The Daily Difference - Seamless, Sustainable, Human | Entrepreneur Stories

We'd start out with an intro. Okay. Like your full name, your company name, and sort of an elevator pitch.

Okay.

Simplest form of what the company does.

Luca Posada has carefully built Takinos, a fintech bridge for freelancers in Medellín's Tech Labs. With crypto rails and global wallets, Takinos makes cross-border payments fast and fair.

I started my degree in marketing and advertisement, and suddenly I said like, okay, this is very weird because like all I've known about advertisement is like online advertisement, and like I'm here in the university and they're teaching me about like ads on radio or billboards. It's like, it's not what I was looking for. So for me, advertising is something different. I'm a very people guy. Like, I love teams. I love working with my team. So in that moment I said like, okay, now I'm on my own and I don't have co-founders. I don't have people to decide things, like to have fun, to whatever. So it was a struggle. That was the hardest part, I believe. It's my first startup. I'm from a small town in the south of the Patagonia. It's called Río Gallegos. It's a very, very small town. When I was born, like, there was like no internet. Like, I was born in '92, so internet came to my town when I was around 8, 10 years old. Like, I spent hours Like trying to understand how the computer worked, you know. And when I was 14, 15 years old, I discovered the world of blogging. And a few months later, like, I've discovered this very specific hobby that I took, which was like ordering freebies and samples. So I said like, okay, maybe I write about this And people like want to read it. So I started like making reviews of companies that were like distributing freebies and samples, and I used to tell people how to order them. So that was the beginning of a blog that went viral in Argentina, was one of the top 10 more visited blogs. And I used to ask my mom to to cash them. And she's like, I don't want to cash these checks. What are you doing online? And I was like, no, no, it's legit. It's like I have this blog. And she's like, what is a blog? Like, what are freebies? What is advertising, more or less? And it was kind of hard to explain her. And I think that at the end, she just trusted me and said, okay, let's cash these checks. So I started offering my services, and that's when I discovered the cross-border freelancer world, and I used to get paid through platforms like PayPal, Payoneer, Neteller, and basically, like, it was very hard for me to cash that money or to make it available to spend it locally. So it was not as hard as the beginning when I had to make my mom cash the checks, but it was still hard. And well, I basically like started like trying to understand how was it and how was I able to do it. And I made my own tricks, you know, around it, like how to move the money, like which are the providers. That's when I think that everything that then became Takenos started.

Takenos helps freelancers earn globally. Luca Posada's platform offers instant access to income through Take Card and crypto tools. No delays, no borders, just freedom to grow.

Okay, I'm Lucas Posada. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Takenos, a financial app for cross-border workers, mainly freelancers, contractors, and creators that are getting paid from all over the world. So there are about 20,000 people that have already used our technology. So it's not that much if you compare with the 50 million people that are in the, at least in the region, that are working for an individual, a company, a client in another country. What I do believe that it's enough to have seen evidence that our technology is providing solutions to them. So we have like this office in Buenos Aires which is really cool. It's kind of a house, and we call it Take House. We're now 20-something people in our team, and all of us want to like really make a huge change in our— and the other team members, but also in the society where we're involved. And That is the— I think that the thing that gives you most proud when you're like a leader in a team and also in a company.

So what would the opportunity to work with Tim Draper mean to you and your company in this phase?

The opportunity to work with Tim Draper, for me, it would mean that we really have the support from Silicon Valley. He's a very well-trusted individual in the Bay Area, and we believe that that is the Florence of the 21st century. We really see that there are so many interesting people gathered in the same area, and we want to be like someone that really could get access to that people and those thoughts, because we want to take that to the people that is around Argentina and Latin America.

The idea was to empower remote workers. Freelancers use it to access platforms like Deal and PayPal. With smart tools and seamless payouts, Takenos turns work What would a million-dollar investment mean for your company at this stage?

A million-dollar investment in our company, in our stage, would mean to really have the resources to make our vision take the next step. We have been working very hard in Argentina, in Colombia, in Mexico, But we really need to understand the next steps to make it scalable in different countries in the region. So we need resources for that. So my mom is pretty fun. The first thing that she would have thought is that that money is for me, which is like, it's like, no, Mom, it's for the company, not for me. Like, I won like a million-dollar investment.

So what about that kid who's If you started that blog or like discovered the internet early on, you know, what would he think of where you are now and what you're doing?

So I think that that kid will say like, yeah, you might be like, maybe they are cheating on you, you know, like that's not true, they're not gonna send you the check. Um, so I think that that kid is like Somehow in the past, and I'm kind of happy about it.

So can we start with your full name, company name, and just an elevator pitch, kind of in one sentence, describing what your company does?

Karachi's busy streets have a new entity, a safe ride for all called Buscaro. Founded by Maha Shahzad, Buscaro is a platform that gives women and workers reliable transport.

I think when you see a problem, you either solve it or you learn to live with it. And I didn't want to learn to live with it. And I'd spent time in Pakistan previously and had a really tough time commuting. And it would be unreliable, it would be unsafe, it would be extremely expensive, and just didn't seem like the way things should be. And so I saw a company that was trying to solve that, ultimately just, you know, joined them, and then joined another one that I thought was, was trying to solve that problem. And I think there came a day when nobody else was, was doing this, and I thought that that problem is so massive in Pakistan If I don't take it up, nobody else will. And so I started my company. I think generally in markets, public transportation is what solves for commute overall. And that's not something that we have here, right? Our public transport can only serve a very small portion of the population here. There's a lot of then challenges around accessibility and safety. And particularly when you talk about women, they're in the biggest trouble there. And so that is just something that unless we can, through private companies, solve for here, it's just not going to happen. And I think trying to build a sustainable model around that that can work— this is something that's safe for women, this is something that's safe for their children to use— I think that building that trust has been a lot of work.

Maha Shazad's app offers vetted drivers, tracking, and panic buttons. Thousands ride daily. With trust and ease.

I'm Maha Shahzad. I'm the founder of Buscaro. Buscaro is a mobility startup in Pakistan that helps people get to school and work on a daily basis at affordable prices in a way that's safe for them. So we're about 65 people right now as of today. I think the team size is going to double in the next few months. Our business is scaling very rapidly. And so there's a lot more growth that's coming in. And I think particularly when it comes to women, they are— they have no options, right? I think if you're a man in Pakistan, you can get on the back of a bike. You won't see a woman do that, which means all of a sudden her options are 5 times more expensive, right? And generally what women earn is less than what men earn. And so they're in the worst position. And when you think about how to get girls to school, you run into that same issue. And then you think about employment opportunities for them, and it's the same damn thing. So a third of our users today are minors and they're children. And I think when we started working with children and we started the school bus sort of model, we used to have parents that would follow us around in their cars because they'd be so worried. And I think they did that for a couple of days, they saw how things progressed, and And I think when parents trust you with their children, I think that for us has been the thing that we've been most proud of. And then of course there's a lot of cases, right? We today have female bus drivers, which is something that's pretty much unthinkable in Pakistan. And now we have these women who are driving with us. And so I think there's a lot of change that's coming from this that we're just very proud of.

So what way working with Tim Draper has changed you?

I think working with Tim for me would mean a lot of things. I think, as you know, for those of us who are in this ecosystem, you grow up and you learn about VCs and he's chapter one, right? And I think he's such a huge inspiration just to have the opportunity to work with him. I think on a personal level, that means a lot.

Maha Shahzad built Baskaro to serve communities, partnering with schools and factories Buscaro ensures safe routes. Every ride helps every individual move forward with positivity.

What would a million-dollar investment mean for your company?

So a million-dollar investment would help us, you know, further scale our company. We need working capital for all of the work that we do, and with every dollar that we get, there's multiple additional users who we can solve for on a daily basis. A million dollars for us means you know a million more people that we can we can help in Pakistan, and I think we've figured out how to solve what to us is the most important problem in this country. And I think we celebrate that on a daily basis, but also you know want to multiply the effect that we're having on people. जो डर गया वो मर गया, which literally translates the person who is afraid. that person is dead, right? Um, makes a lot more sense in Urdu than it does in English, but I think that's just how I've always been trained. And I remember, you know, when I was working for Swivel and that company shut down, um, I think I was crying and my dad had called me and it was the first time he heard me cry in my entire life and he was in shock. He said, what the hell is wrong with you? And I was like, it's over. And I think he asked me at that time, why? If you could run these buses then, why can't you run them now? And if you want to help people, then why can't you just get up and do it instead of crying and making excuses? And I think that stuck. And we had one bus on the road that day. We have about 1,000 of them now.

So can we start with your name, your full name, your company name, and then sort of the elevator pitch, like a concise version of what you're— the core problem you're trying to solve?

Hashim Akbar saw value in waste and therefore founded his app in Islamabad called Reupcycle. It connects recyclers and creators, turning trash into treasure.

When I graduated from grad school, I joined big tobacco. So I was with this company called Philip Morris for about 7 years all across Pakistan, then spent some time in Switzerland and then came back. And then I think that's where I realized this is something that I need to do. Going from the most beautiful country in the world and then coming back to Pakistan, understanding how waste is ruining our world and causing climate change. I think that's where technically the idea came that there's something needs to now be done. I think the problem here is that we generate 4 million tons of waste plastic every year, and more than 70% goes back into the environment, which floods the waterways, the rivers, ends up in the sea. So it creates a lot of problems. There's a lot of greenhouse gas emissions, there's a lot of carbon emissions, which is obviously causing a lot of climate change. It's bad for the ecosystem. So if we look at it from a perspective of a human being, we're eating plastic, it's in our bodies, we're breathing it, it's everywhere because we never recycle. Since plastic has been manufactured globally, Only nine percent has gone back into recycling. So basically, I'm converting their trash into cash. So it becomes a cash for trash. We're starting with plastic, then we're going to all recyclables. So you sitting at home, you've got paper, you've got a notebook that's finished, you've used it, and you don't want to throw it away. You want to keep it because you can sell it later for some money. Like it's not going to be zero waste. And when we pay people. They're like, okay, we're getting money for free for something we were never getting money for.

Reupcycle makes recycling easy. The platform links users to collectors and tracks waste. It's eco-action made simple.

I am Hashim Akbar. I am the founder at Reupcycle app, and the core problem that we're trying to solve is that we want to reduce plastic pollution in the environment and save We're currently about 50 people. Out of that, 80% of them are people who support in the sorting of the plastic waste that we have, the collection, the sorting, and then processing into raw material. Our middle management, top management, we're about 7 people who are running the show with 40+ people who are supporting us in making sure that we put it to correct use. Day to day is we got plastic coming in, we dump it at a certain place, we sort it into different colors, delabel it, then put it into a machine where it gets crushed, cut, washed, and into small flakes. And then that gets sold to the industries who utilize it as a raw material. And I think I've also converted people. I was giving an interview to someone a few few days ago. They're like, after speaking to you, I've stopped using single-use plastic. Now I've got different kinds of containers in the office which I use, I wash, I reuse. I don't use single-use plastic anymore. So I think it does— it is bringing about positive change, and people are going into recycling. So what would working with Tim mean I think Tim can help us open a lot of doors. The money obviously matters, but other than that, I think the relationships, the connections that we can get because of being part of Tim's Startups would be amazing.

Hashim Akbar built Reupcycle to inspire change. His app creates a network of recyclers and brands. Green living becomes everyday action.

What would a million-dollar investment mean for your company right now?

So we're currently collecting about 60,000 kilograms of plastic waste every month. If I convert it into the number of bottles, we're collecting over a million plastic bottles every month. So if we get a million dollars, we're going to be collecting more than 10 million bottles a month. That's how much of an impact impact this will have on us. We used to find plastic bottles on the road. Now we don't find them on the road. That means people are getting more and more responsible. They understand that there's something we can make money from. Why do you want it lying around on the road? So someone's even walking by, they find an empty plastic bottle, they're going to pick it up and then keep it at home. I'm doing something for the people and planet, and the people around me supported me in that cause. Some people said I was crazy, But a lot of people, I still tell what I'm doing. They're like, you're doing amazing work.

If we could go back in time and there's this younger version of yourself working for Philip Morris, which is, you know, no judgment, but probably not trying to save the world. Yeah. What do you think that guy would think about what you're doing now?

I think that that person would think that this person's very brave, uh, that leaving the comfort of a regular paycheck and going into something which he doesn't know when he's exactly going to start making money from, but actually impacting the world in a positive way. Um, so what, how it basically changed was that when I was being employed, it was one salary coming in. Now me not being employed, Okay, if I don't draw a salary, there's still forty other people getting a salary every month. So that's the kind of impact I've created, and that younger self of mine should be proud of where where I am now.

So, मुझे लगता है आज तो सेकंड इंटरव्यू Like, your guys' names, your role at the company, and then sort of that, like, a very concise elevator pitch.

In San Francisco and Oxford, Nicole Yelsey and Daniel Lozano built Kindworks AI. Their agent Benny uses tech to boost empathy. Kindness becomes a workplace superpower.

And that's just one story. I mean, we're hearing this every day and every week. You know, someone else who came up and said, I was about to take a leave of absence and Benny helped through one of the exercises, have a conversation, nudged me to talk to my manager, and then ultimately figure out how to rebalance my workload. And I ended up not having to take a leave of absence and get a promotion 6 months later. We also, we get unsolicited emails. Benny within product gets a lot of feedback on how I have connected with new friends at work, some of our best friends that didn't know. And I had a conversation prompted by Benny where, you know, I connected with someone on a much deeper level.

So I was born and raised in Colombia. I studied economics, master's economics as undergrad. I worked in finance all the way to chief economist and head of strategy at a major asset management firm. And there I was like, what am I doing with my life? You know, what's my impact in the world? And I didn't have good answers. And 1.5 years later, in the middle of the pandemic, when people were struggling, the middle of Great Resignation. We've launched Kindworks, and we haven't stopped ever since.

So, and then I was one of the first people that Daniel called when he launched Kindworks back in January 2021. And, uh, so I— my background's in brand and in marketing, but I always say my passion is helping people be happy, not just at work but in life. And I'm a generally happy person. When Daniel came to me with the idea for Kindworks, I started diving into the research on kindness, and I'm like, this is what I have been preaching my whole life and career.

Kindworks AI helps teams thrive. Nicole and Daniel's platform nudges users toward trust, care, and well-being. It's compassion coded.

I'm Daniel, founder and CEO of Kindworks AI. We're a company that uses kindness and AI to help each person bring their very best every single day.

And I'm Nicole Yelsey. I am co-founder and COO with Kindworks AI. We've built a platform to encourage and enable the intentional practice of kindness at scale.

I launched Cisco's biggest AI product in 2018 and also did a master's in software engineering and was president of the AI Society at Oxford. We got in that Cisco product more than 1,000 enterprise customers, and they called me from headquarters like, you need to be back and we need to relocate you as soon as possible. And at that point, they tried to do my relocations. 3 months later, they call me and they mention, it's like, sorry, Daniel, we've tried as much as we can, but we can't wait for you anymore. You're gonna have to figure out what to work on, where to live, because also your visa in UK depends on Cisco. I know your partner also quit her job, but I'm sorry, you know, there's nothing we can do. And I was really frustrated in that moment and You know, lost. And I took a flight back to Silicon Valley where I had left a storage room with all my stuff. And I started to look into all the things in that storage room, and I found a bottle of wine that I went and gave to the security guard. And in the moment I gave that bottle of wine to the security guard, I felt a powerful force coming to my belly, to my mind, that completely boosted my mood and reduced my stress. And helped me feel at my best. I was like, wait a minute, there's something here that changed my life that I haven't been able to understand. And it turns out that there's more than 300 research papers that show that when you do something kind for somebody else, it's one of the most powerful forces humans have to be at their best. And that what happened to me is not coincidence, but actually science. And I was like, how are we using AI for so many terrible things and we cannot use AI to help people feel what I felt and help people change their lives and change the world with the power of kindness. Not every act of kindness works for every person, or not the same frequency or the time to do an act of kindness works for every person. That's where the AI and the data we have is really powerful to help every single person be at their best, giving them the right act of kindness at the right time with the right frequency.

So the AI is really important to bring the right content, the right exercise, the right kindness to the right person at the right time. And as he said, we were AI way before it became the trendy thing a couple of years ago.

What would the opportunity to work with Tim mean to your company right now?

Tim shares a lot of the values and principles of kindness, right? Like he built this university and this Hero Center to inspire people to build a better world. And that's what Kindworks in many ways is about. Kindworks is about people starting by taking care of themselves. You cannot be kind to others if you're not kind to yourself. And once you do that, you go and inspire others to change the world. And that's what Kindworks and in many ways Draper University is about.

Nicole and Daniel built Kindworks to scale empathy. Benny fosters better habits, stronger teams, And healthier work. Kindness leads the way.

What would a million-dollar investment do for you guys right now?

A million-dollar investment would help us from our awareness piece. So far, it's been a lot of Daniel and I knocking on doors, meeting people on airplanes, and opening up doors that way, and people finding us through the very limited marketing that we've done. We've invested almost nothing in marketing, and just sales has been, again, ourselves. And so putting more behind that because people are finding us through our podcast, through our content, which is all just owned content that we're building. And we know, we see that when people see and understand what we've built, everyone wants to bring it to their company.

My dad has had a really challenging year. He got cancer diagnosed in May and, you know, Kindworks and him have been very important, and they've actually connected with each other in a very important way. And it turns out that I had actually presented Kindworks to the most important hospitals in the region one month before my dad got diagnosed with cancer. He also has been using Kindworks consistently and used the power of kindness to, you know, attack and win that race that is so important. And I'm so proud of him, you know, because having the courage to go through chemo and keep moving on and keep being a kind example to, to us is really important.

My husband, partner, best friend, Josh, who has been so supportive, like I said, the last 3 and a half years. Entrepreneurship journey is not an easy one, and he's been just by my side through every little bit.

The cool thing is like we continue to see Our clients and our people being like salmons, right? Like thriving against the current and going against trend and winning, winning, winning with the power of kindness, not only financially, but what I care the most about personally. People live their lives better, feel happier, feel more engaged, feel healthier, don't get sick as often, and live a more meaningful and purposeful life.

Yeah.