How to manage the integration area of a fintech?

Introduction

Imagine you are in front of a fintech of online payment, like Paypal (or in Latin America: Mercado Pago), probable you face the issue of helping your customers with the integration of your product. In this article, we’ll give you a summary of what you need to succeed on this tricky task.

I based this article on my experience working on the team of TodoPago and Decidir and doing integrations with Payu, MercadoPago, and Ingenico.

What do I need?

First of all, you need an API. If you have not got this, you should start designing it, after having a first productive version you can continue with the next steps.

The next step is to have a team that takes care of your customers and their integrations of them. Don’t forget to have a team helping you with the API.

What‘ll the Integration Team do?

They should develop plugins for several e-commerce platforms, like Magento, Prestashop, Woocommerce, Vitex, Shopify, and TiendaNube (in Latin America) among others. Those plugins help a lot of your customers save time, money, and effort because they‘ll don’t need to develop an integration from scratch, they‘ll use your plugins. That’ll give you more users!

The Integration Team can help you as well to develop SDKs, there are libraries that you can use on your plugins and you can offer them to your users as well, with this you‘ll help them to integrate to your product easily.

Support

You need a support team for the integrations, plugins, and SDKs, to help your users to solve common problems with this technology. You can give this task to the Integration Team or add some people for the support of general and common issues.

How to maintain the quality and so few issues?

You do make tests (at least integration tests if you have a few resources).

How to improve?

You can add SDKs for more technologies, and more CMSs plugins.

If you add good documentation of your API, SDKs, and plugins you’ll help a lot of your developers and your customer’s programmers.

Into the Wild

I’m watching again “Into the Wild” (2007). The first time I did it by recommendation from Carlos Blanco (a Spanish entrepreneur).

I’m in those situations in which my mindset changed after the first time I watched it. So, my opinion about the movie is 100% different. Now I know I’m watching social engineer stuff: the main character is a guy who hates society and the movie message is: “Civilization is bad, your family is bad, don’t trust in them”.

So… Who should be trusted?

Tasks Delegation

Hey! Do you figure out that you can’t do more tasks? Are you thinking of taking more customers/projects but you can’t because you are full of work? Do you need to fix some issues that you don’t know how to do it?

Check out this article, it was created with a person like you in mind.

Common issues

When you don’t delegate the tasks in a proper way you usually have a lot of issues: tasks done in a way that you didn’t want, poor quality, incomplete projects, ghost contractors, unnecessary costs, etc.

Let’s check out the first one: tasks are done in a different way than you want. It’s really common that the contractors do the task in their way because they are people and they like to do whatever they want, in the deep of their souls they hate receiving orders from another person. Because of that, you need to explain really well the task, if you can give some examples of a correct work and an incorrect one it can help a lot. But the common issue occurs when you think that you give “the best explanation in the whole world” and they fail. This is not your fault, it is more common than you think. Use this bad experience to teach, use this mistake as an example for that contractor or for the next.

A mistake is not a total failure without a solution. Everything has a solution. If a contractor fails, it’s an opportunity to learn, not to get mad or angry.

Common mistakes

The most common mistake is to think that the contractor makes mistakes on purpose. Most professionals want to do the job in the best way, they want to be productive and make you happy with their job, and they want to have a good experience.

You need to have this mindset. With this, you will have really good solutions to help them to do the best job.

Another common mistake is to “fire” or “change” the contractor. If you change a person that really can do the job and he did a lot of mistakes, he is a professional with a lot of experience in your project, so if you fire him you will lose that knowledge, that is learning. If you fire a person you should be 100% sure the person is the problem and he has not got any solution, and you have tried everything you can.

Common solutions

Save photos, videos, or whatever you have about the contractor’s work, to have documentation about common mistakes, and create from the first moment a simple “manual” of the position. Just add their examples and an introduction to the job. It can help a lot with the new ones.

Give a mission: when fair soldiers don’t have any communication with their leaders, they need to act fast, without errors, without asking their mates, so the General give them a general instruction (eg: “check out if there are spies in that hill” or “rescue all the kids from that school full of terrorists”), with this the General forget about having hundreds of questions from their soldiers and they don’t get stuck when they have a “surprise” or something unplanned.

The correct Mindset

I told you before is that a correct mindset is to think that they want to do a good job. You can add this: you should be a teacher and be “the king of the patience” because you will need it.

Dealing with people could be really stressful, and you should be prepared, so, you need to “save energy” and don’t waste 100% of it on another task.

Conclusion

Tasks delegation is really a psychological task: you need tons of patience and teaching skills. It can be really frustrating at the beginning, but these are the first steps to having a successful project.

A typical issue with contractors

How to deal with contractors?

It is really common to deal with contractors in all the different companies in which you’ll work.

Today I want to talk about a specific case. I didn’t think of a name for it, but we can call it “those 2 contractors never will get along well”. I like to talk about this during professional situations, but it can take place during other moments of your life (eg: friendship).

Hey Marcos! What are you talking about? Are you crazy?

Are you saying that 2 contractors can’t be team players? Can’t I have a team with 2 contractors? Our teams are dead?

No, no, no! You didn’t finish reading the article! Please don’t come up with imaginary conclusions.

Then, Marcos, when I shouldn’t introduce 2 contractors?

In my experience I came about with the following situations in which 2 contractors won’t work in a real team:

-When both do the same task in different companies that are competitors because they‘ll try to “sell” more services to you (the client)

-When you have a contractor and you hire another one to take its place and the first one doesn’t want to be replaced

-When both have got the same personality

-When one of them has got a conflicting interest

-When the position needs an individual attitude and the workflow can’t be split into two parts

Don’t follow up the trends when you are “picking out” a career

Why I shouldn’t follow up on the trends?

Working in a profession that is the last trend in the market could sound fantastic: everybody looks up to you and your friends ask around about how is been the new “master of the universe”.

But choosing your career is a very important decision. You need to think in long term and working in the last trend only can be a good choice if you do it in a short term.

My point is that when the trend picks up another career and the market removes all the companies that work on that, your job will die out.

But if the trend created a new industry maybe it will not disappear, probably you will have thousands or maybe millions of people competing with you and what is it means? Over offer.

How can I outlive in an industry that has much more competitors than before?

Perhaps you started out your career a lot of time ago and today it turns into a trend. There are a few tips to be competitive:

-Don’t bid the same value purpose as everybody, try to differentiate (eg: your experience, specialization in technology, or an industry)

-Don’t be a commodity: when you started to feel that you are selling cheap services, it is time to apply the previous tip

-You can create your own company: having your own business gives you a lot more flexibility and you can pass out to another industry when you feel that the first one is not more profitable.

-Turns yourself into a consultor: if you have got a lot of experience in an industry, a product, or a technology you can start giving out advice to other people, or companies.

What do I need to know if I haven’t chosen my career?

Try to don’t pick up a mature industry, it is full of competitors with experience and all the customers will choose them because they have got tens of years in the market.

This doesn’t count if you have got a disruptive idea to reinvent the market, I mean, if you apply the technique of the “blue ocean”, don’t listen to me. But recall that if you will move into the “red ocean” you will not have real success.

The other good possibility is to start in a new industry that has got a few developments.

Conclusion

Following up the trend could be a good idea if you have got strategic thinking that it will have over demand of companies. But you have in mind that if you don’t do it, you will be using a long-term strategy in a short-term career.

How to deal with smart contacts coding for the first time?

What is a smart contract?

It is a piece of code that executes in the blockchain. It is useful when you want to have a decentralized application, for example, to avoid censorship.

How can help me this article?

This short guide is recommended for programmers how want started with smart contracts and wants to do small tests like a ‘Hello world’. You should know a little bit what is a blockchain network, a wallet and a smart contract.

How to start coding?

The first step in a new technology is to create our first “Hello world”. If you would like to do a test you can check this tutorial out (Spanish). You can use the example that it shows on the Remix or clone the same from Github.

How to get eth on a test network?

You can try to use the same network as the video, RInkeby, but it didn’t work for me! Therefore we will use Ropsten.

First, enter to https://faucet.ropsten.be/ and paste your address (which it needs to be from that network)

Second, hold on for a few minutes and you will receive some eth!

Visual Studio Code

Let’s say that you have got the code done with that youtube video example, but it codes all of it in a web IDE! We want to code it in Visual Studio Code!

First of all, you need to install the plug-in “Ethereum Remix”.

Second, you need to install Ganache that it should act as a blockchain to development:

npm install ganache@alpha –global

Third, run it:

ganache

Ready! You’ll see something like the following screenshot, pay attention to the port at the bottom:

Fourth, put the Ganache address in the input box and deploy it:

You are ready to code smart contracts on localhost and develop incredible things on the blockchain!

How do you deal with adversity?

I like this Jordan Belfort’s speech although I dont agree with all of it

In your life, you will have a lot of adversity situations. A lot of times they will break your heart, you will lose a job that sounds great on the first day, you will fail at a business and projects, you will fail subjects in College, and more.

You need use to live with negative situations because they will be “the bread of every day” as we say in Argentina when something is common to happen every day.

My better strategy to don’t fall into a depression in every fail is to use the failure as an engine to boost the perseverance to continue trying to get success.

Did your girlfriend cheat you on your best friend? Date with 10 girls in the same week.

Don’t you like your job? Apply at 20 jobs a week.

Don’t you get along well with your boss? Try to move to another project in your company.

Did you lose money in your investments? Educate yourself.

Homemade investments

Personal investments are a difficult subject full of myths and disinformation. In this article, we will figure the difficult subjects out and explain them in easy words.

How to start?

First, you need to be educated. Choose some easy books from the library and learn about the different markets: stocks, bonds, cryptocurrencies, commodities, etc.

Don’t start with the difficult subjects. First, choose one with a general explanation about investments. Try to understand the general aspects before having a deep knowledge of a specific market.

What market should I choose?

You need to choose a market to invest in. Your choice depends on the type of investor that you are. If you are a conservative one you can choose commodities or bonds, otherwise, if you are a risky person you can choose cryptocurrencies.

I can choose more of one? Yes, and it is a recommendation. For example, if you are a conservative one, you can ponderate your risky investments at 10% or 5% of all your capital in a risky market (for example stocks or cryptocurrencies), and put 90% in a conservative one (eg. bonds).

Psychological part

You need to relax and enjoy your investment. It is not a good deal if you are nervous or anxious about your winning and losses. Therefore is important: the ponderings that you use for risky trades and use them to be exposed to the risk in a proportion that you feel comfortable.

How to deal with English interviews as a software developer

Did you arrange an appointment with a recruiter? First of all, congratulations! This is the first step. In this article you will receive a lot of advice about how to deal with interviews in IT.

Types of interviews

There are a few different interviews. Usually you will have first the Human Resources interview where you will talk about your current and previous experiences, expectations on your next job, but always without any technical detail.

Usually the next one is the technical interview, in which you will talk about specific details from the technology in the job that you are applying for.

You do need to know before the interview what kind it will be. You can just ask the recruiter or better search in Linkedin the profile from the people that are in the appointment. If the person is a programmer, there is a 99% probability that he will ask you technical questions. If he is a team leader or project manager, it will probably be similar to a HR person.

What I should do?

This is a remote interview, but you need to look well as a normal one. Therefore, brush your hair and use a pretty t-shirt or shirt and the most important thing: practice the normal questions that the recruiters ask in that type of interviews, but first of all figure it out if the interview will be a technical one or a HR. If it is a technical one, try to learn the most important things about that technology and ask your friends that use it what questions the recruiters asked them. Maybe it sounds weird: but the companies ask similar questions.

What I shouldn’t do?

Never talk bad about your coworkers, bosses or companies. It sounds rude and they will think that you will do the same to them.

Don’t be nervous: a few times I felt like that and I wasn’t sure if I had been relaxed I would have passed the interviews.

English

In my experience there are a lot of latin american recruiters and that kind of person starts the interview in Spanish and asks you only a few questions in English. But you need to figure out from what country he is from, if he is from Bielorusia, be sure it will be in English.

Top 3 Most common questions to test your English:

Do you have any hobbies?

Can you tell me about the projects that you were working on?

Why are you looking for a new job?

Conclution

You don’t know how the interview will be, but if you study the most common questions, you will be more prepared. You will increase your success rate if you prepare for it.

Don’t end your preparation only with this article, look for others to study better.

Normal people and their personal finances

When we are thinking about normal people (workers, auto-employers or professionals) and their money we have big questions: why don’t they have more money? Why can’t they retire earlier? Why don’t they know anything about how to use money to improve their economic situation and future? All these questions have a common answer: financial education.

Expenses

In accounting all the things that you own are an “asset”, and they count to your richness. But in rich people’s lives, they are “passives”: all the things that don’t give you money are passives and only the things that give you a benefit are assets. For example: your home is an asset or a passive? You have to pay the mortgage and take care of it, that is only one thing: expenses. If you buy a house and rent it and you can earn money from that, it is an asset. The general problem is that the people believe that they are richer when they have more things to show off to their friends.

Debt

In rich people’s heads there are two types of debt: good and bad. The latter is when you take a debt only for fun, for example to buy a new car to impress girls. The former is when that debt helps you to create a new source of income, for example, if you use that car to do deliveries of your business and it increases your sales, it is a good debt.

Savings

This subject is very easy, but it is so easy that most people can’t understand it. Savings are your income minus your expenses. To manage your savings, you need to estimate your monthly expenses and think how much you can save. But, why do I want to save money? That isn’t fun. Do you want to enjoy your life? Well, you need to save money to invest it. That will give you a better life.

Investments

In the financial world there are a lot of possibilities to invest your money and it is very dangerous because all have risks. Therefore you need to investigate a lot before entering an investment.

When you generate incomes from an investment you have 2 types of earnings:

-Capital incomes: it is when you have something and you sell it. For example, if you bought Amazon stocks at $150 and you sell them at $350, you are generating capital incomes.

-Rent incomes: it is when some business or a financial instrument generates your incomes, it can be the sales of your company or the interest of a bond.

Finance education

If you have your own business, it’s time to think about how to grow it, sell more and have a good debt.

If you are a professional, think about the same. You are your own business.

You need to investigate more about your incomes, expenses, debt, savings and investments.

Hi! Are you a recruiter? Read what this Backend Developer thinks about life, business, and job! You'll find a lot of exciting things about Marcos Volpi here!