How are business ideas often born?
Many times there is a void in some service or product area that people need a solution for.
So there comes someone who sees the opportunity and creates a service or product idea to solve that need.
In this podcast episode we are learning English while listening to an interview with Luis Guillermo Albertinazzi, one of the founders of a business project called “Biboss”.
Disclaimer: I do not endorse or recommend the products, people or services that are featured on my podcast program. Participation in my podcasts is voluntary. The interviews are made and presented with a language teaching focus, to help podcast listeners improve their listening comprehension skills, through related follow up comments and exercises on the grammar use and pronunciation heard in the interview. I shall not be liable for any gain or damage that may result from you deciding to use any of the services or products featured on my podcasts at any time.
Check the podcast notes below to improve your English
To make the most of the learning opportunity with this episode, you should check the related notes detailed below in addition to listening to the podcast.
Some of these points are also answered in the podcast, but here you can find extra ones that were not included in the show.
Also, in the notes below you will find links to other related materials for additional language practice.
Overall language evaluation
Luis speaks good English, he is quite fluent. He is able to talk about his business project in detail and answer relevant questions.
His pronunciation is quite clear as well, not hard to follow, with a few smaller mistakes here and there.
His grammar is advanced enough to describe past and present actions and more complex ideas as well.
I have noticed only some errors in grammar use. I commented on a couple of these in the show.
For listening comprehension practice, I asked questions for you to answer in the program.
Were you able to answer them while listening? If not, below you can find all the answers to the questions. Here you can compare them with what you understood.
INTERVIEW NOTES
Use the notes about the interview below to learn vocabulary and practise comprehension skills.
The notes include my observations about grammar and pronunciation used by the speaker in the interview.
This is a great way to make the most of the listening experience as an English learner.
I asked the following questions in the podcast while we were listening to the interview in parts.
The answers to the comprehension questions are provided under the “Answers” tab. However, before you check the answers, try to find them on your own first listening to the podcast.
(Use the toggle triangle for the drop-down answers to appear.)
After that, check the grammar and pronunciation notes tabs for more details.
- Where is Luis from?
- What’s his original profession?
- What was he doing when he got the idea for his business project?
- What word does he use to describe himself as being a skilled person at repairing things?
- What other industries does he mention where similar solutions are already in use?
- What comment does Luis make about how business ideas are sometimes born?
- What is the product and what does it do according to his definition?
- What happens after you post a task?
- Who contacts who? The clients contact the professionals or the other way around?
- How many steps does Luis say it takes to describe your need when posting a task?
- What does Luis say the name of his business means?
- Why did he move to Barcelona?
- How many founders were there who developed the idea?
- In what state was their project when they applied for the accelerator program?
- What was the outcome of the competition for the project?
- Did he go to a bilingual elementary school?
- What does he say about having to go to English classes back then?
- Has he ever lived in a native English speaking country?
- What is one of the greatest challenges for an entrepreneur?
- What is the feedback from users?
- He’s originally from Argentina.
- He’s a software engineer.
- He was moving apartments and needed help to paint his apartment.
- Handyman.
- Food or travelling, and booking hotels and flights.
- They respond to a need for which there is no solution in the market yet.
- It’s a task marketplace app that connects people who need a service with the professionals that can do it for them, this way empowering a community of users and service providers.
- Professional subscribed to a category will see the post and can respond to the user (the “poster”).
- The professionals contact the clients.
- Three steps.
- Be your own boss. (“bi”+”boss” from English “be”+”boss”)
- His team took part in an accelerator program for start-up ideas.
- Three founders.
- Still quite immature.
- His team won the competition.
- No, he didn’t.
- It was a great idea even though he didn’t like it at the time so much. He would have preferred playing more with his friends.
- Yes, in Australia.
- To lead and manage a team, and to change directions when needed because of unexpected situations.
- Both solvers and posters are very happy using the app.
| Grammar use | Mistake | Correction |
|---|---|---|
| 2 years ago we bring | 2 years ago we brought | |
| I’m here living since last year. | I’ve been living here for a year. | |
| I need to paint my flat | I needed to paint my flat | |
| in the web | on the web | |
| on those days | in those days | |
| at the beginning we think | at the beginning we thought | |
| you can see the task I just post | you can see the task I’ve just posted | |
| after launch the app | after launching the app | |
| to invest on | to invest in | |
| decided to study computer engineer | decided to study computer engineering |
Luis speaks English without a strong foreign accent, so it is easy to follow what he is saying.
I only noted a couple of things in his pronunciation to comment on:
- software engineer
- launch
- app
- subscribe
- pivot
software engineer
When he mentions his profession (software engineer), the word software is a little unclear. It is because the /t/ loses character next to /f/. How to make it sound clearer? Make the /ft/ in the word sound more marked. In other words, both /f/ and /t/ have the same value, so make sure both sound:
software /ft/ (so it does not sound like “sofware”)
This “softening” of consonants is a tendency among Spanish speakers speaking English. They tend to soften the sound of two consonants because they are not comfortable to say for Spanish speakers. The Spanish language tends to avoid such combinations.
So in English you need to pay a bit more attention to this when you speak. It can be achieved with a little extra work, once you know what to practise.
launch
This is a tricky word often mispronounced, sounding like “lunch”. But in reality there is a difference between the pronunciation of “lunch” and “launch”.
Lunch (the meal) is pronounced like punch, but, cut, while “launch” has a different sound. It’s longer and different in character, similar to saw, draw, taught.
app
Luís pronounced this one kind of like up, cup or butter. However, the /a/ in the word “app” should sound different. Longer and similar to happy, apple, can.
subscribe
A similar problem to the way software was pronounced. Softening the sounds can affect intelligibility.
This word is especially tricky because it has several consonants packed together: /bscr/
The “perfect” way to say it is pronouncing all of them. However, there’s a little trick you can do: instead of /b/ think of a /p/, and try it that way. The /b/ naturally becomes /p/ anyway, because of the /s/ that follows it.
So in reality it will become/supscr/ from /subscr/.
Also make sure the /b/ at the end sounds more marked. Simply finish the word closing the lips and stopping the air-flow, which will produce the /b/ sound automatically.
If you don’t, it will be softened to some indefinite sound. This may not be so critical in this word, however in other words (especially short ones) clarity can be more affected if this softening happens.
The word “subscribe” is a great one to practise this discipline in pronunciation.
pivot
This is simple. This word is mispronounced. The “i” should sound like in hit, bit, give, and not as in time, hi, life.
I also want to say that Luís say a good number of words correctly that often cause difficulties to other learners. For example:
- the “ou” in founder is often mispronounced as the sound in go, show, low. But the correct pronunciation is like in round, bounce, found
- idea is often pronounced without the last sound /a/. So it becomes something like ID, which is something else
Luís pronounces both of these words correctly.