No person needs to know everything about everything,
but you should have a certain level of knowledge
on a plethora of different aspects.
And if you're gonna follow your dreams
and go into entrepreneurship,
then understanding your books is vital.
Any young entrepreneur, if you hear somebody
is a venture capitalist, run away.
Don't do business with venture capitalists
because they're, please explain why.
People, welcome to the Sunside Kingdom Show,
the place where we highlight individuals
hailing from the Dutch Caribbean islands
that have accomplished amazing things in their time.
We want to highlight these individuals
to showcase them to our communities
and our diaspora around the world
so that they can be inspired to achieve
the best things possible for themselves.
Today we have with us a very special guest
coming all the way from the Turquoise Aqua
diving specialist island of Bonaire
in the Dutch Caribbean, Mr. Alvin Obersie.
Alvin is a true leader in entrepreneurship
with years of business, almost 40 years of business.
He's been in business for two months longer
than I've been alive.
And has remarkable achievements
and a deep commitment to his community
and has always been one step ahead in the game.
Today, we're going to discover what mindset it takes
to be able to have such an illustrious career.
Woo!
Welcome to the Sunside Kingdom Show.
Part of this episode is sponsored by
the Openbaar Lichaam Bonaire.
Alvin, welcome.
Thank you very much, John.
Thank you for the invitation.
I really appreciate it and it's an honor.
Thank you very much for being here.
It's an honor for me as well.
Okay.
And it's truly amazing how these type of connections
and things sort of happen organically
and then you actually realize there's more in common
than you actually even knew.
Correct.
So maybe we'll unpack some of that as we go today.
Maybe let's unpack that a bit
because I think it's something that today,
it's not always fully known and understood
the importance of mentors.
Yeah.
How important were these three individuals in your life
from a mentorship perspective?
With my father, I saw a role model.
He would do things in business that nobody would do.
Yeah.
He was an interminable.
He would take risks.
Yeah.
Okay.
And then, with you, Gerard, I saw him also,
he was actually, you could say at a certain moment,
owner of Bonaire.
Okay.
He owned everything.
Yeah.
Okay, gas station, hotel.
He owned so many businesses.
Yeah.
And he's a risk taker.
A risk taker all the way.
And he also had businesses outside of Bonaire in the petrol.
And he did great businesses from outside.
And I used to talk a lot with him, brainstorming with him.
And he loved me like a son
because he saw a lot of potential in me.
Yeah.
And he was one of my biggest customer of Bonaire as well.
You know?
Yeah.
And so we had a lot of things we were talking.
And so I spoke, he would guide me,
don't do this, do that.
My father was also, Ruy Viana would teach me how to.
So it's kind of like you spent a lot of time sponging,
a lot of time absorbing all of this knowledge.
Because when you were having those conversations,
this is before the time that you set up
shop in St. Martin and Curacao and other places.
I was still an agent of Xerox.
Okay.
And then you'll know how I become a distributor.
When Ruy Viana, no, when I was asking
to become a distributor, you know, separate from Curacao.
They say, no, no, Curacao's here.
We can't have you as distributor and so forth
because of the distance.
I said, yeah, but you guys are killing me with price
and I need to make my margin.
So how am I going to, if I don't get to become
a distributor, I would do another brand.
And which I hate because I'm a person that's very loyal.
Loyal.
You know, I have to ask you a question in between.
Sure.
Usually it is the type of question that I ask off camera,
but what is your birthday?
23rd of April.
Okay.
1963.
Okay.
So Taurus.
Yeah.
All right.
Taurus and Arius, they're a boat.
Business, business, business.
Business, business.
Yeah, business, business.
Yeah.
And my, so I said, I can't do it this way.
And he came back after a month to me and says,
Alvin, you know we're selling Xerox, Antiana, St. Martin.
Maybe it's something you would look into it.
I said, if it makes me a distributor in Bonaire, I would.
He said, we can look into it.
We can look into it.
So I said, no, actually he called me and he called me one day.
He says, can you come to Curaçao?
Because I can't talk this on the phone with you.
I said, sure, of course.
I knew the planes, what time they were in.
So I said, pick me up at the airport.
This and that time and we'll go to the restaurant.
And we went to one of my best brother,
brother Robbie from Robbie's Lottery.
Oh, from Robbie's Lottery, yeah.
Yeah, you know in the restaurant in Bogies,
you know in Curaçao.
So we went to have the meeting there,
you know, the lunch meeting.
I remember Rui coming with his daughter
that was all over him.
Before we brought her to her home and then, you know,
brought me, went to that.
And he asked me, he says, Alvin,
I know a way how you can become, you know,
if you're interested in St. Martin.
Yeah.
I said, okay, I can become distributor.
He says, yeah, of course we can work out a way
that you can become distributor of Bonaire.
I said, okay, if that is the case.
Let's talk.
Let's talk, let's look into it.
He says, are you interested?
I said, I've never been to St. Martin,
but I believe Rui Viana blind.
Yeah.
I said, why are you selling?
He says, no, because Xerox wants to turn all these agencies
and, you know, affiliate into distributors.
And he said, I don't know,
distributors and so I said, okay, why didn't you buy?
No, I don't have $2.8 million.
So it's a lot of money.
Yeah.
Okay.
Would you have buy if you had the money?
Yes, I would definitely, but I don't have it.
I don't have the ways,
but I know you have where you can get it.
I said, okay, I don't have the money either.
Yeah.
But I can put a deposit, you know.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, like that.
So I said, is the price negotiable?
He says, yes.
Then I said, it's a handshake, I'll buy it.
All right.
Yeah.
But the price is negotiable.
Yeah.
I ended up buying Xerox at that time, 1.6 million.
Oh wow.
Yeah.
So that went from 2. how much?
Yeah, because they had a lot of toners,
a lot of supplies that were going to become obsolete.
They were going to become obsolete.
Yeah, so then you got to kind of write those off.
So I told them, no, you guys send them back.
I'm not gonna, so instead of sending them back,
they said, you know something, keep it for free.
And on top of it, I...
So then that got increased from the value rate,
the overall valuation of the company.
Valuation, and then I bought it actually 23rd of April.
On your birthday.
On my birthday.
That's usually I buy something on my birthday.
So 23rd of April, 1995.
Okay.
Yes.
Okay.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
23rd of April, 1995.
And then the Lord sent you a curve wall in September.
And then I signed the 31st of August,
they had me over the company.
Oh my God.
They had me over the company.
And then the 4th of September, Louise.
The worst category five.
I just got goosebumps.
Yes.
I just got goosebumps.
But you know something?
Ships could not come in at least two to three months
with Louise.
And I had $1 million of supplies and things
inside my inventory.
Yeah.
That is what kept me alive.
I sold all of it.
And could have paid.
Because you essentially just got the keys to the castle.
Yes.
With all of this inventory, everything.
And then no inventory of that specifically
could have entered the island for a couple months.
Correct.
Oh my God.
So what?
So you understand?
You understand, right?
I understand 100%.
Okay.
It's like, you don't know where your blessing
is going to come from.
And even in devastation, there may be a silver lining
and a blessing in that.
And I tell you, my wife and I, we were sleeping on the bed
listening to this guy on CNN saying,
oh, what's going to be left from this island?
Yeah.
So we were like, holy shit.
I have a loan of $1.1 million.
And I still have to pay it off.
Yeah.
And this guy is saying this.
But guess what?
The savings I made and the price difference
as agent and distributor.
Because wait a minute, all, wait, wait.
Now it just clicked, clicked.
Because essentially you made these savings
of the stuff that was about to be obsolete.
But now this stuff that was about to be obsolete,
you get to sell it all off because there was nothing else
that could be delivered to the island
in that short space of time.
So that would be all used up.
Wow.
And not only that, but the savings that I made
on the price difference when I used to be an agent
to a distributor.
Because in Bonaire I got to be a distributor also.
Yeah.
Okay, so the savings, to see how big the difference was,
the savings alone could have paid off the debt
from my mortgage.
Yeah, yeah.
Let me put it that way.
Yeah.
That I had to, you know.
But thanks God it happened a different way.
It was actually the years thereafter
that we found problems with the hurricanes,
with more hurricanes, like eight hurricanes more
that came afterwards.
That was devastating to the island.
Really, really devastating, yeah.
Yeah, because when we're looking at this portfolio, right,
how many businesses are there currently in your portfolio?
Well, I have, you know, some I don't, active, non-active,
because I also managed the ones that my father left.
Okay.
You know, I also am the managing director.
We're owners, my brothers, sisters, and also.
But the ones that I created, I have a group of company
called Obersi Group of Companies.
And this is what we, oh, there's more things.
Because I also opened, because when Talbot and I,
Talbot and I, we made an agreement
that when Talbot was going to set up his own system,
own infrastructure, we would go 50-50.
That was the deal.
Yeah.
And at a certain moment, we saw in the newspaper
that Talbot was going to, as many moons afterwards,
that heiter was still alive, and he was furious about it.
And he wanted me to go to court.
He would back me up 100%, you know, for the 50%,
which was, but I let it go, and I started a new company.
Because that deal was a handshake deal
that didn't got signed.
Yeah.
So that's one of the-
No, but all the politicians knew.
Everybody knew.
Yeah.
Everybody.
But what I'm trying to get to is,
when you made the joke just now about you sign first
and then you shake the hand,
is knowing that these things can occur
when people don't actually keep their word.
And then that's where Talbot and I,
we separated completely from each other.
And I, then I, yeah, we separated,
and I started right next to them,
together with Yuzuruun and with Hali, cellular one.
Cellular one.
I remember cellular one.
Yeah, came from Surmar.
Yeah.
And we started in Bonaire.
Unfortunately, it was all venture capitalist.
So you get to learn who is venture capitalist.
Yeah.
So any young entrepreneur,
if you hear somebody is a venture capitalist, run away.
Don't do business with venture capitalist.
Because they're in-
Please explain why.
Why, because they let you set up the company properly,
everything, then they find ways,
try to find ways to steal the company from you.
So they leave, they essentially invest a certain amount.
They help guide you in setting it up.
Then they make sure that you have to prove yourself now.
Run, do all the work.
But you're doing everything perfectly.
Then they create, hey, can you ask for more funds?
So and ask the other partners to bring in.
I said, no, why?
Our deal was you guys bring the funds.
Yeah.
That's how it is.
How can I tell my fellow Bonaireans and Kurosulayans,
you guys, no, that's not our deal.
So the same thing they were doing with me,
they were also-
Were-
United States.
Yeah, that's why I wanted to see.
United States.
And so we started the court case against them.
We won the court case.
They had to pay us.
And then we moved out.
Yeah.
Because there's a difference between venture capitalists
and angel investors, right?
That's totally different, yeah.
Could you break that down?
I don't know angel investors much good,
but from what I understand, those are investors
that would carry on with you, guide you also and so forth.
But in this case-
So what exactly do the venture capitalists do then?
Venture capitalists, at the same time,
I can tell you my experience,
at the same time, they were trying to steal
our shares in Bonaire.
At the same time, they were trying to steal the shares also
from my friends in Kurosulay,
no, in St. Martin, Rudich-Roman,
and St. Justasia, Henke Rivers,
and also in Dominica and in Jamaica.
Dominica, not Dominican Republic.
No, Dominica, Dominica, yeah.
And I can't tell you what happened,
but things happened that they lost everything.
Who lost everything, the venture capitalists?
Yeah, because you cannot come
and steal from the people of the islands.
Well, some people try, yeah.
You come and steal,
and when you try to steal with people that has license,
those are people that knows a lot of people.
And it's not just like that you get it,
because you put money on the table
to do what you say you're gonna do,
and you act always correctly.
And when people like this mess up,
the ministers know who is who.
So they are, if you come from outside
and you try to steal a local,
things will happen, you know?
Okay. Like that.
So that's what happened.
Yeah.
And it's not me, but it's just the law of how it is.
It's not like in America, for instance,
oh, I dare you, we respect you.
Oh, you're bigger than that, huh?
No.
And the Caribbean?
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
So you try to steal one of ours.
Okay, we'll see.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, like that.
That's actually what took place.
Okay.
So that's why I say stay away from venture capitalists.
Yeah.
But let's rewind in the time.
Let's go back to a young Alvin,
and what were young Alvin's experiences like?
Well, young Alvin was a guy that was always smiling,
helpful to his friends, good friends,
people like Eric Meyer, Ayo Bukhout,
many, Nantje, Fernando,
and many, many other friends.
You know, Long Chuy Gonzalez,
you have Yanni Gonzalez,
all of them were close friends of ours.
And we grew up in Playa Paribas,
what we call Playa Paribas,
which is close to the airport.
So our playground was actually what you,
no, sorry, I must say that first,
the first place we lived was actually Sabana.
Sabana, okay.
Yeah, Sabana, there is where I had,
we call him Cho Cho, George Mercera,
actually we call him Cho Cho.
And many of the friends that I still have up to today.
All my friends from back then that I used to be,
we're still friends, the one that are alive,
we're still friends up to today.
Oh wow.
You know, so we still have a great friendship.
I'll quote the young Drake,
no new friends, no new friends.
Yeah, have good friends, really good friends.
Yeah, that's important.
Yeah, very good friends.
And we used to, you know,
our playground was behind the house,
where actually there was the whole,
there's a road going from now, from the airport,
that goes in front of Marriott and all of that.
That road didn't exist.
That was actually where we used to,
when it rained, it become flooded.
And we used to make these boats,
and I would go and show my friends.
Because that road or that piece of land there
is sort of right in between this huge salt pond.
It's like, it's like, it's not a salt pond.
It's more like, no, it's not really a salt pond,
even though it's more salty than,
you know, the soil is very salty.
Yeah.
And, but there was no roads back then.
So was it always filled with water, that area?
No, only when it rains.
Oh, okay.
Only when it rains.
And it could be very dry also, so only when it rains.
And back then there was no, from the valk,
there was no Marriott, there's no,
so the airport was more, you know,
the little airport that existed close to the beach.
Okay, and so there was no road going there.
There was only one road going straight to the airport
in front of Hussar Habershuis,
and continue driving all the way to the airport.
Oh wow.
That was it.
And I remember a good friend of mine, Happy,
we call him Piscicci.
What does Piscicci mean?
Piscicci is like, yeah, Piscicci is a type of fish,
you know?
Yeah, Piscac fish, yeah.
Very close friend, very close friend.
Good friend up to today, very good friend.
And he's the one that actually put the windsurfing
up to a level in Bonaire.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, there was first this,
but Piscicci is the one that brought all the, you know,
how do you call it,
events of windsurfing to Bonaire.
Yeah, because there's quite a few events
of windsurfing on Bonaire, right?
Piscicci is the one that also took all these young guys,
like Tati France, Don Quijote France, all of these guys,
Choco France, all of them,
took them all to expose them out in the United States
and other places that they are today,
world champions.
Bonaireans are the world champions, you know,
in many categories.
They're the ones that also created, you know,
the freestyling and all of that, you know,
with moves, it's incredible, you know?
But that's all been, have been over there.
So Piscicci used to stop the cars.
Back then, you can count how many cars in the past,
and I would be on my horse, and I would be racing against.
Racing against cars.
So is this a nine-year-old Alvin or 11-year-old Alvin?
Yeah, I would say that was a 10-year-old Alvin.
A 10-year-old Alvin.
Yeah, 10-year-old Alvin, yeah, 10, 11-year-old Alvin.
Yeah, and then you have Chacho used to come,
we used to go look for donkeys, and you know,
there was always something happening at our house, you know,
always something happening,
because one of the good thing is that my father,
he bought all sorts of things for us, you know, billiards,
he did everything for us, but he told us,
share it with your friends.
So most of the friends come to our house.
Yeah, so your house was kind of like the Beard House,
the place that...
And from time to time, you know,
we would take my mother's car or my father's car to wash.
To wash.
But we have to take it from the front to go in the back,
and then we had to, you know, driving first,
all around in dirt, get it dirty, then to wash it.
You know, those type of things.
So the front to the back took a bit of a detour,
but you still ended up at the front at some point.
Oh yeah, it ended up afterwards at the front,
and nicely washed.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that was us growing up.
And one of the good things that happened to me was
with my sensei, C.S. Sonicolas,
he teach us karate, and that teach us discipline,
and that helped us quite a bit with our discipline
in many ways.
And we also had boats.
So how, what was the eventual ranking in karate?
There was no, actually, there was no belts,
because...
Okay.
But we learned from everything to say,
to a level of black belt.
But we never had, you know...
The ceremonies, never structured in that way,
but all of the core lessons, the discipline, et cetera,
it was instilled.
Then came Peter Silberi, and he put the regulations
like it should have been, but then I'm already in the States.
Yeah, yeah.
So studying.
So then we actually making that jump.
But before we get into the States and studying,
well, tell me maybe a bit about your dad and his journey.
How did he come to be able to provide all of that
for his kids?
Well, he was, he's born from a father
that was entrepreneur.
He came from Lebanon, and a mother that came from Bonaire,
French.
So there's really a line of entrepreneurship.
And not only my father, my mother's side also,
they were entrepreneurs.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, they were entrepreneurs.
So then you didn't have a choice.
No, it was in your blood.
It was in your blood.
Yeah, it was in your blood, yeah.
Because not my mother, but my grandmother, my grandfather,
my great-grandmother, all of them, they all had businesses.
Yeah.
So, and from there, so it's in your blood.
Yeah.
And so my father was a diver, very well-known diver.
When Skin Dive magazine used to come,
he would be the one that shows them around and all of that.
And they would do a lot of crazy things, crazy dives.
As Don Stewart always says, Wancho was crazy,
but I'm also very crazy.
So they know, they did crazy things.
Yeah, yeah.
But they survived all these crazy things.
And you mentioned Don Stewart earlier as well.
And the name does sound familiar, but who is Don Stewart?
Oh, Don Stewart is the icon, actually,
of diving for tourism of Bonaire.
Yeah.
He's really the icon of diving.
My father was more the diver that would do it for work,
in the sense of go and dive in Saurabong,
you see this hole.
And that hole used to be, actually,
there was going to be an 18-story high hotel there.
But there was a hole that they couldn't,
the leg had to come right at that hole.
And so they needed to actually close that hole.
And my father worked for one year filling up that hole
with cement and all types of things, risking his life.
He made tons of money, very good money.
But it never closed because the company went bankrupt
after the owner died.
So in an accident.
But my father then opened furniture business.
So since small, we used to be in the business
because it was my turn, for instance,
to go to business, even though I was 11, 12 years old.
It was my turn to go and open or be there
together with the other employees or things like that.
And I didn't have a driver's license,
but I would take my boat.
The building of my father was close to the ocean,
but I was in Playa Paribas.
So I had to go from Playa Paribas over to Playa Paribas.
So you would take the boat from home
and then get over there because you couldn't drive?
Yes, get there.
Resourceful.
Yes.
At what, 11, 12?
11, 12, yeah.
Okay, wow.
Yeah, around that age, yeah.
And then at the same time, I used to go to school.
I went to Ambachs-Holl.
I loved the technicals.
I loved technicals.
And we lived so close to the school,
but he had to take my horse from time to time to school.
Everybody would come with a bicycle,
I would come with my horse.
You know?
It was so funny.
So a 12-year-old is going to work.
That's already a bit unique-ish.
But then going to work on a boat,
definitely unique, going to school on a horse.
So I see the trend of utilizing unique ways of doing things.
Yes, yes.
I was always a little bit unique.
Yeah, yeah.
And actually, if I make the fast forward jump
into the future, then the big red building in St. Martin
is also a unique color and it stands out.
Yes, that's the marketing.
I'm seeing the trend.
Yeah, that's the marketing.
How do you get recognized in all the buildings
and all the red building?
You can't miss it.
You can't miss it, no, you can't.
Yeah, a red building on a backdrop
of a green, beautiful hill.
The red also contrasts the green very well.
Exactly.
As a designer, I should know about colors.
Yes, yes.
So it definitely stands out.
Yeah, yeah.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
And so...
So tell me a bit more about school
and what was that journey like?
After I finished my Ambers Hall,
I went to, my father sent me to Florida,
to Monverde Academy.
Together with my brother, we went to Monverde Academy
and we finished.
From there, we went to Valencia Community College.
My brother went for air conditioning.
My father was in air conditioning.
Okay.
That's how he got to Bonaire also.
He used to be actually the only person
that used to repair air conditioning on Bonaire
when he used to go.
And he was the only brother or only sibling
that said, I wanna go to Bonaire,
where my grandmother, where my mother was.
So that's how he got to Bonaire.
And he was very unique.
That's how your dad got to Bonaire.
Yes, my dad got to Bonaire.
And his father is Lebanese.
So he also, you know, business runs in his blood.
Yeah.
You know, and his mother is from Bonaire.
French, Indian.
Yeah.
Okay, not India from India.
Yeah, from the Americas.
And then-
So is it Arawak Line or Carib Line?
Arawak.
Okay, Arawak, yeah.
Yeah, and so he moved to Bonaire.
Him and his cousin, they built a boat out of plywood.
Oh, wow.
Put 25 horsepower behind it.
And they just took off to Bonaire.
From where?
From Curaçao.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
They arrived.
They arrived, the boat, you know, the keel of the boat
in the front was breaking.
So what they did was put the head up
and then they arrived over to the plaza.
Crazy.
Risk taker.
Very risk taker, yeah, yeah.
I think I got a lot of things from my father.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, because he was also entrepreneur.
He used to have ships, you know,
and things like that also.
And cargo ships and things like that.
And he used to, you know, bring a lot of things to Colombia
and from Colombia to the Caribbean and so forth.
So it was, so he was most of the time out of house also.
Yeah, so you have several siblings, right?
Yes, I have.
So you mentioned your brother.
I have, we used to be four brothers, one sister.
Then my oldest brother passed away.
Oh, sorry to hear that.
He died at his age 16.
He died while he was actually went for black coral.
And what is black coral?
Black coral, it's a black coral
that you do and you can make nice jewelry with it.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, so he went for that and it was too deep.
And his reserve tank did not work.
And so his lungs collapsed.
Collapsed.
And Don Stewart was the one that first boat
to arrive there to try to save him.
Oh, wow.
But there was no way to save him.
Yeah.
And he passed away.
There was a sad moment in our life.
I can imagine.
Very sad.
And then thereafter my father formed partnership
with Sylvia Abraham.
And so I have my stepbrother.
Stepbrother, so I have two stepbrothers
and one stepsister.
And my stepbrother also died in the ocean
doing water skiing.
Wow.
Yeah.
If you went to Cattle Beach Bar most probably
and on that pier, he was put on that pier.
And he died, he actually hit a boat
not far away from that pier.
Oh, wow.
While he was slaloming, looking at his waves
and he hit the pier.
And those are sad moments in our life.
But yeah, so I went to school in Monverde Academy,
then to Valencia Community College.
I went for architecture, then my father told me,
you know there's this thing called the computer,
it's coming up.
We're talking about here 1981, 82.
Says there's something coming up there
and this thing seems to be promising and so forth.
So I went to study computer engineering.
Oh.
In Tampa.
Okay, nice.
And I graduated while I was at school
and in the United States I had a lot of friends of mine.
Yeah.
You know, as students you need money.
So I bought some Betamax and VHS
and I gave them to my friends
and I paid them two dollars per movie
without, how do you call it, without promotions.
Promotions and one dollar with promotions in it.
And so I had videos coming and it was illegal.
Yeah, yeah.
It was illegal.
There was no cable company back then, there was nothing.
Well, I have similar stories actually with,
well I guess in the States they have what?
Statue of limitations.
So after a certain amount of decades,
they can't come for you anymore.
No, they can't come for me anymore.
But I had a similar thing with CDs.
Oh, okay, yeah.
So in my days, in order to afford the latest album
that I wanted, I would, let's say I buy the album
and then I would record at least five, six, seven,
eight cassette tapes and then sell it to those
that couldn't afford the CD
but then they could get the cassette tape
and then I could flip to get the next album
and then make some extra money on the side.
Well, I was making real money
because I was selling the videos to Bonaire.
Oh, so they even had the supply chain set up.
Oh yes, I had the supply chain.
All the video takes in Bonaire, I was supplying them.
Oh, great.
So I had it good, I had it good.
It wasn't bad.
I still had a small time hustle
but you already turned it into a business empire.
I did it pretty good, I did it very well.
And then I noticed that some of my,
because I used to send it through the mail
with the mailman, you know, like that
and boxes and things like that
and sometimes they would not arrive.
Then I stopped doing it because they, you know,
they were going to come after me
because it became a big business.
It became too big.
Yeah, it became.
And we are from Miami?
No, that was actually I was living in Orlando, in Tampa.
Okay, okay, okay.
But still from Florida.
From Florida, yeah.
And boxes shipped into the Caribbean in the 80s.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly, exactly, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So there is where then I graduated.
Because I do hear that, you know,
your dad really tried to instill specific lessons.
You just mentioned your daughter
so maybe you could talk about an example
of specific lessons that you maybe tried
to instill in your kids to continue part of that mindset.
But let me go first to my father.
Okay.
Because at a certain moment when I had agency
then I requested the agency for Radio Holland
and I needed a place in order for me.
My father was owner of the buildings,
you know, some buildings and I needed a place to rent.
Yeah.
So I went to my father, I said,
father, I want to rent from you.
Yeah.
And he says, well, yeah, okay, it's X amount.
I'm just gonna mention a figure, 1000 guilders a month.
You have to pay me two months rent,
two months deposit.
And then you get the key.
Okay.
And you put it on this bank account.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay, I'll show you I can do it.
I worked a little bit, I didn't have the money,
but I went and I gave him the deposit and everything.
And so after I was ready for me to go to,
I think it was six or seven months later,
I was ready for me to go to Panama and buy in electronics
so I can resell in Bonaire.
He then told me, oh, by the way, I have a surprise for you.
Here is your bank account.
So he saved that money for me without knowing.
Yeah, yeah.
What was actually interesting though,
because then I'll ping pong to the future again,
but I know that you own Xerox in St. Martin.
Yes.
Also in Bonaire.
It started in Bonaire.
Everything started in Bonaire.
But what's interesting about what your dad told you
in the early 80s that look at this computer stuff
that's coming and you quickly jumped on to the new wave
of what was coming.
But do you also know interesting fact,
in 1984, the first Macintosh was released.
I know.
And that had the very first user, the GUI,
the graphical user interface, designed by Apple.
But Picasso like stolen from Xerox.
I know.
Because Xerox had the very first graphical user interfaces
that he saw and saw this funny thing with two buttons.
What is that?
A mouse.
And got inspired by that to then create
that Macintosh computer with the first
graphical user interface, which Bill Gates actually
designed software for and saw that this was the future
and then went on and built Windows
behind Steve Jobs back.
Exactly.
But there's more things that Xerox also create.
People don't know ethernet, Xerox invention.
There's so many things that Xerox was involved in.
The only thing is they didn't know
how to put it on the market.
Yeah.
And so.
Yeah, we were talking about that earlier also
with Philips, the amount of inventions
that happened right here.
Yeah.
In Eindhoven, but they weren't the best
at putting it out in the market.
So eventually they would license these things
to other companies.
Correct.
Yeah.
Correct, correct.
And so at a certain moment, I was madly in love
with my ex-wife and I wanted to get back to Bonaire.
So she's from Bonaire.
Well, she was living in Bonaire.
She's from Curaçao living in Bonaire.
Okay.
Yeah.
And was my sweetheart from young age.
And so at a certain moment I wanted to go back
because every little break I had,
I wanted to be in Bonaire with her.
You know?
And so I graduated today, did not went to my ceremony,
took my diploma, passed by a car sales,
sell my car for whatever amount.
I think I got $500.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then moved on to Bonaire, going to Bonaire.
Didn't went to my ceremony.
And when I reached Bonaire, my father asked me,
so what are you gonna do now?
I said, well, I'm gonna go to the
Bonaire
and I'm gonna go to the Bonaire.
What are you gonna do now?
I said, well, I'm gonna start something.
Yeah.
There was no computer.
There was mainframe.
Macintosh just started, but it was just the beginning.
So there was mainframe and mainframe today,
the calculator does more than that.
A mainframe.
So how big were those mainframes?
Oh, a house.
A house.
How bigger than that, this building.
Yeah.
You know, could be.
And so there was none.
Actually, when I graduated,
I graduated with Summa Cum Laude.
And I had Texas Instruments, IBM,
all of them came in to look for me, to hire me.
Yeah, yeah.
They said, I'm gonna be doing my own hiring
on my little island called Bonaire.
So I went to Bonaire.
And my father said, okay, you go to Wimco.
My friend is waiting for you over there.
What is Wimco?
Wimco was actually a television, TV,
and electronic place.
My father used to be agent for them.
In Bonaire.
Was very good friends with them.
So he sent me over there.
And I still remember, Boy, his name is Boy,
Tuibo, he looks at me and says,
Avin, your father told me that you're coming.
And he told me not to pay you
more than 1000 guilders a month.
But I think it's a little bit too low.
With your standard, I'm gonna give you 1500.
No, don't tell your dad.
Yes.
But they were best friends.
So, and with also the owner of Wimco,
they were best friends.
So, and my father.
But what I'm kind of getting from this is that
your dad also very much consciously wanted to make sure
that whatever you achieve, you truly worked for it yourself.
To give you that.
Yeah.
So I started there.
And he gave me a beautiful El Camino with,
I had the first pickup truck that was lifted to this height.
Oh wow.
And you're talking about 1984.
Yeah.
And I had the first pickup truck with tires and all of that.
Young guy with 350 horsepower.
Every time you turn on the motor
and you just drive a little bit,
you see the gas going like this.
So at a certain moment, you know,
you hardly drive, only go to work.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it was, I stayed one month after one month.
My father had a ship.
So roll on, he had the first roll on, roll off
container ship in the islands.
Well, actually my uncle had one before.
This one was with containers.
And he had the first container ship between the islands.
And so I said, okay, I put my car in it.
After one month, I'm done.
That's it.
I had my fun.
I'm going to Bonaire and no matter what my father tell me,
I'm gonna open my business.
You know, that was me.
And so my father says, oh, so what are you,
so I'm gonna open my business.
And I started actually TV and radio repair inside my room
at his house.
Then at a certain moment, I,
Austin Olivier came to me, he says, Alvin,
he was the head of the custom,
very good friend of my father.
Says Alvin, you know, Motorola two way radios,
we have a lot of problems, you know, the police has them,
you know, everybody has, but nobody to repair them.
And we have to send them to Curaçao for Radio Holland.
Why don't you look into it?
Well, the next day I was in the father ship,
going to Curaçao, offering them my service
and everything.
And you saw opportunity boom.
Of course, did it right away.
Without thinking, without blinking.
I didn't know the rules, how the rules are regulated,
it was so regulated that I didn't know how regulated it was.
So I decided I'm going to do that, you know?
So I'm going to, I'm gonna do that.
So I started with, so I,
I went, I remember Gerard Tolenaar was there.
He was the director of Radio Holland,
Bonair, well, Curaçao, Aruba, St. Martin.
And so I asked him, who's the director?
He says, well, Mr. Gerard Tolenaar,
tell him Mr. Robert is here from Bonair.
Yeah.
So I had a lot of guts, always, you know,
don't accept no, just continue doing.
And politely, you know?
And then I had a meeting, so he says,
okay, well, interesting, interesting.
I'll get back to you.
I said, okay.
After three weeks of waiting for him to get back to me,
I said, Mr. Tolenaar, you told me
you're gonna get back to me, but concerning the license,
you already agreed that we're gonna have something to do.
But if you, I'm fed up.
He says, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm gonna go for another brand, okay?
I'm gonna start another brand then in Bonair
because I want to do this business and that's it.
And he says, no, no, no, no, you don't understand.
There's a licensing process.
I said, ah, okay, so we're gonna send equipment for you
and this and that to help you with the setup
for the licensing process.
And that was a long time ago, you know?
But I was, so I really started with Motorola first.
You were eager to get started.
Yes.
You basically jumped into it head first.
Yes.
And then you learned what the actual business is
as you were going.
As I was going.
There was a lot of rules and regulations.
So it's like the analogy where you're on the train,
but you're building the train tracks
as the train is moving forward.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that's one of these mindset things.
Yes, yes.
And then I started.
But what gave you that type of confidence
to be able to do that or even take those type of risks?
Let me put it this way.
All of us, all my brothers and sisters,
sister, all of us have this mindset
that if we believe in something, we do it.
And there's nothing, and I see it in my nephews also.
Yeah.
I see it in my daughter.
I see them.
Yeah.
Exactly the mindset of an entrepreneur.
They don't say, they just do it.
Yeah.
You know, they look at it good
and you know, some of my nephews,
they're very, very entrepreneurial.
Very, very entrepreneurial.
So my daughters,
I have a 34-year-old daughter.
She's not entrepreneurial at all.
And then I have my second daughter,
is Tiaza.
Tiaza is more the type she wanted to go
into the medical field.
And she did also, she went for, she did
If you know the Dutch word, you could also.
Operation room assistant.
Okay, yeah.
So she did that.
And so she went into the field.
And all of a sudden she ended up coming to me
and saying, I wanna work with you.
That was one of the happiest day of my life.
When your daughter says, I wanna work with you.
Yeah.
Because there's a certain moment I said,
okay, who am I creating all these things for?
True.
Of course I have nephews that would, you know,
I have one, a few of them.
Because you only have doctors.
Yeah.
Okay.
And so then I have nephews that are like my son.
You know, I adopted them actually like my son.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so they've been with me, you know,
they're doing their own thing.
They have their own, but still they've been with me,
helping me and so forth.
Yeah.
And when my daughter says she was very interested,
she wanted to start helping, I was like, wow, this is great.
Yeah.
And so now she's helping me.
And she created the business of her own also on the site
with her partner.
Oh, nice.
And so I'm, to this moment, I'm teaching them certain things
if they want to learn pricing, those type of things.
But she's a very smart girl.
So what is the business?
Oh, she's gonna do next to our, we have the Xerox business.
We have it, it's, a lot of people think that the print shop
is the business that we have.
But it's a showroom that you can show your quality
and still make money with it.
But she's gonna do, for instance, like t-shirt printing
and all of these things.
Next to our things, you know, so,
which we used to have it already in the past.
Yeah.
So that's basically what it's gonna be.
Going back, so I started actually with Motorola
to 2A Radio as agent of Radio Holland.
And I made it so good, amazing.
Within one year, Xerox was renting from my father
in the, in Buret, yeah, okay.
And my step-uncle asked me if I was interested,
if I wanted to, Tom Abraham, if I was interested
in the business of Xerox.
Yeah.
And I said, well, put up a meeting.
So he put up the meeting.
And it was Artur Viana that came, Donnie Bacca is also
one of the first ones.
We're friends up to today.
These are people that are close, close friends.
And so we started talking about one cent, two cents,
and five cents.
I said, maybe it's something for my, I wasn't married yet.
Maybe something for my girlfriend or my wife to do help.
And so they gave me three months to operate the business.
The Xerox business.
Yeah, the Xerox business.
Well, within one month, I said, I'm gonna buy.
And they said, no, no, no, no, we're finally making money.
Give us, glad the three months.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And also that's actually how it happened.
And I became agent to Xerox Antiana Curacao.
And after 10 years of doing business with Xerox Antiana
Curacao, which was Xerox Corporation.
And that's then we're on Bonaire Curacao.
That was in Curacao.
Oh, that was in Curacao.
Okay.
After agent for, because Curacao,
Xerox Corporation had the office in Bonaire,
which is owned by Xerox Corporation,
which is owned by, managed by Xerox Antiana in Aruba,
in St. Martin.
Yeah.
And so there is where they had,
was managed by Curacao, by Ruy Viana, good friend of mine.
I learned so much from that guy.
Became a mentor, have actually three mentors.
My father, Hugo Gerrard, and Ruy Viana.
Maybe take me through a couple of, let's say,
the biggest milestone achievements
in your business entrepreneurial career.
So we touched on, well, the early days
of the air conditioning business.
Then the initial radio repair business.
So those were all sort of the experimentation,
young entrepreneurial ventures, the VHS business
in Florida shipping to the Caribbean.
And my girlfriend used to, which became my wife,
used to be the one that brings them to the customer.
To the customer, distribution.
Distribution, yeah.
But then to the first, let's say,
legitimate businesses, businesses,
when you became the agent for Xerox in Bonaire.
No, the agent for, yeah, for Zeni,
for Radio Holland first, Motorola, and then in 1985.
Then the Xerox opportunity came.
And then the next step in that journey was to,
you really wanted to grow from agent to distributor.
And then the opportunity came to buy Xerox, Sint-Martin.
Yes.
And in that package was that they also made you
distributor in Bonaire.
That was the thing.
Yeah, yeah.
Otherwise I would not buy it.
Then we just touched on the fact that
it was the first time for you going to Sint-Martin,
getting the keys five days before, at that time,
the most devastating hurricane that ever passed on the island.
Because since then we've had another one.
You.
Tell me about it.
Yeah.
And, but I know there's a couple more highlight moments
in the career.
The highlights that I did was,
during the years as Motorola agent to Radio Holland,
we, Talbot and I, which was the local telephone company,
and I actually sort of like invented ways
to make two-way radio telephony with it.
Two-way radio telephony.
Two-way radio telephones.
So they actually would ring and you would dial
before the mobile started.
Yeah.
Or you would dial and do all of this,
but it was two-way radio conversation.
Oh wow.
On the phone.
Because did you guys also help set up any of that
in Sint-Martin?
No, in Sint-Martin, no.
ECC, Anki Rivers.
Anki Rivers together with Bart,
they did the first, actually the first mobile
in the Antilles was done.
In Sint-Martin.
Oh wow.
Yeah, ECC.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was Anki Rivers together with Bart.
I do remember hearing these stories of,
I forgot the exact name, but that my dad
and some of his compadres were very much into those radios
and I don't know if they had a sort of a club
and what exactly they used.
That's Ham radios, yeah.
The Ham radios, yeah.
That's totally different, yeah.
That's a totally different world.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a club.
But going back, I would say that was a milestone.
Because from two-way radio, we make telephony,
Telvo and I.
And then this was started by customers.
And then this was in what year?
Yeah.
What year is this?
You're talking about 1991, 1991 going to 1994.
Yeah.
1994, I set up the first Bonaire trunking system.
And that was part of, together with,
because you have Zainy Tel,
which was a radio Holland before.
Zainy Tel bought in and you had,
it was Tom Ekers was the director.
And we're friends up to today.
We call each other now and then.
Yeah.
So Zainy Tel, he, oh, one very important person
that was with Telvo at that time that we made good moves
was Berth Heiter.
I'm gonna tell you a little bit more about him.
May he rest in peace with this guy.
It was amazing to see him.
Those are people that made a lot of difference in my life.
Yeah.
And Zainy Tel set up the Curaçao trunking system
and asked me if I wanted to invest
into the Bonaire trunking system.
This was done, you know.
So I said, okay, I'm gonna do that.
And that's how we became actually the first
in the Caribbean and Latin America that ever did this.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's a milestone right there.
Yeah.
And then in 19,
in 19,
we opened the first mobile,
was it 95?
94.
Sometimes you tend to.
Yeah, yeah.
Mid-90s.
Yes.
We opened the first mobile telephony in Bonaire.
Oh wow.
So that was actually,
my license was used, okay, as 2-way radio.
Because mobile at that time fell on the 2-way radio.
Nobody knew how to put it.
Brand new.
So it came as that's.
I mean the kids, anyone sub 30 can't even imagine
the time when there was no mobiles.
Much less for the 20 year olds here.
Yeah, yeah.
And so data, what you find is actually,
yeah, what you find was in 19, I think it was 1995.
We did the first mobile, it was actually Talbot,
who has telephony rights in Bonaire.
And Seytel, who had an infrastructure in Curaçao.
And me, who had a license to do two-way radio,
who mobile would fall under at that time.
And together we took the opportunity
that the queen was coming to Bonaire.
And Beth Hayter was the one that actually put it all together.
May he rest in peace.
Man of his word all the way.
And we, they wanted first to buy my company.
And they offered me three million guilders.
That was a lot of money.
Yeah, yeah.
For a young guy to reap from, that's a good money.
But I said no, I don't sell my last name.
You know, for us today, I would form it differently
and do it, but anyway, I did good business,
very good business.
But that was, that's actually then part
of the learning curve, right?
That as you go through business,
and you may have certain principles,
but you maybe don't understand all the nuances
of what is possible.
So where you can still keep the last name strong,
but still expand the business
in different type of partnerships.
But then we formed a partnership,
and a very solid one, with a handshake though.
Because I'm a man, I believe in handshakes, you know?
It's stronger than signing a document.
But then today, I sign a document,
and then we make a handshake.
You know, it's two totally different things.
The times have changed, and people's,
how to say this?
Yeah, honor is not as strong as it once was.
True, true.
And so what happened was,
so that was actually also a milestone,
because I was part of the first mobile infrastructure
in Bonaire.
Wow.
And another milestone is, when I was in St. Maarten,
of course, I did the, I also bought the shares
from Hankey Rivers for wireless telecommunication network.
And at a certain moment, we had to make a move from MMDS,
because the government wanted the frequency back.
And so we had to make a move from MMDS to DSMDS.
We had to make a move from MMDS to DVBDT.
And we were the first in the Caribbean and Latin America
that made that possible.
Yeah.
Even St. Maarten don't realize what we have done.
And the government of Colombia flew in
to look at what we had and could not believe it,
for they have been throughout Europe,
throughout everywhere looking for a new system
to a TV platform to create.
And they couldn't imagine what they have seen.
And they asked us to give all television station
and cable operators a presentation
in San Andres Island in Colombia.
Oh, wow.
And I gave them all.
In return.
So what did I have to do with the way
that you guys implemented it in the landscape
and infrastructure of the island?
Wireless pay TV and free to air TV.
Because where, what year was that?
There was in 19, no, this was in 2010,
2009 going to 2010.
Oh, that's with the cable company that's now.
Yes, yeah.
What's the name of that cable company?
Wireless Telecommunication Network.
Okay. WN.
WN, yeah.
Oh, because that one also is the one that has quite a few
of the Latin American TV stations.
Yes, the channels. TV station channels.
Yeah. And so forth, yeah.
And unfortunately, the government did not.
Embrace it?
Embrace it, and they did not pay
what they were supposed to pay me.
At the time they had to pay me.
And that led to me losing quite a bit of money.
Yeah.
It's still life.
There's still a window of opportunity,
but all depends on an investment I need to make,
which has to come through one of these days
that I would come through it, then I can invest.
Okay. Yeah.
So I'm gonna jump back a little again,
but in an introspective way.
So let's see, let me do some calculations here.
I believe it would be 1981.
Yes.
Let's say summer 1981.
Yeah, that's the time that your dad told you
look into this computer science stuff.
No, that was, yeah, around halfway in 1981, yeah.
Yeah.
So that's an 18 year old Alvin.
Yeah, that was, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, correct.
So sitting in this chair today,
looking back at 18 year old Alvin,
what advice would you give him?
I would say,
stick a little bit longer in school,
go for the accounting part of business,
to learn a little bit more,
legal side of things also,
and then so wait one more year,
do courses and things like that and that,
and then follow your dreams.
And then follow your dreams.
Yeah, but take the courses.
If you haven't taken them, take the courses
for accounting and also for legal,
you know, legal.
That would help you a lot in life.
So there's a lot of bad people back there
that could put, you know,
a little line that'll screw you over.
Yeah, but even though I didn't experience much,
but I've had people that tried.
And thanks God I had the backbone
that I always check with my lawyers to see,
and then hey, Alvin, this move, okay.
You know, like that.
But I wouldn't change much
because I did what I had to do.
And sometimes I use thanks in other line,
I ate more than I can chew,
but then I spit it out.
I did it my way.
I'm doing it my way.
Doing it my way.
And sometimes you still spit, you know,
you still have to spit more, you know.
Yeah, yeah.
That's how it is.
We touched on, what I did found interesting
is you mentioned that you wouldn't change much.
So there's not much advice that you would give 18 year old
you that would be different than what you did
and the path that you walked on.
The key thing that you said is learn some of the accounting,
learn some of the legal stuff,
more in the essence for you to have a better understanding
of it at a younger age, right?
So that later on in life,
even if you're not executing those aspects yourself,
but at least you have the understanding
that when advisors are advising you on things
that you can still follow along very easily,
which I believe is core advice.
No person needs to know everything about everything,
but you should have a certain level of knowledge
on a plethora of different aspects.
And if you're gonna follow your dreams
and go into entrepreneurship,
then understanding your books is vital.
So understanding how the numbers work,
the accountancy is 100% vital.
Having some form of understanding on the legalities,
I can also imagine being super vital.
So management operations is something
that you can learn along the way,
but also have in some form of understanding
of all of these aspects.
There's actually a term that,
something I learned along the way
and something that I'm still busy cooking up,
but I call them the five pillars.
So one pillar is your marketing and sales,
one pillar of business.
The second, well, the next pillar
would be your product or services.
Then the next pillar would be administration and operations.
So that comes down to your accountancy.
No, it's not administration and operations,
it's a bit of administration and finance.
And then you have the operations side.
And last but not least, the external market,
because that is the part that is not in your control.
Those four others you can keep in your control,
but the fifth one happens outside of your control
and you have to constantly be able to adapt to it.
So in essence, you're saying,
make sure that you understand more about,
more aspects of these different pillars
and then you take your drive and your ambition
and go for it.
And I would add one more thing.
Tell me.
Take your losses when you have to take them.
Because a lot of times we become greedy.
And when the customer is telling you,
complaining about certain things, take your losses.
I've been through,
and I think that's what made me grow,
that I had to order certain parts urgently,
even take a plane, go to Curaçao,
get the part which
spent extra money.
That cost $25 and sell it for $25.
You understand?
Because you're playing ticket, all of this stuff.
It's basically a loss.
Total loss.
However, the customer knows what you did.
The customer knows what you did is extraordinary.
You did not charge them extra for that service.
And that is what, if you want to build a brand,
you gotta build it that way.
Trust being one of the strong pillars.
If it falls on the warranty, stick to it.
It's on the warranty.
Don't deviate.
Because that's what builds your name.
There would be a few things that I would,
not one thing that I would change a little bit
is actually try to be more at home
with my children when they were growing up.
But however, you can't do both things at the same time.
And that's one thing that I regret a little bit
that took place.
But other than that,
I wouldn't change a thing.
Much all the bad things that happen
and all the good things.
I always believe that good things happens for a reason
and bad thing also happens for a reason.
Whatever it is, you will know the reason.
Not right away when the time comes.
Exactly.
You know?
And that's one thing.
Going back to the water equipment,
because I became part of that company
and then what I did was, at a certain point,
I said, you know something?
I'm gonna take over the distributorship
for Caribbean and Latin America.
You know?
And I'm gonna work well,
except for where they are already.
You know, which is the French islands and all of these.
Because these are French family.
Very nice family, by the way.
A very man of honor and word and things like that.
You know, going back,
and St. Martin is a very interesting island
because you meet very interesting people.
I met the Kavanaugh family in St. Martin
through my goddaughter.
And I learned of this equipment
that Christian Kavanaugh invented, actually.
What equipment is that?
You plug it into the water.
You plug the equipment into the wall
and it creates the best water you can ever drink.
Okay.
From the air.
When was this?
This is, we're now,
20, 21 or 2020.
Just prior to COVID, approximately.
I got to, I could not believe what I was seeing.
And I know-
How big is this device?
Oh, we have it 40 by 40 by 56.
That's feet?
Centimeters.
Centimeters, okay.
Yeah, you have the table model.
You have the 40 by 40 by 112.
Okay, that's, and then you have bigger models.
You have the 10 liter.
You have the 30 liter.
You have the 60 liter, 100 liter, 500 liter.
And then we can custom build
to your building's infrastructure.
Yeah.
You know, like that.
And what it does is it creates water from the air.
And at the same time, it purifies also
what is inside the building.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now the best would be if it's outside,
but it works also inside the building.
Okay.
But it can also work outside?
The best, because there it's where it gets more moisture,
more moisture from the air.
Yeah, more moisture from the air.
Yeah, yeah.
And so when I looked at it and I said,
wow, I couldn't believe this.
This is so amazing.
This is the best.
Wow.
So I asked him a few questions and this and that,
and then we formed a partnership.
And we even put the company,
the head office was in Bonaire.
Yeah.
So it can be a Dutch company.
And from there we went to,
we became part of the Dutch,
how do you call it, water mission.
And so we went to Mexico together.
We did Panama and so forth, and so forth.
Yeah.
And so that's how we went to water missions
from the Netherlands.
And we were very unique.
We had the boot that everybody came to see.
Because you had demos of the product.
Yes, and tested out and everything.
And it's amazing.
That would be super interesting to see.
It's so amazing, amazing how this equipment work.
I mean, the water, what it tastes is amazing.
You can't imagine.
And it never been through any pipe, except internally.
The father of Havana is amazing.
And I, you know, so at a certain moment I said,
I'm gonna take the distributorship.
And then we came to the conclusion,
we said, okay, the inventory that we put in Panama
will be from Green Innovation.
And then we would move forward like that.
So my purpose of my trip,
and I took Netherlands also,
because I'm a Dutch company.
And I want to push my product into the Dutch market.
I created a good relationship with,
due to the water mission as being part of the water mission
from the Netherlands, being part of the Netherlands.
I said I want the Netherlands as well,
because lots of times the Netherlands government
would give a gift to another country or whatever it is.
And usually it comes from the Netherlands.
So if I have a distributor or sub distributor here,
they would then carry it out
with the Dutch government or whatever.
And looking at the future, how I've seen the future,
is looking at all the things that,
while I was in the water mission,
the world is in critical state of water.
Critical state.
If you look at, I've been through rivers
where pollution comes out of rivers.
Pollution that fumes comes out of the river, entire river.
That river connects to the ocean.
To the ocean, yeah.
And don't forget, like that river,
there's plenty of other rivers in other countries,
big countries that is connected to the ocean.
And that is today forming, how do you call it,
that's why you have, the reefs have problems.
Yeah.
The algae is coming out.
All of these type of things,
it's because we have one ocean.
Yeah.
That's my belief.
I'm not a scientist, but we are one ocean.
True.
At a certain moment, we all connect.
Yeah.
And all these things.
It all flows.
All flows.
Yeah.
And when you look at, for instance,
the rivers itself that is contaminated,
how can you drink that water?
Yeah.
So we would have water, but we don't have water.
But we don't have water drinking water.
Because maybe a lot of people don't even know,
well, a lot of the bottled water
is coming from the natural springs,
and natural springs are connected to the rivers.
It's, this whole ecosystem is all connected.
Now, what Ocelet does, it replicate mother nature.
Yeah.
It replicates mother nature.
You know, you have first, you know, the external filters,
which are HIPAA filter and some of the equipment.
Okay, that keeps all the bacteria out.
And then you have the condensation.
Then you have another filtering with remerses or moses.
And then you have the UV lamp with the tank.
Yeah.
And then you have drinking, pure drinking water
with 7.4 pH, which is alkaline water.
Yeah, that's alkaline water.
Perfect alkaline water.
And it's amazing.
Once you drink the water from Ocelet,
you do not want anything else, honestly.
I've been, every time I travel,
I suffer because I don't have my water with me.
You don't have your water with you.
It's amazing.
So that's gonna be, that's gonna be part
of new business ideas.
New innovation, yeah.
No, that's coming now.
The traveling version.
No, we already have it.
I'm looking actually now in the Netherlands.
First, I have to find out what are the rules
and regulations of course.
And then for us to execute to make sure
that we comply with all the rules and regulations.
And then maybe together with a sub-distributor,
hopefully we'll find one.
And we also, looking back into it,
we say, hey, you know something?
Solar system would work perfectly with this.
Because I have a few ruler places in Bonaire
that has, don't have, it's totally off grid
and has our equipment with the drinking water.
Oh wow.
You know, so hey.
And tell you one more thing.
In emergency situations.
Yeah, not only that.
Yeah, like calamity and all of that, yeah.
And not only that, but once the lady find out
about this water, what it does with your skin
when you wash your face, my friend,
you can never take it.
You can't take away that equipment from them.
You know, and it's half price of the ones that knows
Kangen water equipments.
It's half price of it.
Yeah.
You know, and, but what it does,
it does miracle with your skin.
I have a friend, one of my business partners in Costa Rica.
He had one of the models, so he would show,
go to Costa Rica and show the hotel, this and that,
all these things.
At a certain moment, he wanted to take out the equipment
to go to an event.
The wife says, uh-uh.
The equipment is not going out of here.
Bring the people home.
Oh my God.
It's a true story, yeah?
So this is the warning for the guys
that want to make that investment
and the ladies find out the beauty implications?
Yes.
You're screwed.
It is so true, it's so true.
But then when you drink, I have, you know,
people that have, you know, testimony that says
they had problem with their skin.
Once they started to drink the water,
the skin problem went away, the skin rash and all of these things.
I'm very curious about this.
We'll have to talk more offline.
But looking into the crystal ball of the future, right?
Because earlier you mentioned that,
I think I quoted something like,
oh, I did it my way and you're like,
no, I'm still doing it my way.
Yeah.
So what are some of the other opportunities
that you see that you want to explore,
some of the plans that you maybe could share on camera?
You know, St. Maarten is a very unique island in many ways,
even though the mass tourism made a lot of vent into it,
but you still encounter very, you know,
Interesting people.
I was with my good friend, like brother, Robbie.
He says, Alvin, there's this guy in the movie,
he used to make a lot of movies and he made this and that.
You want to meet him?
I said, yes.
So he called him, he happened to be on St. Maarten,
his name is Mars Callahan.
And Mars started talking to me about, you know,
what he's doing and this and that.
Then he says, you want to see?
Let's go to my villa.
Yeah.
And we went to Lowlands Villa, beautiful villa.
And who do I encounter there?
Cuba Gooding Jr.
Oh wow.
You know, a bunch of movie stars and also a whole team.
So when was this, around December, January-ish?
No, there was, yeah, this was, oh, let me see.
Time flies so fast.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I'm more thinking the time of the year.
I think it was like two years ago, two years ago.
Yeah, but which season of the year?
This would have been in summertime.
In summertime, okay.
And so two years ago, or yeah, two years ago.
And so I came across him and he says,
and he says, yes, let's go take a look at it, you know.
Look at what they have.
And they were showing me Joe Juarez,
who's a co-owner as well.
And some other techie guys, and these guys as well,
beyond, you can't imagine.
And they showed me the product.
I said, holy shoot.
Whoa, whoa, I want to be part of this.
How can I be part of this?
You know, and they said, well,
we need to get into Columbia, we need to do this,
we need to do this.
I said, I'll take you to the presidency house.
I didn't know the president.
But I'll take you there.
I'll get it done.
And before you know it, one month thereafter,
we were in the president palace.
President palace in Columbia.
In Columbia.
With all the ministers and all of them.
As if you believe in something and you have a good product,
you can convince anybody.
And of course, I have very good friends
that could open the doors and things like that, you know.
So.
Yeah, is that saying that you're only five steps removed
from anyone in the world?
And I tell you one thing, when you come into the room
with guys like Cooper Gooding Jr.,
everybody wants to see you.
And the first thing they ask is, can I take a picture?
Yeah, yeah.
This guy's so famous.
Yeah.
You know, I made, we went to Bonaire together,
he stayed at my house together with the whole team.
And I said, I made a bet with him.
I said, and Bonaire, when you reach to Bonaire,
you don't need to worry,
the people won't worry who you are and this and so,
you don't need to worry about security,
you don't need to worry about this.
He said, Alvin, are you sure?
You want to bet?
I said, no, we don't need to bet,
but I'm just telling you, I'm just telling you.
Well, as we came from the airport,
we were driving in front of the Bisturz collation.
And they stopped, let me see this one minute.
And somebody recognized him from in the car.
Can you imagine?
And the guy stopped, he could not believe his eyes.
The other car came and bumped into him.
Oh my God.
Okay.
So you guys got into an accident in Bonaire.
Both of them got out of the car,
wanted to take a picture with Kuba.
And then Kuba with me, he says, Alvin, I'm telling you.
It's amazing, this guy's so humble, so nice,
because he has this time that he wants his, you know?
But I don't want to be in his shoes
because everywhere this man goes, it's like, wow.
I mean, there's no corner on earth that he could be,
he, you know, relaxed.
There's no corner on earth, you know?
But this guy is amazing.
He's such a humble man, yeah.
Amazing stories, man.
But I did not tell you what the business was.
It is the world's first Web 3.0 platform
with streaming.
Let's leave that as a surprise for later.
Okay.
Web 3.0, world's first?
Yeah.
Interesting.
Yes.
Interesting.
Created for mainly, actually it was created more
for the movies and people that make content providers,
people like you guys, you know,
that make movies and make things,
but don't have a way to distribute it and to cash out.
Get direct to customer.
Yeah.
And that's what it's all about.
But then came more things and more things and more things.
It's something, it's gonna be the bomb.
It's gonna be the bomb.
I can tell you, it's gonna be the bomb.
It's gonna be-
That crystal ball, well, the track record speaks for itself.
It will be as big or bigger than Microsoft.
Oh snap.
Or Amazon.
Oh snap.
Or any of these big corporations within five to 10 years.
Huge.
Once it launches, which is close to launching.
You know, so I'm happy to be part of this
because they appointed me, well, I'm a shareholder now,
and they also appointed me president
for Latin America and Caribbean.
But since, you know, we're also a Dutch island,
I want to bring it to the Netherlands as well.
You know, so that's, and then of course,
once it gets to the Netherlands,
it's gonna go viral all over, all over, all over.
It's gonna be worldwide.
And I would be very proud to see that day
that it's a major accomplishment.
Don't go with the money.
It goes with the accomplishment that one has done.
And when you believe something, you see something,
you grab it and you take it along.
And sometimes, like they say, you know,
you chew more than you can, but then you spit it out.
You take on more than you can chew,
but then you have to know when to spit it out.
Don't choke on it.
Don't choke on it, yeah.
Because sometimes, you know, then again,
no venture taken, nothing to gain.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Alvin, it's been an amazing conversation.
I feel like I've learned a lot during this conversation.
And I believe the viewers at home
or wherever you're connecting from
have also gained some interesting knowledge, insights,
nuggets, and they gotta keep looking out for what's next
because it seems like you're still doing it,
not quite done, still more to go,
and busy right now in what seems to be
two potential world-shifting, changing type of projects,
which is the Water and the Web 3.0.
So thank you very, very much for being here.
You are so welcome.
And having this amazing conversation with us.
Thank you.
That's how it is.
That's right.
Very important.
And the look in the eye.
Exactly.
Yes, and with that, guys,
we're out, another amazing episode of Sunside Kingdom Show.
Yeah, I'm speechless right now.
So I'm gonna just lock off, shut down,
and continue some offline conversations.
Thank you very much.
See you in the next one.
Subscribe, like, share, comment.
Actually, I even forgot to mention,
you're our first guest from Bonaire.
Look at that.
Like I say, a good friend of mine, he passed away.
Yeah.
Look at that, look at that, look at that.
That's Stephen Bruni, my good friend.
Stephen Bruni.
Yeah, he used to take care of my boat
in St. Mark, very good artist, had a voice of gold.
I wonder.
Yeah, he used to be in the Netherlands.
We're actually friends with Bruni,
so there might be some relation there as well.
Oh, there are, all Brunis are friends.
And this guy was amazing, amazing singer.
He used to be in a band here.
Okay.
Yeah, he used to be in the band here.
And he used to be a good singer,
he used to be a songwriter also from St. Martin.
This guy is, well, I miss him every day.
I miss him, yeah.
Me and both of them used to take care of my art
and also the one from Robbie, which is,
and we both miss him so badly.
Yeah.
Yeah, this guy is amazing.
He's like his father, you know,
when they are detailed people,
when they're does detail, they do detail.
Unfortunately, he passed away.
Yeah.
He's a very good friend.
Alvin, thanks once again.
You're welcome.
Viewers at home, thank you.
See you in the next one.
Bless.