Mexico is not only surreal, it’s also intangible
Why I no longer want to leave for the US.
Obviously, we leave
It’s well known that we, people from Latin America move to the US to find things we can’t find in our countries. I have family and friends who have done just that, either to provide for their family or to get paid in US dollars.
Ever since I was halfway through college, I knew the opportunities for my professional development would not be the same in Mexico as in the USA. I saw and read about them on the internet, particularly in FastCo Design. I was studying industrial design, and though my country has the biggest automobile plant in the western hemisphere, we don’t design the cars, we only produce them. In fact we don’t design most of the other things we produce.
I was fortunate enough and kind of bummed to find this out while I was still in college. Apparently, we either got an awesome (and expensive) master’s degree at a foreign university, so that we might design the inside of a television for a big multinational, or we stayed in Mexico and designed POP (point of purchase), furniture for the rich, or became craftsmen with a degree.
So I dropped out of college in 2011 and got an internship at CTIN (Telmex’s Center for Technology and Innovation). My team and I were building a web app to solve the industrial design community problems we found. We failed but we learned a lot. There were a lot of people to learn from, from coding to robotics. It felt like a playground for young adults, like me.
Product design
Then I discovered user experience design, which would make my life easier than before.
I consciously I chose industrial design over architecture because I naively and optimistically thought to myself:
“It must be easier to be the sole author of a 20 inch product than to design a whole building. Who would want to fund the construction of my buildings?”
And there I was, discovering a discipline that would allow me to build something with my bare hands. I did not need to extrude metal, thermoform plastic or even hammer nails. I could be the sole designer of something people would use. That was it. With that understand, I commited myself — “I was to become a user experience designer.”
And I did.
I could have left
I had been working for GFT, a giant fin-tech company for over a year (2015), and though the pay was great (for Mexico) and the projects interesting, I didn’t have much room to grow.
I wanted more. So I started looking, started poking around with an open mind full of curiosity. Guadalajara, Monterrey and Austin were in sight, but, truly, I didn’t want to leave Mexico City. I noticed a trend in my life — every place I leave tends to get better after my departure. My elementary school got new benches after I graduated, my high school new buildings after I left and my parents’ home upgraded to 50mb fiber optic internet — it was only 2mb when I was there. Somehow, I sensed things were going to get awesome in Mexico City, so I didn’t resign from GFT. Besides, I was getting a raise and a PS4 in the office a few months later, so I stayed.
But then…
A friend shared a job offer she’d found on Facebook. It was from a design firm named 23. I applied, they interviewed me, and soon started the trial period. My longing for leaving to the US vanished in the first month I was there. I’ll tell you why.
Mexico’s startups
I’m no expert on this topic, but I witnessed how the startup scene grew in the last years out here. One year I was at CEDIM, at the first Startup Weekend in Mexico, then fast forward 3 years, my friends were getting seed capital for their business ideas or equity for their talent. But there was a problem. The majority of startups and solutions that were making it on the market weren’t well designed at all.
23 Design could not had been better prepared and positioned to do something about this not-design-infused-startup’s products problem. There are more and more startups everyday, tackling problems specific to the local market — and all are in need of thoughtful design. It’s incredible to see, with perfect timing, how 23 has come in to help with exactly that.
In my work at 23, we work with startups, rather we become their partner, work alongside them and lead thoughtful product design and strategy to build delightful products.. This collaborative culture, comes from our founders who have spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley. They’ve learned the best parts of that innovative, fast-paced culture, and everyday teach us what it means to authentically and sustainably innovate.
Again, like Silicon Valley, 23’s founders have been thoughtful about culture. They focus on us, they support us, they help us grow (more on that in a future post).
The intangible Mexico
My country is not the land of opportunity, but opportunism. Some people think the only way to make a great living is by bribing, lying and stealing from the ignorant. They think that, and, of course, they do it.
But my parents taught me differently. For that, I was always the odd man out, always asking why. Not necessarily because I didn’t know the answer, but so hopefully others would question and get to the bottom of the subject. From the beginning, teachers, relatives, friends and co-workers have tried to convince me to become a simple cog in the machine, to make me believe that that was the only way.
I did not listen.
I met people like me, and I work with some of them at this awesome design studio. We are not cogs, we are linchpins. We are moving fast, and we have the drive without having the barriers of the physical and bureaucratic world. We have embraced an open mindset, open culture oh and of course an open workspace!
We, makers of the digital, of the intangible, have found a way to improve the world we live in. We don’t have the “best” schools or startup ecosystem, but we love our country, our culture, and our food, and we will thrive.
I, father of one, want to leave a better world for my son, and I’m sure I don’t have to leave Mexico for that. I have found a way to do so from here.
And it will be epic.
Thank you 23 Design
Thank you Sarah, Marion, Carmen, Lulo and Shaherose for your help editing this article. ☺
Illustrations by Max Vera
Next up:
- The end of couples.
- VR is education’s next big opportunity.
- A pattern language for building products.
follow me [:] )
