Rethinking AI and entrepreneurship: how a values-first approach drives impact

Interview Summary

Personal Journey to Entrepreneurship (02:15)

Carolina’s early exposure to entrepreneurship was marked by skepticism, but her student startup experience reshaped her perspective, sparking curiosity and laying the foundation for her values-driven path.

Corporate Experiences and Their Impact (05:02)

Her time in corporate America and at LinkedIn revealed both supportive collaboration and toxic leadership, shaping her views on culture, risk-taking, and rethinking how businesses should operate.

The David vs. Goliath Dynamic (07:10)

Carolina highlights the flexibility and courage of SMEs, while exposing the power imbalances they face in B2B relationships, motivating her to champion SMEs as agents of sustainable change.

Building Go With The Flow (09:32)

Go With The Flow began as a water tech platform but pivoted—through customer feedback—into a blended model supporting SMEs with ESG strategy, grounded in curiosity, inclusivity, and sustainability.

Navigating Challenges and Values (22:55)

Carolina challenges the “hustle at all costs” narrative, choosing slower, values-driven growth that balances entrepreneurship with motherhood, and redefining success on her own terms.

Transcript

Cold Open:

Carolina Velasco: So this challenge of what I was told an entrepreneur is and then how that fit who I am and what I wanted did not match.

And that's still even as I say that I'm a bit nervous to say that because I don't know if the way that I'm doing it worked or will work.

Barrak Alzaid: You're listening to Joy of Business, a collection of audio essays, timely discussions, and stories featured on digitalentrepreneur.com.

That was a clip from Carolina Velasco, founder of Go With The Flow. In our conversation, Carolina challenges traditional ideas of entrepreneurship and offers a radically honest account of what it means to build a business that centers values, sustainability, and family.

Keep listening to hear how she navigates the “David vs. Goliath” landscape of B2B, integrates AI to support SMEs, and redefines success—not as hustle at all costs, but as meaningful impact rooted in curiosity, joy, and self-defined metrics.

Barrak Alzaid (00:00)

Hi Carolina, I'm so happy to have you on the podcast with us today. The first question that I have for you is, what does Joy's The New Success mean to you?

Carolina Velasco (00:10)

This was actually a very difficult question, but also I think easy to respond to. For me, it's about feelings and experiences. think joy a lot of the time is connected to more qualitative, you can say more numeric of the things that we have. But for me, it's always come back down to.

Am I creating feelings, memories, experiences? And is that then creating what I would personally define as my own success?

Barrak Alzaid (00:40)

And I know that even when you think about business success, you have a definition that tends to go against the norm. I'd love to hear what that definition of success is and how that came about.

Carolina Velasco (00:52)

yeah. So I think I'll start with the came about because I started in corporate America. Actually, I started up in a student startup. Then I moved into corporate America. And I felt that when I was in corporate America or corporate life, there was really only one definition for it. And when you do these singular definitions, you end up leaving out others that can also have the opportunity for success. So for me, I wasn't fitting that norm, which I didn't, there was a time that I wanted title money. You know, there are these, again, those were the stereotypes that were given to me. But as I started looking at what I really valued, And that happened at a younger age because of the way that I interacted with my family, culturally it was different. It just changed. So my definition of success is very personal. It isn't only about earning money. It is what can I do with that money? And then in turn, and for example, back to my family, the...

The ability to earn money allows me to do something not only for myself, but for really the people that I care about and potentially for my community and to serve those others.

Barrak Alzaid (02:15)

And how did your experience working in that student startup, working in corporate settings and landing in LinkedIn, how did that influence your journey into entrepreneurship? How did those different stages get you to where you are today?

Carolina Velasco (02:32)

So I guess starting at the student startup, I wrote about this, which was if you would have told me that I would become an entrepreneur, I would cringe or just never even believe it. And it was because I had already seen a lot of entrepreneurs in my life. And I had seen the commitment, the passion, the creativity, this voracious kind of learner that they were. But I also saw the reality of financially how it affects people, how it affects the family dynamic. So I had a not, I would say really negative perspective of what entrepreneurism was. And also that you were like leaving your family again. If you haven't heard that, that's a consistent one, this family value for me.

So when I went into the student startup, it was the first time that I saw this collaborative type of work. Every individual had a different piece of the pie, but at the end of the day, we all understood that we were trying to make a pie, right? And not only was it our responsibility to each contribute to that pie, it was also making sure that was the piece that we were making then connecting to the other piece. Was it complimentary and so it wasn't just about collaborating, it was also then cross-functionally and because you're in a university, so there are people that are coming from all over the world. So then I got to expose to all these other different styles of working and mentalities, right?

I laugh right now because I'm thinking of this very distinct conversation that I had with someone from India who's on our project and he was like, Americans are lazy. And I was like, really? I think we overwork, right? But it was, I share this because it was perspective. And when I started asking why, I started becoming more curious. It all of a sudden started painting this very different picture of like, oh, well, he can have a negative opinion. But once I start being more creative and curious about why it was, it was that he was saying this, I quickly learned that it was just the way that we were communicating that we were missing the point.

So wasn't as big of an issue. So that student startup life just gave us the freedom to be able to build together and then build something new, but then also break it. And for some reason, when you get into corporate life, that breaking, that failure is lost. And not for some reason, there are very specific reasons why it's lost because there is a potential negative effect, loss of customers, loss of tech, loss of competitiveness, right?

But that student startup world allowed me to learn also how to balance school with entrepreneurship. The corporate shift was also, what does it look like after a company has really established itself, right? Sometimes I feel bad for big companies because they get this bad rap like, you're capitalistic, hungry, taking over everything. And to some extent, yes.

But they were at one time these scrappy student startups, right? They were an idea, a passion project. And in corporate life, you see the structures of how a company can be. And you also start realizing, is that the way we want, though, to have our companies look like? Is that the best infrastructure? And not only operationally to do the work.

to create the new product and service, but also just an environment like, are we allowing our people to test, to break things, to not be worried about losing their roles by doing this? And I think that's the push and pull that I had with corporates. Some were better. LinkedIn is one of the examples that I keep going back to because when I entered LinkedIn, was really this, we were about, to what they call blitz scale, which is just this insane amount of scaling. But the teams weren't big enough yet, right? So you still had this opportunity to get your hands in everything. And if you made mistakes, you quickly knew who within the organization would fix that, help you. Again, this collaborative type of feeling. And then you make the shift. But there was also the other side of the corporate side where...

It wasn't positive. If you raised your ideas and it was against a senior leader, you were either completely siloed out or you were ridiculed in front of the group. I once had someone throw a stapler at me. So there's a lot of different experiences that I had. when I say corporate, I think of traditional corporate company, meaning...you know, stereotypical white males in your leadership. Boards look the same and that feel. yeah, I think.

Barrak Alzaid (07:10)

And I know that while you were at LinkedIn, you also had this opportunity to work with small and medium sized enterprises and have a chance to observe this David versus Goliath dynamic. Can you talk a little bit about that and what you learned about that as far as, you know, the kind of impact that you found was possible and who could make that kind of impact?

Carolina Velasco (07:33)

Yeah, so when I was in corporate life, I was focusing on really large clients, large clients that had international footprints all over the place. A lot of the times, the corporates were unable to be able to create new products or services specifically in the tech space that I was focusing on. So we ended up working with these SMEs. I bring that up because when I moved into LinkedIn,

All I did was focus on SMEs and then nonprofits. And that shift, it felt like SMEs were bringing about a new culture. Not only were they breaking from this traditional hierarchical way of working and doing business, but they were also, there was so much more flexibility. They were willing to take more risks

However, when they...wanted to do business with B2B, this is where that David and Goliath conflict would happen. These big corporations would sometimes wield their power over them saying like, well, if you don't do X at Y price, then you're going to lose out on our customer base. And that for me, from a values perspective, really rubbed me the wrong way. AndIt wasn't all of them. wasn't the entire company. was usually specific leaders and they were senior enough that that was then a trickle down effect. But again, now that I'm on my own as an entrepreneur, this is why I focus on SME is because I actually believe now that there's this focus on sustainability and in sustainability, there's social, there's governance, there's environmental.

I think you need a different type of leader to be able to bring in and change what has been. And so that David mentality is you know, it's not just this big giant that they have to go after. It's … they just need to move differently. They have to think about it. And so that's why I've decided to focus my time and effort in that space.

Barrak Alzaid (09:33)

That's, I think, really powerful. And I'd love to hear more about Go With the Flow. How did it start and how did you develop it? I think there's a lot of scrappy, know, bootstrappy things that you've done, a lot of self-taught things that you've gone through. I mean, take us through that journey.

Carolina Velasco (09:49)

Yeah

Man, it's funny when you are part of a corporation that has a lot of money, and then you are asked to find these incredible tech companies, SMEs, and you help them help you create new products and services, that entrepreneurial experience is so different than the entrepreneurial experience. I had always heard that, like I mentioned earlier, I had the entrepreneurial experience. I share that.

Because where I started with Go With The Flow is not where I ended up. I thought Go With The Flow was going to be a water tech company because when I had left my last company, I was in water and I was like, you know, and I, and we had already been working with machine learning, AI technology, you know, connectivity, which I think is now called IOT. think I may have just dated myself by using the word connectivity.

But all aside, there was, I thought I was going to build this like water tech platform to help different water companies. And it was totally not that. Through a quick customer feedback loop, just a couple months, I clearly understood, nope, there was no value to customer. There was actually no demand and the supply was already really high. So, you know, when you're looking at leverage, those are the two things that you want to demand a supply. And I was in the wrong direction for both of those things. So then when I started looking at what did I actually value, which is something we haven't quite touched on, but I wanted and I'll do that now is I wanted to build a company that reflected the person and the company that I wanted to work for. Those values were around curiosity. I'll use the cliche word innovation, inclusivity, and taking the customer feedback that I had received and knowing that I really enjoyed helping others do great things and looking at my background in technology, in sales and sustainability, I realized, maybe I could help the SMEs and I could use my knowledge either as a fractional employee, meaning, you know, sourcing myself out and helping them hands on for a period of time, or I could help them with what I saw at the time was the sustainability gap, this ESG part.

Where SMEs don't have the resources, sometimes the people or the technology to be able to assess whether or not sustainability will be beneficial for them. that all of what I'm talking about was three different customer feedback loops. I ended up creating a product, what I thought was going to be a self-service AI platform, the any SME could go on, check their business model for a low fee, and voila, they could show them the risks, opportunities, and impacts for ESG and how it would affect their business model. What I learned though through the most recent feedback loop was that there were two illiteracies, we can say. One was in tech. I could see that the individuals that were using the system didn't actually understand how to prompt well enough to be able to get the information that I had been training this custom chat GPT. The second was I could see that even though there were sustainability leaders, depending on how early or how recently you were trained in sustainability also identified that you may or may not understand all of sustainability or there were gaps. So that is when I moved away from the self-service model.

And now it's a blended model where I, in conjunction with the sustainability partner, work together to use the tool. And then we provide an upfront assessment. And that assessment, again, looks at their business model with all of the public data that they have and any of the current ESG data they may or may not have. And then we do an assessment if they like what they get they can receive the report. If they like what they receive on their report, they can work with us and we can help them do the reporting, data collection, or actually help in a physical way.

Barrak Alzaid (14:08)

I'd love for you to take us through the process of building that tool. I think for lot of entrepreneurs, it can be challenging to push yourself out of your comfort zone to learn something new in order to achieve the goal that aligns with your values.

As that business model you described evolved, like at what point were you like, no, I need somebody else by my side

Carolina Velasco (14:33)

Yeah.

So let me start with someone else and one of the things that I had always heard entrepreneurs talking about was all the hats. You wear all the hats. And for me, I finally brought someone in when I really, I felt that I wasn't doing sustainability that work justice and I just needed someone to do that work and it was a very clear point for me when I was focusing so much on making sure that the AI tool was working right but I but there was new legislation coming out and I didn't have time to look at it and

And I needed that new legislation, someone to look at it so that I could then incorporate it in and then re, you know, retrain my tool to understand what that meant. And it's, it's a two-part process. And it was clear that I was trying to do other things to get the results that we needed for one tool. And that's why I was like, I need someone else to go through.

All of this legislation to look at this first, help give me a highlight, and then I look at it and bring those two together. So it was a very clear turning point, I think.

So we've only been together for about a month and a half. But I can tell you now it's it's been so nice to have someone that I know is dedicated to that. And I can then focus on the tool and our market and how to sell it and taxes.

And then mystery and all that other stuff, so I was happy to do that. But to the technical building of this. So when AI has been around for a long time, and I think if you've ever bought anything online, you've probably used a chat bot in one way or another. So the idea of AI wasn't scary to me. It was more of wow, now there's a platform that allows me to take all of this information and make it easier for people to take action on something they want to do but sometimes don't have the bandwidth, don't have the people, don't have the resources, all these things. It went back to I found out that I could help people do better.

And it was still relatively new. Once I jumped on it, you know, I think it was maybe five or six years that people had already started using it as individuals, but it hadn't hit mainstream yet. So I would say I was maybe a little bit late to that mainstream because now I've been using it like daily multiple hours for over a year and a half now. But regardless, it started with me figuring out, so what does this do? What can it do? How does it process information? So I just did the LinkedIn route. I started taking classes, you know, the LinkedIn learning classes. And then when you're taking those courses, there's probably some individuals that you will hear from.

You're like, that makes sense. I do need to dig into this more. And I just kept retraining myself in there. Then you get to a certain level with AI where you understand how to communicate to it, but then you need to understand how to retrieve that information and how to retrieve it in a quote unquote unbiased way because it does hallucinate. Still, it doesn't give you great results. And that is where I went down the route that I had seen off of some, I think it was some Reddit thread and they were saying like, can you use AI to train you how to train it to train the tool? And I was like, Now, having been in technology, I could hear all the really smart engineers and technical people like don't do that because you know there comes the point where you don't know what you don't know and I knew I wasn't technically trained but I knew I was also very curious and that I was going to be thorough and that's what took me longer because I would get results and I'm like man that looks too good to be true let me try it another way.

And so that's how I really just started with it, was went on LinkedIn learning, started reading threads, and I incorporated into everything. was, because I wanted to see the different use cases. I wanted to understand how little or how much information I could give it, how detailed, how undetailed, and to see the results. And so for me, it was more of a play. And my true test though, was putting it in front of consultants. You these individuals, they were getting paid very well to do something that I was doing in 90 minutes, that could possibly take their firms one to three months to do. And could I help them help their customer provide more value?

And I got some interesting feedback. Positive, but also a little confrontational, a little disruptive, a little like, who are you to do this? But it was, so I'm careful when I say the technical build, maybe there's still a lot of problems with it, which has been one of the things that I was also looking at, is bringing in an AI technical person right now.

We mentioned the bootstrapping part of it. I have been, I have paid for consultants to help me and one time shifts, show them what I'm doing, show them where I'm going. And it's almost, it's been helpful because they've helped identify some of the areas that they're like, Ooh, if you put this in here or you tell it to concentrate here, it will do XYZ. And I haven't,

been able yet to bring in someone full time because now their pricing and resources have gone through the roof to get to pay for something. I was recently quoted 200,000 Kroner for a couple of months. So good on them.

Barrak Alzaid (20:47)

Which is about how much in dollars, would you say?

Carolina Velasco (20:50)

In dollars, let's see, divided by six since the dollar's gone down. I don't know. We're looking at, yeah, like $30,000 or so. So I think it's, you know, I'm cautious, but I will say that I've pleasantly been surprised when I am able to have conversations or be able to show results from what I've built and people are like, yeah, that's exactly what we needed. What more can you do? And it's also really nice for for me to see that people find value. In brief, I had someone, I don't know if I can swear on here, but I will cuss. He said, fuck. He said, fuck, I think we're hiring the wrong person. And I said, I said, well, this is what we're seeing. You go back to your team and based off of what I've showed you, you guys have a conversation. In a month and half in, they bounced this around that potentially the individual that they were hiring for a specific part of their, what was it, their partnership and channel work was wrong. And sure enough, after a month and a half investigation, they found out it was wrong. And so,

That to me was just an easy win and it helped protect that SME and the good work that they were doing in the sustainability space and we moved on.

Barrak Alzaid (22:10)

I think what's really inspiring about your story and how you've developed your business is, I think, a lesson that many other entrepreneurs working in the digital space really need to hear, which is you can do it alone, but you need to know when to ask for help, especially when it comes to building a technical product or something that's not you know, that's not material, that's not the typical kind of digital business. And that you can, if you have that vision and you have that experience in the market or in the kind of product that you're imagining, using AI, AI makes building a tool like that much more accessible. But the key factor, it seems, in your journey is learning as much as possible. And then the kind of testing phase, being brave about putting it in front of people, getting them to poke around at it and being open to all kinds of feedback, useful, not useful. I think lots of entrepreneurs can identify with the, well, what should be lighting that fire. and I know that you've had to pivot along this journey as well. I think that there's really specific moments where you faced challenges that cause you to reflect, reassess, and either choose a slightly different route along the path or find a different way of doing things. I was wondering if any of those come to mind?

Carolina Velasco (23:36)

I think the biggest challenge that I've had is working and living within my values. Being an entrepreneur because I have been to, know, as you're learning how to do this, you know, you go out network, you pitch a lot of your 60 second. It's not even 60 seconds. It's like 15 seconds. Right. And there was, I went to this networking event here in Denmark and I had shared with two serial Danish entrepreneurs my approach that I was going slowly. I was testing more of my customer base, that I was doing a lot more learning. And all of those things I would say go against the status quo of what entrepreneurship is, right? Entrepreneurship still has this lingering veil of you have to become poor, you have to work every breathing, living moment, you have to disregard everything that you care about, you go into a hole. Now, to be fair,

I'm new in my journey and I'm testing my way of entrepreneurship. But that was a constant challenge for me because it went against who I was as a person and what I wanted right now for my life, my family, my work. And it's not to say that I'm just sitting around. for example, my day can start as early as 5:30 before my small one wakes up, if he doesn't wake up, I will start sending emails and then I shift into mom and wife mode. I'm present, put all aside and then I quickly shift back into the work. So this challenge of what I was told an entrepreneur is and then how that fit who I am and what I wanted did not match.

And that's still even as I say that I'm a bit nervous to say that because I don't know if the way that I'm doing it worked or will work. Right. I am testing this and saying, no, I'm going to make some clear boundaries. I need to at least get six and a half hours. So now it's just like, you know, some people are like, I could never do that. But, know, for me, I'm very fortunate that thus far I can I can do that.

And I'm not, when I'm with my family, I'm gonna do my best to be there, right? Not on my phone, not trying to do something unless something comes up, right? And when I had brought this up to these two gentlemen, they said, know, haven't you taken a course, haven't you? And they provided all these recommendations. I said, no, actually I've been a part of those. I've seen those.

I was even in a startup program. I said, but that doesn't work. And they said, you know, like when we, and then they went through their path of like, you know, they did the grind and everything. said, well, do you have children? And they said, yes. And they immediately were like, but you know, that wasn't our focus. And I said, well, I'm a mother and I actually don't have that option.

And that's one of those parts of being an entrepreneur and also a mom is, and especially if you have little guys, those little guys actually really dependent on you. And I said, so then you had your partner who is able to step in and hold that role for you too. And I that that was what ended my conversation with him. I was in it.

Barrak Alzaid (27:05)

Call that out. Call that out. Yes. All that unpaid labor.

Carolina Velasco (27:08)

And yeah, and it's, but that's, you know, that was again back to this challenge, this ideal of I had already, I had also seen very many successful “momineurs,” I think is the phrase that they use, or mompreneurs, whatever it's called. But I had also seen that some of them, you know, they were being applauded for going down to the last minute, you know before labor or in the hospital. I was just like, that's not what I want. And maybe that's not going to make me successful. But then I was like, why do I have to be defined by what they see as success? If at the end, this goes back to your original question of joy, if that does not bring me joy, why do I have to make that the standard of my joy? Why do I have to make that the standard of my success? But that is a constant conflict, Because I...

I have slowly started generating revenue, And it may not work. And I just hope that if someone sees what I've done and it doesn't work, that they're not dissuaded from doing it. It's more so take and listen to what I've done wrong and adjust it and continue on your path to what you want to define as success and joy.

Barrak Alzaid (28:25)

It's so important to be building your own path. It's so important to be defining how you do the work because a lot of people leave the nine to five or leave their corporate job to try something new, something that serves them the way of life, their values. And so trying to fit yourself and mold yourself into a norm that has worked for some people, but as you said, it's worked for those people under very specific conditions. They have partners who support them, who do their laundry or take care of their kids, who make them food. They have multiple ways in which they've been supportive throughout their lives to get to the place that they're in. So this idea of, you work fast and break things or sweat equity just doesn't and shouldn't work for everybody, especially not when you're working in a field like sustainability. should not just be sustainability for the planet. It should be sustainability for yourself. And I think that that's a really important point that by building a business, you're also building a way of life, a way of doing business. And going slow is not bad. Going slow allows you that time to reflect, to make intelligent decisions, to trust your gut and listen to your instincts. And I think that leads me into my next question, which is for other aspiring entrepreneurs who want to align their business with their personal values. What advice would you give them?

Carolina Velasco (29:51)

I would say really, really look at what you want. And not from the perspective of want, wanted yesterday, but maybe from the perspective of what you missed out in yesterday. And what I mean by that is, let's say you're one of those individuals in the nine to five-ers that are like,

I miss having purpose in my work. Okay. Okay, that can be and look in a lot of different ways. So you have to go through those questions of well, why purpose? Well, in go, they call it in sales, it's like five whys before you get to the actual answer. So if it's you're like, well, I want to have more purpose in my work. Why ask again? Answer.

Ask again why and get to the root of it and really be raw in the sense of what are you willing to do and not do for it because after you get to that core. You may decide. I am willing to stay up late. I am willing to work at weekends. Okay, that's your measurement then of success what's the outcome then of those weekends that that time that you're taking away and it is kind of the step by step of the why is it you want to do what you want to do? Why now? How? And then going through this why, why, why, why, why to each of those areas? Because the death rate of entrepreneurs is high. And I think it is because they are anchoring on what they're being told is what matters. So they are anchoring in something that they really believe in, that they are willing to possibly stay up late, get up early, maybe miss out on some things.

And if they do do that, they don't know why they're doing it. So I think it's important to get raw with yourself and also get someone that may not know you well. Like don't get your mom to do it if you have a good relationship with your mom. because sometimes moms can be like, you're just going to do great in everything. I know if you put your mind to it and you're like, mom, that's not what I need. I need you to be like, I need you to be the Latin mom of the mom, right? Where they're like, that doesn't look good on you. Don't wear it. Right? You need that. So you need to get that individual that knows you and that you respect their advice because that's and understands your world. That's a big part of this. My older sister and I have talked about this, that if you share information to people that may not understand your world and that you respect, they could give you the wrong advice and push you into the wrong direction that then puts you on the wrong path. So, you know

I think the last point that maybe I'll make is when I started this, I was very much like, nope, I am not going to do X, Y, Z. But X, Y, Z being I am not going to spend my weekends doing work. That's a big questionable one sometimes when I tell people that.

I am not going to, you know, not take on responsibilities. I'm going to participate in the definition is your own. But when you do that, know that it's going to change because as you're learning, you're going to realize, there's some of these things that it's okay for me not to do. Or I've talked, if you have a partner that you've talked to them, they're like, yeah, spend the time doing your business. I'm okay with that. So it's constantly adjusting and growing and I don't feel like that's talked enough nowadays because there have been so many successful entrepreneurs but there's only been so many successful entrepreneurs. And maybe one last thing that just popped into my head, I'm so sorry, which is you don't have to be a unicorn.

I think there's this obsession on being a unicorn. And it reminds me back at LinkedIn, they used to say, there are rocks and there are stars in business and you need both of them. Rocks are the ones that keep things going. They're the solid, they're foundation. They're always dependable. You know, they're going to be right where they are. Stars are the ones, these crazy ambitious individuals, you know, who help pull, bring others to do more ambitious things.

So I think when I share that, you don't have to necessarily be that star, that unicorn. You could just have something really foundational that you want to help lots of companies with. And that is great. That is sufficient. That is enough. And that right there, even as I say that, that's a challenge, right? Because that was not the culture I was raised in.

Even me saying that feels dirty a little bit because I was raised that, when I hear that mentally, I'm like, am I being lazy? Am I not working hard enough? Am I not, am I not XYZ? Am I not enough? dot, dot, right? So, yeah, it really comes back to what do you want? Are you willing to have these personal kind of crazy conversations with yourself and find people who can help?

You stay accountable and give you the right type of feedback and transparency.

And this is, again, I feel like when you're going through this, there are days when you're like, yes, this is amazing. And I can tell you without doubt, I had the day where my husband has come home. It's like, how was it? And I'm like, cried.

I went on a lot of walks because I said breathing and fresh air were good and it was just one of those days. And I let those days be those days. And I think you really have to make room for that. And knowing when is your, okay, it's time for me to join the workforce again conversation.

Barrak Alzaid (35:46)

Yeah, which is a whole other conversation. ⁓ I have one last question for you. At Digital Entrepreneur, we're big on reconnecting entrepreneurs with the joy of business. When things get hard, what helps you get back to feeling joy both in life and in business?

Carolina Velasco (35:50)

Yeah. This may sound cliche but I think of what kind of world am I leaving my son in and if I were to you know disappear tomorrow, what have I done to hopefully have helped others? For me, that's, and it's not just my son. When I think of my son, I also think of like future generations. Am I helping change the standards that I could see were really toxic for me and created toxic environments and also toxic partnerships between people because these were the standards, those things of doing it this way and really trying to be respectful and honor that seems to continue keeping motivating me. And it's also just really cool when you're doing what you're doing and people really do find value in it. Like it is incredible to receive that feedback because you're like, you know, it's this idea of I used to joke and say, well, my mom thinks I'm cool. Doesn't mean everyone else, right?

But when someone outside of your mom thinks you're cool, you're like, am I cool? Like, you're so. But it's it's so much deeper than that. It's when they're like, I realize that if I change my cost structure, I may not have to lay off employees. I really didn't want to have to lay off those employees. so because we looked at the sustainability metric, we looked at you moving from this emerging market into this emerging market and this then changed the cost structure without using improper child labor force and that allowed you then to be able to hold on to your employees. Great. So for me, it really is this ripple effect. How is the work that I'm doing positively or negatively affecting those around me? And also am I creating a better quote unquote better because again, I have my opinion of what better is but a better place for my son and his world to live the life that they want to and the way that they want to.

Barrak Alzaid (38:10)

Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, your experience. I really appreciate the work that you're doing in the world, Carolina Thank you for joining us.

Carolina Velasco (38:18)

Thank you.