[HN Gopher] Launch HN: Ontop (YC W21) - Easily hire and pay remo...
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Launch HN: Ontop (YC W21) - Easily hire and pay remote workers in
LATAM
Hi YC! We are Santiago Aparicio, Julian Torres and Jaime Abella and
we are from Colombia. We are building Ontop (www.ontop.ai) to help
companies do remote hiring and payouts, all the way from contract
creation, to compliance documentation and easy money transfers.
COVID-19 has taught us all that remote works. Our bet is that
companies in the US and Europe will start hiring more people in
LATAM because talent is increasing in quality at a fraction of
price compared to what they can get elsewhere. Paying people in
LATAM requires local knowledge to get the level of speed and
compliance that workers need to get their money on time. We are
building a solution so companies hiring in LATAM have to do less
paperwork, can easily be compliant and disperse payments to
different countries in a single place. In our previous startup
Fitpal (multi gym membership in LATAM) we experienced the pain
behind signing contracts, collecting documents and sending money to
different countries. We had to pay hundreds of gyms in LATAM and
were frustrated by the amount of time we spent doing administrative
work, when we should have been thinking on how to hack our way to
growth. We handle all paperwork, compliance and payments so
onboarding new people is really easy. And most importantly,
everything done legally, by the book, so that companies are always
due diligence proof. Our solution is tailored for LATAM
guaranteeing the best speed and compliance in the market. We want
to hear your thoughts on our solution. We value feedback and case
uses that you might have. Email us at founders@ontop.ai and we will
personally give you a demo.
Author : juliantorresgo
Score : 71 points
Date : 2021-02-18 12:58 UTC (10 hours ago)
| rizpanjwani wrote:
| >because talent is increasing in quality at a fraction of price
| compared
|
| Funny that this didn't get much discussion than I thought this
| would. Would this mean that developers living in high-priced
| areas in North America would just need govt assistance since
| their salary would not be able to meet cost of living?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Would this mean that developers living in high-priced areas
| in North America would just need govt assistance since their
| salary would not be able to meet cost of living?
|
| What do you think is fueling the high cost of living where
| developers are concentrated in North America?
| satyrnein wrote:
| No, if the market wage fell below the cost of living in SF, the
| developers would have to move out. Just like every other
| profession.
| rizpanjwani wrote:
| So if the market wage fell below the cost of living
| everywhere in US and Canada, then we would all move out to
| latin america or any other country with a lower cost of
| living, thereby a lower standard of living. Got it.
| EthanHalf wrote:
| Love it!
| maldini94 wrote:
| Congratulations on your launch!
|
| I'm curious about the trend of choosing .ai domains. Is this to
| signal state of the art technology is being used?
|
| Which part does AI play in your infrastructure/service?
|
| Thanks!
| whoisjuan wrote:
| As the world keeps moving full remote this type of hiring
| middleware makes a lot of sense, but I have reservations for the
| trajectory of this model.
|
| First, yes, companies in US/Canada and Europe will look for
| different regions (including LATAM) to source their talent needs.
| And I do believe that many companies will rely on middleware like
| this to handle contract and payments. It's great that you're
| setting up yourselves to be the leader of this model in Latam.
|
| The problem I see is that your successful trajectory only makes
| sense to me if you guys handle dozens of contracts for a single
| operator a time. Meaning having something like 500 companies with
| ten or more remote Latam employees each.
|
| Now, as an agent you have extraordinarily little leverage for
| retention. You generate all the contracts and boilerplate, and
| handle payments. But once a business has set certain employee
| footprint in a region, what will prevent them from cutting you
| off?
|
| The way I see it, your path to success looks like having hundreds
| of companies that just need an employee or two per country, but
| that sounds like an incredibly intense operational overhead.
| Maybe that's how you have been thinking about it and have ideas
| for addressing this at scale with technology, idk.
|
| In general, it seems that there are two potential paths, but one
| will be harder than the other one. One with long-term
| relationships which means more recurring revenue and a more
| predictable financial horizon. The other one is with short-term
| relationships (short-lived contracts, low footprint, small labor)
| and that path is more convoluted and with a less clear trajectory
| towards profitability.
|
| This is of course a problem that all the companies operating on
| this model need to figure out. Not only you.
|
| The other problem I see is with a foundational thought of your
| business: "quality at a fraction of price compared to what they
| can get elsewhere."
|
| I would thread lightly with that. It almost seems like you're
| saying: "feel free to exploit the already undervalued and
| underpaid talent of Latam. We will make it easier"... My concern
| is that you're setting up your brand to have the same reputation
| as companies like Cognizant, Infosys and TATA. Yes, you could be
| generating value for stakeholders but at the expense of
| facilitating the exploitation of Latam professionals.
|
| I would hope that this model doesn't become an alternative to the
| H1-B fiasco that was pervasive in the US. As a US immigrant that
| had an H1-B visa I will always remember those companies as the
| worst type of companies because they exploited Indian tech
| workers for years to the detriment of other immigrants like me
| that had to compete for the same visas.
|
| Not saying that's what you're doing, but words matter so I would
| re-evaluate how you talk about the value you bring.
|
| P.S: Also, as a fellow Colombian and Technologist please know
| that I'm rooting for you. One word of advice regarding HN
| etiquette. Please don't have other team members commenting as
| random commenters. It looks disingenuous.
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Thank you very much for the valuable feedback. Noted. You have
| some strong arguments and points that we will definitely
| consider in our model. Much appreciated.
| whoisjuan wrote:
| No problem! As I said, rooting for you since this is a much-
| needed actor especially with acceleration of remote work.
| EthanHalf wrote:
| How do we check it out?
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| email us and we can give you a demo. founders@ontop.ai and you
| can check out our page www.ontop.ai. Cheers!
| baristaGeek wrote:
| Way to go OnTop! I'm a huge fan of your podcast btw.
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Thank you very much!! Hope we're adding value!
| klaudioz wrote:
| LATAM engineers should try to immigrate to the US instead to
| working remote. The same owner of Ontop is saying that they are
| getting just 33% of the salary they'd get in the US. Venausa
| (https://www.venausa.net) is giving a coaching in Spanish to get
| a job in the US in less than one year averaging 90.000 USD
| annually for LATAM engineers.
| f00zz wrote:
| [deleted]
| klaudioz wrote:
| Living in the south of Brazil ?
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Cost of living in latam is very low compared to the US and
| exchange rates almost multiply your purchasing power by 4.
| elindbe3 wrote:
| _Should_ is the wrong word. I think what you mean is it would
| benefit them financially to immigrate. Some people may not want
| to leave family in their home country and others may simply not
| want to live in the US.
| notdang wrote:
| 90k USD in USA and 40k USD in LATAM is a huge difference not in
| favour of USA
| klaudioz wrote:
| That's just an average. I'm doing 130K now. I'm from Chile
| and the cost of life difference between Santiago and Utah is
| practically zero, earning 6x. Obviously is more difficult to
| do it having a family with kids, that the visas can cover the
| family as well. Giving a English education to your kids can
| be the best gift you can do them.
| thegginthesky wrote:
| I would recommend the opposite. I lived in a LATAM country and
| I earned a modest USD salary but my quality of life was much
| better than now, when I receive the "33% more" and live in the
| US. This is because:
|
| - USD is always high, so currency conversion is very favorable.
| I literally earned 4x more than an engineer at the same
| position in a local big company.
|
| - My spending was in local currency, so utilities and most of
| everything is very low priced compared to what I earned.
|
| - Taxation in many LATAM countries is about 15% or less,
| depending on how you incorporate yourself.
|
| - Health is much cheaper than of the US at a similar quality. I
| could have a major heart surgery for less than 10k USD with
| world renowned doctors.
|
| - Migrating is never easy, cultural barriers, lack of family
| support and bureaucracy can add a huge amount of stress.
|
| edit: some minor grammar mistakes
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| I was sort of passing by Bogota a few years ago and got a job
| for BairesDev... It was 2,500 US a month kind of job... I
| guess thats peanuts in the US but it was quite a bit for my
| needs in Bogota, rent included near Calle 85 (which I miss
| like hell!)... Super secure as well... never had a problem in
| Bogota... LATAM is the best, I must say.
| klaudioz wrote:
| Tell me about security living there ... ?
| thegginthesky wrote:
| Where I lived had a very low crime rate, similar to where I
| live right now.
|
| The US has many parts where crime is much worse, such as
| Baltimore, Detroit or some parts of Chicago.
| klaudioz wrote:
| yeah, that bad US places are not offering jobs for
| software engineers usually.
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| You don't have to worry about security. Glad to invite you
| down here so you can change your perspective! Cheers.
| notdang wrote:
| LATAM is big and in a lot of countries it's a valid
| concern.
|
| Source: living for 10 years in LATAM
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Excellent comment! Agree 100%. Thank you
| obiefernandez wrote:
| Check out my story of relocating to Mexico nearly 4 years
| ago. Everything you say here is true, and more...
| https://obie.medium.com/you-should-relocate-to-
| mexico-598743...
| practicalpants wrote:
| How do you all deal with permanent establishment? Especially with
| renewed focus in BEPS and all that... e.g. substantive work as
| employee or agent in another country means proportional corp
| taxes
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| We offer a standard handling of contractor agreements, in which
| our database knows exactly what the regulation for each country
| is, and what the corresponding gross up has to be in order for
| the contractor to net the desired income. We assist contractors
| in their tax residence, to optimize their payouts to
| government, while keeping everything 100% compliant so the
| company is not as risk. Whenever regulations get too complex
| for independent contractos in a country, we offer plug and
| play, which is an outsourcing of the contractor, and Ontop
| hires them.
| practicalpants wrote:
| > we offer plug and play, which is an outsourcing of the
| contractor, and Ontop hires them
|
| Would just be careful, if the client is still the economic
| employer that's still a PE trigger, under countries that
| follow OECD model anyways. Idk I just have some concerns with
| these models like Remote, Deel, Skuad, Papaya Global, Oyster,
| etc., in that technically they're likely exposing many of
| their clients to PE risk w/o the client knowing... if you're
| sourcing value from country X, incl employment (direct or
| indirect), country X is going to want you to pay the equiv
| corp tax, generally speaking.
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| You are 100% right. We have agreements with local
| governments and help them out to ensure contractor taxes
| are up do date always and everything is done legally.
| practicalpants wrote:
| Sorry, I won't belabour the point further, but I guess
| the point is the client's _corporate_ tax exposure in the
| country would have to be assessed client-by-client how
| using employee /contractor. At any rate thanks for
| responding and best of luck here.
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| I appreciate your feedback a lot. It's challenging
| comments like these that make us grow. Will study the
| topic more and find a better solution. :). Thank you very
| much.
| loloquhwonedeo wrote:
| "quality at a fraction of price compared to what they can get
| elsewhere." - not sure about this part. I moved from
| $LATAM_COUNTRY to $A_COUNTRY_NORTH_OF_MEXICO precisely because
| given my skill level, compensation was too low and my work too
| undervalued. Remote should leverage the playing field in the
| other direction: expect to be paid as well as you would if you
| lived in a more developed country. Insist on it. Don't undersell
| yourself.
| sdevonoes wrote:
| Agree. In decent remote-first companies the "quality at a
| fraction of price compared to what they can get elsewhere"
| makes no sense at all.
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Average software developer compensation in the US can be
| around 100k to 120k . In latin america you can get excellent
| top tier tech talent for 30k-40k.
| scastillo wrote:
| In my experience you can't get Colombian top developers for
| less than 60k
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Happy to make some introductions and get you that talent.
| Email us!
| loloquhwonedeo wrote:
| Thanks for making my point with actual data :) (to restate:
| if the US pays 100K for this skillset, don't sell yourself
| cheap at 30K. Where you are only matters to local
| companies.)
| cambalache wrote:
| You are the product here, or well, people like the former you
| in theory."Cheap" developers, the American companies win, this
| "innovative" company wins, and the developers get screwed. Do
| you want to work with American companies? Open an US account as
| a person or as an LLC (it is very easy these days) and request
| to be paid there in USD.
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| However opening up an LLC and a bank account is not that
| easy, when you are from latin america, and receiving the
| money in a US bank account implies you have to report to the
| IRS.
| cambalache wrote:
| Opening an LLC as a sole foreign proprietor is very easy.
| Not only that, if you dont physically conduct business in
| the states (as in a developer programming from outside) you
| dont pay any taxes in America (you still have to file of
| course). Getting a bank account is also easy with an
| established LLC, directly with Mercury or indirectly
| through Stripe.
|
| https://www.llcuniversity.com/irs/how-to-apply-for-ein-
| witho...
| scastillo wrote:
| Report to IRS is not a bug is a feature you have to pay
| taxes somewhere and there are plenty of non double taxation
| agreements within the US and Latam.
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Amazing. Thanks for the feedback. With your help we can
| get better.
| complianceowl wrote:
| Excelente lo que estan logrando amigo. Dios los prospere
| en todo lo que estan emprendiendo. Saludos de Chicago.
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Muchas gracias por la buena energia!
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Thank you for your comment. Completely agree.
| 101008 wrote:
| Good luck! My question is... how do you find developers? Most
| LATAM countries tax service exporters a lot of money, that's why
| devs prefer to stay under the radar and use stuff like Payoneer
| or Paypal. What's the advantage, as a dev, to use your service?
| It everything is legal paper-wise I have to pay more taxes.
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| We have special agreements with local governments that are
| interested in exporting technical talent. Even though we are
| not head hunters we can help in that regard. You are right,
| there are a lot of people that just avoid taxes, however this
| is a huge liability for companies and some have already
| realized this. We want to help out both parties to achieve high
| levels of compliance and still have the economic benefit.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| What's the core difference between something like this and
| remote.com?
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Hey! We are better and faster with payments and compliance in
| LATAM. We are also cheaper and have much better customer
| support :)
| langitbiru wrote:
| Congratulations! I'm happy for you.
|
| So we have Ontop for LATAM.
|
| We have Manara (https://manara.tech) for MENA (Middle East and
| North Africa). It's backed by YC as well.
|
| We have Andela (https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/23/connecting-
| african-softwar...) for Africa.
|
| Honorable mentions: Pesto (https://pesto.tech/), Turing
| (https://turing.com/), Youteam
| (https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/23/youteam/).
|
| Now I wonder whether I should make one but for South-East Asia (I
| live there)? :)
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Thank you very much!! Even though we are latam focused we
| currently have clients worldwide and we already serve +150
| countries. Happy to help :)
| methyl wrote:
| There is also Pilot (https://pilot.co) originally for CEE,
| backed by YC as well.
| gabythenerd wrote:
| I had a question about payment but your FAQ answered it, great
| work on being flexible for freelancers, Payoneer makes it a lot
| easier about getting paid in Argentina for example.
|
| A couple of questions: 1- Do you think you will ever integrate
| with remote job boards like remoteok.io? 2- Did you consider
| adding Venezuela to the list of countries, or are things too
| difficult to do legally?
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Hey Gaby. We are working very hard to make our service
| available in Venezuela. Actually we are already working with a
| couple of contractors there. And Argentina is another difficult
| jurisdiction that we are already solving for.
| SigKill9 wrote:
| Amazing! Looking forward to trying you out the next time we're
| hiring :)
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Thank you!! Happy to help you out :)
| whymauri wrote:
| Do you help locate talent in LATAM?
|
| Also, which countries do you cover? I'm assuming Colombia is one
| of them.
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Yes all of latin america. Colombia included. Even though we are
| not a head hunter we have partners and can help you with that
| too.
| whymauri wrote:
| Awesome - great job, guys!
| saparicio89 wrote:
| Amazing! great product
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Rock on!
| mahesh_rm wrote:
| Hello Santiago, Julian, and Jaime. Congratulations on the
| product. How is this different from: https://www.letsdeel.com?
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Thanks! We are born out of LATAM so we have faster payments and
| a better understanding of local regulations.
| mahesh_rm wrote:
| I am sorry to let you down, but I used Deel to pay people in
| Colombia, and it works like a charm.
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Cool! Those guys are great! If you ever need anything from
| us we are at your service.
| nivenkos wrote:
| How do you ensure quality work?
|
| Companies could already use freelancers on other platforms in
| many cases, but the main issue is ensuring the work is completed
| and to a high standard.
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| The company has direct communication with the contractor. The
| contractor has incentives because we don't commission on their
| payment as upwork and other platforms. We have several features
| to submit time sheets and proof of work. Thanks!
| svicaria wrote:
| Awsome! I believe it is an incredible business model, you guys
| are an example to Latin American people
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Thanks!
| csunbird wrote:
| Forgive me for my ignorance but, what is LATAM? Latin America?
| gabythenerd wrote:
| Latin America.
| napolux wrote:
| yes
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Yes. Latin America! :)
| gus_massa wrote:
| At least in Argentina, we use LATAM only for the Chilean
| Airline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LATAM_Chile
|
| PS: In the main text, remember to add https to make the link
| clicky https://www.ontop.ai
| juliantorresgo wrote:
| Yeah, my wife used to work form them hahaha However it is
| standard to refer to latin america as LATAM. great!! Thank
| you very much for the feedback!!
| rhacker wrote:
| I was having a hard time with that too, I found an airlines but
| it soon clicked.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| Short Hand for South and Central American (Mexico can be
| considered in or out of LATAM) and also Caribbean Islands.
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