Carlos Martinez is founder and chief executive of Leanware, an AI development, implementation and consulting firm he started in Bogotá, Colombia, in 2020 with Jarvy Sanchez. Born in Venezuela, he is a software engineer with more than 15 years of experience who bootstrapped Leanware to about 50 people building products for startups and small businesses in the US and Canada.
From Venezuela to a Tech Lead Role in Colombia
He earned a computer science degree in his hometown in 2011, by which time he already had a couple of years of software development behind him, he told ValiantCEO in 2024. Feeling he could not grow professionally at home, he moved to Colombia and worked his way up to technical lead for a software-as-a-service product, then quit to start Leanware. Sanchez, who worked for him at an industrial internet of things platform company, says the two bonded over software craftsmanship.
Lean Startup Habits at a Bootstrapped Studio
He names Eric Ries’s The Lean Startup as the book that influenced him most, for its ideas on bootstrapping and validating a value proposition with the market, and says the one he gives away most is James Clear’s Atomic Habits. Leanware reached its 2024 goal of 50 people in the first quarter of that year. “Being busy is not the same as being productive,” he told ValiantCEO, adding that a CEO is “constantly in the ugly part of the business, solving problems and situations that no one else can/wants to deal with.”