Today we sit with Roberto Ibarra, co-founder and CTO of Expediente Azul. Roberto shares how he transitioned from a software development company to building a product-focused business, driven by the need to solve a specific problem in the financial sector. Expediente Azul streamlines the loan onboarding process by automating the collection and verification of documents and data. As the platform evolves, it focuses on extracting data directly from reliable sources and creating documentation from that data. The ultimate vision is to create a digital marketplace for lenders to share opportunities and data, fostering trust and speeding up loan processes globally. As Expediente Azul gained traction and more customers, the team realized that the real value lay not in the documents themselves, but in the data they contained. Financial institutions didn’t want the documents; they wanted the data for analysis. This realization led to a shift in focus from gathering documents to extracting and utilizing the data within them. The platform began integrating with third-party tools that connected to tax authorities’ databases, allowing for the extraction of accurate and up-to-date income data directly from the source. This eliminated the need for customers to provide physical or scanned copies of their tax records. Instead, the platform automatically retrieved the necessary data, ensuring its accuracy and reducing the risk of fraud If your company is looking to scale its AI initiatives, head over to Tesoro AI (www.tesoroai.com). We are experts in AI strategy, staff augmentation, and AI product development. Founder Bio: Roberto Carlos Ibarra Rabadán entered the world of computing over 25 years ago assembling and selling personal computers. He went on to start a software development services company called Innox, being the 9th company in Mexico with a CMMI 4 quality rating (military/medical grade) with over 70 employees which was sold in 2013. Later, Roberto developed various apps with millions of downloads, two of them nominated the best in the world during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. During his sabbatical year, Roberto created the podcast Vidaentrepeneur.com where he interviewed over 290 Latin American inspiring entrepreneurs. Today he is the founder of the Fintech company Expediente Azul or Blue File in English, a software platform that simplifies the document-gathering process for large loans and other KYC processes currently operating in Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Perú, the Caribbean, and South East Asia. Roberto was educated by the Tec de Monterrey, IPADE Business School, Harvard, and Oxford and was nominated by CNN as one of Mexico’s 30 promises as well as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Time Stamps: 03:07 Introduction and background of Roberto Ibarra 05:37 Transition from software development to a product Company 08:14 Finding a Problem worth solving 13:55 Scaling loan brokerage business with automation 18:07 Product evolution from document gathering to data sharing 26:27 Countries Expediente Azul operating today 27:46 Bringing in the right talent to build the initial version 30:38 Investing in sales over tech 33:32 The importance of thinking beyond the happy path 37:04 Building a lean and efficient tech team 42:02 Building a multilingual platform 44:23 Funding journey and resourcefulness 49:21 How to get in contact with the Expediente Azul team Resources Company website: https://bluefile.expedienteazul.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/xpazul/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/xpAzul] Twitter: https://twitter.com/AzulExpediente Email: ribarra@expedienteazul.com