How it started
While living abroad in 2019, I woke one Saturday morning to discover our 8-year-old son quietly drawing in his notebook with a glorious ocean view behind him. I quietly snapped an image of the scene and then went about preparing a morning coffee.
When I came into the room and quietly sat on the sofa, he looked up and declared that he was making a comic book and wanted to start a business making custom comic books for other kids. It probably was related to my husband’s video game development business at that time, but the creativity and passion struck me.
I shared the photo with my husband, who gave the image to one of their artists who rendered it into a logo. We took it one step further and decided to form an LLC in the US. We didn’t know if it would go anywhere or what it would become, but it sounded like a good idea at the time.
My husband and I met 25 years ago in California while we were both working for a technical staffing & consulting company. When we started a family, he stayed in the tech world, while I became a full-time mother and CEO of our household. Twenty years, three children, and a wealth of experiences later, we decided to build our own I/T professional services organization.
One of the biggest things we learned living in LATAM for those four years was how technology can connect the world and lift societies. This may sound obvious, but until you've experienced it firsthand, it can be hard to grasp its power. The story of Uruguay is very interesting. For decades, this small country sandwiched between much larger economies of Argentina and Brazil has battled an aging population. Traditionally, UY is a great place to raise young families and retire. Those in-between years usually see the young people move to either the US or Europe for economic opportunity.
Their solution demonstrates a fantastic example of business and government working together. They wired the whole country for fiberoptic. They introduced a program that issues a laptop for every child in the country. Higher education is low-cost to free. Software development companies benefit from a 100% exemption from corporate income tax provided the business incurs at least 50% of its associated costs in Uruguay. The results are that young people in UY and beyond can have successful careers without relocating to another continent.
Anyone who has outsourced I/T projects can attest that the experience can fit anywhere on a scale of horrible to fantastic. Time Zones, communication, a sense of urgency, a shared definition of done, etc. need to be managed and agreed upon, and verified regularly.
Our goal with HudHaus is simple. We will provide quality resources, in time-zone-friendly locations of LATAM on either a staff augmentation or project-based scenario for our clients in the US. We will be honest, and transparent, and work with a childlike curiosity to understand what our clients are looking to achieve and that energy and our collective expertise to create a positive experience for our clients and our team members.
The response so far has been fantastic and we are building our team of professionals. We look forward to showing you what we can do.
Sherri Heindel
June 1, 2024