“Building solutions with technology is the main purpose of Buildawow”
Interview with our co-founder, Christian Saravia.
- What were you up to before starting at Buildawow?
I’ve been playing with technology since I was a little kid. In 2012, I joined a technology startup called BlueKite right out of college, where I worked in product development. Early 2014, the startup was acquired by a technology company in SFO called Xoom (now owned by PayPal), where I continued to work in product development for a couple of years. During most of 2015 and early 2016, I got super into online courses, MOOCs, and education more generally. I took every free programming or computer science course I could find online. One of the courses I took online (for free!) was CS50, Harvard’s introduction to computer science. I loved it so much that it made me realize the future of education was online, especially for those in developing countries like Guatemala. I managed to get in touch with the professor who teaches the course, and through a ton of luck, he ended up offering me a Fellowship to join his team in Cambridge for a year. I ended up staying there for a year and half, learning a ton about education, video production, and computer science.
Early this year (2018), I decided to venture out on my own, move back to Guatemala, and use all I’ve learned these past few years to start Buildawow.
2. Have you always known that you wanted to start a company?
I’ve wanted to start a company since freshman year of college (2008). It seemed like the most exciting thing to do, especially when you’re young and can take more risks. I’ve always been interested in technology, so I always assumed it’d be in that space.
However, I was aware enough early on to understand that a business should only exist if you’re creating a service or a product that other people want. You can’t just start a business for the sake of starting one. You also need to acquire skills and experience to start and run one effectively. So I’ve tried to be patient in that sense, not trying to start a business too soon. Instead, I’ve been lucky enough to find amazing people to work for, and learn from them for a few years. Now, though, I feel ready to go for it.
Finally, this question makes me think of a quote by entrepreneur Derek Sivers: “When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws.” Obviously that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I love the message. Creating a business allows you to create the culture you want, surround yourself with people you enjoy working with, and do your best to build something you’re proud of.
3. Besides technology, what’s your passion?
Education. But not necessarily in the traditional sense of schools and universities as we know them, but more from the standpoint of skill acquisition. What are the best ways to learn? How does our mindset affect our learning process? What’s the right mix of theory and practice? How should we think about learning and education in the context of each person’s personality, background, and abilities? I don’t believe we should all learn the same way, and I strongly believe schools and universities need to evolve. But I don’t yet have a clear answer on what the solution is. Khan Academy, Udacity and Treehouse are great examples of companies innovating in this space, and I love what they’re doing. But there’s ton more to do. I’m excited to be a part of that.
4. How have you felt these first months at Buildawow?
It’s been a roller-coaster of emotions. Happy, excited, stressed, worried, confused, motivated, energized, inspired, tired…. It’s been a lot. But I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s the most exciting thing I’ve done in a while.
5. What’s been your biggest challenge running a startup?
Biggest challenge has been learning how to prioritize tasks. There are always things that interest you more, so you’re naturally pulled into them, sometimes at the expense of other more important things. For example, I love shutting everything down and programming or writing for hours. But I also have to think about marketing, sales, finances, accounting, operations, recruiting, building a company culture, and many other things. It’s super exciting, and I love most of it, but managing my time has been a challenge. It’s something I need to be better at.
6. Before starting the company, what did you think could take a long time, but actually already happened?
Finding the right business partner was something I was worried about when I started thinking of the idea for Buildawow. It’s not easy to find someone you trust, enjoy working with, has the same professional interests, and is willing to take similar risks. John fits all that criteria, and so much more. He’s humble, incredibly smart, and we’ve been friends for a long time. I’m glad that worked out.
7. What do you expect from this company?
I typically say Buildawow is a software development agency, but really we’re a problem-solving agency. People hire us, and we build them solutions using software. My hope is we can build a lot of solutions over the long-run that we can be proud to recommend or show to our family and friends. Solutions that solve real-world problems and make people’s lives a little bit better.
Also, we’ve decided early on that we’ll reinvest as much cash as we can into creating our own technology school, in-house. But not a typical school or university. We don’t plan on having grades or diplomas or one-size-fit-all solutions. Instead, we’ll be creating courses around actually building things, that people can take at their own schedule. Our first course for beginners will be called “Build a website with HTML & CSS”, with more coming like “Build a chatbot with Alexa Skills”, “Build a web app with Node JS”, and many more. We’ll also be doing courses in the context of building actual projects that have real-world implications. We’re actually talking right now with a group of amazing young people in Guatemala who want to build a service to improve disaster reliefs, and we’ll be collaborating with them in creating a web app that automates a lot of the process of managing emergency donations such as food and clothing. The plan is to build the web app while teaching the technical aspects of how its built. It’s still early days, but I’m super excited about this. It’s the reason why we’ve started Buildawow.
In summary, my goals are to build solutions we’re proud of, be financially sustainable over the long term, and help people learn how to build useful solutions with technology.
8. A favorite quote?
“Work hard, read a lot, Google anything you don’t know, and be nice to people.”
Over the long run, that’ll be enough for a successful life.
