Dan Baker Founder & CEO of Valatam Helps Entrepreneurs To Save Time Enabling Them to Drive Their Business by Finding The Right Talent
Interviewed by Christine M. Cornwell . Co-Interviewed by Madi Burke
“These days most businesses have repetitive, time-consuming tasks which can be done on a laptop or phone, so we can help pretty much any business.”
Dan Baker . Founder & CEO . The University of Sheffield
https://valatam.com/
Call 1 917-231-8797 email: service@valatam.com
Social Media
LinkedIn: https://ve.linkedin.com/company/valatam
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/valatam/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Valatam/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/valatamva?lang=en
City or Region for business: National
Valatam. Avila Park Tower (Floor 17) Francisco Miranda Avenue. Caracas DC 1060. Venezuela
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Q: Give us a brief overview of the type of service or specialties your business provides/offers? How does your company and vision differentiate from other companies?
Valatam stands for Virtual Assistance Latin America. We're a remote team of VAs (Virtual Assistants) comprised of bilingual college graduates from Venezuela's best universities. On the client side we help US businesses to save time and money through the outsourcing of parts of their operations to our remote team members. On the employment side we provide hard-working professionals in struggling economies with well-paid, remote jobs in exciting US startups.
Our main differentiator is how we leverage global labor arbitrage. Since we support companies with the online parts of their businesses, our hiring process is not tied by geographical boundaries. We can hire in regions where the currencies and work force are under-valued, such as Venezuela. We're able to pay salaries several times the average in the countries where we hire, while at the same time billing our clients 50-80% less than a regular internal hire.
“Finding the right talent helps entrepreneurs to save time, enabling them to work on their business, rather than in it.” Dan Baker. Founder. CEO. Valatam
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Q: What inspired you to start your own business?
Prior to starting Valatam I already had a background in outsourcing/training remote teams in Asia with my previous employer. One summer I went on vacation to Venezuela to visit the world's tallest waterfall, Angel Falls, which is deep in the Venezuelan Amazon. I stuck around in the capital city of Caracas for a while and couldn't help but notice the lack of suitable work opportunities compared to the abundance of local talent; intelligent college graduates who spoke several languages.
I'd been having some issues with the time zone difference between my teams in Asia and the US clients, as well as the 'culture gap'. There I was in Venezuela, in the Eastern Time Zone, surrounded by a similar culture to the US, and loads of highly educated English speakers looking for work. After that trip, I quit my corporate job and launched Valatam in 2016.
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Q: Who is your ideal client?
These days most businesses have repetitive, time-consuming tasks which can be done on a laptop or phone, so we can help pretty much any business. Ideal clients are often in SaaS or tech, since they're almost 100% online we can help them with everything. We also help a lot of clients in the areas of e-commerce, digital marketing, social media, insurance, recruiting agencies, realtors, consultants and coaches. More recently, we've been expanding our network of developers and IT talent so software development companies are a great match for us too.
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Valatam stands for Virtual Assistance Latin America. We're a remote team of VAs (Virtual Assistants) comprised of bilingual college graduates from Venezuela's best universities. On the client side we help US businesses to save time and money through the outsourcing of parts of their operations to our remote team members. On the employment side we provide hard-working professionals in struggling economies with well-paid, remote jobs in exciting US startups.
Q: What do you think is the biggest issue for entrepreneurs and businesses owners as they are growing their company? And how can Valatam help solve this challenge?
I think time management is the biggest issue entrepreneurs are facing right now. As an entrepreneur or a startup founder you're expected not only to know how to grow all the parts of your business, but also to have the time to execute. That just isn't possible without the right help. Finding the right talent is easy when you have plenty of investor funding to spend on salaries, but when you're still trying to bootstrap your growth, things are a lot more complicated.
Finding the right talent helps entrepreneurs to save time, enabling them to work on their business, rather than in it. Finding the right overseas talent enables them to do the above but in a more efficient, cost-effective way and without the secondary costs and commitments that a local hiring process inevitably involves. That being said, finding the right overseas talent and managing them effectively from afar is no easy feat. That's where Valatam can help.
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Q: What is the most important lesson you’ve learned in your career to date?
"win-win outcomes are sustainable outcomes". This is how we operate all our client and employee relationships at Valatam. When all parties are happy with the conditions, projects flourish and can last indefinitely.
Q: What keeps you up at night?
Processes and SOPs. I love developing processes and creating Standard Operating Processes to make our operations smoother, and with time I've become quite obsessive about them! When you're in a high growth phase, small changes in processes have a multiplier effect. I often can't stop thinking about the finer details of our processes and if we've set them up so that they're easily repeatable and scalable.
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WE DIVE DEEP INTO THOUGHT PROVOKING SELF REFLECTION, WHILE FOCUSING ON THE MAIN AREAS OF OUR LIFE THAT TRULY FUEL US FOR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, INCLUDING FOOD, PHYSICAL MOVEMENT, RELATIONSHIPS, PURPOSE/CAREER, SPIRITUALITY.
Q: What motivates and drives you to make an impact?
So, there's two things I absolutely love about what we do. I guess the first reflects my entrepreneurial character while the second reflects my enjoyment in working with, and developing, people.
The first is getting to work with such a diverse range of clients and learning about all of their businesses. I think a classical feature (and sometimes a flaw?) of the entrepreneur mindset is that we have so many ideas that it's often hard to concentrate on just one of them. However, I don't have that problem with Valatam because every week we're setting up fresh projects to help new and different startups.
The second is the feel-good factor when I do final interviews for a candidate and see that they have an amazing profile/experience, but that they've been really undervalued in their previous job (speaking both in terms of remuneration and appreciation). I get to tell them how privileged we'd be to have them join our team and they learn that the salary is several times higher than what they were earning in their previous - those are really good moments.
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Q: How do you maintain a work/life balance? What is your advice for your clients to help them maintain their work/life balance?
Short answer: I don't! Longer answer: My advice is definitely to delegate as much as you can, which frees up your time. But if you're anything like me, you just use that extra time to dive head first into another area of your business that you hadn't had time to focus on before!
That being said, I love to travel and that helps me to keep a balance. I usually work long hours for several months at a time but make sure to reward myself at least twice per year by taking an extended trip of anything from 2-8 weeks, and only working a few hours per day while I'm away.
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Valatam provides Virtual Assistants for entrepreneurs, professionals & small teams.
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