No Borders for Purpose-Led Businesses Josué Delgado, CEO of INCmty

Simon Mainwaring:
Before we dive into today’s episode, I wanted to share the exciting news that we’ve now launched the Lead with We Launchpad Online Course that shows you step by step how to engage and inspire all of your stakeholders to build your business and its impact with you. Check it out at leadwithwecourse.com

From We First and Goal 17 Media, welcome to Lead with We. I’m Simon Mainwaring, and each week I talk with purposeful business and thought leaders about the revolutionary mindsets and methods you can use to build your bottom line and a better future for all of us. And today I’m joined by Josue Delgado, the CEO of Inc Monterrey, a technology, entrepreneurship and business platform promoting networking, partnerships, and inspiration for starting and scaling purposeful businesses. And we’ll discuss how Mexico is fostering the entrepreneurship innovation and impact needed to solve today’s most pressing challenges and how you can leverage collaboration to drive incredible returns and much needed sustainable solutions. So Josue, welcome To Lead with We.

Josue Delgado:
Thank you. Thank you, Simon. I was very happy to see you when you came here to Monterrey like two or three months ago, no?

Simon Mainwaring:
Yeah, two or three months ago, I was lucky enough to be in Monterrey and I got to confess something. I’ve been lucky enough to travel widely through Mexico with speaking and so on. But my ignorance or my perception of Mexico was there was a lot of incredible business going on in terms of supply chain and cost-effective labor that global companies, US companies are also dependent on. But going to your festival at Inc Monterrey, I was blown away by the entrepreneurship and the innovation going on there. So why is Mexico such a hotbed [inaudible 00:01:54] innovation right now?

Josue Delgado:
Right now what is happening in Mexico, there have been a lot of things, but one of the things that I see that is happening is that since 10 years ago, we were promoting not only Inc Monterrey, but the universities and the [inaudible 00:02:10] people, the [inaudible 00:02:11] people in Mexico, we were convinced that the Mexican talent is here and the Mexican talent and the innovation is in our DNA because Mexican, they are very creatives, but the creativity has been going for different ways.

When you are with Mexican people always they are laughing, joking people is having fun every day. So the talent and the creativity is in our DNA, but now focusing on making innovative ideas, we are helping the community to feel confident for one side. And other thing that we are promoting and we see that is happening is besides to have confidence of the value that we can add to the world, the other thing is that we are giving opportunities to make a culture of trust and connect people for creating vision activities. And as soon as you ask me one question, I want to explain you a story that we lived in South by Southwest I think many of South by Southwest, yes.

Simon Mainwaring:
South by Southwest. It’s sort of a very big entrepreneurial conference here in Austin, Texas.

Josue Delgado:
In Austin, exactly. And we’ve been participating there for several years. We have a good partnership also with the founders and the leaders of South by Southwest. And the first thing that we did like eight years

ago, well in South by Southwest, when you go to this festival that happens every March, there are houses. No? And we saw that there was no presence of Mexico or Latin America in this event. And we said why we are not having presence in there. When we are, we see that there are opportunities and the Mexican talent is good to present and to be part of that. No? So what we did is they have a concept that is a country hall. No? Like for example, Canada House or a brand house, for example, energy house, et cetera, to houses that have experiences. So eight years ago we had a house that it was invented in [inaudible 00:04:06] house.

So we thought about these words because we were promoting that not only manufactured but also invented, promoting the inventions and the opportunity to invent for the Mexican talent. And we have that house in Austin, Texas. We were having conferences, panels from Mexican startups. So it was a great experience to show the Mexican-American talent in a large audience that is in South by Southwest. And one of our speakers’ went there was a former president of Mexico, for example, good job entrepreneurs, some of them now are unicorns and part of the community that is living here in Mexico. So that was one of the things that I wanted to tell you and explain you and what the thing that we were expressing there is that the Mexican talent is here and is now and is good to the world that is connected in different events like South by Southwest, to know that the inventions and the innovations that Mexican talent has.

Simon Mainwaring:
I think that’s so, so important. And then to try and give those listening a picture of what I saw when I went to the Inc Monterey Festival, there’s 15. Eighteen thousand entrepreneurs all coming together, young people in the middle of their careers really thinking about how they solve for the future. And what’s so powerful about the event is there’s corporate partners, there’s nonprofits, there are for-profit companies, there’s entrepreneurs, there’s startups, and it’s such a powerful expression of how to Lead with We. And so help me understand, Josh, what is the focus of the festival? Are there key areas? What are its impact areas?

Josue Delgado:
Okay, how about the festival, the impact areas and the key areas of the festival? Well let me tell you Inc Monterey, it comes from the initials that is meaning of innovate, network and create. That’s why it’s INC. No, Inc. Monterey, right? So in Innovate, Network, and Create in Monterey, from Monterey, we started as a festival and now we are a community having different activities during the year.

And we have three main focuses. One of them is to have our festival where we connect and power the entrepreneurship ecosystem to help entrepreneurs to evolve their ideas to the next stage. It doesn’t matter in which stage is your ideas. And the second thing is another strategic line that we help cities in Mexico to evolve their entrepreneurship ecosystem in order to articulate the key stakeholders to improve the economic development through entrepreneurship and innovation. And the third thing is the open innovation challenges. And let me tell you one of the main things that we are focusing right now, it is stated in the vision that we have for inventory and the vision for inventory in the 2026 is to Innovate, Network and Create for a circular future, now, starting from now. No?

Simon Mainwaring:
Right, so a circular future now in terms of sustainability and supply chain and so on, right? Josue Delgado:
Yeah. And we believe in the conscious capitalism of conscious entrepreneurship. That’s one of the values that we have. And the other values is thinking big and going exponential, and the other thing is we believe and we stayed in the line of promoting the values of conscious entrepreneurship, going exponential, trust, and the other thing is quality of interactions.

Simon Mainwaring:
Quality interaction?

Josue Delgado:
In order to promote and develop economic development through three different ingredients that we have is to help our community to have access to talent, to help our community, to have access to capital, and there is where we connect innovation with investment. And the other thing is to help them to have access to market. These are the three things that we support and we are based on.

Simon Mainwaring:
And what I love about that is the roadmap for any company, any industry, anywhere in the world, how to incubate the entrepreneurship that we all need. Because firstly, for those who aren’t familiar with the term, I think conscious entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship that’s conscious of the role that all stakeholders play and conscious of the role of business in terms of how it affects our future and the planet that we all depend on. And is also conscious of our shared responsibility to better that future.

And I love the fact that it’s also focused on founders with exponential ambitions because what we’re trying to solve for is so massive. Whether it’s the climate emergency or biodiversity or waste or plastics in the ocean or carbon in the air or chemicals in the soil, you need that ambition. So how do large companies, either U.S., Mexican, Latin American, how do they participate in this sort of larger platform of the conference?

Josue Delgado:
They participate in different ways, but one of the most attractive way that they participate is in the challenges that we have. So what we do for multinational and global wide brands is we help them find solutions for the world’s problem and organization’s problem through connecting the entrepreneurship community within a specific model that we have designed.

Simon Mainwaring:
So do you give them a brief and then they solve for that? Or is there a category and they bring the companies that already started?

Josue Delgado:
Okay. We have both. For one side, we have the large companies that want to help the world, and these large companies that want to help the world, we help them to solve those problems together with the startup community. And let me give you an example. We have been working with a World Bank group to solve one problem that we have very large in Mexico. One of the problem is the waste of the food that we have in Mexico. No? But not only the waste of the food that we are having here, but also in Mexico, there is a lot of social distancing between the people, the farmers that are not included in the new economy. So we were looking for innovative solutions, technological solutions in agro where [inaudible 00:10:16] diminished the waste of food, but also that include the small farmers. In the process.

Simon Mainwaring:
In the process?

Josue Delgado:
In the process. So working with the World Bank group, we’ve thought that there was going to be a few innovations in Mexico considering these two variables. No? Together.

Simon Mainwaring:
Yep.

Josue Delgado:
And we found we were looking for at least… I thought that we were going to find 100 or 80 initiatives in the whole country, but we found 400 initiatives based technology including for little farmers in order to move them for forward. Exactly. And that are helping to diminish the waste of food in the whole process. So 400 initiatives about that. That was amazing. That was wonderful. And we going use other the innovations, they are aware and very sensitive of the problems in the communities and the solutions are like mind blowing. No?

Giving you that example. Another way that we help, for example, is together with Heineken. With Heineken, we are looking for innovations to help the sustainability in the world to have a better world. Every year we are running different challenges. Last year challenge was about energy efficiency and we found more than 400 entrepreneurship initiatives in the whole country. And these initiatives are wonderful.

For example, one of them after the pitching sessions, the first place got funded with 2 million after the pitch competition. So what I am telling you is that we have opportunities and talent in Mexico that is being there in every corner in the country, but also we have these large companies that are aware and are investing in how can we have a better world and working together. So our philosophies is of collaboration. Since that initiative of INC Monterey this is not what we are explaining to the others, it’s how we connect the talent for one person, one brand, some communities to express what their experience is. And also this is a way of collaboration. Let me tell you, it’s challenging because when you work with thousand or hundreds of organizations and to help them express the best that they have, it’s challenging, but it’s very exciting when you saw the result.

Simon Mainwaring:
Oh, it is so exciting. I could…

Josue Delgado:
Making collisions. No? Making those collisions happen.

Simon Mainwaring:
Those connections. I felt it. So many of us look at the headlines every day, Josh, and we’re so worried about the future. We think there’s no hope. But then you go to these experiences, these events like INC Monterey, and you see thousands of young people and thousands of companies committed towards a better future. And that makes all of us feel better.

And at the same time, to your point, these large companies want to innovate. They want to be more relevant to the future. And instead of trying to do that on their own, which is hard, and they do it, you can work with these young entrepreneurs and through acquisition and so on, innovate. And at the same time, these younger entrepreneurs can rapidly accelerate what they’re doing by working with a corporate partner or getting that capital, like that $2 million that you mentioned, that one of the projects received.

And here’s the reality, I think if we think any one company, one industry, one billionaire is going to solve for this, we’re fool ourselves. We got into this mess together and we need to get out of it together. And so we have to think and act as an ecosystem, a business ecosystem.

And so tell us about some of the companies that are involved, the large corporate companies that work with these entrepreneurs. I think I saw Amazon, I saw IBM, I saw Meta. Who gets involved and how do they get involved?

Josue Delgado:
Okay, let me tell you about the large company that are involved. And they are involved in different ways, but let me express some of them. For example is Heineken… Heineken Challenge with Heineken Green Challenge. And we also have Daikin. Daikin is a Japanese company leader in HVAC. It’s the air conditioning mainly.

Simon Mainwaring:
Yeah, air conditioning, HVAC. Yeah.

Josue Delgado:
Exactly. So they are leaders in Asia and they are going to invest 300 million in Mexico in order to develop the market in Latin America. So we are working with them to find the disruption of our industry.

Simon Mainwaring:
And let me ask you going to, again, I don’t know whether I’m just simply unaware or I’m ignorant, but some markets like China and Mexico, you don’t naturally think “lead with sustainability” because sometimes supply chain markets are all about cost efficiency because that’s the pressure they get from their customers to get the parts they need as cheaply as possible and as reliably as possible. And yet I came away from this experience seeing how powerful the sustainability movement is in Mexico and Latin America. So can you give me a sense of what that movement is like?

Josue Delgado:
In Mexico, the movement of sustainability, it has been happening for several years, from five years before to now. It’s like more and more companies are aware and investing on sustainability. There are different brands that are doing that. But I know that the universities are, for example, [inaudible 00:15:49] universities that is not only promoting but also provoking these kinds of things. And Monterey City as an innovation hub, Monterey City has these companies that are investing in sustainability.

And the moment, how is the moment happening? Well, let me tell you, in 2018 it started different movements and one of the movement was the first association of sustainable entrepreneurs. It was the first association made for entrepreneurs that are having solutions that are sustainable for the work. So in terms of that, there was an entrepreneur that have a solution that captures CO2 from the air. And the

solution is metal tree. But this metal tree has a technology with microalgae, and these plants capture 100 times that [inaudible 00:16:49].

Simon Mainwaring:
The carbon, so the microalgae pulls the carbon out of the air?

Josue Delgado:
But 100 times.

Simon Mainwaring:
But 100 times more than…

Josue Delgado:
More than the normal tree. A normal tree.

Simon Mainwaring:
Oh right, A normal tree. Wow.

Josue Delgado:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the capture that this alga captures is 100 times better, 100 times more than a normal tree. So that one of the solutions that we found in our community, and now they are planting these trees in different cities like in Puebla here in Monterrey with a large corporation also they’re having this in England in other ways.

So let me, in order to transferring how the movement is happening here, Monterey also recently because of the pandemic, made us think and do things in different ways. There was also an event that we were supporting that event in Mexico City that was getting together all sustainable initiatives in terms of climate change. And it was the Innovation Climate Summit. Innovation Climate Summit. So this movement is getting stronger, not as large as that we need, but stronger in terms of the impact that it’s having, and it is going to have.

And let me tell you together with the Giesecke is this governmental initiative that comes from Germany. German office that helps sustainable initiatives in the whole world. A Giesecke office in Mexico, together with us, we’re running projects for social impact, helping develop the bridge between the people we need in the society and also to improve the technology in those communities.

So we were working with them and together with them as a platform we were announcing, in the festival, a fund that is focusing on climate investment. So that fund is between a Mexican fund and Giesecke. And this is a 20 million fund that gives for every entrepreneur, is going to give, for every entrepreneur that is a climate change solver startup, they are going to give them from $25,000 to

$50,000 to improve their solutions. And it’s going to be a, granted, they’re not going to take equity.

Simon Mainwaring:
It’s not a loan, it’s a grant. And this is, I mean, to give listeners a perspective on how important the festival, the INC Monterey Festival and Monterey, the City of the University is, I mean it’s the number one entrepreneurship school in the world ahead of any other schools in the United States or anywhere else. And it’s grounded and focused on conscious entrepreneurship and climate and circular solutions

and so on. So this is an engine of change. And I often sort of wonder when you select the winners of these sorts of competitions and so on, what’s the criteria that you use to select the winners? Because that’s something that all of us can use in terms of vetting our own ideas or looking at the companies we might want to invest in. Or if you’re a large corporation, who should you invest in? So how do you select the best solutions? What are the criteria?

Josue Delgado:
Let me tell you some other criteria that we use in different processes, but they are mainly focusing in the following. It could have variations in terms of many things, but mainly they are focusing on the, first of all, we evaluate that the initiative has very well identified, a real problem. A real problem. A large and real problem, very well expressed. Number two is that this solution is innovative. The third thing, we also evaluate the team that is going to make that happen. And the fourth thing that we also evaluate is that the size of the market and the business model that they express in order to make that a reality. No?

Simon Mainwaring:
So the size of the market and the business model, can it actually capture that market. So it’s a viable business. So one of the big sort of questions I always have when you look at these convenings of different stakeholders and you identify these winners is we all have a great moment. Winners are announced, you get a check or grant, but then what happens down the road? Are they forgotten or do they keep their business alive? What percentage of projects accelerated projects are still alive? And can you give us a couple of examples?

Josue Delgado:
Yeah, I’m going to give you several examples and thank you for that question.

Simon Mainwaring:
Yeah.

Josue Delgado:
One of the things that we have discovered is, well, first of all is they are not forgotten. After this competition, we run an acceleration program specifically designed for this batch. So we have a standard acceleration programs, but we, let me tell you, we customize the acceleration program in order to, especially this batch for example, this year was with Heineken Green Challenge, it was for a energy efficiency.

Simon Mainwaring:
Right. Energy efficiency? Okay.

Josue Delgado:
Exactly. So we add and customize the solution for that acceleration program for this type of entrepreneurs. The technical options and the thing that they need is very different from other batches. So this is one thing that we do. And this is going to be running during this semester and during more than five years that we have been doing that acceleration program, looking for the best innovative ideas in terms of sustainability, in terms of climate change, so in terms of social impact, et cetera, all the things that we were running, the discover that we have right now after these processes is that the

survival percentage of this type of entrepreneurship ideas is 20% in Mexico and with our programs is 60%.

Simon Mainwaring:
Wow. So yes, triple the survival rate for the companies that are driving these innovations. And so what does that innovation pipeline look like? Because it’s one thing to start a company, it’s another to build the team, it’s another to get a grant, but to keep that company alive, how do you support them over the longer term?

Josue Delgado:
Okay, I’m going to answer to you that in different ways. We have a special program that runs for one year. One year that we give them support with different activities with content and also with nets of contact and with events. This is one thing that we help them in any stage, it doesn’t matter which stage they are. So depending on their stage is the type of events or mentorship that we give them. So if they are in idea phase, we connect them with the different incubators. It could be one of ours, but we are not only helping for our institution or for our solutions, but it depends on what’s better for them. We help them them to get access or incubation, no, if they are in scaling or developing stage, we help them with acceleration programs. Some of them are part of our batches, but some others are part of our partners.

They are going for different partner effects. And we have partnership with any old accelerations in Mexico and also that worldwide accelerators program. And I would like to tell you many things that I am remembering right now when we have this question. So in there is more than 20 startups that have been part of the Y Combinator and in the last two years it is been growing. The percentage of startup that are going to a Y Combinator, and several of them are now is unicorns, or unicorns. And for example, one Monterey startup is a unicorn right now that is the company’s name is Nowport that the founder is 20, 23 years old, the founder.

Simon Mainwaring:
And, he’s got a billion dollar valuation.

Josue Delgado:
It’s a billion dollar valuation right now. Well 1.2, and he’s only 23. So he’s right now first Monterey unicorn in Mexico, we have eight. But Monterey, this is the first, but he’s the youngest founder of a unicorn in the world.

Simon Mainwaring:
Wow. And this is through the MIT Y Combinator partnership. And this is the first unicorn that, and he’s what? 23?

Josue Delgado:
23.

Simon Mainwaring:
I Don’t know. 20. What do you do after that at 23? I mean it’s, everything’s downhill from there. But anyway, yeah.

Josue Delgado:
This is like, well, what is happening and how we support them and how we more than support, how do we work with them?

Simon Mainwaring:
Right?

Josue Delgado:
Because it’s working together. We use at the beginning.

Simon Mainwaring:
And I mean this whole collaboration approach…

Josue Delgado:
[inaudible 00:25:28].

Simon Mainwaring:
You’re collaborating with MIT or Y Combinator or the different stakeholders. I mean, how big is this ecosystem? How many people participate in the larger ecosystem that you’re building? And how global is it? Because as I said before, we’re not going to get there alone. We’re going to get there together.

And so what does that look like? Give us a sense of the shape of it.

Josue Delgado:
Well, our community until now that has been participating in collaborating in different ways is 120,000.

Simon Mainwaring:
Wow. 120,000?

Josue Delgado:
[inaudible 00:25:56]

Simon Mainwaring:
That’s entrepreneurs or is that everyone involved?

Josue Delgado:
It’s everyone involved. Entrepreneurs, and stakeholders from the [inaudible 00:26:03] ecosystem, business people, et cetera. And in terms of the community, well this is the quantity and representation of different countries. Or you ask me, where are they now? Which part of the world? They are in 47 countries.

Simon Mainwaring:
47 countries. Oh my God. Wow.

Josue Delgado:
Forty-seven countries. Yeah. Okay. We have had participants from Africa, we have had participants from United States, Europe, here stakeholders from different parts of the world. And I always get excited when I am talking about what we have built together. But yeah, this is the answer to that question.

Simon Mainwaring:
No, and…

Josue Delgado:
Let me tell you what, I am very excited talking to you because the strategy of collaboration, that is one my…

Simon Mainwaring:
Your passions.

Josue Delgado:
Yeah. So it is very hard also working on that because you have to take your ego one step behind and how can you put in the middle the main purpose that you are looking for and help others to work together for that. No?

Simon Mainwaring:
I love what you’re saying there. I mean, let’s speak to that directly because I wrote this book Lead with We that inspired the podcast that explores collaboration. But there’s a lot of, it’s difficult, it’s hard.

There are obstacles. Can you speak to some of the challenges you’ve found building this ecosystem, creating that collaboration? Obviously you have to take a step back with your ego, but what else comes to mind?

Josue Delgado:
Oh, well a lot of things because the challenges, first of all, is to understand each other and first of to understand this to talk, because if you asked me that question 10 years ago or eight years ago, it was totally different. More in our actual existence and beliefs. The thing that we think eight years ago, 10 years ago that was in Mexico, to pitch an idea in front of a lot of people, it was not possible because your idea, they are going to steal my idea or everything like that. Those kinds of problem. No, how can I share my ideas in front of a large amount of people? Those were the challenges that we were living.

And the other thing is how I’m going to tell my things in front of everybody when this is my treasure or whatever. So these were the challenges that we were facing among many others. But instead of telling you about challenges, what I see always is there is always an opportunity because we are the same and we are always want better things for everybody. But many times we don’t know that or maybe we don’t realize that we know that we want. But in terms of challenges, I see there is always opportunities because when you see the heart of the people and you look for that, you know and you realized that we were the same, but we are not on the same mood and we are not on the same level of language or level of collaboration.

But at the essence, I think that’s the hard thing. How can you feel and measure the level of engagement or collaboration that one person organ organization has? And for example, you tell me here in Monterey

this years or this 2023, it’s very different the way we collaborate than it was three years ago or four years ago. Now we are more open. I don’t want to do things to duplicate things because if you are good on that, we are having now this kind of conversation that before we didn’t have or we couldn’t have that.

Simon Mainwaring:
That’s so powerful what you are saying that the more you collaborate, the more it opens up and inspires greater innovation in other ways that then unlocks more solutions. I love that because I think a lot of us try and hold our ideas too close to our chest, but we need a whole ecosystem of solutions. And by everyone working together, we can all move further faster. And that connection at the heart level, Josh, is so important. And I think from my experience, we do a lot of work consulting with clients around how to activate their purpose and climate and sustainability initiatives. The good place to start is by saying, “what is most important here? Why are we doing this? What is driving this initiative?” And to get us out of our heads for a minute and to connect at heart level and so that we all know why we are coming to the table. And then your ego can stand back and then you can think about doing it in new ways. What’s your experience of that been like?

Josue Delgado:
Oh, my experience in that is that it’s kind of a magic when you are having those things because when you… Sometimes we don’t, don’t have the why. I am not telling you only about inventory. In conversations in Mexico as an ecosystem, sometimes we have been participating in tables and we have been discussed or realized the why, and you have to turn that on in order to start moving the ideas where should be stated. No? And this is turning and changing because if the conversations are not going on that way, we are not going to find solutions. And more when you are in the same…

Simon Mainwaring:
The same spirit, I guess.

Josue Delgado:
The same spirit. Exactly. Exactly.

Simon Mainwaring:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Josue Delgado:
And in my experiences, I don’t know, but I think I am always fortunate because with all the people that I’ve been working always the mood changed to make things possible when this is bigger than us. With all the people we have been working with, Global Entrepreneurship Network, we hosted like five years ago a Global Entrepreneurship Congress where 200 countries come together and we did with the federal government, with the help of federal government, with the help of private initiative to have conversations about different topics for the world of entrepreneurship and innovation and impact. And those things happens. And when you talk to each other, always the ego comes first, but at the end you say, ah, it’s happy that we are together and we are for the same things. No?

But I am want to ask you right now, what has been your different approaches? Do you see differences in different countries or communities about we collaboration or how we collaborate? And I would like to

learn a little bit more about that because you are like several years ahead of doing this. No? So I want to…

Simon Mainwaring:
Sure, and I appreciate the question. Through our work at We First in consulting, we’ve been doing a lot of that for 13 years, but also I’m lucky enough to move around different markets and see what’s going on. And I think you’re right, different markets are in different stages in terms of their conscious business, in terms of entrepreneurship and in terms of collaboration.

But I do think that common denominator is speaking to the heart or the why. And I think it’s really powerful what you said, where the why is a collaboration driver because you get from the head to the heart and that can motivate you. I think what I notice is that in different markets, the power base has shifted. And what I mean by that is sometimes in some markets it’s driven by the capital because people really need the money to unlock the innovation they need or what they want to create.

In some markets, it’s driven by the ideas and the ingenuity and the thinking and the disruption. In some markets, it’s driven by stakeholders where communities are driving change and the entrepreneur needs to be invited in. They can’t actually just come and tell them what they’re going to do. Or the corporation can’t come in and say we’re driving the change.

And so in different markets, at different times you see different dynamics. For example, and this is generalizing a bit, but Europe and especially northern Europe is more progressive around sustainability in some ways than the US is. And there’s lots of reasons for that and we could go into that.

But I think we need to have great sensitivity to what our ambition is, who the stakeholders are, where that center of gravity is for what’s driving the change. And if our come from our spirit is to go into it with you heart led way, and we’re all serving something larger than ourselves, then a lot of those details don’t matter because the result you want is going to benefit everyone irrespective of those elements.

So I got to say, Josue, I was so taken by the forum, the platform, the experience which is so large that you built in Monterey with the team and the university and so on, that more than anything, I came away really energized by the young people and how they feel and how positive they are about the future. And so my last question to you would be this, the future’s challenging. There’s so many things to solve for, but why are you optimistic? How do you tell yourself each day that tomorrow’s going to be better?

Josue Delgado:
How do they tell myself that each day is going to be better? I believe in it. I believe in it. This is one thing. And the other thing is that when everything is challenging and you realize that you are not alone and you have conversation with these enthusiastic people, this entrepreneurs that are young in spirit, not only in age because we know that that youth is also in spirit. And you see that eyes, you see the bright of the eyes when solutions or dreams come. That’s the way I feel myself.

Simon Mainwaring:
Right. Yeah. Everyone gets lit up, lit up from the inside out. And I mean…

Josue Delgado:
Exactly.

Simon Mainwaring:
Here’s the truth. I mean, at one point, years ago, 14, 15 years ago, we first was an idea, a dream in my head. And you have to believe it as you say, INC Monterey was an idea when you and your team went to South by Southwest and thought there should be a Mexican presence here and we should build a festival and a platform, every single entrepreneur including the unicorns, it was all an idea at some point, it was a light that went off in them that has motivated them. So I want to say, Josh, thank you to you and your team for sharing the leadership and the conscious entrepreneurship movement that’s going on in Monterey, Mexico and Latin America more broadly and just continue to challenge and inspire all of us to do better. So thank you so much.

Josue Delgado:
Oh no. Thank you. Thank you for having this conversation. And I am very proud because in this kind of conversation, I am like a voice of a lot of talent that wants to be not only heard, but supported, but also connected.

Simon Mainwaring:
And this is a great way to connect us all because the only way that we are going to get there to that future we all want is together. So thank you Josh.

Josue Delgado:
No, thank you.

Simon Mainwaring:
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Lead with We and you can always find out more information about today’s guest in the show notes of each episode. Our show is made possible by a partnership between We First, a strategic consultancy driving growth and impact for purpose-led brands and Goal 17 Media that’s building greater awareness, all in financing for purpose-led companies. Make sure you follow Lead with We on Apple, Google, or Spotify and do share it with your friends and colleagues. And if you’d like to dive even deeper into the world of Purposeful Business, check out my new book and Wall Street Journal bestseller Lead with We, which is now available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Google Books. See you on the next episode. And until then, let’s all Lead with We.