Brian Samson is a nearshoring expert, founder of 3 successful companies that connect LATAM talent with U.S. clients. UCLA MBA, foster care advocate.
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Guest Resources
Plug Technologies – Check out Brian’s company website to learn more and discuss nearshoring options.
Nearshore Cafe Podcast – Listen to Brian’s podcast which has more than 100 episodes. It features U.S. companies sharing their experiences with nearshoring as well as Latin American professionals discussing their work, careers, and experiences collaborating with U.S. companies.
The 2027 Latin America Tech Hiring Report – Why US companies are hiring senior engineers in Latin America, and why cost is no longer primarily the reason.
3 Value Bombs
1. Great talent is everywhere, don’t limit your search by geography.
2. Value matters more than price, nearshoring can offer savings, flexibility, and better collaboration.
3. AI makes senior talent more valuable, experienced engineers are needed to connect and manage complex systems.
Sponsors
HighLevel: The ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies! Learn more at HighLevelFire.com!
Ruune: Ruune is an ultra-thin AI note-taking device that attaches directly to your phone with MagSafe. Press a button, and Ruune captures the conversation and turns it into notes, action items, and info you can actually use later. Stop trying to remember every great idea and start capturing them! For a special 10% off, visit Ruune.ai/eof!
Show Notes
**Click the time stamp to jump directly to that point in the episode.
Today’s Audio MASTERCLASS: Why Nearshoring + AI Is the Greatest Leverage Opportunity for Entrepreneurs in 2026 and Beyond
[1:38] – Brian shares something he believes about becoming successful that most people disagree with.
- Many people believe great talent is scarce, but Brian believes talent is abundant and simply isn’t distributed geographically in the right way.
- Entrepreneurs often limit their talent search to the area where they live.
- High-quality talent can be found by expanding the geographic scope of your search.
[2:35] – Brian talks about what’s the difference between nearshoring and offshoring, and why are more companies making the shift.
- Traditional offshoring has commonly centered around major talent and manufacturing hubs such as China, India, and the Philippines.
- COVID accelerated remote work and changed how companies think about collaboration and employee availability.
- Time-zone compatibility became much more important.
- For U.S. companies, Latin America offers overlapping work hours that make real-time collaboration possible.
- Teams can participate in the same meetings, respond to messages quickly, and resolve misunderstandings within minutes rather than waiting until the next day.
- He cites a study in which 86% of U.S. leaders ranked time-zone compatibility as Latin America’s biggest advantage.
[6:05] – Brian talks about what functions and positions deliver the biggest return when businesses build nearshore teams.
- He generally wouldn’t prioritize nearshoring junior roles because the same budget can often secure senior-level talent in Latin America.
- Non-executive roles across software engineering, sales, recruiting, finance, accounting, marketing, customer support, and customer service can be strong candidates.
- Many of these functions have already been successfully nearshored for 10–20 years.
- Roles requiring critical thinking, creativity, and time-zone alignment can be especially well suited to nearshoring.
[8:06] – Brian talk about what nearshoring actually cost, and how should founders think about ROI.
- He believes ROI is more important than simply finding the lowest possible labor cost.
- Asia may still offer lower prices in many cases, but wage differences are narrowing as incomes rise.
- Latin America can provide additional value through overlapping work hours, flexibility, critical thinking, cultural familiarity, and collaboration.
- He estimates that businesses can generally see 30%–50% savings compared with U.S. labor, depending on the country and role.
- Higher-cost talent can still be an excellent investment when the person is capable of producing a much larger return.
- He has personally hired six-figure talent in Latin America when those employees were helping drive seven-figure revenue.
[11:43] – A timeout to thank our sponsors.
- Ruune: Ruune is an ultra-thin AI note-taking device that attaches directly to your phone with MagSafe. Press a button, and Ruune captures the conversation and turns it into notes, action items, and info you can actually use later. Stop trying to remember every great idea and start capturing them! For a special 10% off, visit Ruune.ai/eof!
- HighLevel: The ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies! Learn more at HighLevelFire.com!
[15:32] – Brian tells the key differences between countries in Latin America, and how should businesses decide where to hire.
- Latin America isn’t a single homogeneous market; countries differ in talent pools, English proficiency, costs, culture, customs, and business environments.
- Mexico: Brian sees it as highly compatible with the U.S. and a strong option for software engineering, marketing, accounting, and other established business functions.
- Argentina: A strong talent pocket for full-stack developers, with an increasingly sophisticated technology and startup ecosystem.
- Costa Rica: Highly developed with strong English skills, but relatively expensive and limited by its smaller population.
- Nicaragua: A more affordable neighboring option with a large population of young, educated, English-speaking talent, particularly suited to call center, customer service, and virtual assistant roles.
- Brazil: A strong option for AI and data engineering talent, including sophisticated engineering communities.
- Colombia: Medellín has developed into a strong entrepreneurial and technology hub with significant software talent.
- Businesses should consider their budget, the type of talent they need, whether they want to travel, and whether they plan to build an office or distributed team.
[22:08] – Brian talks about how nearshoring and global talent complement AI rather than compete with it.
- AI has changed what senior software engineers spend their time doing.
- Writing large amounts of code is becoming easier with AI, but integrating systems and understanding architecture remain highly valuable.
- Senior engineers bring expertise in integration, context, API connectivity, design, architecture, QA, and DevOps.
- Restricting the search to senior engineers in a single U.S. market can dramatically limit the available talent pool.
- Expanding the search to Latin America provides access to tens of thousands of senior engineers with the experience needed to connect increasingly complex systems.
- The combination of AI tools and experienced nearshore talent can create a significant productivity lift.
[24:22] – Call to action.
- Plug Technologies – Check out Brian’s company website to learn more and discuss nearshoring options.
- Brian and his partner offer educational conversations to help entrepreneurs determine the right country, talent pool, budget, and trade-offs for their needs.
- These conversations can cover hiring a single marketing or sales professional as well as building entire software-engineering teams.
- Nearshore Cafe Podcast – Listen to Brian’s podcast which has more than 100 episodes. It features U.S. companies sharing their experiences with nearshoring as well as Latin American professionals discussing their work, careers, and experiences collaborating with U.S. companies.
[25:41] – Thank you to our Sponsor!
- HighLevel: The ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies! Learn more at HighLevelFire.com!
Killer Resources!
1) The Common Path to Uncommon Success: JLD’s 1st traditionally published book! Over 3000 interviews with the world’s most successful Entrepreneurs compiled into a 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment!
2) Free Podcast Course: Learn from JLD how to create and launch your podcast!
3) Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 podcasting community in the world!
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