Antonio Nuno’s Someone Somewhere tech helps them turn talent into prosperity.

“After visiting a lot of communities, we realized there was a very clear pattern of really, really talented people that were just missing the connection to the market,” says Antonio Nuño, relating the beginnings of Someone Somewhere, a retail brand that works with artisans in remote villages in Latin America. And in this exclusive interview, he shares experiences that further deepened the respect he and his two co-founding best friends felt for the artisans and their families.

“At first, it was very difficult because we arrived with some ideas of stuff like making apps and the way we thought things should work. And we tried dozens of different ways,” Antonio shares, talking about the challenges they faced to achieve scale and quality control. The solution? “Why don’t we just … ask the community how would they do it?” Describing the breakthrough solutions that the artisans themselves suggested, he says they were “ten times better than ours” — which led to Antonio and his friends’ breakthrough of their own: “A key learning was … if you want to help someone, listen more than talk.”

With the idea of being the bridge to help people out of poverty through their own talents, Antonio says he and his friends realized “it was not us helping the community; it was going to be more of a collaboration.” And with each community they worked with, it became easier and faster to organize. “And now, we can scale quite quickly because we have a model that really works for the artisans and for the company.”

It’s been an amazing journey for Someone Somewhere’s founders and artisans alike. “What I really love is that in every community we work with, once they become comfortable and say, ‘We have enough,’ very quickly they start thinking on how to raise their neighbors, their cousins, all the people around them out of poverty as well,” Antonio says. Sharing, “So, it’s impressive how they think more of the community than of themselves,” he adds, “And we have learned a lot about that.”

And we have learned a lot from Antonio. It’s a respect for people that builds its own spiral. Grace is all around. Click on video below to listen in and let it touch you.