The vacation he couldn’t return home from: A Venezuelan CEO’s inspiring journey to growth hacking success (Brains Byte Back podcast)

In this episode of Brains Byte Back, Gerardo Sandoval shares his inspiring journey from learning to code as a young boy in his native country of Venezuela to becoming the CEO and founder of Facil Cloud, a Miami-based company focused on providing private cloud solutions for businesses worldwide. As we celebrate Latin Heritage Month, Gerardo’s story serves as a powerful example of the contributions of Latin individuals in tech and innovation.

Gerardo begins the podcast by sharing that he was recently diagnosed with Aspergers, which has given him clarity in terms of his learning and communication style growing up. As a child he discovered his passion for tech after accessing a computer for the first time in a friend’s home. That distinct moment carved his way to teaching computer skills in his community as a teenager, recognizing a gap in access to technology education. At just 16, with the support of his father, he launched his first startup, a computer lab where he taught people how to use computers, a rare skill in South America at the time. His early start in teaching and leadership, combined with his passion for technology, laid the foundation for his later successes

He opens up about a day that changed the course of his family’s life forever—one that is reflective of what many Venezuelans have had to endure in the last few decades. While on a family trip to Disneyland in Florida over 10 years ago, Gerardo was informed that government officials had forced the closure of his web hosting company at the time and was advised by his lawyer not to return. 

His journey highlights the importance of resilience, especially after political unrest in Venezuela forced him to seek refuge in the U.S., where he continued to build a new business from scratch. His experience laid the foundation for his later successes, including multiple startups and serving clients in over 20 countries. 

Much of his success in scaling businesses stems from his expertise in growth hacking, a method that allows him to effectively create bridges between what companies want and what customers desire. Gerardo explains that growth hacking is the use of data-driven techniques to optimize customer acquisition and retention, often through clever incentives, that leverage the reward centers of our brains. However, according to Gerardo, it’s no longer the best-kept secret, which was once received for big-name tech companies. He also touches on how AI is accelerating the growth hacking process by automating tasks like ad creation, allowing companies to test marketing strategies faster and more efficiently.

You can listen to the full episode below, or on Spotify, Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Breaker,, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Overcast, Listen Notes, PodBean, and Radio Public.

Find out more about Gerardo Sandoval here.

Find out more about Facil Cloud here.

Connect with Brains Byte Back host Erick Espinosa here.

TRANSCRIPT

Gerardo Sandoval  

My name is Gerardo Sandoval. I’m the CEO and founder of Facial Cloud. Lately, we focus on private cloud because we found out that something we connect a lot with privacy, and because the situation happened to my prior company is that privacy is a really big concern for a lot of companies in South America, and we’re creating private clouds for them to in some way, being sovereign of their own data and not use public cloud. 

Erick Espinosa  

Amazing. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Brains Byte Back. What it sounds like is very niche. This is a great opportunity to pick your brain, because from what I understand, you’re kind of a veteran in the world of startups. You founded several successful startups with clients in more than 20 different countries, which is very, very impressive.

Gerardo Sandoval  

Thank you.

Erick Espinosa  

But I want to dive in first a little bit about your come up story, because I feel like it, you know, paints a picture of the success of different people from different backgrounds. And from what I understand you at a very young age, I think around 14, 16, is when you kind of started in your own venture. Can you talk to us a little bit about your background leading up to you becoming the CEO or the founder of Facill Cloud?

Gerardo Sandoval  

Okay, that’s amazing question. Do you know that’s a evolving question. Every time I go back to my childhood. And, you know, two years ago, I just got informed about I was a Asperger child, and I really knew it. 

Erick Espinosa  

As in autism, 

Gerardo Sandoval  

Yeah, I mean the spectrum, and I didn’t knew it. My whole life think that I was, I was a little bit weird. I didn’t know why. Now everything is so clear for me because I learned to code at 11 years old by myself with a book with no computer. It was a I guess why? Nobody know, noticed something weird that child my I asked my mom, and she says, You were like all day long, writing and quiet. You know didn’t yell. You behaved really well and that’s how I ended up in tech. It was like something like I saw the first computer on my friend’s house. I was, oh my God, that’s a computer, a real computer. It’s not in a bank, it’s not in a big company, it’s in a person’s house. It was like, Oh my God, I want to know more. And the first thing she said, if you want to touch it, you have to learn coding. And I was like, Oh my God, for sure. Let me learn code. And she borrowed me a book, and I came back two weeks later, I’m done with the book, I’m ready to start coding. And that was like my first experience with tech and at this time, I thought, I was going to be a doctor. And that’s how my professional career started. I started studying to be a doctor. And then something happened in my life. I got to move from the city to another city. There’s no university for medical school. And I was like okay, I have to choose something else. And then my dad says, why not to try this thing you liked. The computer, the computer sciences. Maybe. I don’t know, this is my hobby. I don’t want to make it a career, and that’s how I ended up being in tech. I founded a computer labs, which I was, my first startup. I was, like, 16 years old, and I said that people want needs to learn about how to use the computer and nobody in my city is giving this, you know, knowledge to anyone. We have to start. And I borrow, like, 50k from my dad, and I bought some computers, and I started my first training facility of creating computer labs. Then I figured out that, you know, I have the, my first marketing lesson of market cap, you know, I I got limited by the my surrounding marketing, and says, Okay, it’s time to shut down. And that’s like the early, beginning of starting and finishing a business at my early age of 16 to 17 years old.

Speaker 1  

But you started early in learning how to manage people, how to teach them at a very young age, which not a lot of people do.

Gerardo Sandoval  

And you know at this time, one of the most valuable thing is that taking people’s money, for me was like, I didn’t know what’s the value of what I was giving to them. Because at this time, we’re talking about a lot of years ago, knowing the software of a computer was like a dark magic. Word X, PowerPoint, you know those. It was like not everyone knew it. And being in South America, it was like a more like dark magic, and bringing people from any social class to learn about computers, to educate themselves, it was a beautiful process, because, that’s where I started learning how to teach other people. And I guess this is, like, one of my superpowers, that I know how to teach people complex stuff. 

Erick Espinosa  

I guess, in Latin America, what you’re saying, they had, like, a different approach to what computers were during that time? Would you say it’s kind of similar to, like, I guess, the next progression, which is like, AI?

Gerardo Sandoval  

Think about, you know, your parents and AI,

Erick Espinosa  

They don’t understand it. They’re still trying to.

Gerardo Sandoval  

How is this happening? How is it someone else, in general…someone overseas, responding to my questions? No, it’s just artificial intelligence. How this machine is knowing so much things I can ask everything. Yeah, I give them a paid account to my dad of GPT, and he was like, Oh, my God, that’s not real life. Now it’s his best friend. Now, every time he has a question, I invite him to ask to chat GPT, and let’s see what came up.

Erick Espinosa  

I think a lot of us had that same reaction at the beginning. We’re like, what is this? This is incredible! But, our parents are kind of still there in that mentality, right? 

Gerardo Sandoval  

They started to use and, you know, my dad is using it a lot, and unexpectedly, I just did it like a like a social experiment. And, you know, try it. And he started, like, having deep conversations with AI. And now, you know, he’s having fun. At least he’s having fun.

Erick Espinosa  

So let’s go back to how you actually, I imagine, because you ended up leaving Venezuela. You ended up in…you were mentioning to me, before the we started the record, that you were in Orlando.

Gerardo Sandoval  

Yeah. You know, it’s funny because everything started with my wife, yelling at home in December 2013, “I want to take the kids to  the parks in Orlando, to Disney”, and stop fighting. Buy the ticket. That’s it. No worries. And she bought the tickets for March 4, 2014. Okay, that’s far, but just do it. And we arrived to Miami airport. I drove to Orlando. When I reached the hotel at the next day, I found out, like I had like 300…at this time, everything was Blackberry, and I figured out when I got into the Wi Fi, I got like, 500 missed calls and messages. It was crazy. What’s what’s going on? And I call, I text my CFO, what’s going on? Just oh, we have national guard at the office today, and they asked us to shut down everything. Everything, like every light in the in the office should be shut it down. I thought they were thinking about the servers. At this time I had a company called Iguana Hosting, and this Iguana Hosting was like a like, the Go Daddy in Venezuela. We hosted like 30% of market share down there at this time. And, you know, that’s how my life in America started. You know, I turned into a political refugee. And then, okay, it took me, like, four years to to cry for my old business, and said, Okay, I have to do something else

Erick Espinosa  

That was a pain. Yeah, I can imagine receiving that call. 

Gerardo Sandoval  

I thought it was nothing. I says, come on. You know, I told, I told my CFO, relax. I mean, I’m on vacations, give me a couple of days and leave, please. And then when I talk with my lawyer on Monday, he  says, Hey, bro, that’s something weird here, because, it looks like they really want you to come here and be present. I thought they want you and you shouldn’t come back for little while. Little while is now 10 years.

Erick Espinosa  

You stayed a lot longer than you anticipated. That was a very long vacation.

Gerardo Sandoval  

It was a really long vacation. It wasn’t a vacation from day one, you know. I was in the park, you know, crying with my kids. I was, Oh, my God, that’s real life. You know, I have my whole life business shut down right now, and I have to be present for my kids to go to Disney Land.

Erick Espinosa  

It’s a story that I feel is very similar for a lot of Venezuelans, because, you know, they’re everywhere in the world now, right? They were forced to leave, not really by choice. But at the end of the day now, you’ve developed a successful company in Miami. You’re helping other companies grow. And really, I guess a lot of what you learned, I was say in the 1990s maybe?

Gerardo Sandoval  

The beginning of the 2000 

Erick Espinosa  

Where you were learning this concept of growth hacking. That, for me is, I recently just learned about this. I was digging into it a little bit more. I was mentioning to you that I saw some articles really in like 2022 but just this year, there’s a lot more about growth hacking, and that’s really how you help your companies, find success. Can you talk to us a little bit about what it is exactly? I know it’s very complicated in a way, because it’s a lot of different facets.

Gerardo Sandoval  

It’s not. The problem is that is not, you know, this is like the best keep secret of the tech companies at the beginning. They don’t want you to know they’re growth hacking anything, but it’s like, for me that simplify is like, what do you want as a business, what the customer want? And try to build a bridge. Usually it’s a software bridge, or it’s a process, but because you want everyone wins. You want the customer wins. You want the business wins. One of the most famous use cases of growth hacking is Dropbox, the cloud storage company. They grow like 100 times in a year and a half, something.

Erick Espinosa

And I guess the king of growth hacking, Sean Ellis? He spearheaded that.

Gerardo Sandoval 

He was a head of implementation of real hacking, and that’s where, like, oh, that’s where the real word came up. Like, oh, he’s using growth hacking. And what they did is, like, okay, Dropbox was a startup with a lot of storage servers, but wanting to have more customers. And the customers, they want cloud space to try it out. So the bridge they made is like, okay, every time you bring a new friend, I’m going to give you two extra megabytes of space. So everyone was like, inviting people, inviting people, everyone that came in by more and that process is now called a loop. A growth loop. And that’s like the name, the new name for this other other companies, like Google, Facebook, they’ve been using grow hacking. They changed the name because they don’t want to say they’re using the same methodology of Sean Ellis. Probably they don’t want to pay him. But then at the end, is he free the word let you, you know that not everything is about money. Because at this time, Dropbox, the cost acquisition of a new trial was like 80 bucks. So they needed a million users. So they needed $80 million dollars. So it’s like a okay, they have to have a bunch of money and that’s how they overcome that. They knew hard drive for them was cheaper because they’re buying wholesale. So the perceived value of space on the cloud this time was expensive. So people want it. It is like connecting this magic from what people want. How can I trade this? What you want for more clients? Because everyone knows in this social world, at this time, wasn’t like social stuff wasn’t like the thing. But I would say everyone has a way to communicate with each other online. Let’s call it social media. Let’s call it a platform. Whatever you use, you know, other people online, and if you like something, you can recommend something because you like it, and you’re going to get a reward. And think about how our brain works. You know, our brain works based on reward. We have a reward centered inside our body. So that’s how it’s like, find a reward. And that’s simple. It sounds like it’s not, you know? The implementation is it the tough park. To being like, okay, this is my business. How can I growth hacking my business?

Erick Espinosa  

Would you say Amazon kind uses it? Now that I’m thinking about this, because I use Amazon, but one of the main things about me using it is that I see the comments that people leave on a product, and that’s what drives me, mainl. Because a company could say anything about their product, about their service, right? They’re going to try to sell it to you. But at the end of the day, I take it like from the horse’s mouth. The people that are using this product. What’s their experience like? That would drive me more in terms of wanting to purchase the product? Does it fall under that category? Maybe?

Gerardo Sandoval  

It is everything you do. Think about this, for example, something kind of new, like Tiktok shops, for example, okay. They charge a percentage of everyone selling stuff on the Tiktok shops. But if you’re buying for first time, they’re giving you money, and as a store seller, because you’re bringing value to the community. So people perceive, I’m buying this 30% off of the price of Amazon. But in reality, what is happening is that they’re paying, they’re they’re letting go their commissions for the product and give them some kickback to the store so they can sell for cheaper. So everyone wins. The new user perceived value of, Oh, I’m getting a huge discount on Tiktok shop. And the sales, the store is selling, and it’s not losing any money, extra. It’s getting rewarded for selling on Tiktok. So is that connected the bridge? 

Erick Espinosa

Yeah, but it’s also, I imagine investing in the experience, the first experience, first with the customer. You’re basically, you want to paint this picture with the customer in order for them to come back, right? And their first experience is, what kind of draws this image of what they think of the company.

Gerardo Sandoval

Growth hacking has something called North Star metrics. Is like, Oh, this is, this is what you choose. You choose to okay, I want to be the best first impression. I want to be amazing. I want to perceive me not cheap, but value. That’s your metrics, and that’s around those metrics you want to bring more users. And the magic is like everything is measurable. If not measurable, that you have to build, find a way to measure it, and that’s where sometimes it becomes, like a little bit dark magic. But usually, because we’re in tech, you know, everything is mostly it’s measurable, unless, like, oh, how do you feel? Okay, I like the product, but two weeks later, maybe I don’t like this product. So, that’s the hard part, but at the end, you have to find those North Stars metrics. Create those bridges between what the customer want and what the business want, and trade the thing you have the most for the thing you want the most. And that’s like, all the leverage you have to move. And that’s why I say it is not complicated. Consulting guys, people around this area make it complicated. Now, you see, oh, everyone is doing it. It’s everywhere, but no one is saying it. They are not telling you, I’m  growth hacking my my shopping cart. No, they’re doing every day for you. They they have more and more data so they can bring you in a superior experience. Because they want more five star reviews. So more people buy the same product you bought. It’s like a compound interest on business.

Erick Espinosa  

Gerardo, you’ve kind of been doing the growth hacking thing for for many years now. How has AI really changed the approach in growth hacking in the last couple of years?

Gerardo Sandoval  

I love it, you know, because remember that AI is going to help us on those things that you have to do, on repeat, repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat. You know in the core, growth hacking requires a lot of AB testing, AB testing, AB testing. And AI will help to do creative faster. Better, really good creatives. Right now, it’s not like five years ago or 20 years ago when Google try help you to create an ad from HTML. That was really, really unsuccessful. Right now, there’s a lot of platform that just, I want to add for for roofing company, and I want to say this and this, and boom. There’s an ad. There’s no designer required. So what does it mean? You can try angles faster. Because I got this angle. I want this message, and I try, and I see how it works. The process of grinding the AB testing is going to be streamlined, and I love it, because it’s not going to be stuck in, oh, I don’t feel motivated to do an ad today. I suffered a lot with deciding, because some days they don’t, they’re humans, and they’re not in their mojo to create an amazing ad. I’m not saying that they will replace the designers, but to try angles is good. And then when you have the angle proved, you move it to a designer says, Hey, we really prove this angle. I like the green background, the women with the blue eyes and jumping that way is working. Could you do something better? Because I know they can do better. But the angle was already tried. The more testing you do, the faster iteration, the faster, the better results you are going to get. And that’s the key. Is that the companies who test more, they’re going to get more results. Period.

Erick Espinosa  

Because they have more data right to tell a story as well,

Gerardo Sandoval  

The same story in different ways. Because there are infinite ways to show the same story. Infinite ways. So at the end, you want to get the one who connect the best with your audience. Talking about marketing side, of course. 

Erick Espinosa  

But it also takes you having to know a little bit of everything, right? Because you have to know about the product development, marketing. In your case, you know computer science and little tidbits.

Gerardo Sandoval  

That’s the hard part, because usually who decides to work in this area is not a marketing person. Why? Because someday they get tired of the marketeers. Because I’m tired of marketeer because take too long, and I decide to, okay, I got to learn something about it. Growth hacking is more for developers and data scientists than for marketers. And okay, that sounds like my way, data way. And it’s not like spaghetti on the wall. Like, let’s see what works. Oh, let’s assume that my main audience is women with that age, and when you see the data, it’s totally different. So now we go straight to the data. Don’t lose any minute of your life, if not banked on data. 

Erick Espinosa  

So this kind of leads up to my next question. What advice would you give to young people out there that are considering growth hacking as a career?

Gerardo Sandoval  

Okay, that’s a good question,

Erick Espinosa  

Because, how did you start? 

Gerardo Sandoval  

I started because I didn’t find the marketeer that I wanted to work with because they were like, too, you know, fluffy, too magical. It was like, how do you say that? No, it’s because I did my study based on the behavior of the users. But you have the data of the users. No, I don’t have it. I make questions to 100 people and they, that’s what the the the focus group, told me. Focus group is like ages back. Right now we have cohort, real time data. We have, you know, identity graph. We’re in a whole different world then the old marketing guys. I will say, it could be a software developer who likes marketing, like me. I’m a software developer that likes the idea of communicating in the right way for an audience. I guess that came from my childhood wound of being having hard time communicating, and I wanted to communicate. But from my mouth, like it came only ones and zeros. So I wanted to create, like a bridge between, I want to communicate, but I want to back all my decisions on numbers, and that’s not marketing. The old school marketing is this base of our decisions on thought, not on data. And I will say, Okay, if you like coding, if you like data, you’re not afraid of huge Excel sheet and now you’re friend of AI, and you know how to make proper questions and is so easy to understand data. So from that data you can understand now, you can make more accurate decisions in marketing, aka, they let’s say growth hacking. 

Erick Espinosa  

Because there could be somebody out there listening to this and not be aware that this is a possible career choice down the line. And it’s exciting

Gerardo Sandoval  

I guess data is, is it wouldn’t say it’s not the new, it is the actual goal. Because a cookieless society is coming. So first party data, the data you own, that you created your customers, is that maybe the only thing we’re going to have as a business in the future. Now we have third party data that those audiences on Facebook. When you run ads on meta and says, Oh, this is a mom and parent between 40 and…that’s BS. After iOS 12, they don’t know who they are, because 95% of people opt out of being tracked. I opt out of being tracked. I don’t know. I guess maybe my father, they opt in for being tracked…

Erick Espinosa  

Maybe the older demographic, right? 

Gerardo Sandoval  

But something that everyone is every day being more connected, is with their privacy. They are tired of being tracked. So what happened huge platforms like Meta, Google. I would say Meta is one of the ones who are getting the tough position because they have have social media. They know how you behave with an ad. They know that you saw an ad. But they really don’t know who you are unless you set the information on the profile. They don’t know if you have kids. Maybe based on the contextual, you know who could be that person. But companies like Google, they know how they know because they have your mail. They have your loggin for every platform.

Erick Espinosa  

They know who you’re communicating with, what demographic…

Gerardo Sandoval  

Their family link, so they know, if you have kids, how old your kids. They know you. They know you better. And that’s how Google is being able to stay in the market after those huge companies coming. Because they own the data. You know, people said, Okay, search, maybe it’s going to die. Search the way we used to. Remember when you used to search. One year ago, you search, you research, you find the top 10 locations. You try to scrape the data, the organic results, not all the ads. And then you go to those websites and you see what’s value for you there. Right now. You don’t need it. You make a question….it was a great move from Google, because if not, they’re going to disappear really soon. Now they respond from AI. They make the homework for you.

Erick Espinosa  

That’s my next topic. That’s my next episode. I’m really interested in the way that they’re doing that, because it’s the evolution of searches, basically.

Gerardo Sandoval  

Search is going to disappear the way we, you know…if you think  back the SEO, 20 years of work of SEO, that’s going to disappear from one day. It’s like worse than penguin.

Erick Espinosa  

We have to adjust. It’s what’s to come. We have to adjust. Gerardo, If anybody’s interested in learning more about growth hacking, maybe getting in touch with your company. What’s the best way in doing that?

Gerardo Sandoval  

Add me on LinkedIn, slash Gerardo Sandoval, Facial Cloud, and you’re gonna take to my to my profile. You’re gonna see a sane guy meditating. That’s me. 

Erick Espinosa  

I’m gonna include that link below. Thank you, Gerardo, I really appreciate your insight and sharing your knowledge. We hope to have you join us again in the near future, maybe for another topic. It was great to learn more about about growth hacking from your perspective

Gerardo Sandoval  

Amazing, Erick. I love it. I love it. I love your vibe.

Disclosure: This article mentions a client of an Espacio portfolio company.