Transcript of He Built a Billion-Dollar Company—After Growing Up With One Pair of Shoes | Ep. 276 with Jerry Lopez Founder of PhilSocial and Philcoin

So, Jerry Lopes, man, I'm super excited to have you for a variety of reasons. One, you are just really a great person to have a conversation with, and I know we're going to go back in time to crypto, which I always love to talk about the impact you're having, your missions, the new book that came out. But something that stood out among all of these things was that you are the second Puerto Rican-born native that has built a billion-dollar company. But you didn't start with a billion-dollar company when you were born. You created this and you made it. I want the audience to really hear about your story. Let's go back, Jerry, to the time when you didn't even know what crypto was. You didn't even know about any of this stuff, about building a company, entrepreneurship. But when you were a kid, how was that when you were growing up?

Well, first of all, Daniel, thank you so much for having me here in your podcast. It's an honor to be with you and always grateful. Congratulations, Father. Great work you're doing. You're doing amazing things. Your podcast is amazing. So thank you. Daniel, just from a 30,000-foot view, single mom. I have two other brothers from my mom's side. Born in Wadija, Puerto Rico, raised in Bayamo, Puerto Rico, till I was eight. You can literally say the house is actually in the book that I think we'll talk about in a little while, Faithonomics. It's 530 square foot home. That's where we grew up in. I had my first pair of tennis shoes when I was eight years old. The reason why I got them, Daniel, was because my mother was actually moving from Puerto Rico to the mainland where I grew up as a young man, which was Chicago, Illinois. It was interesting because as a child, you don't know the difference between wealth, riches, or poverty. You're just a kid, right? Given that there's still not a light post for a mile from where I come from, even still today in 2025, it's interesting where you feel like you came from nothing, but sometimes you question yourself, Was that everything that I needed?

Going into a big city, from a mountain boy to a big city, it was a blessing for me because for two reasons, I realized that there was a new opportunity. But at that point, Daniel, we didn't move from poverty. We just transferred it to another country or another state, per se. Long story short, 13 years old hit, and I think this part is important. My My 15-year-old brother, I was 13. I'm six and a half years older than my younger brother. My 15-year-old brother shows up, and he shows up with a girl that we've never seen before. She's six months pregnant. She's 15 years old. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, my mother's going to kill this guy. She had just gotten kicked out of her house for not being able to hide it anymore. And here it is. My mother shows up close to 11: 00 PM, and Behold, my mother just breaks down crying and asking us to forgive her because it turns out, Daniel, that she was working two jobs plus going to night school just to try to provide for us. And we grew up without my father. I didn't meet him until I was 21.

I'm 47 years old, seeing him a handful of times in my life. We were literally being raised by the streets of Chicago. With that said, here it is, the scenario where I can was the game changer for me because I went from being a 13-year-old boy to having the mindset of never being poor again. When I saw the despair in my mother's eyes asking us to forgive her because she was doing the best as she could. That day was when my life changed. When we talk about the young boy from born in Aguadilla to Barrio Nuevo Bayamón with a spirit of tennis shoes at the age of eight, I always tell people, Everyone can see the glory, but no one knows the journey.

Man, that's why we started founder's story. We always see the end result, but rarely do we see the story of how it got there, which I think is, to me, it's the most inspiring piece for most people is they think, Oh, look at this successful guy, Jerry. But don't realize that the road to get there was not overnight, nor was it super easy. So let's fast forward to when you fell in love with crypto, blockchain, blockchain technology and where you saw, okay, I want to do something that's going to change the world.

So it turns out I'm 16 years old. Funny story. I said, you know what? I have to be creative. I know that the only way that I am going to come out of poverty, the first thing that I have to do is change my mindset. Because I realized that my environment wasn't aligning with my desire, my passion to be different. So 15 years old, I'm almost 16. I was fascinated by VCRs, Daniel, and I turned a VCR motor into a tattoo machine. That was my first invention. When I was about to be 16 years old, I turned a tattoo machine into a VCR motor into a tattoo machine, and I started selling them for 50, 60 bucks. And by the time I was 19 years old, it turns out that I used to walk almost four miles to go to school. I used to live in the west side of Chicago, and I used to walk, and I was fascinated by construction. Every time I would go by a construction site, I would offer myself to work just to learn. I learned how to do electrical plumbing, roofing. I learned everything about construction between the age of 15 and a half to 19.

Fast forward, I am 19 years old. From tattoo machines to non even learning how to read blueprints, I have saved the 5,200 bucks to go and apply for my general contractor's license. And I used to say to myself, You know what? One day I'm going to be like the guy with the orange hats and the white pickup trucks, and I'm going to get me one of those licenses. I went, and before I turned 20 years old, I got my general contractor's license. Fast forward, here I am. I'm 25, finished school, got my master's by then, and I had became a self-made millionaire by the age of 25. And completely changed in a little bit over 10 years, the history of my family legacy by simply believing that I could.

So what do you tell people then that say, Jerry, I'm just not like you. I don't have the same mindset as you, and I just can't envision myself in a different place. I think we're in a fascinating time right now where there's definitely wealth, disparity, wealth gaps, widening, but there's billionaires being billionaires being born every day, but there's also people with the least every day. It's a fascinating paradigm we are in globally. At the same time, Anyone from anywhere around the world, if they have the access to the internet, can make money. So it's also fascinating. But I think what I'm hearing from you is, it's not necessarily the tools that you have that changes you. It really is your mindset. So how can people shift that mindset? Because when they're in that rut, it's so hard to feel like you can get out.

Yeah, that's a very good question, Daniel. To start off, mindset is a self-builder. A lot of people don't understand that your self-esteem and how you see yourself is half the battle. I always tell everyone, the mirror is your best friend. When you're sad, it reflects your sadness. When you're happy, it reflects your happiness. When you're angry, it reflects your anger. At the end of it all, you are a reflection of your attitude. So you got to start believing that you are able to make progress every day because you can't really change your mindset until you make a decision to make progress. Because whether it takes you a year or whether it takes you 12 years, it took me 13 years to see my first in a bank account from the moment that I saw my brother going through that in his life, which, by the way, four years after that, my first nephew died in the sleep. Just imagine everything that our family has gone through. All the challenges that we went through could have easily broken me. But I understood, Daniel, that if I made progress every day, believing that I can, even though I didn't want to do it, and I take a step forward, that That was already half of the battle won.

And then once you start to see the progress bearing fruit, then you start seeing, okay, I can do this. And progress is a very big and important tool for your mindset to be broken.

I love that. Progress every day. It's almost like baby steps. You don't have to run the marathon tomorrow. You can slowly get there and change yourself. And I mean, If somebody says change yourself overnight, that seems challenging. But you're talking about over a decade of really changing yourself, realizations. Let's go to Bitcoin. You told me that when you first purchased a Bitcoin, it was $283.

How many bitcoins-Well, I have an interesting story with that, but go ahead.

Okay, I was going to say, how many bitcoins do you have? But I'm only kidding. No, so tell me yet. Tell me about that. Tell me about how you even got introduced to crypto. And I imagine going back to 2014, '15, most people thought it was a scam or something that was just going to fade into history.

Well, interesting enough, Daniel, I get this random phone call from a friend of mine named Antonio, and he says, Hey, Jerry, man, you got to learn this thing about Bitcoin. Mind you, it's end of 2014 into 2015. My businesses are flourishing. My son, Adrian, was born, and I had my other son already on its way, and my other two daughters were born. But I'm like, Man, I don't want to hear about that. Those are Ponzi schemes. Those are bubbles. I don't want to hear about it. And ironic enough, he lived in Miami. He just showed up in my house the next day. Mind you, what are you going to do at that point? One of your closest friends just shows up in your house, adamant about you getting involved in Bitcoin. At that time, I had to listen. So he patiently, for an entire day, he went got me a BitPay wallet, downloaded the $999 card, the Visa card, ordered one for me, downloaded the wallet for me, and he gifted me my first Bitcoin. It was $283 on that day. And I said, thank you, man. I love you. I appreciate it. 45 days later, Daniel, he calls me back.

He says, Hey, Jerry, have you checked out that wallet that I created for you? And I said, Brother, if I did, I'll be lying to Long story short, that 283 turned over $900. And I'm like, What are you doing putting these coins in here? He's like, No, look at the bottom. This is still say 1 BTC. And I said, Yes. Well, yeah, it's still the same one. I said, This is not possible that this thing was 283 bucks. It's almost a thousand bucks today. Anyhow, long story short, that took about three hours. He showed me how to go back. I had the big paid card in the mail. I activated it and went and pulled a couple of hundred bucks out of an ATM machine. And I said, this thing is going to change humanity. I'm all in. And that's when my blockchain innovation started. And given that I've always been this innovative person of trying to be as far away from poverty as possible, I started trying to find a way that I can tie Bitcoin into its genesis because I went back all the way to the Tulip Trust and realized, Daniel, that Bitcoin in its inception, it was given away to create transactions.

People will be gaming Bitcoin, and they will be receiving free Bitcoin for gaming. And I said, what if I can change the way people give on the blockchain through this blockchain thing and through this Bitcoin thing. And that's how a big giant light bulb lit up for me. Here is 2016 going into 2017. And that's when Philcoin, the philanthropy coin, was born because of a desire that I had to change the way people give because of my Christian background of giving in church and ministry background. I said, I'm going to change the way people give. And that's how I got involved in crypto.

The funny thing is, I remember it I think it was 2016, we were on a ski trip with a bunch of friends that we used to go every year. We were doing fireside chats. Everyone would present about something they knew. And one of the guys was like, I'm going to tell you about Bitcoin and blockchain. And he goes on and on like you're saying, same thing, like hours go by and all of us are like, dude, I'm more confused now than I was before. If he only just said, just buy it, It would have been a better conversation. Instead of explaining to me how it works, then I'm like, I don't understand it. Then I left there like, I don't get it. If he had told me, just dude, like you said, it's $1,000 right now. It might be $5,000 tomorrow. Just buy I would have bought it, but he overcomplicated the whole thing. So I blame him for the reason why I don't have a lot of Bitcoin. But okay, so I love that you're sticking to your mission. The fact that you found a problem, solved it, but it's related to your mission and your purpose and life.

I think that's incredible. I think a lot of people would get into entrepreneurship or see entrepreneurship even more if that was the direction that they were looking at. So you were way early on. I imagine a lot of people were skeptical. Did you gain traction right away? Did it take a few years? What was the next point when you really saw scalability?

Well, thank you for asking that question. And again, in faithonomics, it's the story of my life. I encourage people to go look at it. It's a phenomenal thing. But it wasn't until 2019 that I realized that I was one in a bunch. I said, oh, my gosh. If I would have known, because the idea was to create the first philanthropy ecosystem on the blockchain. Just like Ethereum became the altcoin fork for Bitcoin and so on, I said, we got to do something different. There has to be a crypto for good movement. We have to go back to the genesis of Bitcoin because Bitcoin was given away in its inception. I said, I have to tie giving into this somehow. So when we build, fill coin, the actual cryptocurrency, or the crypto token, utility token. And I saw that it was just one and a bunch. I said, there's something missing here. There's a component that's incomplete because if not, I'm just one and a bunch. And then I had this big, giant light bulb moment. I said, wait a minute. Look at how much amazing things Mark Sucklenberg has done with a social media platform.

And then I just went back to the history of his life, to his dorm days in Harvard and all the inventions that he's done because he did it all. From music players and everything. And he did something extraordinary. He created a communication system in between schools, and then it just took fire, went viral, and now became Facebook and meta. And I said, Man, you know what? What if I can create an ecosystem and call it philanthropy social, where I can bridge the gap between Web2 to Web3 and reward everyone for their time on social media with crypto, go ahead and trademark and patent that idea and change the way people give. And now you don't need to be an influencer or a content creator. So you can go now ahead and monetize for just being social on PhilSocial. And then I started going to town on that. And that was 2021. Here we are, 2025. We launched PhilSocial in January 25th, 2025. And we've organically been building it and perfectionize how give because there's a catch, Daniel. You see, I found out three things that social media has that a lot of people didn't realize.

Number one, it's almost a $300 billion a year industry, and only seven to eight % goes to content creators and influencers. Number two, zero goes to the average user. The person with 100, 500, a thousand followers that are spending 2-3 hours a day on social media, they're earning nothing for their time. And the third thing that I realized, it's that it's been a handful of companies that have had full control of the space and have bought out all the other emerging companies. And I said, That's it. I'm going to make the social media platform, and I'm going to give it all away to the people through the blockchain. I'm going to grab Philcoin, put it inside there, make it the utility token, and then I'm going to reward everyone for being in it with Philcoin. And that's how PhilSocial was born.

It sounds amazing. It sounds amazing. And I would imagine that timing plays a lot in your life and just business in general. Like you said, in what I noticed from 2020 to 2022, anyone who really got on the social media got a significant, especially 2020 to 2021, they got a significant amount of traction because we were so heavy on social media the time in those times. Do you find that in your life, when you're doing these businesses, that a lot of the success comes about by the fact of the timing was perfect? Like You launched this in 2021, which is probably the most people in the world, people around the world, probably spend the most time on a social media platform. I remember a Clubhouse. We were 18 hours a day on Clubhouse from 2020 to end of 2021. But that would have never worked in any other time in history. It was just the timing was perfect. But how is timing played in not just feel social, but in your life when it comes to business?

Timing, I always tell people, If you have timing on your side and you have the right team on your side, you've won half the battle. The rest of the battle is just your mindset. I think that a lot of people thought this was going to fail for three reasons. Number one, no one has done it before. Crypto for Good Movement. They said, No, nobody cares about giving back because there's a catch inside for social. Because if the social media app at the end of the month tells you, Hey, Daniel, congratulations, you just made a hundred bucks worth of fill coin in the app. But guess what? You don't have access to it until you give half of it away to the causes. Because the whole point of Filsocial is to do peer-to-peer giving. It's a philanthropy social media platform. So just Just think of GoFund me on steroids, but with social media infused in it, and you're giving away crypto. That's what we did. So everyone thought I was crazy. We've weathered three bear markets, and everyone has told me, well, not only that, I even weathered a rug pool that they did on me.

And I had a guy that stole almost $10 million from me. And so we've weathered all these storms and people tell me, Well, how have you succeeded? And I said, well, very simple. The same reason why I told you in the beginning of this podcast that your mindset is half of your battle, whether you're going to win or succeed. We know we're making a difference. It's a $1. 2 trillion a year industry, which is the philanthropy space, and it's never before done peer to peer. So it's only going to be a matter of time where the turtle wins the race. We're just very ahead of the curve now with patent, with trademarks, and we're doing it, and we're already doing it. It's not like this is not live. It's not theory. You can go and download full social right now on the App Store and the Google Play Store and start earning the moment you join. The moment is now. It wasn't then. Was social media great? Then Was social media great then, Dano? Yes. But right now, guess what? It's going to explode. It's in anticipation over 90 % of the world will be using social media by 2030.

So what is our point here? We're just It's a different type of being social. That's all we are. We're just doing it different.

Man, I love that. It's important to take things, make them your own, tweak them, but make them better. And I like how you really took something like a proven model. Like you said, social media was a proven model. Crypto was a proven model, but you took it and you not only combined them, but you made it something that was up-leveled. I don't know social media gives back to the user. Like you said, the user generates all the revenue in giving their time, which then creates ad revenue, but the platform doesn't really give back to them, which I find it's pretty... When you really think about it, it's like a broken system. So glad that you're trying to solve this. Let's go to faithonomics. It doesn't sound like just a book. It sounds more like a movement to me. What is this truth around faith and money? And what did you uncover while you were writing this book?

Well, this book took me, and a lot of people say, this is crazy. It took me 15 years to write. And I strategically did not launch the book, Daniel, till Fills Social was live, until our valuation was certified, because I wanted to prove that it was possible. You see, The purpose of faith in Amix, it tells my testimony, it tells my journey, and my belief system, because I'm not a religious Christian. I am a believer. I believe that faith is important. I believe that God has a purpose for humanity. And faith in Amix is bridging the gap between what your faith is and what the economy of the world is and the infrastructure of economy and how if you're able to understand the middle point between the two, you will tap in to resources that you would never have thought that existed. Because without faith, it is impossible to do anything. Whether you believe or not, whether you're atheist, whether you're Christian, whether you're Muslim, whether you're Jewish, whether you believe in any religion, you have to believe in something in order to believe that something is possible or capable. It's even harder to believe when you're atheist because you got to believe that nothing else exists.

So the truth of the matter is, faith in believing in something is a catalyst to be able to have financial freedom. And faithonomics It's a breach port of that. And we hit the top 10 US best seller, number 2 in indie readers around the world. We became number 2, LA Times best seller. I don't say that it be boastful. It's just saying that we took time to build it, 15 years. So it's a blueprint.

Man, if you could do anything for 15 years, that's impressive. Most people give up after six months. I'm coming out with a book next month, and it took me about two and a half years. So I can relate. It's a heavy thing for people to do. Something I've noticed listening to you today is you have this ironclad belief system. I'm curious around this motivation for each time you do something beyond, like you said in the beginning, around you don't want to be poor, so obviously money helps you not be poor. But for me, for example, when somebody tells me I can't do something, I get this crazy fire. When people don't believe in me, it's probably one of my biggest motivators, which is maybe not healthy, I don't know. But for you, what is something... Every time you see something, what is that spark in you that motivates you? You were like, I'm not going to just do something 50%. I'm going to do this 1,000%. I'm going to create a billion-dollar company. I'm going to overcome this challenge. I'm going to write this book after 15 years. Just listening to you, I'm fired up.

But what is it deep down inside that sparks that?

Faith activates vision before provision. That's Guess what it is, bro. Your faith activates your vision before it does your provision. One of the things, Daniel, and I talk about this in faith dynamics, is actually chapter four of the book. It's called Faith is a Currency. If people really understood that your real value is in how much you believe you can, you can go through a brick roll. It's a different type of understanding when you believe that you can. People fail there. It's in a mindset. It's in that one thing of belief. And I always tell people, I don't wait for checks to clear in the bank. I wait on how much I believe that I can accomplish it before the check needs to clear. So I don't depend on capital. I depend on activation. I depend on my ability to execute what I believe that I can. Because if I can, I can. So at the end of the day, your faith is your provision. At the end of the day, it's what it is. It's your faith. You got to believe. And it's sold millions. So don't stop believing. And A, best part about it, Daniel, is it doesn't matter what religion you are.

We all have something in common. And you know what that is? We want what's better for the people that we love, and we all love. So guess what? And if we want what's better for somebody else, it takes effort to do something good for someone else. You know what they call that? That caused activation of provision. You want to provide something better for someone else, and that's going to require faith. You need to believe that you're able to provide that. It's just how God operates.

Well, I believe so much more now than when we first started our conversation. I hope others also feel the same way. I hope it draws some fire. Crypto for Good, Phil Social, Faithonomics, Jerry. People want to get the book. They want to join the community. They want to find out about the app because they want to earn by giving their time on social media. How can they do so?

Well, my biggest encouragement is PhilSocial. You can go download it at the Google Play Store, Google App Store. Philanthropy Social, feel social. You can download it. Start using it. Enjoy it. It's decentralized, guys. You got to have your 12 words. If you know crypto, you understand. Decentralization is important. So you have full control of your stuff there. We don't touch anything. As a matter of fact, we want to give to you. We want to be the first ones to give back. Second thing, faithonomics. If you want to know how to go from having your first pair of tennis shoes when you were a kid at eight years old or whatever, and learn to have your first million bucks, faithonomics It'll be a good book for you to read, regardless of your faith and regardless of your religion. Because I always say, your reflection of the five people you spend the most time with. So if I'm giving you good advice and my eating my fruit, can show that I am a pretty wealthy guy that can give you good advice. Where you're going to follow it. But I always tell people these three principles, Daniel.

Number one, documentation beats conversation. Number two, numbers don't lie. People do. Number three, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. So I think in this room, you and I have a lot to give to the world. So if you're over there listening to what we're doing today, I think we can bring a little bit of value to you. And those are the value pointers that I can give you Go download Feel Social. Go buy the book, Faith & Amix, because it's the new blueprint on how Web2, Web3 came together, crypto, social media, and we're changing the way people get it.

Well, Jerry, I'm not the smartest person in the room today, and I learned a lot from you. So I appreciate it. Super pumped up, fired up. Love what you're doing with all the impact and mission, because I am all about that in my life now as well. So thank you for joining us on Founder Story.

Hey, you so much for having me. And my encouragement is, go get it, man. Mindset is half the battle. Your faith will take you across the way.