Driving Growth through Monetization with Super Apps in Telecom

[00:00:00] Ryan: We’ve had a 33% increase in ARPU and prepaid. The churn dropped like 35 plus percent. Even our postpaid ARPU increased because what is happening is they are using the devices more. They’re using what we’ve established more, and they’re purchasing other things because the money is not just in the advertising.

[00:00:18] Exacaster: Welcome to CVM Stories, the podcast on customer value management. Together, we explore how companies can be more successful and the customers happier through the use of latest customer value management techniques. Learn key commercial and analytical insights from telecoms, retail, finance and other industries that drive CVM forward.

[00:00:37] Egidijus: Hi, I’m your host, Egidijus. Today I’m talking with Ryan Alvarez, CEO and general manager of Viva Bolivia. Ryan is building a super app that is changing how telecoms make money. In this episode, he will explain how telecoms can tap into advertising Industry and easily double their customers ARPU. Is that really possible? Well, let’s find out. Hi, Ryan. Thank you for taking your time. I know that as a CEO you are super busy and your schedule is always overwhelmed. So thank you for for for coming to speak with us. And, Ryan, I know that you have a very colorful and interesting career journey. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and how did you become a CEO?

[00:01:38] Ryan: Sure. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. It’s a great opportunity not just for myself but for my company. So I appreciate it very much. Um, so I’ve been in a family of entrepreneurs. Um, my family on my father’s side immigrated from Cuba in the late 60s. Working their way to the US. And at the time where like, you know, they really had to restart everything that they had. Um, and a very hard working family type of mentality. And that’s just carried through the generations from my grandfather to my father, and my father’s been a serial entrepreneur for many years. Um, but really struck gold in the, in the telecom space. Um, in the mid 80s. Um, my father and my uncle started an infrastructure business. And, um, from there, multiple family members have worked for the business and including myself. As soon as I graduated high school and was in college, I was, you know, started off in pretty much every sector that we had in the company. Um, which now, looking back was very advantageous for me. And I really appreciate my father doing it. At the time, it sucked because I went from, you know, doing actual, you know, construction, digging ditches, and then we’re, you know, constructing cell sites to then site design and then started working in the structural engineering department because originally I wanted to be a structural engineer. That’s what I was going to college for was structural engineering. And, um, I quickly found that that was not what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be.

[00:03:26] Ryan: So I definitely was thankful for the opportunity of being in the department and seeing what was done. And, um, and then, you know, started getting my opportunities, um, inside of the business. And, uh, we had a project in Hong Kong that was a lot of fun. Um, it was a multi uh, solution for business travelers in the area. And that’s where I got my first taste of doing marketing. We did a lot of direct to consumer stuff that I was the my brother and I were the, the innovators of or the the heads of that project. And, um, once we sold that business in Hong Kong, it was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, where I told my father I wanted to start my own business and not work for the family business. Um, and my brother and I had I mean, again, probably the most nerve wracking meeting I’ve ever had, I would say. Um, it was us putting together a business plan and showing him how we wanted to sell products. And we were going to start with skincare, and he just was over the moon about it. I mean, it was the exact opposite of the reaction I thought. And so we he helped us with the business plan, and he even helped us with, you know, lining up investors. Um, and we built that business to well over $100 million a year in revenue.

[00:04:51] Ryan: It was it was a lot of fun. And then during that time, um, we were vertically integrating as we were going and we were growing very rapidly. And the kind of place we got stuck was, you know, the actual displaying of the advertising itself. And it was around that time where he was having issues with his carriers, you know, paying rent on towers, because at that time he was in 14 countries throughout Latin America, about 20,000 towers under underneath, uh, the family umbrella. And, you know, payments are starting to get delayed. And that’s when we came up with this idea about seven years ago to, well, what if what if carriers made money advertising the clients because they have the data necessary to do so? And then so my brother and I and him started game planning. Um, we were building devices, micro edge computing devices that you would actually stick on the, on the towers initially was Wi-Fi. But then we realized we can connect it into the Enode B and directly into the base station. But then you needed a whole another layer of software, and it just got to a point where once we had this solution developed and we were actively selling it, a lot of the CEOs that were friends with my father were all on board with it. Like, yes, this is great. I love the idea, but the process of implementing it was extremely difficult. And and, you know, they’re they’re executive level and managers and core engineers and all these people were just roadblock after roadblock after roadblock.

[00:06:32] Ryan: And and I was about four years of development and roadblocks. And then we just finally realized the only real way we’re going to be able to do what we envision is acquiring a cell phone company ourselves and doing it ourselves and kind of leading the way. Um, so that’s why we acquired in Nuevatel, we acquired Nuevatel in Bolivia. Um, we wanted to find a company that was distressed, which Nuevatel the time was distressed. Um, and the great part about that acquisition was we they actually also owned a software factory, but they weren’t really utilizing that software factory. And my brother, who’s been my partner the whole time, he’s very software minded. You know, he was already dabbling in the AI stuff way back then. And they’re like, hey, let’s do a software protocol, the whole thing, and not hardware and software. And then that’s where the whole Alva piece came about, was the merge of seven years and these acquisitions to find the right route to really to really take, uh, Viva Bolivia to to the next level. Um, last year we. We implemented the protocol and it’s been it’s been doing great. And uh, as of, uh, at Mobile World Congress this year in Barcelona, we unveiled it to everyone where we have a white labeled version that we can partner with cell phone companies around the planet. So that’s my history and as short as time as I can.

[00:08:11] Egidijus: This is like one of the craziest stories on how do I proof for telecoms that my product works is like by purchasing a telecom and and showing that it works.

[00:08:22] Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. I mean that’s again from a family side. That’s what my grandfather. If no one believes in you, believe in yourself and just go in and you know the stars align. Though for sure it wasn’t it wasn’t something where it was an easy piece. It just it happened to we come across it. We do a lot of business with other tower companies, and we actually got this opportunity from another tower company that showed us that this company was in distress. And and they knew what we were doing to help solve some of these problems too. So that’s why it was a collection of many years of my father’s experience and friends of his that got us to that point. Um, so initially I started as the marketing director, um, because that was my, my core knowledge. But it was also to learn Bolivian culture, to learn the way that they work, because the a real marketer never comes into a market with a predisposition to mentality. You you have an idea, but you, you get local knowledge and understanding of where they’re at and how to kind of adapt what you are trying to achieve to get it on that right path. So that’s where I started, um, for about two years. And then and then it just needed to, to really take hold. We needed to switch to myself being the CEO and really shift the thinking in the company, because we don’t really see the company as a cell phone company or a telecommunication company. It’s a data company that just uses cell phones and telecommunications to serve the data.

[00:09:57] Egidijus: So for me, this is like a super interesting concept because you don’t think of a telecom as a dump pipe of data. You think about this as a really data company. And then you kind of pushed this towards like a super app concept. Yes. If I understand correctly. Could you explain a bit, um, what is this Viva app? What? What does it do? What? Sure.

[00:10:28] Ryan: So it’s a super app. That is, um, what we’ve done is we’ve actually embedded it into our regular general cell phone app, um, where you would recharge and, you know, activate lines, swim swaps, things like that. Um, and what we’ve done is we made a browser based super app because a lot of the advertising and connectability features are done with the browser aspect inside of the super app. Um, but then what we started doing is really diving into what our users were doing on their phones, and that’s where we started interconnecting. You know, a majority of what they do on their phones to give a ecosystem that made sense for them to actually navigate, because if they’re not navigating on the app, you can’t advertise on the app. You can’t use the data that you have. So it was all about usability and getting the right partners and the right aspects of what people do every day on their phones. And then from there, it just started building where it was, you know, taking foothold. Um, we do offer zero rating. So our, our clients, when they’re using the app, they don’t consume megas. They have to have an active line.

[00:11:40] Ryan: So they have to be able to activate the phone and you know, purchase the SIM card and have an active line. But effectively, they can browse the internet and do about 96% of what normal people would do on their phones, all from the super app with, you know, Boliviano, a day of an activation fee type of a thing. So it made it very attractive, especially to the prepaid. I mean, because really the real problem we were trying to solve is the prepaid customer, because postpaid customers by far and away, you know, you have good revenue, you give them good service. Um, the issue, especially in Latin America, is 80 plus percent are in the prepaid market and you’re getting a few dollars, three, $4 a month. Um, and that’s that’s never a good business case when you’re trying to build out more networks and the amount of investment needed, especially, you know, 5G, 5.5G that’s out now, the amount of sites you need, um, is just massive and there has to be other ways to generate revenue than the couple of bucks you’re making from the from the prepaid side. So it was all about usability.

[00:12:52] Egidijus: Okay. So do I understand correctly that you basically kind of build an app which is a fully fledged browser. You can basically browse all internet, internet through it, but you have like landing pages and you have some kind of special headers or something to basically show the commercials for.

[00:13:14] Ryan: Well, actually we because it’s a browser, we’re able to and we control it. We’re able to actually swap out ads in the locations that would normally have advertisement, third party applications. Um, so there is a there’s an intrusive layer of advertising, and it depends on what level of Alva you have. Um, if it’s just the simple one boliviano a day type where it’s activation, um, your line’s active. That one has intrusive ads. Um, and there’s a premium version that obviously you pay premium for that doesn’t have those intrusive ads. But we do replace ads in in many different areas of the browsing experience, and we do take control over the search functionality. So if they’re searching for a flight or a ticket like we, we actually will prioritize that. Coordinate that with other sponsored listings or products that are in our marketplace and correlate, you know, what they’re looking for to products that are available with our with our advertisers. Um, the key is those the machine learning, the machine learning that we built, that my brother built is very the more data it’s obviously learning from, the better it is targeting the consumer of what they’re actually looking for and products they actually would want to purchase. Um, and that’s really where we’ve seen the biggest difference between us and other super apps or other. Advertising based types of companies applications. Our click through rate is just higher. It’s substantially higher. And it’s because of that data. It’s because of that machine learning that we’re able to do that. And then that in turn gives a better return on investment to the advertisers who are advertising on the platform.

[00:14:59] Egidijus: Okay. So, uh, Ryan, here’s a sensitive question. Yeah. And the most important question. So were you able to earn money from that advertising?

[00:15:12] Ryan: Yeah. Um, the great part of the super app environment is it’s not just the advertising side that we earn revenues on. We’re partnering with banks, local banks. We’re partnering with local content providers. We’re partnering with marketplaces and all these other types of things. It’s, uh, our our vision isn’t an exclusivity type of vision. It’s an inclusive type of vision where I want more products, more More people, more opportunities, more business relationships. I’m not trying to control the market. I’m trying to be inclusive into it. Um, because the reality of the situation is 90% of all of the mega apps advertise, you know, the huge companies, the biggest companies in the world, all of their money comes from mobile phones. I mean, the mobile phones around the world are how they’re generating their revenue. Without a without an operator, they wouldn’t get that type. They wouldn’t get that from desktop and those types of things. It is all from from mobile aspects. So that is where we’re just kind of taking control over the consumer that we have. Um, we’re not blocking any apps from being used. We’re just giving the consumer the option. Do you want to use our app and do the similar types of things in a zero rating environment, or do you want to pay us for the data and you know, you can use the apps in the regular native environment? It’s up to you as a user. Um, but obviously the zero rating aspect. And then we also have a rewards program we call it OMG. So everything they do from navigating or, you know, interacting with an advertisement or interacting with a bank partner, establishing an account, we give points and those points then are converted to either getting various other packages or potentially products, or a mix of points and money to actually purchase products. So it’s it’s very it’s very user friendly.

[00:17:07] Egidijus: So technically you’re paying users for actually using megabytes.

[00:17:12] Ryan: Yeah, exactly.

[00:17:14] Egidijus: This is a twist.

[00:17:16] Ryan: No, no!

[00:17:17] Ryan: And the weird part is and that’s why, again, I’m really happy that we went down this crazy route of purchasing the telco. Any type of thinking would be you’re offering it for free. You’re paying for use. You know what’s happening to your traditional telco business. And actually what’s happened in Bolivia is we’ve seen an uptick. We’ve had a 33% increase in ARPU in prepaid. The churn has dropped like 35 plus percent. Even our postpaid ARPU increased because what is happening is they are using the devices more, they’re using what we’ve established more, and they’re purchasing other things because the money’s not just in the advertising. It’s, you know, the bank I’m connecting with. They get a piece of the transactions that are being done and the user acquisition side or various other applications that want to partner with us, or even content like distributing that content and sharing advertising revenue on that is another way we make, uh, revenue. So yes, it is making revenues. We’re still in the very, very early stages of its implementation, but it’s definitely not just helping the other side of the, you know, the revenue side of the app business.

[00:18:28] Ryan: It’s actually helping the telco side, which was which I didn’t think was going to happen. So it was a pleasant surprise, I think, happening, as we are kind of going through that process and learning from it. And it’s been it’s been great. It’s been a great it’s been a great, you know, feather in the cap when we’re talking to other potential telco partners that we’re doing this white label solution with of like, you don’t have to worry so much about just obliterating your business. Your traditional business isn’t just going to go away one day. You’re going to be able to even help that traditional business, as well as make alternative revenues which which right now operators need, operators need, like I said, for the build outs and everything that they that’s coming to really give users that connection that they need because I mean, they’re doing everything on their phones, they’re buying products, they’re streaming, they’re doing all these things in the and the amount of data they’re going through is enormous, and it’s hard for the operators to keep up.

[00:19:22] Egidijus: And this sounds like a crazy interesting I would say because this is kind of totally unexpected direction. Yeah. Like um, because everybody are thinking like, how do we how do we monetize this? 5G networks, etc. and kind of and here is an alternative idea, you know.

[00:19:44] Ryan: Yeah.

[00:19:44] Egidijus: Uh.

[00:19:45] Ryan: Well, that’s what we’re here to disrupt.

[00:19:47] Ryan: I mean, we’re here to really cause a disturbance in the force. Kind of a thing for good. Um, and and another great thing that’s really been happening is you get a lot closer to your business. To business clients. Um, and it gives our B2B team a, you know, you’re not selling anymore. You’re actually helping. And when you’re coming to a company offering help and helping them increase their revenues or helping them, and some things are no cost. And, you know, we share revenues or it just it really opens up the the ability to actually work with these companies and later sell them service. Because they do need service. They need fiber to their business. They need phones. They they need all those things. But when you’re coming in from a different angle like we do. It’s really helped our B2B team really grow that division because when we first acquired it was almost a non-existent division.

[00:20:41] Egidijus: Mhm. And one thing which is super interesting for me, it’s like if we look from a marketing perspective, yeah, usually it’s like the new channels are the ones that are always growing, always interesting. You know when the Instagram came up everybody needed to go to Instagram. Then when, when uh, kind of, uh, other new platform comes, everybody wants to move there and grab, uh, let’s say the first, uh, best, uh, things out of it. Uh, I was wondering, what are your advertising partners kind of communicating back to you, uh, when they try out this? What is their experience in terms of what are their results?

[00:21:30] Ryan: Yeah. Well.

[00:21:31] Ryan: What? We’re giving them a higher return on it. I mean, we’re getting them more clicks. I mean, we’re getting some advertisers that are seeing north of 15% or 100% more clicks. So most, most platforms will be about 1% click through rates. Most of our advertisers are seeing anywhere from 10 to 15%. So it’s a dramatic it’s a dramatic improvement. Um, but I would say the biggest challenge that I’ve been having in Latin in Bolivia really is the market is is mainly cash carry in the streets, people purchasing. People really don’t trust vendors, so they want to go touch and feel the product and pay for it in cash. So it’s a very, very young market with regarding to purchasing online and things like that. And alternatively, it’s also a very young market to how to actually sell to those people. A lot of the advertisers in the beginning were going to home pages and, and things that didn’t actually sell product. Um, and in my personal marketing beliefs like branding is important, but you’re you can brand while you’re selling your product at the same time, where you can get a return on the investment and actually sell some goods. So we’ve actually been doing a lot of, I don’t want to say tutoring, but helping assisting them of like, okay, you have this great product, don’t go to your landing page where they have 90 different options of other great products that you have. The advertisement that we’re, that we’re that we need to send to the customer needs to be targeted. You know, we have all this data to allow you to target specific products to specific people that would actually buy your product, send them to a page that only has that product or variations or add ons, you know, once the product is that type of thing is is something that we’ve been really helping our advertisers with that, you know, they’re just not as mature as other markets like in the States.

[00:23:23] Ryan: And what I was doing with my, my company previous to this and in Europe and things like that. So that’s something that that we’ve been doing. But then a key partnership that we had to get was a local delivery provider that was able to sell the pick up the product same day, deliver it to the consumer and that consumer can touch it, feel it, and then pay in cash. And that was a main piece for us to really start really moving the needle and start getting to the point where, like our street teams now go to businesses and say, hey, let me take pictures of your products. Let me help you sell these products. It costs you nothing. We take a percentage of the sale. It’s very easy. We’ll do all the work. And and now that now that a local delivery guy will go pick it up on motorcycles, deliver it to the consumer office. Has to be can’t be refrigerators and things like that. That’s a whole nother can up situation to deal with. But you know, that really has been helping us move the needle to kind of Force the consumer to start that process, to start feeling comfortable in that process. And then, as I’m sure as it continues, um, it’ll just keep growing because the market potential is massive with regards to that.

[00:24:40] Egidijus: So, uh, but what you are saying is like, do I understand correctly that actually the digital area is still growing? Oh, has a lot of space, let’s say in Latin America. Yeah. And you can actually slice a piece of, uh, advertising all budgets because they are just, uh, kind of growing now.

[00:25:06] Ryan: Exactly.

[00:25:07] Ryan: No, it’s exactly what it is. And it’s really I mean, the big companies, you have the agencies, and we work with those agencies and the big companies, but the real untapped source and and, uh, effective piece of what we built in Alva was, we call it local first mentality. I want the local shops, I want to help those local shops and frankly, consumers want to buy from the local shops. They just, you know, in this time and day and age, you can’t you don’t have a lot of time to go shopping and find these places. And if you Google them, they’re not really they don’t know how to put themselves in a keyword search and how to display their websites. Most of them don’t even have websites. They just have like some type of Facebook marketplace that they’re selling products on. There’s a lot of a lot there’s a lot of room for growth, especially in that area. And that’s where a majority of business is done in Latin America. So that for us is probably the greatest potential that we see. And that’s where we’re we’re really focused on on those small medium enterprises. Um, and, and really enabling that growth and facilitating that growth.

[00:26:14] Exacaster: If you are interested in customer value management, check out our Customer value Management Body of Knowledge. CVMBoK is a comprehensive guide for CVM professionals offering tips, tools, and best practices to help you in your job. Visit cvmbok.com for more.

[00:26:31] Egidijus: So so, Ryan, if we would step back and think about what is the potential or what is your objective in terms of, uh, ARPU growth, um, for, for your customer base. So kind of how much money do you see there?

[00:26:50] Ryan: Well, in Bolivia, our target by the end of the year is to get to a $15 per user that’s in the platform, um, which is right.

[00:26:59] Ryan: On par with our.

[00:27:00] Egidijus: It’s per month or per.

[00:27:02] Ryan: Month per user. Yeah.

[00:27:03] Ryan: Right now we’re we’re about.

[00:27:06] Ryan: Right now we’re just under five.

[00:27:08] Ryan: Um, plus or minus.

[00:27:10] Ryan: Um, but we’re actively growing the base, kind of forcing our users to be using the app and running campaigns for people that aren’t our customers, that are our competitor customers, because we have the app itself, but we also have the branded app and the in the cell phone app. Um, because anyone can use it, you don’t need to have the zero rating aspect. You don’t need to be a, you know, on our carrier network in Bolivia especially, any anyone can use it. Anyone can get the points, anyone can purchase the products and utilize it. But the real vision is to completely change the telecommunication industry. That’s why we were in Mobile World Congress. That’s why we created the white label versions. We even have some white label versions where like you, you know, other because what we’re doing in Mexico, because we have an operation in Mexico as well, and there’s a lot of unions in Mexico and there’s a lot of unions of unions. So what we actually were able to do is make a version of the super app that can be skinned very quickly from, from the, from the telco provider to actually doing another scan of like a union in that area that they can manage themselves so very quick, you know, change the colors, add some logos, even, uh, some APKs that actually load their existing app into the application.

[00:28:27] Ryan: And then then they have their own version of the super app, but it’s all connected to the same back end architecture. But really, like I said, it’s to really just change the industry on its head. It’s really to show others that you can jump in the deep end. You can actually go head to head with those big companies and, and provide services to advertisers and to your consumers, a better service and, and, and make good money. I mean, realistically, in other areas Europe, US, um, that are more developed, I mean, on rough based numbers, it’s possible to get to the 20, 30, $40 ARPU. I mean, it’s possible to make more money using this than delivering the service, And that’s where I mean, I don’t know how much lower you can go than three, $4 a month. You know, like but the eventuality is the way I see it in ten, 15, 20 plus years or however soon that could be, it’s it’s not going to be about what you how much you’re charging. It’s going to be free. In my opinion. It’s eventually going to be free, especially with the use of this type of, um, application and what we can do.

[00:29:46] Ryan: And then it’s just going to be about how good your partnerships are, how good your service is. It’s going to come down to those key metrics more than it’s going to come down to the price and what you’re offering it. Because people, they’re just there’s like an adverse feeling, like it’s such a needed part of everyone’s everyday life. But when that bill comes and they can spend $3 less, they’ll switch to the next, you know, the next, uh, provider to save those couple dollars. But then they’ll go to a restaurant and spend 200 on, you know, whatever. Like that. No problem. And it’s it’s this. It’s just this. It’s just a commodity logic that people are so used to. And frankly, that’s what this is for. This is for just the complete obliteration of it and its eventuality and really making money on the user experience, really making money on your partnerships and your service. Because if you don’t have good service, then you can’t connect, then you can’t get this and then you’re going to be stuck. And then time of deliverability is going to be slowed down, and then that’s going to be where you’re losing money, not because of them switching and turning over to the next to the next competitor.

[00:30:57] Egidijus: Well, uh, Ryan, for me, it’s like when you say like that, your objective is to reach $15 in Arpa per user. If I understand correctly, it’s something like double or triple a normal, uh, prepaid RPO in the region for us.

[00:31:14] Ryan: Yeah, for us, it’s triple.

[00:31:16] Ryan: Prepaid and it’s about on par with our with our postpay.

[00:31:20] Egidijus: Yeah. So that’s like that’s sounds like a money printing machine, you know.

[00:31:25] Ryan: Yeah.

[00:31:26] Egidijus: It’s basically totally unbelievable.

[00:31:29] Ryan: Yeah.

[00:31:30] Egidijus: So, uh, let’s stay with this vision. Like, uh, we have a bigger output from advertising than from subscription, which could be a kind of a totally mind blowing idea. Now, uh, let’s talk about the challenges. Like, how do we drive the adoption from the customer perspective or consumer perspective? It’s like, I don’t think that they understand what you do super easily. How do you how do you drive them to use your, uh, service? What what are the challenges there?

[00:32:05] Ryan: Yeah.

[00:32:05] Ryan: That’s a great question. Um, initially we had a separate application. Um, and that’s where we came up with the white label and the existing, uh, cell phone application. So we’re we there’s portions like new customers. It’s mandatory. You can’t activate it without downloading the app and without going through the onboarding process, um, to activate that app. And then effectively that gets the user base there. And then realistically, it’s just reminders, you know, if they’re utilizing Facebook outside of the ecosystem, it’s like, hey, you just lost on 200 points because you could have got 200 points by doing this. And it’s it’s utilizing the ad engine. So the ad exchange engine that we have, we we tie it into, you know, SAP push or SMS types of message and deliverability. And it’s just, you know, you can’t send too many reminders because then you’re just annoying the customer. So it’s that fine balance of giving them information like, hey, if you did this here, you already have the application. Um, you would you would save money, you would earn points, you would, you know, those types of things. That’s really what’s helped us drive the usability. But really what it is, is continued partnerships. If you don’t have the content that they want to watch, if you don’t have that latest app, you know, the Snapchat or whatever’s popping in or TikTok. And a lot is growing in a lot of places. If you don’t have that in there, then the user is not going to use. If you don’t have some type of way for them to check out or some type of fintech or banking interconnection, they’re not going to purchase anything.

[00:33:38] Ryan: If you don’t have these elements, they’re not going to use it. So it’s really about using the data that you have. Because a lot of a lot of telcos just I mean, there’s companies that all they do is go, hey telco, let me go and help you do your own data, give you some great tools of what they’re doing and how to make a better plan. But for us, it’s not to make a better plan, it’s to make a better user experience. What these what are your users doing? What can you add into the application to then give them a better user experience? And that user experiences is the critical part. It’s the ever growing, ever changing, always evolving type of thing that will that will never stop at the end of the day. That’s how you get the users. And then, you know, it’s we call it chicken and egg. But realistically, if you get the users, the advertisers will come. You know, when you when your cell phone providers are connected to everyone pretty much on this planet. So by getting more partners, more users into the global, you know, association that we’re kind of building. The more advertisers will come and when you perform better than any other platform, then they’re going to give you more money. So it’s kind of one of those things of you got to get your users in the content necessary to to get them to use it. And then attracting the advertisers to advertise to them is a critical piece.

[00:35:02] Egidijus: Mhm. And so talking about the second part like attracting advertisers and partners. Yeah. So how much work do you need to do there? Because like adding all the financial services, etc., it requires quite a lot of uh, partnerships and partners, integrations, uh, etc..

[00:35:27] Ryan: Yeah.

[00:35:27] Egidijus: So what was your experience here?

[00:35:29] Ryan: Yeah. So my experience there was we really leaned on the B2B team and their existing relationships and consumer customers we already had in our B2B area. Um, and then the street team aspect, like most like us in Bolivia and most cell phone companies have, you know, employees that go into the markets, distribute SIM cards, distribute recharge cards, and those are the same people that are loading up the small and medium businesses in our operation. So that’s how we’re getting growth, um, from those areas. And, and really the easiest way to get them in is loading their products in the marketplace because it’s free. So the easiest lead in is like, hey, let’s load your products in the marketplace. Let’s get it to where people can search for it. And we only charge a percentage. And that really makes the barrier to entry very easy. And then from there, as they’re building traffic, you know, we’ll send them a report like, hey, by the way, this many people searched for a product just like yours. If you did this or advertise this way, we can actually help you funnel these customers directly to you because they’re looking for these types of products and you have them. So the system actually helps us identify where we should go. And then we just use data of what the customers are doing on the application. Serve that to the advertising agencies or the companies and say, it only makes sense for you to come here and try it out. At the very least. And then from there, it just it builds. Like, most of our advertisers that have started, have built their have built their spends considerably. And that’s where that’s. That’s that’s that’s the only way you can really dive into that market is give them an easy way in with nothing, no cost. Show them some data. And then from there, really give them that ROI that they’re looking for, that the system that the system provides.

[00:37:27] Egidijus: So, Ryan, it seems that you are recreating the Google’s playbook, you know, with like Google Trends, Google Analytics.

[00:37:36] Ryan: I mean, they’re they’re a great company to kind of you.

[00:37:39] Ryan: Know, piggyback off of at least mentally. Um, the thing that they missed, though, is the small companies, the big companies, they serve very well. You know, they they they get those big products, those big brands and people that have advertising budgets and can afford a, you know, a marketing consultant or a media buyer, all those types of things. Like you, there’s a barrier to entry there. And and that’s great. You know, they’re servicing them very well. Very well. You know, we do service them, obviously. But again, we’re a local first type of operation because that’s who a majority of our users are. Like majority of our users are that on a cell phone side, especially in Bolivia. So that’s where we target and that’s where we feel we have the biggest industry to grow that they’re just they don’t have the hands in the markets on the streets to really attack that area. So that for us is is the big area to attack.

[00:38:42] Egidijus: And the for here. I should, uh, guys, I should give you a genius status because you really have this, uh, B2B sales force, which, which is a unique thing, uh, because every telco have a B2B sales force, which is significant, and you have those relationships and so on. So, yeah, that’s that sounds super inspiring.

[00:39:08] Ryan: Thank you.

[00:39:09] Egidijus: Um, now, Ryan, if I understand correctly, your vision is much bolder than Viva Bolivia. Yeah, it’s like you want to conquer the world with this.

[00:39:23] Ryan: Yeah, I want to partner with the world. I don’t want to conquer it. I want to partner, I want to, I want to help every cell phone company, every MVNO. Because we in Mexico, we have an MVNO, and we’re testing this whole process in the MVNO process. But it’s really I want to partner with every cell phone company that’s willing to partner with us. Um, I don’t have we’re not doing exclusivities. I’m not, you know, picking one per country. And it’s really letting that attack. To me, it’s it’s a much bigger war. It’s it’s kind of cell phone companies versus those other big companies that are doing this advertising piece utilizing the cell phone network to actually distribute. Um, and, and that to me is is the real is the real war that we’re fighting. And the real potential that we have is, is and how I see it. It’s again, it’s inclusion. I want to include every cell phone company that there is into this type of thinking. And, you know, there’s other companies that are trying to do this. I know, and they’ve hired marketing companies and things like that. And for me, that’s just that’s that’s just validity. That’s validity that we’re going down the right path. Um, being kind of one of the first into the market with a real solution that’s actually built for telcos by telcos, um, is an opportunity for us, obviously. But, you know, the more validity there is in the market, the more that, you know, we’re going to be able to grow what we’re doing and the partnerships that we have.

[00:40:50] Egidijus: Um, and uh, imagine if a telco somewhere in Lithuania would said, uh, would say, hey, we want to try this out. You know, we want to, to to launch this. How? Like what, uh, how much time would it take to set some things up, you know?

[00:41:08] Ryan: Yeah. It’s another great question. Um, we we built it to do it very quickly. So it’ll typically take 4 to 6 months to do the full integration. Uh, a lot of that time is mainly getting because what we do is we take their existing telephony app, we apk, we take the API calls and build that app inside of the new white labeled app. Then we skin the app to their colors, logos and all those types of things. Then we start working with their B2B team and partnerships to do other integrations. So that’s that’s about 4 to 6 months to kind of go to identify those things, go through that process, install it. Now if they’re fast, typically what we’ve seen is, is they’re not as fast and as like it’ll take us that long if we have the information. But typically they take a little bit to get the information to really wrap their heads around it. So mainly it’s been more to 6 to 9 month process to really have it fully launched, but that’s about the timeline of it. And then the great thing is it’s a zero risk aspect for the telco operators. I charge nothing, I don’t charge a setup fee. I don’t charge anything like that. It’s revenue based revenue sharing, um, what we bring to the table, we all eat.

[00:42:25] Ryan: And then there’s, you know, various fees that are taken out of the revenue, you know, for support or for servers because it takes a lot of servers, and especially in Europe, we have to put servers and their locations and, you know, because they have to own the data, own the app. It’s a it’s a license agreement at the end of the day. So that’s a way that we get, you know, around those privacy concerns because it’s the cell phone company’s application. It’s the cell phone company’s servers. But we maintain them operate them and do those. So there’s there’s a fee that’s taken out for that, but it’s all taken out of the revenue that we generate. So no revenue is generated then there’s no cost other than time to do so. So that’s where that’s where we’ve had a very big, you know, ramp up period. Um, we have a lot of really good, uh, contracts in the works and partnerships that are, you know, from the result of Mobile World Congress. Um, we’re pretty close to our availability to kind of keep that timeline. We’re getting to the point now where if we get more telcos that want to do this, um, you know, the timeline will kind of grow. But that’s what the timeline is now.

[00:43:32] Egidijus: And, uh, so which are the regions that are kind of most fascinated by by your, uh, crazy idea?

[00:43:39] Ryan: America.

[00:43:39] Ryan: Yeah, Latin America for sure. We have a nice group there and in Europe. And then there’s some dabbling in the US, but it’s kind of through a, a sub type of thing. Um, but those are Europe, Latin America and the US are the ones that I’ve really taken, taken through this partnership capability, and those are the ones that we’ve been talking to. But I mean, at the end of the day, it’s all over. There’s some companies in the Middle East that we’ve been talking to, um, you know, Africa, Asia as well. So I mean, it’s it’s all over, but the ones that just don’t leave, stay here, get your technical team are those regions. Those are the ones that are just really, really pushing to, to move forward with us. Which which is that’s kind of what I’m looking for. At the end of the day, I want someone that’s aggressive in the mentality that wants to jump in, because then it just creates more validity, um, versus, you know, kind of a slow play.

[00:44:39] Egidijus: So, Ryan, you want in your LinkedIn profile, you want to have the signature like I killed Google. Um.

[00:44:48] Ryan: No, no, not at all.

[00:44:49] Ryan: To me, it’s just, uh, you know, there’s there’s more than enough. There’s more than enough space on that table of advertising. So no, I wouldn’t say I’m trying to kill Google. I’m just trying to I’m gonna I mean, I’m competing with them. Let’s, let’s I mean, there’s no shadow of it out there, but, you know, they’re the they’re the big gorilla in the room. So at the end of the day, they’re they’re dictating a lot of things. But I just want to I just want to see it at the table. I just want a piece of the action that kind of that they’re not looking into and and really showing them that it’s necessary to partner. I mean, at the end of the day, who knows what could happen in the future. But it’s the necessity to, to partner like GSMa has this, you know, this, uh, thing that they call it fair share, like, hey, give us a fair share and those types of things. And which is great, but in my, I don’t know, um, the way my family would just has lived our lives, it’s, you know, you’re you got to go for it.

[00:45:51] Ryan: You gotta you gotta try to get this yourself. You can’t expect someone to to help you. You know, help doesn’t come. Help comes when you’re a potential threat or potential partner. Those. Those are when the timings of the of the help coming aspect of it. But like I said, I don’t. What we’re doing is completely different than what Google does. We actually have a very much a much broader avenue path and a much broader partnership path than they do. So there’s elements that we compete against them, but then there’s elements that we compete against other fintechs, and there’s elements that we compete against other marketplaces and those types of things. So it’s not a singular focus that we have. It’s just a what does the customer want? What do they use and what how can I provide them a better experience. And that’s what it comes down to for us. So that’s we compete against everyone that that those customers touch and feel. At the end of the day.

[00:46:45] Egidijus: It’s a very interesting, you know, Ryan, that we are talking about this super app as a product, but in reality it’s all about customer value management or bringing more value to the customers.

[00:46:58] Ryan: It’s always I mean, that’s our that’s our motto. That’s our core ethos in the company is, you know, and that’s where the company, when we purchased it two and a half years ago, they were the best customer service based company they have. We have a massive amount of agents. The dedication to serving our customers was already kind of ingrained. So adding this just helped with the overall adoption of the company itself to like this crazy idea because like, it’s one thing to, you know, purchase a company. You’re we’re a bunch of Americans, you know, from Latin America, but we’re a bunch of Americans coming into a Bolivian country saying, okay, everything you’ve been doing is now going to change. And it’s something where like, you know, it was a process for sure to get them to buy in first, to get them to understand like that was a process like, hey, look, this is the idea, this is what we’re trying to achieve. This is how to, you know, and there was there was turnover involved really, because there’s there’s people that have just been in the space for 20 plus years, and this is the way you do it. And it’s like, no, it’s not, not anymore at least. So that was a big hurdle for us to, to do. And and I’m kind of seeing that as we do, you know, meetings with our partners that we have today with telcos all over the world. They, you know, there’s a group of people that are early adopters.

[00:48:17] Ryan: And then there’s, you know, the the different people in the, you know, the marketing side or the it side or the legal side, just like, nope, you can’t do that. Look at this. This is the problem. And it’s it’s solving a lot of problems like that where it’s just like, look, we have a lot of these bases covered, but we’ll look at this. We help you with this. And then and that’s where we’ve built a lot of rapport with our partners, is the ability to solve those problems on a one on one basis for them specifically to really get them to where they need to be mentally, because as the technical team’s doing that for, you know, six months or so, we’re working with the marketing teams, working with their marketing team of how to market it, the plans associated with it, the B2B partners getting those companies to do the integrations. Because again, if you don’t have the content, you’re going to launch something and it’s great. What do I do? Well, the same thing I did before. Buy my SIM card, swap my SIM card like there’s nothing else here other than a browser. That’s where it’s really critical because it’s it’s a completely customized platform by country, by operator. It has to have the customization aspect. Without it, it’s not going to be it’s not going to generate the revenues that they need to see or that anyone wants to see.

[00:49:30] Egidijus: Yeah, it’s kind of a when you think about it, it’s totally crazy just really turning upside down all the thinking and. Yeah. Um, okay. Ryan. So we will be wrapping up our conversation and I have four questions that I usually ask, uh, my guests to to finalize.

[00:49:54] Ryan: Okay.

[00:49:55] Egidijus: So, uh, question number one is about, uh, you know, your proudest career moments.

[00:50:02] Ryan: Proudest career moment. I mean, right now, it’s it’s Alva, for sure. And just even the honor of being the CEO of Nuevatel and the buying from the company. So where I’m at currently right now is, is for sure the biggest achievement. Just our family sticking to our guns for seven plus years. And really, you know, there was a lot of challenges in the middle. I’m giving all the rosy, easy to do stuff. But I mean, like any other path like this, it was a hard road traveled for sure. So the resilience of that and to get to where I’m talking to you here today for me is just, uh, you know, it’s not something that I envisioned in this process, but I’m very happy that we’re here. So today, when what we’re doing.

[00:50:51] Ryan: Now, for sure.

[00:50:52] Egidijus: Yeah. Yeah. I hope that you will still talk with us, like, ten years from now.

[00:50:58] Ryan: Well, I hope so too. No, of course, of course. I don’t.

[00:51:02] Ryan: You never forget who helped you on the way up. So.

[00:51:06] Egidijus: Um, the the second piece is, uh, not everything goes great. You know, in your career, sometimes you have some, uh, failures or hard lessons. Could you share some of yours?

[00:51:23] Ryan: Hard lessons. Um, so what I in my saying is I call them got F t-shirts, so t shirts and and I have a collection. I mean, we’ve, uh, I’ve had, especially through this process, like many people say, they can help us and steal and, you know, you know, those types of things. So realistically, I mean, one in particular. Um. When we were in Hong Kong, we had an operation in China, and those people really took advantage of what we were able to achieve in such a way with them. And luckily, we were enough, you know, to get to the point where we can recuperate most of what we had. But that was, uh, you know, learn. And that, to me is where I learned the cultural differences. Because I was young, it was I was early in my career. I was it was about 16 years ago or so. Um, and just the, the importance to understand the cultural aspects and, and how they do business and where they do business and the those types of things was very important. And then that’s why when I went to Bolivia, that that two years for me were were crucial of learning that aspect, because that’s what I was really trying to get a hold of to how to do business in, in that territory. So but that was based off of a very bad experience in China. So.

[00:52:54] Egidijus: Well, you learned, you know.

[00:52:55] Ryan: Yeah. No, you have to. And that’s why I call it t shirts. Like, the goal is to never wear the t shirt twice. You know what I mean? So I have it, I remember it. I don’t dwell on it. You know, it’s kind of like the envision is I put it in in the closet and it’s off to the side. I don’t really see it, but I know enough to remember not to wear that t shirt again. So that’s where that’s why I call it that. So like if people are in the office, they go, Ryan, I hope this isn’t another t shirt. So that’s kind of like a little saying around here around the office and stuff like that. It’s like, or I tell them, hey, don’t make this another t shirt for me. So let’s make sure we’re checking this and doing this properly. So. So yeah.

[00:53:32] Egidijus: Okay. Then kind of listening to you, uh, kind of obviously there’s a lot of inspiration, uh, to be a better entrepreneur. Um, Wha what would be your advice for learning sources? You know, for people who wants to grow? Uh, and, uh, kind of basically achieve more?

[00:53:58] Ryan: Um, first is, listen, I mean, you can’t you can’t learn anything or do anything without listening. Um, I’ve been extremely lucky to not just have my father and my grandfather, but the people my father put me in front of to to be mentored by. Um, you know, various, you know, it’s it it was from everywhere. Lawyers, accountants, just different things. Like, it’s just really listening to what’s happening. And and a good entrepreneur takes that, that, that what they listen to and adapts that to the opportunity that they see that maybe no one else sees. And and then secondly, it’s it’s constant learning. I mean, I’m never one to think I know it all. I’m constantly reading various, you know, leadership books or just papers. I mean, even your guys’s publication. I took that back with me from Congress, and I’ve been penciling that in Mark. I mean, even though I am a very, very, you know, customer value management is extremely important to me. And I feel like I’m a very good person at that. I’m still going to listen and read other insights and, and catch something I might have missed that I can utilize somewhere. So for me, it’s the the only way that you can that you can get better is listening. If you don’t listen, you’re never going to hear, and you’re never going to be able to visualize an opportunity to take advantage of as an entrepreneur. So it has to be listening, learning, reading, listening. You know, it doesn’t matter if it’s your ear or your eyeballs, but that is for sure the most critical element for me.

[00:55:38] Egidijus: And the last question will go for you as a marketer, you know, so we have we have this mission of making customer value management field famous, because this is kind of a pretty known area. What would be your advice? How can we make it more famous?

[00:55:57] Ryan: Um. I mean, realistically, I kind of what you’re doing now because now that I’ve met you and I’ve kind of gone down your rabbit hole of the various podcasts that you’ve done and things like that, I mean, that’s that that is what’s important to really getting those ideas put across is, is getting getting various people communicating to them, getting them. Because now that I’m aware of it, my team’s aware of it. And, you know, now they’re looking into it and then and the, you know, word of mouth at the end of the day is going to be, I would say, the biggest aspect, um, because it’s kind of hard marketing, you know, your brand and marketing, what you guys are trying to do. It’s kind of similar to like you’re doing it. So you have business cases of people that you’ve talked to, people that you’ve helped. And and that’s what is going to build that momentum necessary to do so. Um, but I would the only thing I would probably recommend more is a on on the social media aspect is very big. And that’s something where, you know, we do a lot of it with interns and getting like people who have a very creative, uh, background.

[00:57:12] Ryan: Not maybe not even customer value management, but just artists. We get a lot of artists and things like that that that have never been in the cell phone industry, and we bring them in to really just do different things to attract that, that new user base, um, that we never really would have any other way to really attack that. I would say that would be something I would, I would recommend just from the little bit of research that I’ve been doing to make sure I was a good interview. I mean, for me, it was more about about. About not being like a dud interview type of a thing. So, um, so yeah, that’s all I would say. It wasn’t so easy for me to find that, um, so I would I would have that because it’s organic and it’s free. I mean, that’s where it’s that’s the that’s the beauty of it. And a lot of times, too, it’s, uh, employees inside the office that probably they do it on the side as a business. So that could be something that they can kind of attack and do.

[00:58:09] Egidijus: Okay. So, uh, thank you, Ryan. It was a super inspiring, uh, super interesting. And I hope that many telecoms will follow your path.

[00:58:19] Ryan: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity. And I look forward to the next the next podcast I really do.

[00:58:26] Exacaster: CVM Stories is produced by Exacaster. We help companies take their customer value management to the next level. To stay updated on our latest episodes, subscribe to the podcast or sign up for an email newsletter at exacaster.com/cvmstories