex American Express banker head of the American Express bank who was an invest early investor and

Kevin Holmes (27:07)
That's neat.

Hmm.

Barbara (27:22)
Then finally, guess because the bank relationships were so important, Manuel worked a lot with banks and American Express when he was there. So he had those contacts. So that's probably a big one. Trying to think what else fed into that. OK. So one of our first big investors was the Spirito Santo Bank, who was big down here in Miami. And they kind of gave us our first, besides friends and family,

they gave us a little leg up, what's the word, credibility factor. So that started it. And then because of that, more investors came on board. And then the second one was actually a roommate from a Bernie's and good friend from Notre Dame that he was in Venezuela doing really, really well. And he was, I guess there was some crisis that's going on down there as we know.

So he joined in and that became a very solid group that helped a lot and with their contacts. And then finally the big one was the IFC. That was like when that got secured, we knew that we were on the next phase. Yeah.

Kevin Holmes (28:10)
So keep doing it.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

So you stuck with it for a long time, but there were these... And you had baked in this family from Amex, right? That was kind of your... Almost in a way, probably added to your commitment to making this succeed, right? Because you had these pre-existing relationships, you didn't want to let them down.

Barbara (28:39)
Yeah, it seems, yeah.

Yeah, for sure. I think also that we were a well-oiled team as well, having worked through crises in Latin America back in the 80s.

Manuel and Bernie worked very close together. To be back in the Sal again, you know, is kind of natural, which I think is kind of cool. Like when you've been in the trenches with the corporate life, and you've worked well with people together, I think it's a beautiful thing that you go back to your team because you really, they're already vetted big time, especially when you put in those long hours and you know, so.

Kevin Holmes (29:01)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah,

the work ethic also stands out as a key part of your story. And probably dealing with that volatility also sort of prepared you for startup life,

Barbara (29:28)
Yeah.

Well, try being married to

one.

Kevin Holmes (29:37)
What did you learn from that? you learn anything?

Because we have founders in the network who work with their husband or wife. Did you learn anything that might be relevant for them about how to make that work that maybe you learned the hard way?

Barbara (29:43)
Yeah.

⁓ I don't know. think there was just a natural flow with Manuel and myself. we complimented each other in skill sets. So, you know, what my superpowers were, you know, versus his superpowers, they somehow meshed really well. And then communication. Yes, it's hard to.

Kevin Holmes (29:55)
Mm.

Barbara (30:08)
you know, carry something from home into the office or something, but you just, I don't know, we just, we just flowed. We had a lot of respect for each other and, and, and we met working with each other. The other thing happened later. So I was already used to him being my boss, you know, this ego thing and ⁓

Kevin Holmes (30:22)
Hmm.

Mmm.

Barbara (30:27)
And he could, you know, he he, recognized my worth, which is important as I recognized his and we knew how to navigate around that.

So it somehow I don't know if you've got two strong egos and, you know, someone that's dismissive of another person's value, you know, I mean, those are those those are the things that are probably going to be red flags for marriage into the office. But if you have that already baked into the foundation, then it'll work, you know.

Kevin Holmes (30:48)
Yeah.

Yes. You had worked together and actually met

through work, right? So it almost, it's almost baked in. That stands out to me. And he valued your... Did you find, because you mentioned like 14 hour days at Amex and whatnot. did you, like, did you guys just work constantly? Were you always talking about, you know, safety pay and startup, or did you have...

Barbara (30:59)
Yeah.

and love, love helps too. Love and respect.

Kevin Holmes (31:17)
ways to sort of carve out time for just a relationship or.

Barbara (31:17)
you

yeah, we did things as a family once the girls came on board, you we involved them in there and they do their homework in the conference room. You know, they just had a walk over. It was nice being able to walk to work, you know, walk from school and, you know, so we shared a lot of family time that way. And I took on the role more of, you know, attending to the kids as well. So.

Kevin Holmes (31:30)
That's neat.

Barbara (31:42)
It was ideal that I had that flexibility to work with he could do. But yeah, we go do our parental stuff, you know, whatever, and then we go back to the office and work till 10. It was just fluid. It was just a fluid type of experience that was just incorporated into our lives. I have, you know, how it impacted the kids.

Kevin Holmes (31:45)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Barbara (32:01)
is a natural she she just loves the entrepreneurial stuff the other one it probably wasn't her her thing but she tolerated it you know enough so i'm sure she got some some good things out of it but you never know how it impacts the kids but you know we did the best we could but

Kevin Holmes (32:09)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

true

of any profession, you know, and yeah.

Barbara (32:23)
Yeah, well, it's stress. mean, some people are,

you know, if you're HSP, highly sensitive person, like to be in this constant mode of having to think about it. But no, we we talked about other things. Sometimes we just like, let's stop, let's take a mental break from talking about safety pay, you know. And there were other things to talk about.

Kevin Holmes (32:29)
Hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, well,

what I'm getting from you is that you guys figured out a way to design your lives to where you could sustain this for 10, 15 years, right? And, and it, and it worked. And you also mentioned, you know, that your, that your husband had valued what you did. And I wanted to talk about that. I wanted to talk about, you know, your kind of zone of genius around PR and positioning and go to market and

especially early on. And I wanted to make sure that the founders listening to this can kind of learn from you about that.

Barbara (33:15)
Sure, yeah, I was going to say that we talked about, you know, you asked me how I wanted my name. That was always a confusing point, but there was, you know, perception that he wanted to keep that we weren't mom and pop. So.

Kevin Holmes (33:28)
huh.

Barbara (33:29)
I went

Kevin Holmes (33:29)
huh.

Barbara (33:29)
with my maiden name, you know, and sometimes it got us in a little bit of a funny predicaments, but, but for the most part, it was like, you guys are married, you know, like, I don't like doing that to people, but on the surface, it was, you know, when you're doing a pitch deck, and you're like, you know, there's Manuela Montero, Barbara Montero, like, ⁓ and it's, it's, it's not good look at in the beginning, if you want to just, and then you can tell them later, you know, but yeah.

Kevin Holmes (33:45)
I think it's

Yeah.

Yeah, I've

heard that some people, it'll be a disqualifier because of say risk that, know, extra risk. Yeah. Yeah. And then others that like it, because you can also point to lots of success stories of, these people have to make this work. Anyhow.

Barbara (34:01)
It is a risk. I looked at it.

Yes. Right. Yes. You know, I'd be hungry enough.

But ⁓ no, I think that, you know, look, Manuel was very fair, passionate leader. And one thing I really, you know,

Kevin Holmes (34:20)
Hmm.

Barbara (34:22)
admired in him was that he was fair to all people and he really valued women's talent, you know, which was a good thing. He knew how to blend it and all that. So I feel blessed that that happens because sometimes it's another road for women, you know, they go through a lot and he included people and believed in it. So and shows of his daughters too, you know.

Kevin Holmes (34:37)
Yeah.

Yeah.

cool like that yeah yeah

Barbara (34:49)
Yeah,

but the skill set that I brought was, yeah, would put all of them and a lot of it was the writing I was mentioning before. So they would block me in a back room in the office and just I concentrate on putting out all the materials and.

Kevin Holmes (34:52)
Yeah, let's talk about that.

Barbara (35:05)
I got to do brochures and creative. And then the biggest game changer, this is what one thing I cherish, because we were just hitting the wall, you'd go and present and whatever. And finally, we did a video. And that's what I grew up in a filmmaker's household. My father's a And so when we started videos, and then my one daughter was studying film, so she did a video for some of the marketing. that one video,

Kevin Holmes (35:19)
Mm, mm, that's right.

Barbara (35:32)
video, we had it professionally done, but it was the game changer. All of a sudden, there's funny things how the visual is so much more powerful in the messaging than just doing pitch decks and PowerPoints and we did plenty of and it seemed like it just changed something in it. And so that was a medium we used. And then the PR, which we've talked about before, the PR was going about it in a smart way, credible way and said,

Kevin Holmes (35:44)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Barbara (36:02)
of just blasting the news, press releases and things that don't meet to it and overspending on ads or whatever. So we just went to a of conferences and partnerships we maintain with people.

Kevin Holmes (36:05)
Yeah.

Barbara (36:17)
And little by little, we had those little catchy stories or something here. And quite frankly, we hired a very good PR firm that got us started. But we just used them for six, three months to get us started. And I could take it from there and found the little formulas to work directly with.

Kevin Holmes (36:21)
Yeah.

Barbara (36:34)
know, business platforms or, you know, PR net or, you know, whatever at the time. I don't even know what they are now. I haven't done much of this in a while, but I just found my angles and, ⁓ and that, that added credibility. And next thing I know we're at a, we're at a white paper with the Kinsey company, you know, companies to watch for, you know,

Kevin Holmes (36:51)
Mmm.

Yeah.

And that, you mentioned the credibility gap. I'm sure that this all has to do with sort of cross, especially in FinTech.

Barbara (37:02)
Yeah,

yeah, FinTech and how much it's changed, but then in some ways it hasn't changed a bit, you know, but it's a very lucrative area and you find your right little angle, your little niche groups. And like I said, we have some employees that went on to start their own payment systems. They're doing very well. So there's a lot of room.

Kevin Holmes (37:06)
is an easy change.

Yeah.

You talked about

common mistakes founders make in this area. Are there any lessons there for founders listening to think about?

Barbara (37:28)
⁓ hmm.

Kevin Holmes (37:29)
I mean, you mentioned blasting the, know, PR is not blasting a press release on the wire.

Barbara (37:35)
That's true. Yeah, don't overspend on things because it's a, your money can go fast. Yeah. And... ⁓

Kevin Holmes (37:43)
Yeah.

Yeah, can you mention, can you go deeper on that? I mean, you had to survive sort of hand to mouth for so many years with the funding. I would imagine that, you know, being capital efficient or frugal is a core value that you guys had.

Barbara (37:58)
Well, I don't want to discourage people, but we didn't get paid for five years.

Kevin Holmes (38:03)
I think that's a great thing to share with founders. Because I think we're coming at, know, in 1999, I think there was like 50 billion across venture and, know, in the dot com boom. And now there's like, that's a round for open AI, right? So there's so much money in the system. And I think it can lead to sort of people not appreciating that like the scarcity of funding that's not always, you know, the merry-go-round will stop.

Barbara (38:05)
Truth or false?

Kevin Holmes (38:30)
Right? And you don't want to be left without that funding round.

Barbara (38:32)
Yeah. Yeah.

If you're to go jump into something like that, I do believe you have to have some financial runway to take the risk. And then it's very motivating as the time gets here to. Yeah. So that's what we did. And, you know, I we had some savings, you know, we did all bad, but, but yeah, it got, it got dicey there for a bit. You know, yeah.

Kevin Holmes (38:41)
Thanks.

Yeah.

Let's transition into what you're doing now, is seed funders, you're investing on the other side of the table. I would reckon that a lot of this lived experience informs how you approach making investment decisions in early-stage founders. Can you share more about that and what you see in terms of blind spots from the founders or, I don't know, what the inverse of maybe that is? What makes you lean in when you're...

before there's traction.

Barbara (39:25)
yeah, because I saw it from the other side as well with the VCs were asking us and investors and then I honed in on it when I was looking to invest or represent seed funders to maybe put money in. And I think first and foremost, hands down is the founder.

The founder has got to have the schutzpah, they've got to be, I don't know, credibility, they've got to have a good sense, the resiliency, all that kind of thing, not to give up.

Are they going to stick to it no matter what? Because there's going to be inevitable ups and downs. And how do you pivot? How do you manage crises and things like that? think that's really execution ability, all those types of things.

I guess the other thing I would look at is ⁓ traction signals, know, like things like, I mean, in an early stage, it'd be nice that they've

Watching, of course, the budgets and, you know, I get turned, first personally, get, red flag for me is they get money and then all of they start paying themselves. You can see that I'm a little sensitive to it. You know, I didn't take a salary for five years and we just, you you gotta put skin in the game. But how much traction do you have on the concept? How much financial runway do you have?

Kevin Holmes (40:26)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm

Barbara (40:39)
And then if you could start making some kind of revenue, even in the minuscule amount, you've done the proof of concept, you're there. And then you add that drive from the founder and that stick-to-itiveness and that not giving up and pivoting smartly, you know, that's what I'm for. So.

Kevin Holmes (40:52)
Mm.

Yeah.

Can

we explore that a little bit more because I think I might've mentioned like I finished my startup was during the dot-com bust, right? And we had conversations about recycling paper clips, you And then my MBA I finished in 09 right after the 08. But for many years now, like a lot of founders have been living in a very rich time. And there's just a lot of money in the system and they're

Barbara (41:11)
you

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kevin Holmes (41:28)
But these ideas around being capital efficient and skin in the game, can you explain that to a founder who may not get it? Why shouldn't I pay myself? What's the rationale for why they shouldn't pay theirself for, five years? How are they getting compensated?

Barbara (41:44)
well, first of all, I would not recommend that to anybody. That's hard.

Kevin Holmes (41:48)
Okay, good to

clarify that, yeah.

Barbara (41:50)
Yeah, I had

to clarify that. I'm just saying you're talking about a person, two people that didn't pay themselves for five years and put so much skin in the game. That's excessive, personally. But if there's some kind of, you know, it's not like you can't pay yourself. It's like, be reasonable in it. We've had guys come and they're paying themselves 200 grand a year. And they want the big bucks, but it's to pay them.

you know, and I'm thinking, well, maybe you got to say 60,000 a year for now for a year, and then, you know, we and you can also write off some expenses and things like that. But, but for the most part, you have to have that I think the financial runway to get going or friends and family that are investing to get you that thing. to, me, it's more the number versus

you know, happening at all, you know, so I just use an example that makes me a little bit more sensitive to someone paying them too much.

Kevin Holmes (42:45)
Well,

I was also thinking about equity, right? What are you working for as a founder? You're making your money on equity, right? And that's the whole thing. The whole thing is driven by equity, right?

Barbara (42:50)
Yeah. Yes.

Right, exactly. But as happens is that as you keep navigating through and you have to give up equity is if you go into crisis, you're giving up more equity, more equity to pay people. That's how we pay people. And it came out okay. But if that company goes under, it doesn't make it, which we came very close, then equity is what good is it at this point. So yeah, that's the trade off. Yeah.

Kevin Holmes (43:21)
Yeah.

Is there a lesson learned for you about equity and managing equity as a founder for other like early stage founders to help them think about it? Whole idea here is like, let's not reinvent the wheel and have them learn the hard lessons on their own, right? So yeah.

Barbara (43:37)
Yeah.

I think ours is a kind of unique case, you know, because there's so many different things in it. We, I almost felt like there was some kind of a, you know, like the universe didn't want us to totally fail because we just kept getting resuscitated again. It was almost miraculous. But I

Kevin Holmes (43:57)
Mm. Mm.

Barbara (44:03)
I think ours is an extreme case for the most, like when I advise people, like I can give you an example. Like there was a woman that, you know, she had a really nice job and she had a partner that they were going to start this new thing with a government contract possibly that she could get. But it was keeping her back, you know, being working. And I said, okay, well, what is your runway?

Kevin Holmes (44:04)
Yeah

Excuse me.

Barbara (44:22)
you six months. said, you're definitely marketable. You can get back into something like this. Okay. When do you think you could really get this thing going? I said a month and a half. And I just said, do it. You know, just go, go for it. Action to go. And she called me back like, you know, six months later and she goes, thank you. just made my first 1.5 million. Because she did it.

Kevin Holmes (44:44)
was fast. Yeah.

Barbara (44:44)
So it's just jumping in and she didn't have

to get paid. So I'm talking about that type of timeframe versus what we were doing. But I think we, know, I don't know. I don't know why it was so darn hard, but it just was.

Kevin Holmes (44:49)
Yes. Yeah.

Yeah,

it makes for more epic story. You know, I feel like...

Barbara (45:03)
The hero's arc in literature. the Iliad, know, fighting psychosis. Yeah, exactly.

Kevin Holmes (45:06)
Totally. Yeah. They were lost in the wilderness and washed ashore on the island. It

is. I think also what motivates founders is not the risk-adjusted returns, right? It is the journey. It is the story and the Odyssey. Speaking of Odysseys and your Odyssey, one of the things that, like you said, it's not a normal story.

Barbara (45:21)
Yeah.

Kevin Holmes (45:30)
is the fact that you went through so much and you went through so much losing your husband in the middle of it. that, you know, I want to like return to that and, and, and talk about lessons learned and messages for founders and Barbara's story. And people can remember that and take something away from it. You didn't give up. And it was this beautiful thing where the vigils and in the Latin American team and

Like everybody pulling almost like a Hollywood script, right? Like a montage thing. Wow, it's like it gives me the chills talking about it.

Barbara (46:00)
It's gonna be a story

I've got to get back to writing and write it out. You're helping me, know that, Yeah.

Kevin Holmes (46:04)
Yeah, it's in your blood. mean, because your dad was

⁓ in Hollywood, Filmmaker. Yeah.

Barbara (46:11)
Yes,

yeah, well that's kind of what I'm doing now is working with my dad's story and stuff. But I want to do the safety pay story. like I said, you're putting me out there verbal stuff. I'm going go back to these and start the pre-marketing.

Kevin Holmes (46:22)
Good, good, good, good. Okay. Yeah. People are going to want to, this is the pre-marketing. But like, I

don't know. mean, sometimes it's so intuitive that it's hard to, you know, distill what that is that allowed you or enabled you to keep going. like, are there thoughts you have to share about it? mean, about, yeah, never giving up and sticking with it. Like what?

Barbara (46:43)
about never giving up and keep going.

I

could talk, I actually, it's a very big theme in my life because it was a theme my father instilled in me, never give up. I, I mean, I could, we have time. can talk about a little bit of that, you know, yeah. Okay. So his, with my dad, you know, it's gotta be in the DNA because I think of.

Kevin Holmes (46:59)
Yeah, that's a great note for us to wrap on,

Barbara (47:08)
him making a film, he was an average, he was a madman, Madison Avenue guy. you know, he just, his journey was so interesting, twists and turns and ups and downs, but he got tapped to be, to make a documentary for the Kennedy administration to show that America wasn't such warmongers.

that they were going repurpose a battleship, make it into a hospital ship, and do a maiden voyage from San Francisco to Indonesia and help doctors fight diseases and all that stuff. And they wanted a filmographer to go on board. So he did it. And in the middle he's contracted by the ad agency. And they fired him. And they said, we're not going to do this anymore. It's over budget or whatever it was. And so he just said, in lieu of payment, would you just

please give me the footage, I've got a film here. So he put it together and came back and showed it and it was amazing and lovely and heartfelt and he didn't give up. And then they, I guess the client submitted it to the Academy and he wins an Oscar. Yeah, I have it in my living room as inspiration.

Kevin Holmes (48:10)
Wow.

That's cool.

Barbara (48:16)
So that's that never give up thing. And then as my dad was bowing out of life, I used to paint. That was the thing I used to give gifts as paintings to my father. he asked me, he saw this thing on a doctor's office and he says, could you paint this for me? So it was my last painting for him. And what it was was a ⁓ crane, like a Florida crane.

bird and he's now eating a frog and it's got in his mouth and the legs are sticking out like this and his head's down halfway down his throat but the frog's leg arms are like grasping the neck and blocking the whole passage of him being swallowed and it says at the bottom never give up. So that was my last painting to him and it's very important theme in our lives to not give up. There's always this one last ditch effort to do it and so I actually

Kevin Holmes (49:02)
Yeah.

Barbara (49:04)
You know, my dad made a TV series called The Veil

Again, the company that he was with, Hal Road Studios, and he made the series with Boris Karloff. And it's all over the internet. If you look up the bail and Frank Beavis, you'll see the films. And right in the snack in the middle of it, the studio goes bankrupt. He loses everything. I Boris Karloff didn't even get paid, you know?

Kevin Holmes (49:28)
Mm.

Yeah. Yeah, well, it's a great message. Like I said, it's one of I should amend what I said. It's never FN give up. Founders Network FN. Yeah. Incidentally, growing up, we had that picture on our refrigerator, the crane and the frog. Yeah.

Well, we appreciate it at Founders Network and thank you for taking the time to share your story and hope people got something out of it, took some kernels, something that is useful and motivational. And yeah, Barbara, I appreciate you. Thank you so much.

Take care, bye bye.