If you ask Richard Paredes where his desire to carve out a place in the business world began, he will take you back to Ecuador, where he grew up.
It was there that his father, an entrepreneurial salesman with a knack for connecting with customers, taught him valuable lessons, including knowing your target audience. Paredes took these lessons with him after moving to the United States with his family at age 12. They inspired him and his cousin Sebastian, who, after graduating from Babson College in Massachusetts, started his own recruiting business, Interlix Staffin 2022.
Paredes, a senior Binghamton University School of Management (SOM)couldn’t pass up an opportunity to help build a business. He became chief marketing officer of Interlix, which connects talent in developing countries, particularly Latin America, with small businesses and startups based in the United States.
“Our primary goal has been to bring professionalism at a more affordable cost while helping independent business owners position themselves for growth,” Paredes said. “We work with people who want to become the best possible version of themselves. »
The company works with nearly two dozen clients, but in the beginning, Paredes said his biggest challenge was establishing credibility and developing a professional network. Overcoming this obstacle became a little easier after January 2024, when Forbes included Interlix in an article on common practices for successful entrepreneurs.
Paredes said one of the dilemmas of outsourcing to countries like the Philippines or Pakistan is that of different time zones, which is why Interlix has used the recently changed trend toward remote work to its advantage. THE Forbes The article interviewed Sheikha Al-Otaibi, another co-founder of Interlix, who shared the company’s role in remotely placing professionals and software developers with prior experience at PwC, EY and Google with other companies in the United States.
“What I learned during my time at SOM, particularly the emphasis on networking in my entrepreneurship class, was key to our success in starting our own business,” Paredes said. “We attended at least 60 networking events last summer, many of them in New York, and balancing my academic demands with my commitments to playing such a key role in the company has been a welcome challenge.”
Driven to succeed
Interlix’s first client was a small client looking for a software developer proficient in Python (a high-level programming language). By chance, one of Paredes’ cousins in Ecuador had mastered Python and was looking for a remote job. The pairing turned out to be perfect, and that’s when Paredes and his cousin realized they’d found a niche clientele.
“Hiring a software developer can be expensive if you’re a small business owner, and there are so many skilled workers who might go unnoticed because of where they live or if they don’t have not good relations,” he said.
Paredes is guided by this message in his marketing role, which involves managing a four-person team based in Latin America: two people focused on video production and two people handling other promotional materials.
He also oversees Interlix’s social media presence and Interlix Podcast. Each podcast episode shares stories about business owners and professionals and discusses various industry trends, with a recent podcast featuring Bianca D’Alessio, a New York-based real estate broker who manages a portfolio of value of 10 billion dollars.
“If you have a business, you need to know how to communicate with your team and pay enough attention to your customers. As a student, you must recognize the need to find the right balance to ensure that you pay enough attention to class work,” he said. “It’s not easy, but it can be done if you are determined to make it a reality.”
As Paredes and his colleagues explore new ways to expand their business and their network of clients, he can’t help but smile at the long, grueling hours that lie ahead. He adopted the work ethic his father instilled in him.
“My colleagues and I are determined to make this company successful. We are crushers.