Lessons after 30 years

Hi, I am Jaime, CTO and co-founder of PayMongo, a Philippine-based payment company.

Heads up! This is the first article that I am going to write. Recently, I decided to challenge myself to improve my writing skills. I write code as a software engineer but I am not good at expressing myself through writing. If I wrote something unclear, please let me know and I will do my best to explain myself.

Last December 2020, I turned 30. This is a long-overdue article and I decided to finish it now.

I want to share the different lessons I learned from my 30 years of existence. I learned these lessons both the easy and the hard way and I am hoping to inspire at least one person from reading this article. If you find this boring or doesn’t make sense, please let me know so I can improve next time.

In life

• I live a simple life. I believe that life is simple but we insist on making it complicated.
• If you want to make a difference in this world, pay it forward. You cannot change the world but you can change the world of one person.
• If you used to play games before, play games even if you’re old. It will make you feel young again.
• Don’t be afraid to fail. Life is short. Don’t wait until you cannot do something that you want to do because you don’t have the energy, time or money.
• You cannot please everyone. If you’re going to please every person that you know, you’ll end up always disappointed or maybe not comfortable doing anything at all.
• Always take the high road whatever situation that you are in.
• Don’t burn bridges. You’ll never know when you’ll need a friend again.

In business

As of this writing, I am the CTO and co-founder of PayMongo with 12 years of work experience in eight different companies. PayMongo is my first rodeo running a business with my three co-founders: Francis Plaza, Luis Sia and Edwin Lacierda.

• The best co-founders to scout are the people who you think you can go through thick and thin with. Running a business is hard. There will be some issues or quirks that you will experience along the way. Your co-founders also have their own strengths and weaknesses, and that’s okay. It all boils down to how you resolve issues and how you get along.

To my co-founders, I would like to use this opportunity to say thank you for giving me the trust as a co-founder. I also apologize for our misunderstandings. I look forward to achieve more great things with you guys.

• Start a business that you love. If you love what you’re doing, you can endure a lot of things even if you encounter big issues along the way.
• When you hire people, choose those people who will work with you because they believe in your vision and not because of the salary only. These people will believe in you until the end.

To Jam, Alex, Ced, Kevin and Cris (PayMongo pioneers), thank you so much for believing in us even if we were running out of cash at that time.

• Another lesson on hiring is to hire for attitude over skills. Skills can be easily learned but attitude is hard to fix.
• Focus on your customers, the rest are just distractions. Build something that people want.
• “I don’t have enough time/money/people/experience” — Stop whining. Less is a good thing. Having limited resources will make you creative.
  Here’s a snippet from Jason Fried and DHH’s book Rework: “Ever seen the weapons prisoners make out of soap or a spoon? They make do with what they’ve got. Now we’re not saying that you should shank somebody — get creative and you will be amazed at what you can make with just a little.”
• A company is like your product and your employees are your customers. Pay attention to your people. When a person feels that they are listened to, it increases their self-worth.
• Test your assumptions. The best way to be sure about something is to test it immediately. Don’t waste months overthinking your solution.
• Ideas are cheap and everywhere. The real deal is how well you execute.
• Launch now! Once your product does what it needs to do, get it out there.

In career

• Read a lot of books. Books have the power to transport us to new worlds and different times and also learn from other people’s experiences.
• Always stay hungry learning new things. Try to learn a lot of things at once. You might be able to use it someday.
• Health is more important than work. If you think that your body is suffering because of work, have a break, have a kit-kat. Kidding! Take a break.
• If you’re a manager, always remember that a successful organization is built of layers of people that are glued together with managers. Each layer is responsible for a certain task. Between each layer is a manager whose job is to translate from one layer to the next…in both directions. You should know what your employees want and you should properly explain what you want them to do.
• There is no such thing as a busy person. It’s all about priorities and time management. Use a time management framework that will work for you and sort out things that you have to do every day. Don’t complete everything in one day. Not everything is urgent. Always remember that.
• Work-life balance. Some people don’t understand what it is. It is simple, don’t work beyond the office hours or on a weekend. Your work will never end. After office hours, use your time for your family, your friends or yourself. Call or chat with your loved ones once in a while if you’re away. If you cannot fit everything you want to do within 40 hours per week, you need to get better at picking what to do, not work longer hours.
• Action speaks louder than words. If you’re planning to do something, just do it. You don’t need to brag about it. Let your work speak for yourself.
• As a manager who handles 20+ people in the company: I found that trust and teamwork are two important pillars in managing a team. I have a lot of things to say about being a good manager. If you want me to write about it next time, let me know.

If you learned something about this article, I would like to hear about it.