Venture Everywhere Podcast: Beatriz Acevedo with Anna Barber
Venture Everywhere Podcast: Beatriz Acevedo with Anna Barber
Anna Barber, Partner at M13 and LP in Everywhere Ventures, catches up with Beatriz Acevedo, co-founder and CEO of SUMA Wealth, on Episode 32: Todo SUMA
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Episode 32 of Venture Everywhere is hosted by Anna Barber, Partner at M13, an early-stage venture firm investing in visionary founders building disruptive software businesses. Anna is joined by Beatriz Acevedo, CEO and Co-Founder of SUMA Wealth, a FinTech platform empowering young US Latinos with culturally relevant financial education and services for generational wealth and economic empowerment. Beatriz shared the inspiration behind SUMA Wealth, the trials and triumphs of building a company and the power of pivoting in one's career. Drawing on her media and marketing expertise, she blends philanthropy with entrepreneurship to authentically engage an underserved audience in the financial sector.
In this episode, you will hear:
SUMA Wealth’s focus on community building and social listening before launching products.
The need for bilingual FinTech services to engage Latino youth and connect with their Spanish-speaking family members.
Balancing philanthropy, entrepreneurship, and family legacy while aligning with SUMA's mission.
Identifying key financial needs of the Latino community and cultural relevance in engaging with the target demographic.
Collaboration with Pledge LA to promote tech inclusion, which aligns with SUMA Wealth's mission.
If you liked this episode, please give us a rating wherever you found us. To learn more about our work, visit Everywhere.vc and subscribe to our Founders Everywhere Substack. You can also follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter for regular updates and news.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 Jenny: Hi and welcome to the Everywhere podcast. We're a global community of founders and operators who've come together to support the next generation of builders. So the premise of the podcast is just that, founders interviewing other founders about the trials and tribulations of building a company. Hope you enjoy the episode.
00:00:20 Anna: Hi, I'm Anna Barber. I'm an investing partner at M13 based in Los Angeles. We invest in seed and Series A companies. And I've been a fan, friend and partner of Everywhere Ventures for a long time. And I'm so excited to be here with my friend, Beatriz Acevedo. Over to you to introduce yourself.
00:00:39 Beatriz: Always great to be with you, Anna. Always excited to join you in anything that you are doing. And we've been through a lot of stuff together, not just on the venture side and startup side, but also in our philanthropy efforts that we do in LA. But my name is Beatriz Acevedo. I am a proud immigrant serial entrepreneur.
00:00:59 Beatriz: I'm based in Los Angeles. I made a crazy pivot in my life at 50 to start a FinTech company that we'll talk a little bit more about later. My background's in media, entertainment, marketing. Yeah, and I'm the perfect example that you can totally reinvent yourself and start fresh at any age and excited to be having this chat with you.
00:01:20 Anna: That's so true. And that's such a great theme of this conversation because we are both in our 50s and both have pivoted many times in our careers. So maybe we can get into that a little bit later. But first, let's talk about SUMA Wealth. I am honored to be an investor in SUMA and to have been on this journey with you since really the early days. So SUMA aims to cater to the young US Latino population through a FinTech platform. What inspired the creation, for you, of SUMA Wealth?
00:01:49 Beatriz: I mean, you've definitely been there from the beginning. I mean, you were first and second check, so you know it all. But well, I'll repeat it for everybody else. But, you know, what inspired us was really the pandemic. Looking into our community being not just the hardest hit with deaths, but also economic hardship was a really sobering moment for me.
00:02:11 Beatriz: How is it possible that we are the biggest consumers, yet we have the least amount of emergency savings or money for retirement? And there's a lot of incredible FinTech companies, but just being able to fully speak to this demographic in a way that they were really attracted to or that it was culturally relevant. So for me, it really was born out of that.
00:02:34 Beatriz: Looking into options in the FinTech world saying, Is somebody really doing this at scale with our community and how are we going to make this change? Because, great to be represented in numbers as we are with population growth. But until we have economic power, there is no true power in our community. And the downside to that is not just in a selfish way, because I am a proud Latina, but Latinos are so massive that if Latinos don't do well in this country, it affects every other American.
00:03:05 Beatriz: So I'm super hyper focused on super serving latinos with this company, with SUMA, helping them really build wealth, start building that generational wealth that has never been in our DNA on how to do it. And now it's a really interesting time I think because young Latinos as we know are college educated now, making more money than their parents or grandparents ever imagined they could, but they still have that lack of knowledge and education of how to manage their finances.
00:03:36 Beatriz: And many times, they're tasked with also managing the finances of their older family members. So we want to make sure that we are empowering, supporting, giving the tools and the access to these young Latinos as a way to reach, total market. So we're super, super excited with what we're building, both as incredible potential as a business, but also as the impact that we can make.
00:03:57 Anna: Yeah, it's so interesting because really, SUMA came a lot out of your past experience having launched a media company, Mitú, really speaking to this audience. So it's just an example of, amazing founder market fit and just that you had a particular insight into the market from your experience that no one else was getting.
00:04:15 Anna: And I remember when you first launched and you started getting this incredible traction with the audience for the messaging because you were speaking to people in a way that felt really authentic. And so you started building community around the idea of SUMA just very early on, even a few years ago. I'm curious what you think, the products and services are that this particular audience need that might look different from what else is available on the market?
00:04:43 Beatriz: Yes, that's an amazing question. And sometimes even me as a Latina or our team of all Latinos, you think, oh, we know better, right? Because we're Latinos. And thank God, we have data because we're not always right either. So I'll give you a quick example. When we launched, we thought we were hyper focused on youth, as I said, in a very strategic way because they are the ones who are bringing in their older family members and the ones who need this help.
00:05:09 Beatriz: So we were looking into the different dems, so Gen Z, Millennials, Gen Xers. And Gen Z was super interesting in our own unconscious bias. You and I have Gen Z kids, right? That they are recently in college and I think they should be thinking about college and paying off debt. So our Gen Z is in our community, the number one thing on their mind was not paying off student debt, as many people might think, it was to retire early, right?
00:05:36 Beatriz: And you kind of scratch your head and say, what? You haven't even started working, you want to retire? But that is something that is top of mind for them. Maybe it is because they've seen how their grandparents have to work literally till death to continue to survive. And they're like, how do I start early? How am I not the same as my grandparents and my parents? And just tell me how to do that, even though I'm 18.
00:05:59 Beatriz: But in general, it's not that different from other demographics. So things that they need is, building credit, paying off debt, buying homes. The one shocker was the retiring early from the Gen Zs just because we just had no idea that that was number one thing on their minds. I think something also that's very different in our communities. And there was a very recent study that Adsmobile came out with.
00:06:25 Beatriz: And that the number one concern for Latinos when it comes to finance is having enough money to support their extended family. So that's very interesting because when you talk to white, Black, Asian, that was not number one. It's not that it wasn't present, but for our community, that's a massive point. How am I gonna take care of my aging parents? How am I gonna take care of my aging relatives? Because they had to take care of their own parents.
00:06:53 Beatriz: So this is where this cycle we are hoping to stop it, soon enough, where you don't say for yourself, you end up putting into your parents retirement and your parents did the same. So we're hoping that as we teach the younger generations about financial literacy and arm them with the right products and services for them to start building the wealth early, even if they're really going to be responsible, this is the last generation, hopefully.
00:07:21 Beatriz: Then start investing for your parents too, right? I have friends who started, they would put a hundred dollars for them in their twenties and a hundred dollars for their parents. And now she's in her late fifties and the parents are, Oh, you know, we need care, we have no money and she was like, great, you guys are millionaires. I've been investing for you since my early twenties, cause I knew this moment would come and that's super interesting. And that's something that we want to for sure, really, really focus. How do we support them into doing that?
00:07:50 Beatriz: But then, not that our parents were not responsible, but just being mindful that you start early and then the next generation hopefully is the first time that we can start building that generational wealth and passing down assets to our younger family members versus whatever we built, we have to sort of use it to support our aging parents.
00:08:12 Anna: Yeah, it's so interesting. And I agree with you that it's not about the older generations not having been responsible. It's just a different way of thinking about money. Right? And so it's interesting that you're seeing this challenge sort of as a multi-generational challenge that you don't just have one customer, you essentially have one customer and then all of the family-
00:08:31 Beatriz: And the family.
00:08:31 Anna: ..community and network of that customer.
00:08:34 Beatriz: But that's a good opportunity, right? When you see that, because you think we never come in ones. We come in groups. We're very, very community driven. So that is amazing when you think about ROI because we never have an ROI of one to one. It's always one to many. With our data on our own platform, it's one plus three. So we are getting three additional family members that our main user brings to us.
00:09:02 Beatriz: Now, when we launched, and this might come to a shock to you because I don't know that we even talked about this, but when we launched, I was like, English, English, English, in culture, in culture, in culture. Our demo does not prefer Spanish, they prefer English.
00:09:15 Anna: I remember you saying that. And I remember you saying it was a little bit frustrating that some people in the market, you know, particularly in the venture market, didn't understand that the Latino population here is English speaking.
00:09:27 Beatriz: Yes, but I was wrong. Okay, so I was right as far as to that point, right? Younger, prefer English, they're English tongue, they're US born. All of that is amazing. So in my mind, I thought there are 30,000 FinTechs in the US, and from them, there are probably a dozen that are focused on Latinos. And they're focused on the traditional immigrant, older Spanish dom. So in my mind, I thought I'm going to be super nice and let the other Spanish dom FinTech companies take the Spanish speakers and I will take the 80% of the market that's under 34 that prefers English.
00:10:03 Beatriz: So that's how we split the market. But what's been very interesting is that our young English dominant user continues to ask us, do you have the app in Spanish? Do you have the resources in Spanish? For my mom, for my dad, for my aunt, for my uncle? And when we say, hey, listen, but there's these other platforms that your mom can go to, they're like, no, they're not funny. They're not fun. They're not SUMA.
00:10:29 Beatriz: And we're like, oh my God, we're losing. We call it the Latino youth multiplying effect, right? To bring the other family members. We're losing the multiplying effect. I mean, I'm happy to announce that by the end of this month, which is in two weeks, we're going to have our app in Spanish or resources, but we are catching up, into that.
00:10:46 Beatriz: So yes, we were riding our hypothesis of the youth, but then we're not going to say no to three additional family members, both on the business side and on the impact side. So now you will see our stuff in both languages.
00:11:01 Anna: So you have to be fully bilingual to really capture the opportunity. That’s fascinating.
00:11:05 Beatriz: Yes, absolutely.
00:11:06 Anna: So, you know, when you started, it was really content and education first and then financial products. So what's the big future vision? What's the big far vision that you're building towards and how are you on your way to getting there?
00:11:21 Beatriz: Yeah, we started, as you know, in a very unorthodox way because people are, okay, if you're a FinTech company, what's the product? And we would be like, well, the product is our community. And some people thought, “these people are on drugs.” And some other people thought, These people are brilliant. Thankfully you were on the second camp. Just looking into how it had been challenging for all other FinTechs to really capture our community and scale.
00:11:47 Beatriz: So we couldn't do the exact same thing as everybody was doing. So we thought it's so expensive to do customer acquisition. It's so expensive. Or to really be testing and re-engineering again and doing it. So why don't we just do it the opposite way? Let's ask, let's build a community. With our community, trust is really, really, really important. You know, we come from 33 different countries in Latin America where our parents or grandparents do, where there was a lot of financial trauma.
00:12:15 Beatriz: I vividly remember the day my parents lost absolutely everything they thought they had in US dollars in their bank, in their Mexican bank account. And the president is like, Oh yeah, there's no more dollars in the country.
00:12:25 Anna: Currency devaluations, right? I mean, very traumatic.
00:12:28 Beatriz: Ridiculous, varied or people who never were able to pull out their money from their bank accounts. You know, look at Venezuela at a time or look at, even Argentina. So people have that uncertainty of like, I don't have the trust. So for us, it was important to build the trust, build the community, and then do a lot of social listening and a lot of testing on what is it that they truly need, what is concerning and let that inform our product roadmap.
00:12:56 Beatriz: So we did not launch, product first. So that was definitely something unique, but then we had a really big group of people that we have the data on what they really need and want. And so we did it the opposite way. But the vision is to be that one-stop shop for anything financial, from education to the right products and services, and also the place where people have that trust and the place where people think, this is for me, I'm not an afterthought. This is not just something that's a straight translation from some other company.
00:13:32 Beatriz: So we want to be that one-stop shop. We want you to get the education there, but also know that whatever we recommend is really good for your wealth building journey. We are in the process of becoming a B Corp company. So we wanted to make sure that we were held to really high standards. When it comes to impact, you need to be a for-profit to be a B Corp. So this is not on the nonprofit side, but we wanted to make sure that we were very transparent on…
00:14:01 Beatriz: We want to meet all our revenue goals, obviously, but we want to also at the same time be measuring that impact. So we're excited of where we are now. Now we need to really, we just closed a raise of our seed round.
00:14:13 Anna: Congratulations.
00:14:14 Beatriz: Thank you.
00:14:15 Anna: Very exciting.
00:14:16 Beatriz: Very exciting and not easy, but we got it done. So we're super proud of that. But with that, we need to really boost everything that's our product and our technology. So now we're ready for that step. We've had an MVP for a long time. We know what we need to get done differently. We know what features we want to launch. And we have to be mindful as we do that, to your question, what is it that makes us different from other apps or from other platforms where we know we are those financial caregivers for our older family members. So even in the features that we have in our platform or in our app, we are making sure that that is front and center.
00:14:56 Anna: Yeah, and I think you made a really important insight, which is, a lot of financial services companies offer very similar products. And so how is the audience choosing where to bank, where to get their credit solutions, where to save, where to invest. And it really has more to do with, who is the company that they feel comfortable is really speaking to them? Who do they trust?
00:15:18 Anna: Particularly in this environment where we see banks that we thought were stable kind of failing and the world doesn't feel quite so secure. I think there's a real value to having that trusted partner feeling who really understands you and really speaks to you. So what worries you? What keeps you up at night about the world right now?
00:15:37 Beatriz: About the world or about the company?
00:15:39 Anna: I guess about the business, right?
00:15:41 Beatriz: Yeah. The world would be too much into politics, which we certainly do not want to get into. About the company, I mean, what excites me obviously is everything that we're doing that has all the right signals that it's going to be successful and where we want it to be, both on the financial side, but again, on the impact side as well. So that is great. So that keeps me energized and motivated throughout the day.
00:16:10 Beatriz: At night, what keeps me up is meeting my revenue goal, I guess, any CEO. And I have to be honest, my cap table is incredibly curated by choice. So I feel a massive responsibility to giving incredible returns to my investors. I have so many female investors, investors who were first time fund managers, now impact investors that I'm like, Oh my God, if they do incredible, it means our community did incredible. So I guess it's all tied, but when it's other people's money, I feel that weight on my shoulders all the time. So I would say that massive responsibility that I have.
00:16:51 Anna: Yeah. I definitely recall that from my days as a founder, the immense sense of responsibility when you're building for more than just you. You're building for your customers, but you're also building for your shareholders, and your employees.
00:17:02 Beatriz: Yes.
00:17:03 Anna: All of your different stakeholders.
00:17:04 Beatriz: Of course.
00:17:06 Anna: So that's a big responsibility and also an exciting opportunity that you've been given to create something new in the world that people trusted you to build. And you're clearly the right person for this one.
00:17:16 Beatriz: At least I'm passionate. I work many hours and I'm passionate, for sure.
00:17:21 Anna: Yeah, I mean, I can't imagine who might be better to build the financial solution for this community than you, given your background. I'd love to talk a little bit about your philanthropic work: The Acevedo Foundation and your work with Pledge LA. Could you just share more about what's driving your philanthropic work and also how that might fit together with the SUMA mission?
00:17:42 Beatriz: Yes, yes, yes. So when I was done with my previous startup, not done, my previous startup continues to thrive. And it's interesting because we were signing a deal with them for amplification with SUMA, so it's very much present in my life.
00:17:56 Anna: Oh, how wonderful. So there's a SUMA/Mitú partnership.
00:18:00 Beatriz: Yes. And listen, and they continue to be the largest and most engaged with… this is exact audience that we're partnering. But after that, I just thought, I'm going to be 50, my kids are three years from going to college, it's all going to be philanthropy for me. My dad had just passed away. And my dad ran a family foundation for 30 years in Mexico. And I really wanted to open a chapter in the US. So I had it all planned out before the pandemic, obviously.
00:18:28 Beatriz: So I started it, but then when the pandemic hit and I had this opportunity to build SUMA and you were so instrumental and you're like, you're the right person because I was like, what do I know about FinTech? So you and Samara were incredibly encouraging of me to do this. And I thank you because I enjoy it really every single day. And I'm so happy that this could be my last startup.
00:18:50 Beatriz: But philanthropy has always been in my life. I mean, my parents are very altruistic people, even though they didn't learn that from their parents. They were first in their family to go to college and had to work so many jobs to pay for their college. But at the end, they did well in their careers and they wanted to give it back to the community. My dad actually left absolutely everything after he passed away to this foundation in Mexico.
00:19:14 Beatriz: So I wanted to open this chapter, continue to honor his name and his work and his legacy. But then as I started to think about doing one last startup, I didn't want to not do that philanthropic work. So I've done it, but I had already opened this chapter in the US, started to work with Pledge LA, you both are on that our advisory board, which has been great and wanted to just be more supportive of events and things that I could do in my community, primarily with other entrepreneurs. Access to capital is big, economic empowerment is big for us, and education.
00:19:48 Beatriz: So their honest answer is I do my philanthropy on nights and weekends, but it still ties very, very closely to what we do at SUMA, right? I mean, if you just heard about the pillars that we focus on, SUMA is very tied to that. So on the educational side, everything that we do at SUMA is free and that we do it through grants and some grants that have come from my own foundation. So we have a few bootcamps where we’re in partnership with Arizona State University and we wanted to make sure that education was always free.
00:20:21 Beatriz: So it has a tie in, but there's a few other things that the foundation supports and runs that are outside of SUMA. And one day I hope to be able to do that full time. But not now as SUMA is still in very much startup mode.
00:20:36 Anna: For sure. And luckily, I think those two strands of your life are very complimentary, and you've managed to kind of balance being a philanthropic leader in the LA community with your work at SUMA, which really both have the same theme about economic empowerment.
00:20:51 Beatriz: Yes.
00:20:52 Anna: And the Acevedo Foundation really was the sponsor of the Pledge LA grantmaking program for small businesses. And we've both been involved in this work in Los Angeles with Pledge LA for the past five years. I'm curious how you think we're doing on inclusion in the tech ecosystem, which is really what Pledge LA is about.
00:21:15 Beatriz: Well, we have our report every year, which is encouraging to see. I mean, we're not at parity of where the city is, which obviously for me would be a great goal. We are a majority diverse city. So it would be fantastic if we would get there, or even in just gender parity, it would be great if we were there. We're not there yet, but if we look at those numbers five years ago, then now, sure, they go up and down in the funding. We had COVID.
00:21:41 Beatriz: But slowly but surely I feel there is, more opportunities for sure for founders that have never had an opportunity before, for fund managers. And I think the more that companies prove that this is not some sort of charity that people need to do to fund us or to support us, the more opportunity there'll be, right, to be, okay, this is a real viable company that happens to have a female founder or somebody from an underrepresented background or a first-time fund manager that's different than us.
00:22:13 Beatriz: So I'm encouraged by what I see. I know when I raised capital for Mitú, I rarely saw a female investor, a person of color, one. And it was a very different time. And that was only 10 years ago. So I'm hopeful that we're going to continue to make progress. Have we made progress at the rate that we would all like to see? Not yet, but I don't think we're going fully, fully backwards as when we started at our work.
00:22:42 Anna: Yeah, I agree. I do see progress. It's not as fast as we would like, but I do see it. And I agree with you over the last 10 years, it feels different just in terms of the network and the ecosystem of tech writers looking different. And I think that has an impact also on the founders getting funded looking different. And I think it's gonna be interesting to see, in this time we're going through right now when capital is a little bit constricted, unless readily available because there's lots of data that underestimated founders actually make their dollars go further and generate a greater ROI.
00:23:14 Anna: So it might actually benefit from an environment of capital constraint because they're used to that kind of creativity of having to do more with less. And you're actually a great example of that across both of your companies about really creative capital to kind of drive growth. So you're talking about this, maybe this is your last startup, what is the 10 year personal Beatriz Acevedo vision? Where do you personally want to be in a decade?
00:23:41 Beatriz: In a decade, oh wow, okay. Listen, I want to definitely continue my work supporting my community. I want to be hopefully in a decade, not an angel investor, but maybe have a bigger fund where I can support other….my heart is close to Latina entrepreneurs that I mentor and I write tiny checks to. There was a version of me that I thought, okay, after Mitú, maybe raise a fund, I don't know if that'll change.
00:24:10 Anna: I have never heard that before and I love that vision. That's so exciting.
00:24:14 Beatriz: Oh yeah.
00:24:15 Anna: We're gonna come back to that one offline.
00:24:17 Beatriz: Okay, okay. Yeah, I was definitely tolling with that idea. And then SUMA came about and I'm like, okay, SUMA. But I like that idea and then just continue to grow the foundation, continue to be able to fund bigger projects. Yeah, just be there and be supportive in anything I can do. I mean, I've had incredible privilege and I'm fully aware and grateful for that. I've been at the right place at the right time to get invited to events or to places where decisions are made, to boards, to conferences, so I want to be able to share in that, those connections and that spotlight and to be able to open as many doors as I possibly can.
00:25:01 Beatriz: So when I'm not around anymore, I know there's a strong bench in my community that's ready to go. And I know there's so much talent, it's just a question of having that opportunity. So I would say that would make me very happy, and not that I feel that the end of my life will be in my sixties, but as I prepare to, maybe not work 18 hour days in a decade from now.
00:25:23 Anna: Yeah, I love that idea of sharing your seat at the table and seeing it to kind of share that access with others. So I feel the same way about where I am in my life. And that's a goal that I have now too, is using the position that I have to open doors for other people.
00:25:39 Beatriz: It's great. if you don't do it in an intentional way, it doesn't quite work. You know, there's so much that we still have to push forward as women, as Latinos is, that you have to be intentional. You have to listen, my plus one is somebody that didn't get invited to that event, but it could be transformational if you walk them around that room and make introductions, or if you can't make a panel, recommend somebody else, you know, that you are hoping to advance or decline an interview where you're not the best person to speak at and bring somebody else along, those things go a long way there, they don't take capital.
00:26:14 Beatriz: But in a way, I learned this concept the other day from another founder who said, of course you raise capital quickly because you have so much social capital. And I had never heard of this term before I had, thank you Google. But I thought, oh, wow, that's interesting. I definitely am a person like you that shows up. I show up for my community. I show up as much as I possibly can. I never did it because I'm building social capital. I didn't even understand what that meant.
00:26:41 Beatriz: But at the end of the day, people want to see you win, right? You've been there for them, you've opened those doors. And I think it does, it does help that people want to support you in anything that you are doing. And that is an effect of you showing up and being generous. So I would say definitely I'm grateful for my parents to have instilled in me that being a generous person and showing up for others, that's definitely helped me advance in my career and in my personal life.
00:27:10 Anna: It's interesting and it's almost ironic the way you're stating it because I agree with you and my mindset has always been about being of service. That is kind of my lens, is how to be of service. And when you do that and you do show up consistently and you do try to be of service, you do build this social capital, which is just the byproduct of being that way, in the world. So I thought you put that beautifully. So let's move into the speed round just to wrap up here.
00:27:35 Beatriz: Okay, okay.
00:27:36 Anna: What is a book that you're reading or a book that you've got on your nightstand that you're excited to read?
00:27:41 Beatriz: I am reading a book that I bought a year ago when I met the author at an event that just happened again on Latina History Day. And now it's getting a lot of traction because America Ferrera is going to be directing and producing this movie. But it's called I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.
00:27:59 Anna: Yes, I've read about it.
00:28:00 Beatriz: Yes, yes. So I'm very excited to get through it. I have not, but it's there. So it's waiting for me. But I have one more coming that I'm hoping that Scott and I are going to meet up very soon for tacos outside of Whole Foods in Venice that he told me about, that he wrote The Fuzzy and the Techie. And it just sounds totally perfect for me. It's like why creative types can also run tech companies and be successful. I can't wait. And he also promised me that I'm going to get the Spanish version. So I'm going to review both. So I'm excited about that one as well.
00:28:33 Anna: Amazing. Scott Hartley's book, The Fuzzy and the Techie. You heard it here first.
00:28:37 Beatriz: Exactly.
00:28:38 Anna: If you could live anywhere in the world for one year, where would it be?
00:28:42 Beatriz: Oh, my God. Maybe Italy, I think. I mean, every time I'm in Italy, I'm just, ah, this feels so nice. And I'm always jealous of people who are, I bought a home in Italy. I'm like, what? That sounds incredible. So probably Italy. I mean, I like so many places in the world. It could also be Argentina, Chile, I love, I could live in Chile for a year. London, I lived there when I was young, but I would be happy to be back. But I guess if I had to pick one, it would be Italy.
00:29:07 Anna: Can't go wrong with Italy.
00:29:09 Beatriz: No, the food and the people and you know, I'm already there with, just the level of excitement when people speak and all that stuff. So I think I would fit right in.
00:29:18 Anna: And what's your favorite productivity hack?
00:29:22 Beatriz: Well, I'm a Virgo and I'm a Type A. So I color code everything in my calendar to make sure I have the right blocks of time devoted to all the things that I need to do from meetings, to answering emails back, to giving back, okay, when will I talk to this founder that wants to pick my brain, so I do a lot of that, but I would say the one that I'm doing the most and I'm doing it today is, as you know, I live in LA as you. Traffic is crazy. So I've decided to make the investment into Ubering or Lyfting. I actually use Lyft.
00:29:56 Beatriz: I know there's going to be traffic, it's going to be more than an hour, which means two hours going and coming back, which means I have a lot of time to answer emails or do phone calls. So to not drive myself and get there with some sort of shared drive so I can just be more productive and I don't come home at 10 o'clock at night and start work at that time.
00:30:18 Anna: That is an amazing LA specific productivity hack that I am going to try.
00:30:24 Beatriz: Try it, it's good.
00:30:26 Anna: And just to wrap up, where can listeners get in touch with you? Or where can they follow you?
00:30:31 Beatriz: Well, personally, I think any news of what we're doing at SUMA, what I'm doing with my philanthropic efforts or anything that I'm excited about, my favorite place to post is LinkedIn. So that's an easy place to follow me. I mean, Instagram, I post a lot of pictures more around the food I'm eating and my kids. So if you're interested in seeing me and my son at the Bad Bunny concert, you could definitely try Instagram. But for more professional stuff, I'd say LinkedIn.
00:31:00 Anna: Wonderful. Okay, Beatriz Acevedo, find her, learn more about SUMA Wealth on LinkedIn. Thank you so much for joining me today.
00:31:10 Beatriz: Thank you. Thank you for having me and thank you for all your support from day one, Anna. I'm never forgetting all our phone calls and all your cheering and encouraging me to launch this company.
00:31:23 Anna: It's been an absolute pleasure, enjoy to watch you build it. And I'm so excited for the future.
00:31:28 Beatriz: Thank you so much.
00:31:29 Anna: Thanks. Take care.
00:31:32 Scott Hartley: Thanks for joining us and hope you enjoyed today's episode. For those of you listening, you might also be interested to learn more about Everywhere, where a first-check pre-seed fund that does exactly that, invests everywhere. We're a community of 500 founders and operators, and we've invested in over 250 companies around the globe. Find us at our website, Everywhere.VC, on LinkedIn, and through our regular founder spotlights on Substack. Be sure to subscribe, and we'll catch you on the next episode.