Albert Padin's 5 tips to excel in the field of technology

Albert Padin started out tinkering with computers and earning five pesos from every Mario Bros. game in their garage. He is now the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Symph and the first Google Developer Expert in the Philippines, and with his team at Symph he has worked with Megaworld, 500 Startups, the Office of the President of the Philippines, the World Bank and more.

"I started my first business when I was in grade 5. The landlord who we rented our house from owned a computer school. His stock room was in that house, and there were lots of broken computers. I asked it from him, and he gave it to me because it was all broken. So I opened it all, I swapped the parts, I was trying to figure it out... I was tinkering things. So I was able to make about six computers work. I installed Mario and a few other games in it, set up a neighborhood pricing of five pesos for 30 minutes. That's basically one peso for every six minutes. I just timed them manually." - Albert Padin

The tech industry is on the rise, and the market is strong enough that it keeps pushing out innovations that contribute to society. That has raised the demand for people who care about technology and can make good ideas happen.

Albert wants to change the world through technology, and here he shares what he has learned about doing well in this field with people who want the same.

1. Start early

"You're gonna make a lot of mistakes and those mistakes will take time to learn (from)... so definitely start early."

The things that matter take time to learn, so it is better to start now. Your resources may be limited at some point, but don't let that stop you. Take whatever you have, make the most of it and use it to change the world.

2. Surround yourself with people of different strengths

"Definitely surround yourself with people who have different strengths that are not your strengths, who are better than you in other areas."

Even Superman has his kryptonite. You may be a master at programming and have no idea how to market what you offer, because however good you are at one thing, you can be bad at others. That is what a team is for, so work with people who are strong where you are not.

Photo on the right by GBG Cebu Google Business Group

3. People in your team will have different levels of passion, so accept that

"At some points in time, even throughout the whole time, you might always have a stronger passion or you might also have a less passion relative to somebody else. Recognize it's gonna be a reality, so you don't have to make that a source of tension."

In Albert's experience, many conflicts in teams come from comparing effort. You work really hard, you feel the others in the group are not putting in as much as you, and it feels unfair, sometimes even infuriating.

"Truth is, you probably have less passion about some other things that people are passionate about. And they respect you as well."

He stresses that those people are not necessarily performing badly. They have a different level of passion at that time, and once you accept that, you can learn to respect the effort your teammates put in.

4. Be patient for results and relentless in actions

"Great things take time, but every day, hit it hard. Don't hit hard then expect things to change overnight."

Short-term efforts count, so do the best you can every day. Great things still don't happen in a snap, so learn to wait for your goals to happen. Bill Gates didn't go to sleep one night and wake up a business magnate, investor, author and philanthropist.

5. Run like you're in a marathon

"Work hard yeah, but also play hard and party, whatever. Have fun. Don't overwork people all the time. It's important to keep the pace where people can manage."

Working in concentrated, intermittent bursts is unsustainable for a business. If you overwork your team or push it to extremes all the time, they might burn out, and so might you. Give yourselves time to breathe and enjoy, and lead your team as if you will run the company for a long time, because chances are you will be in for quite a ride.

Interview and story by Rachel Lenli Tuhoy, Symph Intern 2017