Goodbye, Credijusto

You’re going to keep killing it.

Aaron Polhamus
3 min readFeb 20, 2019

On January 31st I left Credijusto, on good terms with its founders. This was a decision that was principally motivated by the opportunity to join the founding team of a NYC-based fintech, started by a couple friends from Stanford, with a big vision for disrupting private financial markets globally. Over the past couple years I’ve honed skills in data science, software, finance, and team building, and my new partners were looking for someone to help shape product and strategic vision at that intersection. It’s been an exciting time, although that excitement was offset for awhile with the heartbreak of saying goodbye to the Credijusto team and project.

I loved the tech team that I played a lead role in building from 4 to 30 people. Starting from zero, and with only a handful of customers, we built an ecosystem of applications that manage hundreds of millions of pesos across three different product lines. As thrilling as it was watching our technology and data model take shape, I enjoyed watching individuals evolve and take shape even more. When I stepped down a few weeks ago, many of them had grown into capable squad leaders, product managers, and a new CTO. Every single one had grown as people and professionals. In my last couple days, the heartache of losing a community gave way to a sense of peace that I’d accomplished my mission. In fact, there was a healthy sense in which, by getting out of the way, I was enabling new growth in the team. They’re ready for what comes next.

Here’s most of the team from my last engineers’ Friday

I wrote a couple articles during my time at Credijusto that do a pretty good job unpacking my thinking about the team during different stages of the company’s journey. This one is about my vision for how to build a technologically-enabled lender, and this one is about how we evolved the team’s structure as it rapidly grew. The optimism that I felt about Credijusto as a company, my deep belief both in the team that I helped build and in the mission of enabling financial access for small and medium-sized businesses, is something I still feel now.

From when we first met, through to my last day, Allan Apoj and David Poritz were incredibly supportive as both business partners and friends. We took a risk on each other when they brought me down to Mexico City from San Diego, and I’ll be grateful for the rest of my life for how our time together allowed me to finally gather myself back up again. Only with the benefit of hindsight do I appreciate how deeply I needed these years of formation. My boss, Allan, taught me a master class about tenacity in business, and the importance of constantly evolving one’s own thought patterns. David taught me the power of a story, and emotional control under pressure. I wish them, Credijusto tech, and the whole team, the most fantastic success in the coming years.

With the chiefs. Keep up the good work, fellas.

Me despido profundamente agradecido por todo. A ver que nos trae el futuro. Chance, en tiempos menos locos, vamos a brindar por el camino y nada más saborear el momento.

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Aaron Polhamus

Working with Team Vest to transform how retail investing is done throughout the Americas 🌎