Felipe del Sol was remodeling his house when something didn’t add up. A contractor quoted him an electric cable for 100 thousand pesos; Upon checking the prices on his own, he discovered that it cost just 20 thousand.
It was not an isolated case: some teachers send improvised estimates while others take a week to deliver a detailed quote. For anyone else it would have been just a remodel with setbacks. For Felipe, it was the start of a company.
Felipe defines himself with two words: technology and rock and roll. He is a person more of an observer than a communicator; he has little impact on public presentation, although when he has to speak in public he does so carefully.
That same urgency to turn ideas into facts led him, years ago, to co-found and sell Admetricks, his first startup, and today he applies it in Obra Maestra, the company with which he seeks to organize one of the most disordered markets in Latin America: construction.
Do, don’t tell
Felipe recognizes that his need to act quickly may be uncomfortable for others. If someone proposes a trip, they are already buying tickets before the conversation ends.
It’s not impulsiveness, he says, but distrust of ideas that never become action.
• Where does your obsession with executing things come from?
«Having ideas and having them remain just ideas makes me feel uncomfortable. Executing involves investing time and often taking risks for things you believe in, but I see that many people stay with the idea. “I like people who do what they think.”
That same logic carries over to his way of leading. He prefers not to see himself as the visible head of Obra Maestra, but as another member of the team: someone who pushes hard, but who needs to surround himself with people better than him in each area.
«I am one of the group. I always try to have people better than me in all aspects, and give them space to find the best way to solve the problems that exist in a company.
From Admetricks to Masterpiece
Before starting a business, Felipe studied Electrical Engineering, did a master’s degree in solar energy and worked in an AFP, attracted more by learning than by industry.
That stage allowed him to look at the full map of options and make a decision: he wanted to build a technology company. That’s when his brother invited him to Admetricks, his first startup, which years later ended up being acquired.
• What was the hardest thing to leave behind about Admetricks?
«We had a client who wanted to pay us 50 thousand dollars just when we had already closed the sale, and it could not be completed because the new owners did not accept a clause in the contract. Entrepreneurship is an emotional roller coaster; “You have to learn not to get frustrated when things don’t go the way you want.”
When he decided to start again, it was not out of necessity: he had a good, well-paid job.
But remodeling his house showed him a deeper problem: the most experienced masters were wasting a good part of the day buying materials instead of being on the job.
He put together a first version of the platform, capable of generating budgets from audio, plans and videos, launched it with paid advertising and, when someone he didn’t know paid to use it, he quit his job.
«I did it quickly, I advertised it and someone I didn’t know came and paid me. There I said: there is something here.
The necessary criterion
Artificial intelligence runs through much of Felipe’s daily work: he uses it to schedule with agents, transcribe meetings, and put together presentations. But he insists that technology does not replace judgment.
In Masterpiece they combine a civil builder, a publicist and a team of programmers, betting that this mixture, powered by AI, gives better results than AI alone.
• Is artificial intelligence more of a tool or a catalyst to transform an industry?
«Both things; I don’t think they are exclusive. It all has to do with adoption. There are people who still ride horses and don’t have a car, and there are those who went from landline to cell phone without ever using a computer. “The same thing will happen with artificial intelligence.”
Masterpiece already has more than 1,500 users, although the great challenge today is the conversion to payment: only a dozen do it on a recurring basis. The company adjusted its model, replacing the seven-day free trial with one free quote per month.
• What is the most common mistake founders make when starting a business again?
«Do not focus on income. Suddenly the hype, the fund, the investor appear, and you stop concentrating on making the business work. The other mistake is to start doing many things at once; “If you want it to work, you have to focus.”
When asked what he would say to the Felipe who co-founded Admetricks more than a decade ago, he pauses. He prefers not to respond.
«I wouldn’t tell him anything. If I told him anything, he would change his course, and I prefer not to. May he live, may he walk, may he travel the path.
It is an answer that summarizes his way of understanding entrepreneurship: without nostalgia for what could have been different and with the conviction that each decision, good or bad, is part of the path.
Felipe del Sol continues to apply the formula that has defined him since he was young: less speech, more execution (less talk, more rock).
