Balancing the Grind with Alonzo Nieves, Co-Founder at eVouch

Alonzo Nieves is the Co-Founder at eVouch, a plug and play marketing tool that seamlessly gets eCommerce shoppers to post Instagram stories about brands.

1) To kick things off, could you tell us a little about your career background and current role?

To be perfectly honest, I don’t have much of a career background. I stumbled into the tech world completely accidentally. In 2019, I was a 3rd year student finishing a degree in Law and Accounting when I was invited to an event by a friend who happened to be a food influencer. 

She talked about how the event was a launch party for eVouch, an app designed to simulate word of mouth by incentivizing customers to share Instagram stories at restaurants. 

At the event I met Eugene the CEO of eVouch who would become my future co-founder. I joined eVouch the day after that event. In 2020, we built and grew eVouch while in perpetual covid-19 lockdown and amassed at one point over 150 restaurants and over 10,000 users. 

With the experience we had gained in the restaurant industry, we decided to use the pandemic as an opportunity to pivot to eCommerce with the Shopify App Challenge 2021. On the back of this pivot we were able to raise our first pre-seed round supported by some awesome angel investors and VC’s. 

Today I lead growth, operations, and everything non-tech in between for eVouch focusing on our eCommerce partners.

2) What does a day in your life look like for you? Can you take us through a recent workday?

My days start early in the morning, most of our eCommerce clients are based in America so the best time for catch ups with them is New Zealand time 7:30am – 11:30am.

After client meetings I have a scheduled catchup with the team to talk about significant things happening with our company, the startup world, and maybe some pop culture. I’m the youngest in the team so I thoroughly enjoy keeping them up to date with the latest trends and memes.

In the afternoon after the buzz of morning coffee starts to fade, I like to dedicate my time to my “traction channels.” These are a list of growth strategies I’ve come up with to test and iterate on everyday including; planning and writing content for blogs, email marketing, and most recently Twitter outreach.

At the end of the day I like to wind down with some exercise either at the gym, on the football field, or just shooting hoops with some mates.

3) What does work-life balance mean to you and how do you work to achieve that goal?

I’m a young startup founder and I love it. But I also have friends and family, so balancing my work life with my personal life is sometimes tough. That’s why I try to be intentional about scheduling time for both.

Work-life balance for me means being happy. To be happy I like to allocate time, 100% dedicated to the people in my life whose well-being matters as much as mine does.

That’s why when it comes time for me to see them—for example, if we’re going out for dinner together—I make sure it’s not during prime work hours. I’d hate to be that dude who’s checking his emails while at dinner!

4) In the past 12 months, have you started or stopped any routines or habits to change your life?

Definitely picked up a few. I’ve started religiously using Notion to track anything and everything. From minor daily habits, my diet, and even to what I’m looking at diving deeper into to learn.

In terms of fitness – every Tuesday I play football in a social league – so to keep up my fitness I’ve started running several times a week just for an hour or two. It’s been great for overall cardio health and to de-stress after a long day.

I’ve also come back to playing golf every weekend again – there’s just something so therapeutic about being back out on the golf course with a bunch of mates. 

5) Do you have any favourite books, podcasts or newsletters that you’d like to recommend?

In terms of the media I consume there’s usually only two things I look for – informative (in some sort of way) and interesting. This can come in many different shapes and sizes and doesn’t have to be as formal as you might think.

Time Magazine is another one I’ve been reading in print recently. I grew up with a new edition on the coffee table every Sunday morning and it’s a great source for hot takes on current affairs. I also really like the All In Podcast – some tech, some politics, and some economics all woven together with a bit of a laugh.

To keep up to date with current trends, I’m subscribed to “After School”, a newsletter for youth culture and current gen-z trends. I also hop on TikTok for an hour or two every week to have a look at what’s happening. At the moment I’m getting a lot of Drake memes!

6) If you could read an interview about work-life balance by anyone, who would that be?

I think an interview about the work-life balance of Christiano Ronaldo would be so cool. He’s one of the greatest football players of all time and has kept his mind and body performing at such a high level for so many years. SIUUU!

7) Do you have any last thoughts on work, life or balance that you’d like to share with our readers?

For me, work-life balance is achieved not necessarily by the amount of hours of work or play that you do – but by reaching a point where you are happy. If any of my work drains my emotional cup, I try to cancel it out with an equal amount of activities that fill them up.

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