David Marquez is the co-founder and CTO of Shipmates, a shipping platform for online businesses in the Philippines.

They just raised a $2.2M seed, and they're here to build the next-generation shipping infrastructure of the Philippines.

👋🏼 How would you explain your job to someone outside tech?

I'm helping online businesses find the best shipping option for their customers.

🧐 What's something about you or your job that would surprise us?

I love building prototypes that can get you to 80-90% of the solution in 1/4th of the time. Closing out the remaining 10-20% is usually what takes longer. Sometimes it's better to just launch things that look automatic. Still, behind the scenes, it's "manumatic," a mix of automatic and manual processes.

🏆 What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far?

Getting into Y Combinator helped us grow by orders of magnitude and taught us how to run fast as a company.

🔍 What's a startup trend or space you're watching this year?‍

It's been tough fundraising, especially in this environment. I'm just hoping everybody makes it through and that some startups use this window as a catalyst for growth with or without the funding.

💼 What advice would you give someone starting out in your industry?

Make something people want!

🗣 What's one thing you can keep talking about for hours?

APIs for everything and Dota 2

🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show?

The Office, Succession, Billions, Game of Thrones (Season 1-6 only)

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🍨 What's your go-to ice cream flavor?‍

The red bean fish-shaped ice cream sandwich! 🐡