Week 28 - Call Brad, YOLO, and Carpe Diem!

And while we were walking and chatting, it kind of hit me: When I'm older, will I even remember my day-to-day things at FinKratt? Or would I rather remember the awesome weekend in Rhodes and holding hands and laughing with my girlfriend in London on a summer rainy day?

As I promised in my latest article, I decided to start drafting weekly/biweekly articles to share my current startup journey. If you didn't read my last article, no worries. Here's a tweet-length summary by ChatGPT:

I finally started my blog on Week 27 of 2024 to share my journey as an entrepreneur with FinKratt. It's been tough emotionally, not financially. Despite setbacks and envy, I have support from loved ones. I aim to write weekly or biweekly as we strive to launch our MVP and reduce paycheck-to-paycheck living. Stay tuned for more updates.        

Yeah, ChatGPT sounds too fake sometimes, but it still does the trick.

The birth of Call Brad!

Now, you may wonder how this past week has been. To be honest, after my latest article, I had some long conversations with my girlfriend about how I was doing. Her thorough advice led me to create a safety net in case things went slower with FinKratt . That's how I came up with a new endeavour named " Call Brad ".

You might not know that before becoming a crazy entrepreneur myself, I was building a career in privacy (probably still am considering that we're building FinKratt by following privacy-by-design principles). In fact, I followed the semi-traditional path of studying a Master's and then getting into privacy-related positions. This led me to become a legal and privacy lead in a couple of startups in Estonia before jumping to FinKratt.

Why "Call Brad"?

So, why "Call Brad" if my name isn’t Brad? And no, I'm not changing my name to Brad (imagine 'Brad Vergara'!). I’d be bullied forever with such a name.

The name came from a trip to Vienna with my girlfriend, where we visited the Albertina Museum and saw Roy Lichtenstein's work. After seeing "The Drowning Girl," the name just clicked. Privacy compliance work is straightforward, and lawyers often overcomplicate it. Trust me, if your lawyer says the GDPR prohibits something without offering a workaround, they probably don’t know privacy.

Anyway, rant over. So now you know that apart from FinKratt, I’ve started a consulting business called "Call Brad". Next time you need privacy help, drop me a message. My prices are much more affordable than most competitors.

A Journey Back to International Law in Rhodes

Now, getting back to last week, apart from launching my solopreneur business, my dear-old childhood friend Ralph invited me to celebrate his birthday in Rhodes. I flew there from Tallinn and stayed five days on the island.

Ralph was doing a summer course at the Rhodes Academy of Oceans Law and Policy, so it was not all party for either of us. I joined him in his lectures while I kept working on FinKratt. During these lectures, I met a bunch of super interesting people from all over the world, all super enthusiastic about international law, which was my focus before leaving everything behind in Chile and coming to Europe. I had some great conversations and made a lot of new LinkedIn connections, which was awesome!

Chatting with these people made me think about how my life might have been if I had pursued a career in international law and entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Chile, for example. In all honesty, there are moments when I wonder if I would have been happier or more fulfilled in that role instead of taking the leap and moving abroad to start working in Customer Support. It's one of those 'what if' scenarios that make you reflect on the choices you've made and the paths you didn't take.

Anyway, Ralph had invited some other friends to celebrate with him during the weekend (my other dear friend María Gabriela Vásquez Moncayo (She/Her) among them), so the weekend was a blast. We had a super nice time, and of course, I preached FinKratt to all of them (in fact, I think we might do super well in Cyprus after chatting with a new Cypriot friend).

Reflections from London

I spent the whole day traveling from Rhodes to London yesterday, where I met my girlfriend (she came here for work). I could barely work that day and started feeling quite anxious about not working over the weekend, and almost nothing on Monday. Of course, this is not the right approach for a startup under a tight schedule to launch an MVP, so I was just panicking.

Now, it was getting kind of late and there was nothing to do any longer, so we just decided to go out for a walk and have dinner, and we just chatted about life (plus my trip to Rhodes and about Trump and JD Vance).

And while we were walking and chatting, it kind of hit me: When I'm older, will I even remember my day-to-day things at FinKratt? Or would I rather remember the awesome weekend in Rhodes and holding hands and laughing with my girlfriend in London on a summer rainy day?

This reminded me of a cheesy song I love from Cody Johnson which reads as follows:

"If you got a chance, take it
Take it while you got a chance
If you got a dream, chase it
'Cause a dream won't chase you back
If you're gonna love somebody
Hold 'em as long and as strong and as close as you can
'Til you can't"        

So yeah, YOLO and carpe diem, guys! This is the approach I've been missing in my life these past few months, and I plan to follow it more closely from now on.

PS: A Note on the Cats

If you’re curious about the cats in the picture, they were a family hanging out at the Acropolis of Lindos. It was over 36 degrees, and they didn't care—they were just napping and living the day. I’d like to be a cat in my next life.