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In Latin America, lack of access to high-quality education contributes to significant inequality, but Henry makes technology training more accessible. Amee Parbhoo talks with Co-Founder Luz Borchardt.
Fintech has the power to build a more inclusive world. Fintech for the People is about the innovators who are developing fintech solutions that reach the people who’ve been left behind. In each episode, we’ll hear from innovators who are creating financial solutions that bring every person the financial tools they need to grow their business, support their family, and build their community. Together, we’ll learn how fintech looks different in spaces and places where basic financial services are a luxury — and how solutions to address these challenges require a different level of creativity, empathy, and execution.
Fintech for the People is an Accion podcast hosted by Amee Parbhoo, Managing Partner of Accion Venture Lab – an early-stage investor in inclusive fintech startups. Learn more about Accion Venture Lab here. Episodes will be released in seasons, on a weekly schedule.
Amee Parbhoo (00:13):
Hello, and thanks for tuning in to our fifth and final episode of this season of FinTech For The People. FinTech For The People has been brought to you by Accion Venture Lab, a global early-stage investor in inclusive fintech startups. As always, I'm your host, Amee Parbhoo.
Amee Parbhoo (00:30):
On this podcast, we've showcased the founders of five fintech companies that are finding new and innovative ways to reach underserved populations. We've learned about their paths to become founders, the types of products that they offer, and the challenges their companies have faced along the way. Last week, we spoke with Jihan Abass, CEO of Lami, about how any business can utilize their API to develop and sell insurance tailored to their customer's needs.
Amee Parbhoo (00:57):
We'll head over to Latin America today and hear from Luz Borchardt, co-founder and Vice President of Marketing at Henry. Henry is expanding access to high quality technical education and improving the long-term earning potential of its students, by offering virtual coding courses for no upfront fee. The company does this by utilizing income share agreements, or ISAs. Welcome to the show, Luz.
Luz Borchardt (01:20):
Thanks for having me.
Amee Parbhoo (01:21):
I'd love to start off by chatting a bit about what led you to building Henry. Could you tell us more about your background and what got you interested in entrepreneurship?
Luz Borchardt (01:30):
Yep. Great. I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I'm the youngest in my family. I have four older brothers. And ever since I have a memory, I'm passionate about building the world and building a better place in this world about education. And, I started my career in the tech area and realized that technology is a vehicle for driving change. And, that's where I thought that, yeah, the only way for working was working in an entrepreneurship and being an entrepreneur and trying to kind of solve different problems of the region, which is Latin America, the region I'm in.
Amee Parbhoo (02:15):
It's great to hear about your path into tech and into entrepreneurship. Maybe you can tell us about what inspired you specifically to start a business in the ed tech space. And maybe you can share a bit more about what Henry does.
Luz Borchardt (02:28):
Great. So, Henry is a remote coding school in Latin America, that invests in people's education. We train software developers for free and help them find a job, in exchange for a share of their future income. And, Henry was founded to challenge the status quo of education in Latin America, and we aim to give access to anyone who's willing to participate in its intense curriculum.
Luz Borchardt (02:55):
We believe that while potentially is evenly distributed across society, opportunity is not. And our mission is to accelerate LATAM's transition to a more equal society, by connecting people with high paying jobs. And what make me enter the ed tech is that, in a region with the highest inequality rates in LATAM, we have eight out of the 10 most unequal countries in the world, we believe that providing access to high quality education is the only way to drive inclusion and social mobility. And, in our model, we have embedded financial services into our education products, to make it accessible to more people. Students enroll in the program at no cost, at zero upfront cost. And, until they've completed the program and secured a job, that's when they start paying back.
Amee Parbhoo (03:49):
I love this mission of Henry's to accelerate, as you said, Latin America's transition to a more equal society, by connecting people to high quality jobs. I'm curious if you could draw the link between that and why technical education in particular, in coding.
Luz Borchardt (04:06):
In Latin America, there is a lack of qualified talent to meet the market demand. This problem also it's worldwide, but there is a skills gap in technology. In 2020, there were more than 1 million tech jobs openings in Latin America, but less than 100K professionals with the training necessary to fill those roles. And, the estimations for 2025 say that there will be more than 10 million new technology jobs in Latin America, such as software development, [claw 00:04:38] data roles, data analysis, machine learning AI, cybersecurity among others. We do not have the people ready to start those roles. That's why we are focusing on tech careers, because we know there is a huge opportunity and there is a huge skills gap in technology, in a region, which is actually with highest inequality rates. So, this could be also an opportunity for people to access to these kind of jobs and have a better life, right?
Amee Parbhoo (05:10):
So what sort of barriers are preventing prospective students from accessing those opportunities? Like you said, there's boom in tech, a lot of jobs out there, but so few qualified people. Why is that?
Luz Borchardt (05:23):
So actually, today, university's degrees are often long and outdated. Like in IT, technology changes very fast and university programs don't keep up with this changes and the current company needs. And also, sometimes it's really expensive to get into these universities and not everybody can access to high quality education. And, that's why in Henry, we have a first level curriculum validated with industry experts. So we designed our curricula with the people who are actually having this job openings, and we teach the most demanded technologies in the market, but also with a zero upfront cost model, giving everyone access and in an online and remote model, which also gives access to everyone, no matter where you are, if you have computer and wifi, can access to the course.
Amee Parbhoo (06:20):
And these are far shorter courses than if you were to go to a university and study, right? Maybe you could speak to exactly how the program's structured.
Luz Borchardt (06:29):
So, we have a full stack web development career, with an online full-time or part-time approach. Students attend classes with instructors and code with people all over in Latin America. We have more than 800 hours of programming, based on real practices and projects. And, our program lasts in between four to five months. So it's an intensive career, and we are also having our part-time format, which is seven months long, which actually is for people who are already working, but want to do a reshifting of their skills and of their career.
Amee Parbhoo (07:10):
Maybe we could turn to those students. I'd love to understand more about what do you look for in the students that you admit? Why are they choosing to pursue a career change in the first place, in your experience? And beyond teaching the necessary technical skills, which are obviously so critical for these jobs, how do you help them achieve that goal?
Luz Borchardt (07:31):
Yeah. So actually, the students choose Henry, because they want a better life quality. They want more freedom in terms of financially speaking. So, you have people looking to join Henry, kind of to make a change, a 180% of its life, and to get into his first job, first formal job in the region, and access to a better quality of life. And then you have students who'd actually choose Henry in order to kind of do a reskilling of their actual skills.
Luz Borchardt (08:03):
And, what we'll look in the students, in our admission process, is their potential in order to learn quickly. So we are actually trying to understand the potential of the people, where right now having 25K leads month, and we try to invest most of them, but also, we have to go through a process of a prep course and a Henry challenge, which is actually a test of basic concepts of JavaScript. So, we actually want to invest in people which they already have some snapshot of what code is and the coding experience that they will have in Henry in order to detect, not only if they're potentially prepared to do Henry, but also if they want to do their career in coding.
Amee Parbhoo (08:52):
So, you have people who are making a complete career change or starting their first career, alongside students who are already in the field and just want to build up their skills?
Luz Borchardt (09:02):
Yeah. We have students which come from completely different [inaudible 00:09:07] backgrounds. We have psychologists and people who are visual designers, engineers also, but from biomedical or mechanical engineers. And then we have people who do not have a professional career, and people who never studied, because they had to go to work from day one. So actually our background is super diverse. The student profile is super diverse. The only thing they have in common is the passion for learning and their passion for having a better quality of life. And they understand that technology is a way, is a path, in order to get and reach their goals.
Amee Parbhoo (09:49):
And just to the other end of the spectrum is, as you think about job placements and the employers that you work with, how does Henry leverage the transition to remote work, to better provide these possible opportunities for its students?
Luz Borchardt (10:04):
Yeah. So, actually, students are landing in jobs which pay on average for X more. So, they're actually, we have 96% of our job placement rates. So from the students that graduate, in the 96%, they get in a job, and they get in a high paying job. So, we try to help these students reach their potential throughout the career. But also, we have a strong focus on the job preparation side, in order to land them these jobs in the more soft possible way. So, our career is super focused, not only into a practical model, in the practical space, but also in a more trying to boost soft skills in order to get into a job and super productive from day one.
Luz Borchardt (11:02):
We are actually speaking with companies 24/7, and understanding which are their needs, how many people they need, so trying to get into those conversations and kind of sourcing candidates of Henry and building a bridge in between [Henries 00:11:19], as we call our students and the company's needs, in order to get them and bring them talent on board, because we know that they're suffering the talent shortage we are having, and we have the people who are prepared to get to those roles. So we are in constant conversation and working together shoulder by shoulder and super mission-driven in that sense, in order for the students to have their first job in technology.
Amee Parbhoo (11:49):
And that feedback came back, in our diligence, even when we were first looking to invest in Henry, and we talked to some of your employer partners. They all said that the technical skills of Henries were fantastic, but it was also the softer skills, the clear training around working in a group and managing time and things like that, that becomes so critical, especially in a remote work setting these days. And so I'm curious, what's the remote work? Why is it that LATAM in particular is so well-positioned to capitalize on this trend?
Luz Borchardt (12:25):
Yeah, because actually we're in the same time zone, so that is super highly valuable for them. Also, Henries and most of the cases speak fluent English. And also, the most valuable things by companies in the USA is that, they can hire people at a third of the cost. Right? So, hiring a software engineer in the US, like a junior software engineer, it's much more expensive than hiring someone in LATAM, right? And it's a win-win, for the Henry or for the people which is in LATAM, because earning in dollars in regions where we have local currencies, is one of the biggest things that somebody can aim for. So, I think that these three main characteristics of our business makes super attractive our candidates for US companies.
Amee Parbhoo (13:18):
And many are saying we're in the midst of this great reshuffle, where lots of employees are sort of reconsidering career paths and taking advantage of the hot job market. And I think you're seeing that among your Henries as well. What are you seeing, and what advice would you have for startup founders and companies out there, how they can better attract and retain developers?
Luz Borchardt (13:42):
Yeah. That's a great question. I think that the way to attract developers is not only thinking about the benefits behind the salary, but also the possibility of having a great work life balance and being part of companies which are rewriting the future, in terms of being super impactful, so mission-driven companies. I think, that today, not only developers, but also people in the technical areas are also looking for belonging to companies, which really strong missions. I think, to retain this kind of employees, it's super important to have a really clear mission, to try to make a positive impact in the world and obviously working with a work life balance and, if you're a remote company, with great remote best practices and in a friendly environment with a really nice culture.
Luz Borchardt (14:46):
It's a really big set of things, but I think that companies must make a shift into this path, because it's the only way, not only to retain talent, but also, in my opinion, to grow and become a [unicorn 00:14:59]. So, yeah, I think that it's a set of things, but super based, not only in the salary and in the attraction of the economic offer, but also in all the things that come around that, right?
Amee Parbhoo (15:11):
Absolutely. It's a full package there. That's critical. And maybe taking a step back, actually, what sort of company partners, employer partners, does Henry work with? And, have those relationships changed any over time?
Luz Borchardt (15:25):
So, we actually work with partners, which are really different. I mean, we work from startups, which already hired us two Henries, but startups all through Latin America and all over Europe and the US, but also working with big companies and unicorns all over the globe. So, we worked with big companies, such as JP Morgan, Accenture, [foreign language 00:15:51] which are big companies and also startups, which are giving their first steps. And this didn't change over time. We are actually trying to understand, obviously, which is the sweet spot, or where is the place where we have more demand in terms of companies. But the thing is, that as everyone is looking for talent, actually everyone is coming to us.
Luz Borchardt (16:16):
And then it's a question of the student, where they want to work. So, what we do is that we develop the partnership in terms of, sometimes we ask the startup founders to come to the community and to give talks and how to work on a start up in technology. And then big companies, big firms coming to Henry also to give this kind of talks, for the students, not only to learn the technical skills, but also start understanding how it is to work in a big firm. So actually, today, our partners come from super diverse backgrounds and in different sizes, all company sizes, and also super diverse industries. We have from fintech to agritech to really, really, really diverse backgrounds.
Amee Parbhoo (17:04):
Which is, I'm sure, incredibly exciting for your students to have that kind of mix of employers to be thinking about, as they finish up your courses. Henry is clearly evolving every day, as you are onboarding more students, building new employer partnerships, launching in new countries. You're now attracting students in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, and expanding the products. So what's next on the roadmap? And, Luz, how do you think about the kind of long-term vision for Henry?
Luz Borchardt (17:32):
Yeah. So, we want to get to every corner of Latin America with our mission. We want to solve the educational problem in Latin America. We want a more equal society. So, I see Henry, not only growing in terms of different markets all over Latin America, but also in terms of different products and careers. So we want to reach every tech career, which has a demand, so releasing different programs. We actually have, right now, the full stack development career, but we are thinking in releasing different careers, which have this high demand. And yeah, we want to be where the demand is and trying to help people to reach their potential and companies to meet their demand in terms of the technical skills they need, so building this bridge.
Luz Borchardt (18:27):
And, also, this is a personal objective, inside Henry, I want kind of to build this more inclusive environment in companies, so attracting more women into the space. I have a vision that it's the products of today and the future have to be built by everyone. Everyone has to be represented at the table and at the discussion when designing a product. So yeah, working on removing barriers and stereotypes and fostering an inclusive community, that's kind of a personal goal. And to kind of bring opportunities for every women in Latin America to find a different path in technology and boost their potential.
Amee Parbhoo (19:13):
And you're off to a great start on that. Maybe you could share some of the stats, as it is today, of women that have gone through the program, versus some of the traditional universities and other programs out there.
Luz Borchardt (19:26):
Yeah. So actually, today, we have 25% of women, on average, being part of the students in Henry. We want to improve that number. Yeah. But in comparison with other academies and universities, this number is at 10%. So, we are actually in a good place, but it is not enough. We are in the first page of this huge challenge. And, when it comes to our staff, to Henry staff, we are 50% women, so that is a great start. And yeah, so my objective is to kind of moving the needle and push forward in order to get to a place of 50-50, or even more than 50. Maybe it can take some time, but it's great to give Latin American women this opportunity of joining our career path, which has a lot of opportunities.
Amee Parbhoo (20:23):
Sticking with that, in the same realm of creating more inclusive ecosystems, the last question for you, Luz, but 2021 was a banner year in terms of venture capital dollars deployed. But the percentage of those funds going to women-led startups has remained quite low and pretty stagnant. So, any advice you have, I mean, maybe starting with investors and then going to other women entrepreneurs out there, but what can we do, as an industry, to better improve access to capital for women founders?
Luz Borchardt (20:54):
Yeah, that's a great question. I think in one side of the mountain, we have to climb is having more VCs and managing partners, which are women, because I know that that number is really low. So, it's important to have women in those roles, in order to invest in other womens, right? And for me, there is a cascade effect, because once you invest in more women, more women which see those women and their startups being invested, they see the example and attracts them to kind of starts their own company, starting from VCs. And also, for women who are out there and trying to know if they want to get into entrepreneurship or no, my advice is to do it, to start to find a problem. There is a lot of problems in Latin America, which really are super important for us to kind of improve as a society and as a region.
Luz Borchardt (21:49):
So, find a problem you are passionate about, investigate it in depth, prototype a solution, talk to many people as possible to validate their idea, and execute and begin. The show begins. And don't start whenever you think that your product is perfect. It's better done than perfect. Start working on the idea and validating the idea, and then reshaping and iterating, and the show begins. But, I would say, go out into the market and start prototyping and talking to users and start moving your idea. Finding their voice also in this conversation and this tech space that is super hot in this moment. So, I think that we need to kind of work in those things in one side, like encouraging women to find a problem and to start trying to find solutions. And in the other side, in the whole ecosystem, from VCs to founders, starting on increasing this numbers, in order to generate this cascade effect.
Amee Parbhoo (22:51):
Great advice for both sides. A lot of work to be done, but I think it's really encouraging to have successful entrepreneurs like yourself out there as role models.
Amee Parbhoo (23:01):
Thank you, Luz, for this conversation. It's been really inspiring to hear more about Henry and the work that you all are doing in your mission, working across Latin America, so thanks for the time.
Luz Borchardt (23:11):
Thank you for inviting me. It was a pleasure.
Amee Parbhoo (23:18):
Thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in to the inaugural season of FinTech For The People. I hope you've enjoyed listening to the founders over the past five weeks. From Brazil, India, Kenya, Argentina and the US, these are some of the incredible innovators we're seeing shaping how fintech touches the lives of people around the world.
Amee Parbhoo (23:37):
For us at Accion Venture Lab, taking a gender-inclusive approach to sourcing, investing and managing our portfolio is critical to achieving the financial and impact outcomes that we strive for. We hope that continuing to bring more awareness to women founders, who are disrupting financial services, can play a small role in spurring a more equitable venture ecosystem and a more prosperous world.
Amee Parbhoo (24:02):
Be sure to look out for season two of FinTech For The People, which is coming soon. We'll be discussing how embedded financial services are driving inclusion for the 130 million small businesses in emerging markets. In the meantime, please feel free to reach out on Twitter or LinkedIn. We'd love to continue the conversation.