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Sep 10, 2026
How This Newsletter Reached 145K Subscribers in Mexico
How This Newsletter Reached 145K Subscribers in Mexico
00:00
32:20
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Transcript
0:00
I'm not gonna be a Sony dollar- or a Sony million-dollar business like a Morning Brew is, but I think I, I can definitely be competitive within kinda my unit economics in the, in Mexico. Right.
0:12
D- please don't sell yourself short. Your growth numbers are crazy, so, you know, they are impressive in its own right. Bienvenido de nuevo. Welcome back to the Letterstack Podcast.
0:23
As you can see, we have a clearly a unique Mexican flavor to the podcast today.
0:29
That's because I have Fernando Queralt, who is the founder and operator of one of the largest newsletters in the Mexico tech scene called Espresso Matutino, which by the way means morning espresso in Spanish.
0:43
Espresso Matutino was started because Fernando wanted to bring a unique Morning Brew experience, but with nuances to the Mexico tech market.
0:53
He grew it to 140,000 subscribers, but I believe he's just getting warmed up because he's not stopping at that. So we're going to get Fernando to spill the beans on today's episode in the Letterstack Podcast.
1:06
[upbeat music] Fernando, welcome to the Letterstack Podcast. Yeah, thank you for having me, Ranga. That was great Spanish, too. The name and the welcome back. So yeah, appreciate you trying there, yeah. Thank you. Yeah.
1:22
Thank you, and that's as much Spanish as I can muster- [laughs]... so I will leave you at that. I will not bore you with anything else, yeah. [laughs] Sounds good. But thank you for being kind with my pronunciation.
1:32
Yeah. Awesome. But Fernando, you know, welcome, and I know that you have a massive newsletter that you're operating today with a very small tight-knit crew. We are going to talk about all the details. Mm-hmm.
1:45
But I wanted to get started with, I understand that you started in tech, but you pivoted to newsletters. Somewhere in between, I guess there is a story that's not talked about enough.
1:56
So would you mind talking about why you started Espresso? Yeah, yeah. I guess looking backwards, the dots connect a little more, uh, gracefully than, uh, when it, it was happening at the time.
2:08
But yeah, my background is in engineering. So to give you context, I'm actually not even from Mexico. I'm from Spain. Uh- Awesome...
2:17
so I moved to the US when I was, like, 13 or so, but I studied, uh, mechanical engineering, undergrad and master's, so I got two degrees that I, I don't use for anything right now. Uh,
2:27
and- [laughs] There's two of us, actually... yeah. [laughs] Yeah. There's plenty, I've been finding out over time, yeah.
2:34
Uh, but I, I worked in R&D for a while in a company kinda deep in tech, and then I was just a little unfulfilled, uh, during COVID, and I started trying out, as, as one does, in these, like, online, uh, businesses.
2:48
I started kind of the, the classic gateway drug to entrepreneurship, which is, uh, drop shipping. Um, and then from there, over the years, I kinda tried different businesses.
2:58
I discovered kind of the power of what it means to have an audience versus having a product first.
3:05
Uh, the businesses I started, kinda it requires a ton of marketing to kind of build up hype for a product, and then you realize a lot of the people that make it, let's say, in supplements, uh, it's, it's more about the marketing than it is about the product.
3:17
It doesn't matter how good the formula is. If you have the audience, if you have, like, the previous audience of, of really good marketing, you succeed. Right. And then, um, after a while, I was like, "All right.
3:28
Let me, let me try from the other side. What if I start audience first and then build from there?" And one of the things I try when I moved to, to Austin, I used to live in, in Minneapolis for, for a bit, um, I kinda...
3:42
I joined a YouTube channel here. Uh, so that's when I kinda quit my corporate job in engineering to join a Y- YouTube channel in, like, operations side of things. So that means kinda finding sponsors.
3:54
That means hiring people. That means trying to, like, optimize processes for, for video and YouTube. Uh, that lasted about a year. It was fun. It stinked.
4:02
Um, but it kinda showed me also what it takes to be in this creator world. And throughout that time- Right... uh, Sam Parr used to live here in Austin, kinda creator of The Hustle. Right.
4:13
And hearing him in a few conferences, a few events, kinda like, at first what, what a great business the newsletter was, uh, kinda when they sold to HubSpot, like, learning all, all the world of, of newsletters and building an audience that way.
4:26
While at YouTube, I realized, or working a YouTube channel, how hard video is, and people don't realize how much work goes into a lot of the creators and video that you see. But then I was like, "All right.
4:37
Newsletter seems like written. It's easier. Let me try to, like, work that way." And then one of the frameworks I had heard is like, all right,
4:44
how about, like, grabbing something that works in, in a country and, like, bringing it somewhere else?
4:50
So, uh, in my mind, I kinda joined, like, audience, transmitting, like, business from one country into another, and things kinda got jumbled up. And I was like, "Hey, I speak Spanish.
5:01
I kinda know now the newsletter scene in the US. Let me see what I can do with that." Um, and that was how, uh, Espresso Matutino got started.
5:09
So my goal, my original business plan was like, all right, uh, be like The Hustle, so it's like start Espresso, wait a few years, get acquired by HubSpot. So a, a very, uh, very sophisticated...
5:19
And then the name, to be honest, is not super original either. Uh, there's similarities to Morning Brew there.
5:26
But the idea is, like, how do I adapt the business model that has, like, worked so well with The Hustle, The Skimm, like, uh, Morning Brew in the US, and bring it to, to Mexico in Spanish? So that's kinda the- Awesome...
5:39
yeah, the line. Yeah. Yeah, but I don't... Uh, you know, it's easier said than done that it's Morning Brew but for Mexico. I believe there's, in fact, a nuance to it where it's news through a Mexican lens, too.
5:53
I believe, uh, there is a different flavor that Mexican professionals were looking for because I believe there are, there were already very tenured traditional media newsletters- Mm-hmm...
6:04
already operating like Bloomberg Linea. There's Expansión.
6:09
And I believe- There were enough newsletters doing a Morning Brew-ish job, but I believe Mexican professionals were looking for a lot more than the traditional media.
6:20
So would you mind telling me about what's the gap that you saw in, in this tech scene that you decided, "Okay, this is probably r- ripe for the picking, and let's start, uh, building on this"? Yeah.
6:33
Yeah, I'm definitely not the first person to try to build this in Mexico. Kinda like the Morning Brew-ish of Mexico, there's been prior to.
6:41
I'd say we- we've become the most successful at this specific model at this point. We just hit 145,000 subs, and with the podcast we can get into that later.
6:50
Uh, 'cause it's a dual game of, like, uh, lasting long enough to make the business work, uh, having great content, and then being able to monetize it, which I think, uh, w- we've been able to do that.
7:04
But w- going back to your question of, like, the, uh, tropicalization, as they call it here, when it's bringing, like, a US concept and bringing it to Mexico.
7:14
When seeing some of the, the more traditional media companies, let's say a Bloomberg, uh, Media in, in Linnea in, in, in Mexico or Expansión, I think, uh, a, a lot of their model is still super, like, traffic based.
7:30
Uh, which it, it brings back to, like, the same reason why, why don't you see more, like, US businesses? Like, why didn't they start newsletters six years ago? Why didn't they see Morning Brew and, like, do this?
7:42
So I think their, their newsletter products are not super sophisticated. A lot of times it's, like, throwing a bunch of links, it's like, "Here are our stories for the day," right? Uh- Yeah...
7:52
so now you see in the US a lot of these, like Wall Street Journal or, like, New York Times having these, like, very large, like, well put together newsletters, but it's like, what?
8:01
Six, eight years after a lot of, like, The Morning Brews popularized this, right? So on our end, what we've been able to do is, again, bring this fun tone and wittiness to the news,
8:13
uh, into, into our newsletter, which is kinda the staple and kinda what built The Morning Brews and the Hustles.
8:20
So in the Mexican tone and with the Mexican tone of, uh, tone of, like, point of view, the jokes, the kind of the language. And then also one of the things we've done is we steered away a lot from politics.
8:32
Uh, it's a very, like, politics heavy here in, in, in Mexico, and people have very strong opinions one way or the other. Right. So we stuck very clearly to, like, business and tech, uh, where, like, that's our lane.
8:43
We're gonna be very neutral about this, just in the kind of the phone tone.
8:47
So a lot of what you see these days is, like, uh, people try to consume news in, like, in video and whatnot, but we're like, "Hey, we're gonna be fun about how we do it here."
8:58
It's very short snippets re- based on, like, what you see in a Bloomberg or Expansión, it's like 2,000 words for an article. Who's like, "Who's consuming that these day and age?" Right.
9:07
Some people are, uh, if they're, like, very in-depth analysis about something, but most of those articles are not. So, so yeah, that's kinda the twist we've taken. And we've made sure to, like, talk a ton with the...
9:20
or our audience. Like, a lot of polls have calls with them directly.
9:25
So it's not just, like, a copy paste of the US model, it's like, really how do we adapt this to the needs of, uh, of the people and professionals in Mexico. Awesome. Awesome. And, and you know, talking about the
9:38
Mexico frame of reference, I do know that, you know, WhatsApp is a dominant channel in Mexico. Mm-hmm. And, uh, that's probably the same in India as well. It's one of the largest markets. But- Yeah...
9:50
uh, in Mexico, people use WhatsApp as the cultural app too, not just as a messaging medium.
9:58
So any specific reason why you still decided to pursue email specifically for Espresso compared to WhatsApp, which would've probably given you a wider entry point at this point? Yeah. Uh, I...
10:10
When I started, I started with Beehiiv right away, just kinda seeing they figured out the, the whole, like, how to package the software to launch a newsletter.
10:18
So at the end of the day, I think it's, it's a very effective way to distribute information. Uh, and I didn't have to think a lot about the product itself. Yeah. It was like, "Let me throw the content here."
10:27
You're definitely absolutely right, where, uh, penetration on WhatsApp is probably 90, 95% if, if not higher in Mexico. Right.
10:35
So one of the things I've noticed, uh, US versus Mexico is, is definitely email is not as, like, key to everything in, in how professionals operate. Uh, so that's... I had some hypothesis early on.
10:50
Again, I, I, I live in Texas right now, I don't live in Mexico. Um, and turns out, like, the...
10:56
You see, like, let's say, higher open rates in the US than you might see in, in Mexico, 'cause the medium kinda is used a little differently. So looking back, I still think email has been a great option to start with.
11:10
But that being said, about four months ago, we launched a WhatsApp version, uh- Oh, okay. Awesome... of the newsletter. So it's very... We're not, like, publicizing it a lot.
11:19
We have about, uh, 10,000 people in there now. Nice. Um, and we are using a software that, uh, s- some people, some friends we, we know in Spain to have a local newsletter through WhatsApp.
11:32
Uh, so we're using WhatsApp communities versus channels. Uh, you're, you're in the WhatsApp ecosystem, so you know. [laughs] Yeah. Uh, the community hits your inbox versus a channel, which is a completely different tab.
11:44
So and then, yeah, we see open rates of, what? 85%, uh, in, in WhatsApp versus email. And it's, it's a full newsletter. It's not like, "Here's a link to the newsletter."
11:55
It's like the full content adapted to the WhatsApp model. So it's still a work in progress, this whole WhatsApp thing. It's, it's one of the bets we're taking.
12:05
Uh, th- the key thing to see is, like, does it monetize the same way as any, uh, like, email does? Are the same types of spons- sponsors work across?
12:14
So we've had the same question that you had there, like why not WhatsApp? So we're, we're giving it a go, but I don't have the fit and f- data right now.
12:22
Hey, keep me posted because I'm extremely curious about this, especially having spoken about it in the last few months in India specifically. So would love to know what you land up with that. Yeah? But- Yeah...
12:34
but great, uh, great to know why you went email versus WhatsApp. Now, tell me one thing, Fernando. Is there... You know, you talked about, uh, again, you know, the channels working differently from US versus Mexico.
12:50
Any of these traditional growth tactics that you would've deployed in US, or in Mexico for that matter, which would've fallen flat in, in the US, which you believe it, it works specifically in this frame?
13:03
I think right now, that's been one of the advantages I think I've had where, uh, I actually worked for Matt McGarry for a few months in his agency, kind of growth agency.
13:14
So I kinda learned a lot of best practice in the US. Turns out they also work in Mexico, and the advantage is, like, no one's doing it there.
13:23
So a lot of the ads that people get saturated with in the US, uh, we were kinda a lot of the first people using it. So, uh, in terms of, like, meta specifically, right?
13:33
So I ran a very similar growth playbook that most newsletters would do in the US. Uh, the one thing I tried, which I won't try again, is a whole gi- MacBook giveaway.
13:45
Uh, people really like to game those things, so I won't be doing that again. But in terms of, like, the, the rest of the, like, paid ads, uh, that, that playbook works. Awesome.
13:56
And actually, that's, that's a good point that I, I think we talked about briefly when we met, uh, this year and last year is I know that the CPCs are lower than it would be in the US, in Mexico. Mm-hmm.
14:09
But tell me more about the long-term play, the unit economics of how you recover the cost of acquiring these subscribers. What is the lifetime value on the unit economics play out like? Yeah.
14:22
We're, we're lucky to have the numbers and I've mapped out some of the numbers.
14:26
Uh, there's a podcast from Tim from 1440 and kinda walks through his funnel of like what it costs, how do they make, uh, what's, uh, the time to, you know, break even.
14:36
Uh, and I was like, all right, how do I map this to, to Espresso? And the numbers, of course, like l- are all smaller in terms of, like, volume-wise. Right.
14:45
So it's, it is cheaper and I make less per subscriber, but I end up breaking even at, like, three to four months still, uh, for new subs. And in terms...
14:54
The, my CPCs have been going up, to be honest, in terms of like meta. Uh, was super cheap when I started. It's been three years now. It's getting a little more expensive.
15:02
But my cost went from what it was, maybe like 20 to 30 cents an email, to now it's like maybe, like 70, 80, 90 cents, right? Still lower than, than most- Still lower... US ones. Yeah, yeah.
15:14
Uh, the thing is when it comes to the, the CPMs that I charge, uh, s- still kinda high-end professionals.
15:23
Uh, I know let's say a Morning Brew, from what I've talked to some of their team at this end are, are charging maybe like in the 40s per an email, uh, total of like, uh, combined CPM.
15:36
I'm probably like 25, let's say, dollar CPM when I combine like both ad slots. That's pretty good I would say. Yeah.
15:43
Um, so it, proportionally, I think my C- my, my cost per subscriber is lower relative to how much I charge CP- CPM-wise. Uh,
15:55
I'm not gonna be a $70 or a $70 million business like a Morning Brew is, but I think I, I can definitely be competitive within kinda my unit economics in, in Mexico. Right. D- please don't sell yourself short.
16:09
Your growth numbers are crazy, so, you know, they are impressive in its own right, so I wouldn't go around comparing it with others too. [laughs] So, so you're doing absolutely great. Yeah.
16:20
Different limitations of the economy as well. So it is what it is, but, like, it's, uh- Good problems to have, I say... the business model itself is interesting. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. [laughs] Absolutely.
16:29
So I, I see that, you know, you have, you've probably spent the last three years building the newsletter, and I would say, would you say that the growth has been linear as you started?
16:42
How did you grow the first 5,000 subscribers? I believe you didn't start out all the way with paid ads. You must have started organically, or am I wrong there? Honestly, I started straight off with paid ads.
16:55
Uh- Oh, amazing. Okay... so one of the things I wanted to do from the get-go to see if it even made sense is, like, let me l- run some paid ads, write some content. Does anyone even read this?
17:06
Uh, so sure, I started with like h- family members and 100 people reading the newsletter. But- Sure...
17:12
uh, as anyone who's done a newsletter, it's super demoralizing day in, day out if you're doing it and, like, you're, no one's reading this. Uh, and for better or worse, I chose to do daily from day one. Right.
17:24
Uh, so I was like I, I better have people reading this thing and see how do I iterate faster on the product.
17:31
And yeah, the, I started, to be honest, straight off paid ads, and then kinda iterate the product fairly quickly too. Like, people hate the design.
17:40
If you have more people, someone will tell you they don't like the design, right? Um, so I know a lot of people are like, "Start organic, and once you have organic you'll know if it's a hit or not."
17:50
Uh, we went a different route. Awesome. Awesome. And has it been, you know, linear? Has it gone off to the races at year one?
17:59
I believe three years and 140,000 subscribers, I'm guessing there have been different levels that you have been hitting as you went along. So would you mind describing how the growth has been since you started, Fernando?
18:12
I, I'd say it's been linear. Uh- There's periods of, like, faster growth and maybe, like, we see sometimes at the start of the year versus middle of the year, and sometimes CPMs rise, and, like, we get less subscribers.
18:24
Uh, but it has been fairly linear.
18:28
Like, I don't think there's been high boosts or like, w- we didn't grow as much maybe last half of last year, uh, or kinda around the 40s, and then this year we're kinda investing more into growth. Um, so, so yeah, it...
18:43
The biggest play here has been it's been three years. That's kinda like time itself, uh, works its magic. I know. I know. Right. But I believe that you're not stopping at just newsletters.
18:55
You just started expanding into podcasts and video-based content, too. By the way, you know, hiring Steve Saldana was a masterstroke. Uh, you know, he's so charismatic on camera.
19:07
I believe he has been at traditional media and video for the longest time. What, you know, what did you tell him to convince him to make the move to a newer media outlet like newsletters would?
19:21
Yeah, hiring Steve has probably been my, my, my best decision ever, uh, in, in the business. And to be honest, I got really lucky. Uh- Right... Steve was actually hired as a writer, uh, and then- Is it? Okay...
19:33
I was kinda director of content. So he, he's actually, his main job is writing the newsletter. Uh, most content now all falls under him and kinda his direction.
19:43
Uh, but when I first started, it was a slow process where, like, I was looking for help to have someone help me curate the news. Uh, so he started kinda part-time basis there,
19:57
and then over time, kinda I was, like, selling him on the vision of Espresso. It was, like, all right, he'd been, he'd been in, at a fairly large tech, like, blog, uh, website in Mexico called Xataka.
20:10
Um, and then yeah, kinda sold him on the vision over a few months of working together, and then it, it was pretty risky for him 'cause we were... How many subs were we at?
20:19
I don't know, maybe between 50 and 80 at the time. Uh, so yeah, for me it was scary. Kinda was like, it's not just me. I gotta sell sponsors to pay someone's salary. But
20:32
over time, I mean, I knew he had the podcast experience and kinda the video experience, and now we're in talks to see, like, how does he get out of writing and more into video?
20:41
'Cause as you've mentioned, he's really good at it. Uh- Yeah... it comes really naturally to him. Yes. And, and the podcast, uh, was also one of these moonshots. We're kinda trying, does this make sense?
20:52
Is it gonna cannibalize our newsletter? Uh- Yes... but so far it's, it's just going really well, so we're really happy there. Great.
21:01
And, and what makes you and Steve decide, you know, which news topics probably hit the YouTube channel versus the newsletter or both maybe?
21:12
Is there any, a specific rationale that you folks decide, okay, maybe you should get this to video instead of just putting it in a snippet in the newsletter? Yeah.
21:22
So as of now, let's say everything that makes it to the newsletter makes it to the podcast. Uh, so this is actually a one-to-one. Oh, awesome. And then
21:31
from, from there, the podcast lives in, I mean, Apple, Spotify, YouTube. Right. And then from there we've also ramped up, uh, like reels that are slightly different than the podcast, same news.
21:44
Uh, so we're still optimizing kinda what reels or what news make it into a reel, and the whole point of reels is to feed people to the podcast in general.
21:55
So actually, we, in just four or five months, we've made it into, like, seventh place in all of Mexico in business podcast. Wow. Um, and, and top, like, 70
22:07
all podcasts in Mexico, which is pretty nuts in just five months. Great.
22:11
And the one thing we have going is we know, like, time is, uh, on our side, and we, we're growing fairly fast, so our goal is kinda be are we the top three podcast kinda in, in, by the end of the year in all of Mexico in business.
22:24
Great, and you know, that's, that's a lot of work, I would say, to be honest, because I believe you're a team of what, four or five people at this point, including you? Five, yeah. Yeah.
22:37
I- I'm just basing it off the crew that I see in the newsletter footer. Yeah. And yeah, and that's, you know, you and Steve and probably three, four other people.
22:48
But is this not a lot to be able to go for a newsletter, a podcast, a YouTube channel? I believe you have also fleetingly talked about using AI for your operations.
23:01
Would you mind talking about how do you keep the team small and use AI to probably make more out of less, I would say? Yeah. And then w- we're using AI different places.
23:14
Like, I started working with Claude Code maybe two, three weeks ago, and I'm essentially addicted to all the workflows that I can- Are we not all, yeah? Yeah, yeah, it seems to be the trend, so I'm- Yeah...
23:25
I'm definitely fall in that category. Yeah. So there's some places that are very, like, AI-driven and some that are, like, AI we don't touch.
23:32
Let's say, like, a lot of the editorial side and kinda the, the, the taste of the newsletter itself in the words and how do we make the jokes, it's still very human.
23:43
Uh, the curation of the news, you need to have the context of, like, what's going on in, in Mexico, what's relevant, what's not. That's still very human. But it does help us- Right...
23:52
let's say with, like, making first drafts, uh, and kinda working through, let's say automating the checks once the newsletter's written, like what are the fact-checking, do we have everything in place?
24:05
Um, we're starting to implement a lot more into the sponsor kinda process where, like, the briefs for the sponsor, writing the ads for the sponsor, uh, the reporting.
24:17
So- We, we do use it wherever possible, and I think, uh, maybe because studying engineering, I just like love inserting AI everywhere in the process where it makes sense. And there...
24:31
I mean, there's still a lot of opportunities, but yeah, we've been able to do a lot with a fairly small team. Awesome. Awesome.
24:38
And, you know, this is probably going to be a controversial take, but I do know that, you know, you helped bring in what is known as the morning brew or the hustle,
24:50
uh, point of view, but to the native market at this point. Do you... You know, there are also bigger players in the Mexico tech market.
25:01
Do you foresee a bigger tech market probably trying to implement what you're doing because there are copycats all around?
25:09
Uh, can you tell about one specific thing that still makes you unique, which, you know, somebody else wouldn't be able to take away? Yeah. Honestly, I don't see any of the traditional media going through our space.
25:21
Uh, and there's been pros and cons to being like the newsletter. There's, uh... I'd have to say there's one other newsletter that kind of came maybe five years ago, uh, in Mexico.
25:32
It's like a paid business newsletter that, uh, they are doing very well, and they're kind of very polished brand. So that's probably the- Okay...
25:41
sometimes the most well-known because they've been around for a little longer. Uh, but part of the issue of being kind of the one newsletter product is that you have to educate the market to like, "What is this?
25:55
Why would I sponsor you and not just random newspaper or like the bigger newspapers," right? So- Right...
26:01
I think that's been m- I'm more worried about that, like educating the market than I, I, that I am about like one of the bigger players trying to like do a newsletter.
26:12
We've seen small newsletters kind of launch the exact same thing. But again, I've been grinding for three years. It takes a long time to build up the audience.
26:21
So when I see these, I try to look like, are they doing anything different than maybe it's worth like, uh, trying to see and implement features into our own.
26:29
But like I'm not really worried of the new players at this point. That's a good answer. Yeah. [laughs] Glad that you, you know, defended that. But
26:39
one thing I also very specifically saw in your media kit, I know they're probably the biggest names that I would probably foresee for a global newsletter, not just based in Mexico.
26:52
I believe it tells something about the ambition of the Mexican job force too, or people seeking employment in Mexico, that there's a lot of ambition, there's a lot of aspirations to be able to understand global tech scene, the global business scene too.
27:11
What's one thing that you probably could share about the Mexican job market or the Mexican professional tech scene that people don't really understand, which would probably blow their minds? Yeah.
27:25
One, one of the things I've noticed over time is that, um, within Latin America, if we take out Brazil, like Mexico is the largest economy there.
27:35
Uh, so a ton of, uh, any startup that might start in Colombia and Chile or any other, uh, s- other countries, their goal is to go to Mexico, and Mexico is kind of like
27:45
if, if they make it there, then they can consider maybe, let's say, going to the US, right?
27:49
So what we see is a ton of these companies go there, and then our sponsors, I mean we have like the HubSpots, the Salesforces, the Oracles, like a lot of them are sponsors in the newsletter.
27:58
So, uh, a lot of professionals in Mexico are in the tech scene. So I think it is within kind of the Spanish-speaking world, I think it's like the, the best place to be at.
28:09
In a lot of startups, that's kind of like, right, what we're seeing is like Mexico is kind of the, the playing ground to really start growing in Latin America.
28:18
So I think that's one of the advantages we have going for us. I don't speak Portuguese, so I can't go to Brazil, which is a bigger market. But within Mexico, I think there's a, a ton of opportunity.
28:29
But tell me this, uh, Fernando, I know we're coming up at time, but this is something that I cannot let you go without answering. But tell me that you're not just sticking to Mexico, you're planning to expand into LatAm.
28:42
I believe there's a large enough market to crack open when it comes to, uh, you know, Latin America too.
28:48
But tell me you haven't thought about this, and you have, uh, you know, bigger, more expansive plans for Espresso too. So w- you know, could you share something about what the future holds for your team? Yeah.
29:00
To be honest, early on, uh, I assume it was like, right, I build in Mexico, copy/paste across.
29:08
There's a lot more difficulties that I've realized over time when it comes to like, what does it mean to have kind of audience across all these countries in terms of even like, uh, the payments, in terms of like what it, what, uh, like currency they use, uh, what companies wanna sponsor multiple countries versus just one country.
29:29
So at the time, when I started originally, it's like, oh, I'll just do all LatAm. Now I'm like, all right, let me figure out the, the proper Mexico business model and then go from there.
29:40
So I'm more geared towards how do I go deeper into the professional community within Mexico, whether it's more go towards like an industry dive model- Yeah...
29:51
uh, and kind of build in verticals, uh, or, or see where I go. So I'm-- I think there's plenty of opportunity within Mexico.
29:59
So maybe three years ago I would've told you we're going for a LatAm, but I think at this point, Mexico, there's plenty to do, and then once we figure out that model, we can see if it makes sense operationally to jump around.
30:12
Yeah. Amazing. And I, I wish you and your team all the best. But before I let you go, one thing that I would like to know, Fernando, is if you were to start-
30:23
Espresso today, you know, and, and there's a new store operator waiting in the wings listening to this particular episode on wanting to start it in their own geography wherever they are in the world, you know.
30:35
Are there any, any tips for them to start or anything they should be mindful of? Any mistakes that you did three years ago that you'd probably have them not repeat it again? Uh, let's see.
30:49
In, in terms of things that I think we did well that I'd recommend, uh- That works, too [laughs]... it's, it's...
30:56
And then I can switch it the other round what we messed up, but it's really kinda talking to, to the audience as soon as possible to guide the product. Uh, s- especially jumping on calls, super useful. Awesome.
31:10
Uh, and going from there. And I think one of the things,
31:14
I don't know how applicable this is, that I think I, I should have gone double down on, at times there's been, like, opportunities where Beehive was, like, matching dollar per dollar, like, your, your spend or your boost, Beehive boost there.
31:28
Right. So I think at times when I've seen growth was paying off, I was too afraid to, like, uh, go all out.
31:35
Uh, and so there's opportunities that come and go where you know your unit economics and you know, like, uh, if you spend more here you can make more here.
31:45
But, uh, it's scary, so I've, I've screwed that up a few times that have hurt our growth essentially. Awesome. Awesome.
31:54
With, with that, I, I think, you know, I wanna make sure that people have everything they need to be able to understand how Espresso Matticino operates, but please don't stop here.
32:05
I want you to go and subscribe to Espresso Matticino. I'm going to link it out in the comments, and I'm also going to link out to Fernando's LinkedIn bio if possible.
32:16
So feel free to f- read more about what Fernando does and what his-
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