Shakin' Hands
Welcome to 'Shakin' Hands,' the podcast where entrepreneurship meets fascinating stories from the most intriguing minds today. From proven business practices to groundbreaking ideas that challenge the status quo, Shakin' Hands' is not just about the handshake that seals a deal but about the shared experiences and values that unite us all. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned business owner, or someone who loves a good story about overcoming odds, Shakin' Hands' promises to deliver compelling content that shakes up the conventional and celebrates the extraordinary.
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Host: Jack Moran
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Shakin' Hands
Ep. 77 | Winning with transparency - Norman Coburn
Jack sits down with the co-founder and CTO of Darien Technologies, Norman Coburn, in Panama City to unpack 11 years of building a “software factory” across banking, fintech, and startups. They contrast capital-rich comfort in the U.S. with the scrappy, bootstrapped edge of LATAM, then dig into how AI shifts the craft from deterministic builds to generative experiments, plus when to use each. Beyond code, they cover senior product coaching, ruthless scoping, and early user feedback loops that turn specs into MVPs people actually adopt. The team’s operating principles come through: transparent proposals, radical candor with partners, annual reinvention to stay relevant, and addressing misalignment or underperformance early.
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Host: Jack Moran
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Welcome to Shakin’ Hands, where we provide the platform for entrepreneurs and thought leaders to share their stories in order to hopefully influence others to get out of the rat race and chase their own dreams. If you have any recommendations for guests or questions that you want to be asked, please don't hesitate to reach out. Anyways, if you enjoy the podcast, please like, comment, subscribe and share in order to keep the podcast growing. Otherwise, I'm your host, Jack Moran and this is Shakin’ Hands. If you're looking for business mentorship, I have a place where you can get feedback on your unique personal development and business growth challenges. Over the last year, I've brought together a group of impact driven thought leaders where we meet every single day to discuss psychology, communication, mindset, and business case studies. We have people who have made millions of dollars, lost millions of dollars, Harvard MBAs and new entrepreneurs like you and I. Entrepreneurship can be lonely. So if you're looking for a support system, please follow the link in the description below for some more information. You know, when we talk to entrepreneurs in the US, some of them don't even have a functioning business and they're raising 40 or $50 million. Yeah. And here you have the fully functional one. And they're you're getting like an offer for 250 K, something like that. But what's very interesting is that how it is, how that different ecosystem has created a very different entrepreneur here versus in the US? Absolutely. In the US they are it's a little more complacent. And they have neglected those business fundamentals because there's so much capital readily available. Yeah we're here. People have learned how to bootstrap a company, have learned how to operate with very, very little operating income, operating capital. And because of that, in my opinion, what I've seen thus far is you have smarter entrepreneurs. Yeah. You get people that are, let's say, more battle ready in a sense for sure. Yeah. So, have we already gotten started? We're gone. Just natural. Right? Cool. What's your, What's your business? Let's start there. So, I own, with a group of friends, in a sense. Software factory. We've been. We actually turned 11 yesterday as a company, getting out of diapers. Yeah. Pretty much. But, yeah, I mean, we are, whereas off software factory, we are, we've been developing most, mostly for, Latin American clients. We actually got like, our first American clients, last year. And that's been a big change for us because they they think completely differently in a sense. It's more about what can we create and. Sorry. So not so much about, focusing specifically on the, details of everything and how it costs, how much it costs. Here. They are way more careful about every single cost of every single detail. So it's, operationally, more intense in a sense. About the nonproductive part. So we've been having a lot of fun with these, new customers from from the US. And, yeah, we right now, we're undergoing, like, a big transformation as a company. It's something typical that happens, at least for us, it's normal. Like, once every year, year and a half. We're looking to adapt and change to to how the market is behaving. What's the new thing? What's the, the typical, tech thing that people are looking for? Like when we began, just making really nice, email marketing campaigns was all the rage. Then, helping people have, a well-connected website with the social networks and things like that. And that was all the rage. But nowadays it's a. Yeah. So, we are literally changing ourselves from the inside out and then and rediscovering how to do things, just to stay, in a sense, relevant. For us, it's it's, it's been one of the bigger changes because even though AI is not far away from what we do is a very different form of thinking and working. We're used to precise development, and, precise results. And in this case, it's more like a trial and error and bringing the AI to give you the results that you're expecting, and then polishing it and and keeping it working the way that it should be. And we've been working with, non generative AI for a few years, but what's basically in a sense like, machine learning and deep learning algorithms for like, let's say, predicting, the likelihood of somebody, maybe closing their account in a bank. What makes it non generative? So basically, you have the, the, there's like many layers of AI in a sense. Basically, it's the way that you train, the AI all the way in until you get into a certain expected result. The generative AI is basically the the one that is, prompted for a particular, answer that could come out of not a specifically specific form of training. So, let's say these large language models, they, and, the, the image generation models, like the stable diffusions, those are generative because you are asking for something that you didn't necessarily, as a user, trained it for, and they generate something, specifically for you, then these non generative ones, they are the precursors of, of these ones. Basically what they do is you train them for a very, very specific task and they do that very well. They, they do generate a result, but they're not called generative. As a, as an, an additive to them. Because they are not, generating a wide variety of results. They're not going to go outside of their scope. Yeah. They are very, very, defined in their scope and what they're capable of doing. Gotcha. When you say that you guys have a software factory, have you guys like consolidated, a group of developers? Yes. I don't really love the term software factory, but it's the one that basically is more widely understood. It's the first time I've heard that, but. All right. I'm not in, space at all, but. Okay. So. Typically, I mean, there's two ways to develop something when you're an entrepreneur or a well-established company and you want to create something software wise. You can either hire, a team of people, or you can hire a company that can help you do it. So, that those companies that help you do it as a third party, in a sense. Those are typically called software factories because we are kind of creating software as, I don't know, a factory would create cars. Or even more maybe even though I don't like that analogy very much. When you have a factory like the ones in China that make a product that's specific to you, make that product for you. So in a sense, we very rarely create products for ourselves. What we do is create. We have the right people to create a variety of software possibilities for our customers. So we have, I mean, a large group of developers. Most of them are, fully contracted by us. And basically, I mean, we have people that are capable of creating very, very good, software interfaces. So the front end is beautiful. It follows all the best practices of, user experience and that kind of stuff. But then we have really good, back end people that can work on databases and make create the schemas and all the, all the structures that are necessary for something to work properly. Then we have people that are focused on security. People are focused on, the product itself so that we can take our customer that just has maybe some, some customers just have an idea. And that's very raw. They have no idea how to do it, but they're very passionate about it and they do need some help. So we we we focus on combining a bit of coaching with the work that we do software wise, so that we can take those customers to, as successful as possible of a minimum viable product, or a proof of concept in a sense. Because, in, in we've lived through those experiences that in some cases we would create what the customer asked us to do. They paid a bunch of money for it. And then when we gave it to them, nobody wanted it. They they launched it, and they get no users. Yeah. So we we of course, that's not going to be a returning customer, even if we did a wonderful job and the guy loves us, is just not going to come back because he didn't have any success with it. Unless it's someone that is maybe a very experienced entrepreneur in the tech space, and it's the face that they've done and they realized, oh well this my idea probably kind of sucked, but the development was good. So I'm gonna keep working with these guys. But it's that's normally not the case. So, through the years we've been adding complementary services so that when a customer comes in, we can assess if they are, experienced in this space or not, and then complement, and add some extras here and there, like, We have business coaches and product coaches so that we can sit down with them and show them how these things are done. We can even help them. Put together a, business case, something like that. We even have a service in which we just. We don't develop anything, and we give them all the technical information and some of the business information that they can use to prepare for a good pitch so that they can get investment, or a good pitch within a company so that they can get the board to, jumping with them, that kind of thing. Because in the end, if they are successful and, in that stage, then they're very likely to come back to us for the bigger stuff, for building and keeping that product alive. You guys have probably collected a lot of data, too, from that exposure to a lot of different projects. Absolutely. I mean, we, for example, here in Panama that we've, there's, I mean, an insane amount of banks for the how little people. The, the, the small number of people that live in Panama, compared to many other countries. And, quite a few of them have been our clients for, various things. And, we've learned a lot about how they, how they behave and the things that they want to do. And we normally get within the span of 3 to 6 months, maybe five banks asking for exactly the same thing because they're all thinking about it. They saw an opportunity. Let's say that the regulator now opened up the possibility to create an account that does not require, that many documents and data about the background check of the person that's going to open that account. It's just a new regulation. That's it. That's where it ended up. But bank number one comes comes over and says, we believe with this regulation, we can create an account that can be fully opened online without anybody signing anything, having to come to a branch to sign something. And we already know how to do it. We already, because in, in, in some other case, we helped a bank with that. Or right now, we're even working with a regulator, with, certain things like that. So, we, we start gathering these experiences from different businesses, and sometimes we can translator like, we've been able to bring things that we do, with banks, bring them to, fintechs. And then, help them have a more robust product, with, better, in a sense of fraud prevention and things like that, that, and otherwise for fintechs wouldn't be something that's a priority for them. But they just, they get that extra bit from the experiences which live through, and that's something that we typically do. And it's pretty much, in a sense, another reason why we ended up having these coaches, because it's it's the more senior people that we have that they've done so many of these projects already and different kinds of, market segments that we can now have, a customer basically, we can have them give them a reality check in in a couple of hours and have them pivot their their idea a little bit and tweak it so that maybe they're pointing in the right direction, or at least, focusing on the features that are going to have more impact. And maybe they had this, a piece of the idea that sounded wonderful to them. But in the end, it's something that we've already tried and it did not do so great. And maybe when they do it, it'll do better. We don't know for sure, but we tell them our experience so that they can make better choices and have, more chances of success with what they're doing from, from the exposure to all these different projects. What do you see as the difference between a client that is successful versus is successful? And obviously when you have a bank as a client, they're an established business. But I'm talking more on that startup front. Okay. So there's there's a few different types of, say, entrepreneurs that go to us. There's the ones that just they woke up with an idea. In a sense, they know that we exist. They give us a call, and they just want to know if it's something doable. They validate their hypothesis a little bit, and then, they disappear for a year. They show up again, like I'm ready for it. Those are usually very successful. They they tend to basically do the, the work or the diligence in the sense of trying to find out everything that they need to know and learn themselves what's necessary. And then that that gives us better chance of success with them because they understand what we do better. Is it even though a lot of people think that after watching I don't know, Coursera course or a Udemy course, something like that or a few YouTube videos that it's just okay, I know everything I need to know until you actually really dive deep, deep into it, maybe try developing it yourself. And even if you fail now, you understand quite a lot more about how, how much a simple decision that they make can alter everything that comes after after that. And the ones that really have that understanding are the ones that are usually more successful. Then there's ones that think they know everything, even if they've been successful in other businesses, like, they're really successful in real estate or something of the sort. They come over, they say, look, this is what I want. This is how I want it. They had, some guy in it and one of their companies drafter, some sort of RFP or something like that, and they're like, this is what I need. You make a proposal to them, and and they are just, like, flabbergasted that how could this cost 200 K? And it's like, no, man, that's just the first version. This is going to be a lot more. Your idea is big. You got to be willing to put in the money. And were you not aware that these things cost money? There's a lot of people that have to work for creating something like this. And now with AI, maybe prices will change dramatically. But, When they think they know everything, even if they are, successful entrepreneur already, if they really don't dive deep into how it is to create a new tech focused company because, all of these companies that basically their business model is around a product that is based on software in a sense, they have to have some sort of experience with check, whether it is, a having a partner that is focused like that or being themselves very passionate about it, they don't have to be, you know, a software engineer or anything like that, but they, they really have to dive deep into it and try to understand it so that they realize that it takes a lot of work, and that little decisions here and there can alter significantly how how things work. So in a sense, the more they are passionate about what they're doing, to the level of trying to understand the, the gears inside, those are the ones that typically end up being very successful with their products because they understand how to tweak it, how to change something here, something there. Maybe it's the user experience, maybe this button is not in the right place and they don't have to know the code, but they if they understand that there's, there's layers to it, there's something happening in the front. There's something happening in the back. There's communication things there. There's different systems that are going to be interacting. Those systems can, cause issues if they're not well connected. A third party that's integrated into this changes something there, and your whole platform can go down. So things like that are very important for the understanding of the customer. And when the customer doesn't do the homework, in a sense, no matter what we do, we deliver something that basically it's like, it's sad, but it was like Born to Die. It gets used or, misused in a sense, for a short period of time. Then they give up on it and they just don't keep going. The ones that are really passionate about it, they understand that there's these little things that they can adjust to attract more people. They can ask for feedback. They can, talk to their potential customers. And even before they've launched anything and start assessing, how something is going to, affect their lives. It's, actually something that would really, matter enough for someone to either pay for it or, if the model is good enough so that they can, survive via, advertising or something like that. So those are the ones that normally get somewhere with it. What do you think is the single biggest thing that you have learned through your own entrepreneurial journey that's important to succeeding? Personally, I'd say that and this is something that, a lot of people around me don't necessarily practice as much as I do, but I'd say it's transparency. I like to keep things as transparent as possible. I hate the black box models. And in software there's a lot of them. Basically, it's like a well, this is 50 K and it's what you asked. And here's the document that what we're including and a lot of even customers like in some cases ask for that kind of proposal. I'm more like, okay, so we're going to put three developers on this. These developers make this much money. They're going to be working just for you. And they're good developers. They really know what they're doing, and they're going to be working for you for at least six months. So this is how much we make as transparent as that and expect that they're going to be generating results for you. If you are really engaging them and working with them to try to get somewhere and we can put people that serve as, intermediaries or in a sense, translators for, customers that are maybe not as tech savvy so that maybe they don't feel lost guiding developers. But it that kind of model, helps the customer understand that these things cost money, basically because people are making them, they're not just a thing. So, I find that, the more we use transparent models, the more we get customers that understand the intricacies of what we do and end up realizing how much is on them to get good results. Whereas when we do other types of models, it. It's a bit of, a coin toss sometimes the customer is really happy with what ended up, being developed, and sometimes they change their mind midway. And those projects are a pain in the ass. So and I've taken that, for myself. So I'm, super transparent with, not only what I do as in the company, I'm super transparent, with my wife, with my partners, sometimes as so transparent that that that my partners sometimes tell me, like, man, how could you tell me something like that? And I'm like, well, I'd rather tell you that I felt something, let's say, I don't know, let's bring some silly example. I'd rather tell you that I felt that you were ditching me for, for this business opportunity or something like that. And if they feel offended, it I don't care. It. The point is, if I don't say it, then I'm holding it. And that can be, you know, you know, resentment and bad feelings and things like that. And I'd rather just say it like, hey, in a lighter sense and I, I felt this way, I just wanted to get it out in the open. Is, there was another reason for you to do this. This is a time for you to just tell me, And it's fine. And if you just didn't want me to participate, I'm just using a silly example. But if you didn't want me to participate in that, then that's also fine. But I'd rather have it in the open and not hold it in so that we can keep moving forward. Because it's okay. I can have differences with people and, and, the more that we just get them out and have an honest conversation about it, the less it becomes a problem. And I've realized that, I mean, in some cases, the people I've worked with, I worked with or the or my partners can be my friends, but in some cases, they're just, you know. Business partner or, my, head of sales. So I'd rather keep those relationships as, as, clear and honest as possible. And, go through whatever hardship, is necessary quickly, in a sense, rather than letting it kind of. Fester in a sense. Yeah. So, so, yeah, I've always been kind of like that. I mean, when, when I became a partner, because the company existed for, like, about a year before I joined. And when I became a partner, I actually, my one request to the CEO, I was like, I'm really, really grateful for this opportunity. And, the only thing I ask of you is that if there's any issue, any problem, you just say it right away. Let's keep it as transparent as possible. Because if we keep going and we were working for five years and both of us are holding things in, eventually we're just going to go from, tension to explosion and the company is going to end there. And we've gone through, I mean, this 11 years, we've gone through great times and horrible times, and the only way to get through the horrible ones is really talking things through. And sometimes in the great ones, I mean, you see this success and, it can get toxic. So I find that the best way to kind of get rid of the toxicity of success, in the, in the negative sense, because success can be also intoxicating in a good way. Is, is also to say things out loud like, hey, man, we shouldn't be taking that much money for that. Yeah. When we're having all this success, I mean, things are going well. Let's do it. Wait, but shouldn't we have, like, some extra here for, a bad year that could come over things like that? So, I mean, I'm talking these things, I mean, for, for me personally has been the single most important thing to, in a sense, handle all the intricacies of, entrepreneurship. Yeah, I agree with that completely. I think that the biggest thing transparency does is it saves you a lot of time, because if you put that expectation on the table from the beginning, there's a chance that there's going to be misalignment. And maybe that partnership doesn't work out and doesn't go forward. But the inevitable thing is, is eventually it's always going to come out. Yeah. You know, and so why would you want to wait ten years and put in all this work by keeping it bundled up rather than put it on the table and find out now that, that it just doesn't work, and it's okay if it doesn't work out. But I think that people have that excitement of moving the business forward. And because of that, they reject the signs and they turn their eye from the signs and they they aren't transparent and they don't voice their opinion to force something to work. Yeah. That's destined to fail. And that wastes a lot of time. Definitely. Yeah. It's, it's, it's It, it really sucks when, when say you have somebody that's not you can see or feel that they're not doing their best. You perceive it and, and you don't say anything and you hope that they, they get through it and you just keep hoping and that it it keeps not happening. And maybe you had nothing to do with the issue, but maybe there's something you could have done to give them a hand, or there's something you could say that maybe helps them out a little. Or maybe there's absolutely nothing you can do, and it's better to end it there. And I find that it's, it's it's best to I mean, of course, you see somebody that's normally super happy and so on, and then they're having a bad day. You try not to bother them. But yeah, you see someone for a couple of weeks like that and you're like, what's going on? Right. And whether that person is, just part of the team or the CEO of the company, I do it. I just ask, is everything okay? Can I help you out with anything? In some cases of really tell me, like, everything that's going on and some cases, they're like, nah, I'm just dealing with some shit at home. And just, you know, at least say that I'm there to help out. If they need something. And if eventually that's, their whatever's happening is affecting what we're doing, it's affecting the business or something like that. Then it turns a bit more direct and confrontational. But it's necessary because if you let it keep going, then eventually it's going to cause some real damage. And that's the best idea is to prevent it. Yeah. It's so important. And I think that it's like it all comes down to empathy. And empathy is one of the most powerful fundamentals in communication and in business and and influence and and it's you know, it's a really valuable lesson. If people are interested in your company's services or want to connect with you, where can they find you? So the company's called Dairy and technology dairy. And like, the, the there's a province here in Panama called in, our website is dairy and with a T at the end, dot com. And now I'm at, Instagram at Norman JCT. And, yeah, you can DM me or you can check on our website, through there. You can contact us. Yeah. We're fantastic. I appreciate you coming on. Thank you for sure. Before we get off.
