Guest Bio
Jordi Llonch Esteve is an entrepreneur, growth strategist, and advocate for decentralized digital tools that empower global citizens. With a background as a commercial airline pilot, he has explored more than 50 cities around the world—an experience that helped shape his passion for freedom, mobility, and connection. Today, Jordi serves as Head of Growth at Satlantis.io, a next-generation social platform designed to help travelers connect meaningfully without relying on centralized systems. His work focuses on building communities that value autonomy, curiosity, and real-world discovery.
Show Summary
In this episode of the Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Podcast, host Jason Elkins sits down with Jordi Llonch Esteve, a former pilot turned startup builder, to explore the crossroads of travel, entrepreneurship, and digital freedom. As Head of Growth at Satlantis, Jordi brings a unique perspective on what it means to create spaces where travelers and digital natives can connect on their own terms.
Jordi shares stories from his aviation career, the turbulence of shifting into the startup world, and the inspiration behind Satlantis—a platform designed for people who crave authentic experiences and meaningful community while on the move. He also discusses the evolving role of social technology in enabling location-independent lifestyles, and why ownership, privacy, and open networks matter more than ever.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ Satlantis is a community-driven social platform for frequent travelers
- ✓ Jordi transitioned from the airline industry into tech startups
- ✓ Economic instability was a turning point in his aviation career
- ✓ Startup life requires adaptability, resilience, and risk-taking
- ✓ Satlantis helps travelers connect with others who share their mindset
- ✓ Collections let users recommend and organize places and events
- ✓ The platform is decentralized, prioritizing user control and privacy
- ✓ Travel communities are strengthened by shared values, not just location
- ✓ The app includes monetization options for event hosts and organizers
- ✓ Jordi sees Satlantis as part of a broader movement toward digital sovereignty
What You’ll Find on Satlantis
- ✓ A social network built for travelers who value freedom and flexibility
- ✓ Features to discover communities, events, and destinations worldwide
- ✓ Personalized recommendations and curated travel collections
- ✓ A platform built on decentralization and digital ownership principles
- ✓ Tools for organizing and promoting in-person events
- ✓ A global network of curious, independent-minded explorers
Learn more about Satlantis and connect with Jordi at:
https://satlantis.io/
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Podcast Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated on recording, and has not been edited by a human. It may contain lots of mistakes, crazy words, and stuff that makes no sense. The host and the guest are not responsible for the accuracy of the transcript.
Jason Elkins (00:01.058)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. Super excited to have each and every one of you back here today. Today we’ve got another special guest. We’ve got Jordi Llonch here. Jordi is the head of growth for Satlantis. Jordi, welcome to the show. Happy to have you here.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (00:18.039)
Hey Jason, yes, thank you for inviting. It’s a pleasure being here with you.
Jason Elkins (00:22.382)
Hey, I’m super excited to have this conversation. You and I spoke before and then we’ve had a few kind of misschedulings that we, you you were busy, I was busy and we were able to finally get together today. So super happy about that. And I think before we get started, let’s give our listeners kind of the 30 to 60 second elevator pitch for what is Satlantis. So that just so they can kind of know what that is. And then we’re going to dig into your story and figure out how you got.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (00:46.497)
Yeah, sure. Well, Satlantis is a social network for frequent travelers. That’s a super short, it’s less than 30 seconds. it’s like, right, it’s like, you can get deeper, but it’s just a tool to connect with fellow travelers when you travel. that’s it.
Jason Elkins (00:54.154)
All right. That was the three second elevator pitch. right. Very cool.
Jason Elkins (01:06.124)
All right, very cool. We’re definitely going to get deeper into that. And I want to acknowledge something right now that our listeners are not aware of, we spent a few minutes getting all the sound and everything right. And then as soon as I pushed record, there’s this big giant disco ball out in the patio area here and it’s shining through the window. So Jordi’s got a little bit of a distraction here. That light’s going to be shining on my face apparently every few seconds. So I didn’t really expect.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:19.939)
you
Jason Elkins (01:32.898)
that but so I apologize for that Jordi and our listeners won’t even know and if I hadn’t said anything. But I want to use that as a quick segue into the place that I’m recording our episode today. I’m at a place called Fabrika in Tbilisi, Georgia. It’s a converted old Soviet era factory that they’ve turned into kind of a hostel and co-working space and the reason I’m even mentioning is they were nice enough to let me use the conference room today to record this and I said if they did I would mention it.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:37.795)
Don’t worry.
Jason Elkins (02:01.05)
And it’s a pretty cool place here in Tbilisi. anybody? Okay. So let’s jump into Jordi, how the heck did you get from where you were to where you are now? So let’s learn a little bit about you. How far back do we need to go?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (02:13.751)
Well, I think the good point to start is back on my flying days. So I have been a perpetual traveler for a while. I didn’t know about the word digital nomad, frequent traveler. I didn’t know about all those. I was just a pilot. So I started my career as an airline pilot.
Jason Elkins (02:27.51)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (02:35.928)
Well, we got, let’s go back a little further because that’s super, super fascinating. And what was going on in your childhood or early years that caused you to even want to be a pilot? Cause that’s something I have a personal connection with as well. And I want to hear that story.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (02:48.855)
Well, from my, in my family, there was…
nothing, nobody related to the aviation. So it was just something that for some reason got stuck in my mind. And it’s difficult to know exactly what happened when it started. I remember as a kid, I just wanted to fly, you know, like Peter Pan and those things. But then you grow up, it’s like, it’s impossible. So I think that was like the, you know, the seed that somehow was planted in my head. And then he said, okay, so the only way I can fly is like,
Jason Elkins (03:13.389)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (03:23.747)
with using one of those machines that are called airplanes. So this is, think, the beginning on how I got interested into that. It has nothing to do with
Jason Elkins (03:28.426)
Uh-huh.
Jason Elkins (03:34.062)
Did you have those recurring dreams then when you were a kid where you’d dream that you were able to fly? And I remember I used to have them and I was like in that, yeah, in that space, I kind of believed I could fly. I remember like, okay, I can fly. And I’m like, how lucky am I that I can fly? Nobody else can. And I would fully believe it. And then sometimes even during the day, I was like, I kind of feel like I think I can fly, but I know I can’t, but yeah, so.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (03:42.025)
Yes, John, it’s exactly that.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (04:00.065)
Man, I haven’t been talking about that with anyone for ages. You are explaining exactly the same feelings I had as a kid.
Jason Elkins (04:02.451)
You
Jason Elkins (04:08.364)
Isn’t that weird? Yeah, okay. Well, cool. I knew we had a connection.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (04:11.019)
And I felt like, this is so real. Yes, it’s maybe, yeah, amazing.
Jason Elkins (04:16.226)
And then you figured out you figured it out how to actually make it happen. So.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (04:19.627)
which had nothing to do with what I dreamed of, but it was the means to reach what I dreamed.
Jason Elkins (04:25.262)
Exactly. So, so how did that start? How did you start learning, picking instruction? What did your family think of that? All that good stuff.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (04:31.681)
Yeah.
Luckily I was a good student, so parents normally care that their kids behave and all this. So I said, dad, mom, I want to be a pilot. And they said, yeah, just keep being a good student. And if you pass all your exams and you demonstrate you’re a good student, you’re going to get accepted into the Aviation Academy.
Jason Elkins (04:55.928)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (04:56.031)
So they advanced me a little bit of money because it’s expensive. And I got there and I was one of the, I think I was like one of the, in the 10, in the five or in the 10 % of the students from my cohort.
that after graduating got a job in aviation because one thing is studying and getting your degree, but then another thing is getting a job. So I was lucky enough.
Jason Elkins (05:17.379)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (07:36.631)
Yes, so, and before I graduated, because to get a degree in aviation, you can do two things. Just go to fly school, which is a couple of years, or you can get to aviation university, which is four years. And I was 18 years old, and I thought two years, it’s not gonna be long enough to be mature enough.
to fly a passenger aircraft. So I asked my parents, why don’t we take this other route, which is the university, which is more expensive because it’s double the time. But during those four years, I think I will be able to learn or acquire a little bit more of knowledge and feel more confident. And not only me, but the passengers for having such a young pilot.
Jason Elkins (08:12.27)
Hmm.
Jason Elkins (08:26.178)
sounds pretty responsible for an 18 year old because most 18 I know myself included most 18 year olds like I’m ready now I know everything I need to know now just give me the keys dad like I’m going you know that type of thing so that seems like a responsible decision
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (08:35.747)
Yeah, think that because of this, know, like my parents always supported me and said yes to everything I asked because I was just born old. I kind of like to say this.
Jason Elkins (08:50.55)
Okay, yeah, very cool. So should we talk about siblings? Did you have any siblings?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (08:57.134)
yes, I have one brother. We’re just like one year apart, so we’re like friends.
Jason Elkins (09:04.331)
Okay, similar paths. mean, did your brother go into aviation or something totally different? Just curious, whatever you like. Nope.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (09:09.747)
Not at all. He’s a cameraman now for the local TV station. He loves filming.
Jason Elkins (09:15.372)
All right, all right, very, very cool. So your parents supportive, pitched in, helped you do this. And this was all, where was this happening in Spain, right?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (09:26.581)
In Spain, yes, near by Barcelona.
Jason Elkins (09:29.346)
Okay, very cool. What about, I mean obviously once you got into school, you’re around other aviation enthusiasts.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (09:36.355)
Yes, and there is one thing I like to share. Talking about this way of thinking of mine that I joined university during the first year, you do not touch any plane, it’s all theory. And then during the summer, I thought, all right, so I’m learning about how to, you know, like physics, mathematics, law, there’s a lot of legislation when you have to fly.
And I was like, yeah, but I something more hands-on. I need to touch airplanes. luckily, I was studying. The university was just next to one airport. So I arrived. I went to that airport. said, hey, I’m studying to become an airline pilot. Do you have any job for me? So yes, they said yes. So they gave me the lowest job you can get at an airport, which is loading bags to the planes.
Jason Elkins (10:30.614)
I was gonna guess, yeah, that’s a hard job. I mean, I think, I don’t know, I’ve never done it, but.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (10:34.595)
At a time like today, there are many things today. So today when you want to buy a plane ticket, they charge you for the bags extra. So probably you fly with less bags because you want to save. Back in the day, they were included. So nobody was thinking about, am I having too much carry on or luggage? No, it’s just.
Jason Elkins (10:55.042)
you
Jason Elkins (10:59.554)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (10:59.955)
One, two, three bags, okay. There weren’t like these belts, electronic or electric belts that you put it there and then it goes up to the airplane. No, no, no, no, You took it from the floor and you put it there. And no air conditioning. And of course, I got the job during summer because it was when the university stopped classes. So it was heating.
Jason Elkins (11:06.648)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (11:13.102)
wow.
Jason Elkins (11:22.318)
And I’ve heard that Barcelona is kind of warm in the summer, right?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (11:26.551)
It is, it is. And it was an airport next to the beach, like a very touristic spot. So it was full of tourists coming from all over the place with big bags, with a whole family trip. So yeah, that was my first job in the aviation industry.
Jason Elkins (11:42.626)
You know that, that actually that prompts a couple of questions that I have for you because you said I wanted to touch the airplanes. So you got to touch the airplanes. So let’s, let’s go back to, I’m curious. Had you flown in an airplane before you signed up to go to school for four years to be an airline pilot? what, exposure had you had that, you know, related to that before you got into it?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (11:50.955)
I touched them from the inside.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (12:11.043)
I think I just flew once. I think it’s like, you know, like we’re Spaniards, we do not know much English. So my parents sent me to London to during one summer. So, and they sent me alone, you know, they said, okay, here’s your plane ticket, you go. I was 17 maybe or 16 years old. I had no idea what I was doing. And I was scared. The first time I flew, I was scared.
Jason Elkins (12:13.678)
Very cool.
Jason Elkins (12:34.286)
Wow.
Jason Elkins (12:38.968)
You know, I imagine the kid that grows up wanting to be an airline pilot, and you tell me because you were obviously around other people that were taking a similar path, but I imagine like the kid that got on the airplane when he was young and the pilot’s like, do you want to come sit in the seat and, you know, look at all the dials and the knobs and all that stuff. So that kid might be inspired to be like, man, this is so cool. I want to up to be an airplane pilot. Doesn’t sound like you had that experience.
or the kid whose maybe their father is into flying. you know, landed the little Cessna or something when he was, you know, 13 with his dad sitting next to him or something. That kid wants to go be a pilot. You didn’t really have that. So when you got to school, were you around other, I don’t want to say kids, but around other students that had had significantly different experiences or were you kind of the norm?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (13:31.531)
You’re right, I was not the norm because normally everybody had either a parent, an uncle, or had this experience of knowing what flying was. I had no idea what I was getting into.
Jason Elkins (13:46.414)
Did you have some students that probably even already had their private pilot’s license? Okay.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (13:52.725)
No, no, because that was a type of university that they were doing the whole package. So they were giving you the license, the studies, the… Like there are different types of licenses. it was… And because of that, it was expensive. So if you had already your license, you wouldn’t do that because you would have to pay more.
Jason Elkins (14:05.504)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (14:12.982)
Okay, gotcha, gotcha. All right. We have some schools like that in the US. Embry Riddle is an example, you know, where you can go and get the whole program. But then I know there’s also people that kind of work their way up through it and go for a long time before they make any money. But they’re instructors for a long time and finally break into the airline industry.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (14:31.489)
Yes, which is the normal, it’s a normal path. You study, you get your license, your private or ATPL license. You start maybe for one or two years being an instructor for the next students in your school. And then you start, but I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t feel like I was, I don’t know for what reason.
Jason Elkins (14:36.503)
Okay.
Jason Elkins (14:47.426)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (14:53.058)
Okay.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (14:56.097)
I felt like instructing wasn’t my thing. So I said, no, no, I’m here just to fly the planes, passenger planes. And it was.
Jason Elkins (14:56.334)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (15:02.958)
I get that. I suspect that there’s a lot of people that go that other route and you know, I’ve just kind of heard that I actually think. Might be interesting to instruct for awhile, but they do like like hundreds of hours of instruction and. That to me just seems a little scary because you’ve got so much responsibility for these students. Eventually you’re going to sign off on them to solo and. So I don’t know, but you kind of skipped that.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (15:28.855)
But I think, but then when you think if you skip that part and you go directly to fly commercial, then the responsibility is like, what, 10, 100 times more? But yeah, but when you have your goal, it’s like, this is what I want to achieve. Then nothing can stop you.
Jason Elkins (15:37.932)
Well that… You got a point.
Jason Elkins (15:49.442)
Yeah. Yep. All right. Very cool. Did you, are you interested? I’m curious if you’ve had opportunities to be around other types of aircraft. I’m so like, I’m actually, I have a commercial pilot’s license for hot air balloons, which is quite a bit different, you know, so I had to learn some of the, you know, regulations and navigation and weather stuff probably that you would have learned. but as far as managing the airplane, I have no idea, no nothing about that. And I don’t even pretend to.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (16:03.203)
Cool.
Jason Elkins (16:18.126)
But I remember I met a fighter pilot in Arizona and I was telling him, said, oh, I’m a pilot as well. It’s kind of jokingly because he’s a fighter pilot, right? And he says, oh really? said, yeah, I’m a hot air balloon pilot. And he looked at me and he says, oh my gosh, I would never get in one of those things. They just scare me. I would never fly in a balloon. I thought he’s a fighter pilot, but whatever. So for a moment I thought, you know, I was kind of more that top gun guy. You know, I had bigger, bigger cojones or whatever.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (16:36.652)
Look at that.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (16:44.579)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (16:47.586)
But I’m curious, did you get into other aviation? Cause I know some pilots really kind of get into like paragliding or helicopters or ballooning or something like that. Did you dabble with any of that stuff?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (16:57.283)
I had the thing for hot air balloons for a while. I don’t know, it was like some romantic type of experience. But I never touched one. I always wanted to, and I’m still open to go on a trip, you know? Because I feel like it’s a completely different story. To me, it’s like a romantic way of seeing the skies. Because for me, flying means a job.
Jason Elkins (17:01.89)
Yeah!
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (17:26.547)
business, like the schedule you have to comply with. And Hot Air balloon to me is more like, okay, we have a whole day to enjoy today. That’s my understanding.
Jason Elkins (17:27.619)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (17:31.575)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (17:39.274)
It’s yeah, it’s it’s quite a bit different. I mean, if you’re doing rides, so I had a commercial balloon ride business for a while. So if you’re doing rides, there’s a little bit more of OK, we’ve got a little bit more of an agenda, let’s say. But the cool thing with ballooning as opposed to just about every other form of transportation, pretty much every other form of transportation, you kind of know where you’re starting and you know where you’re ending. That’s kind of the whole point. I’m going to fly from airport A to airport B.
And with the ballooning, when you take off, really don’t know. There is no plan to destination. I mean, other than downwind, you know, you’re going somewhere downwind, but it’s that like, I’m taking, you you might even take off at a small airport, but you’re probably not going to land at an airport. So there’s always that, that kind of mystery and that, you know, excitement of where am I going?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (18:27.969)
Yeah, this is one thing that I would like to experience because the other type of flying like fighters, army, no, no, no, I don’t wanna have anything to do with the war. I’m Spaniard, at the time I was studying, there was like the Iraq war going on and Spain agreed to help the American military. So if I would have studied through the military, I would have been one of the airplanes that would have…
Jason Elkins (18:41.23)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (18:57.155)
had to go to the war because the airplanes were not very modern because we are Spain, right? We are not the US. A couple of them fell down. no, no, I’m not into war.
Jason Elkins (18:59.917)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (19:12.714)
Didn’t sound exciting, huh? I get that completely. So it sounds like though, I suspect some of the other students at the school were on some sort of military scholarship or whatever that they agreed that when they got out, they would go spend some time in the US. We’d call it ROTC or something. wow. Okay. All right. What about helicopters? Have you ever thought about flying a helicopter?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (19:26.872)
guess.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (19:31.073)
I think it’s 10 years. I think it’s 10 years in Spain.
Yeah, because they pay.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (19:41.635)
My parents gave me a helicopter baptism flight when before I started my studies, they said, this is the closest we can get you. So if you would like to have a look and I don’t know, I think it was like a 15 or 30 minute flight through the mountains near Andorra, you know, the Pyrenees. Wow.
Jason Elkins (19:41.844)
on your radar.
Jason Elkins (20:01.059)
Huh?
Oh yeah, yeah. Uh huh.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (20:06.307)
What an amazing experience. To me it was like I was part of a Mission Impossible film.
Jason Elkins (20:11.552)
Okay, but you did that before you started your schooling. Well, you left that out. That’s pretty cool.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (20:13.697)
Yes, that was like my parents. I remember that now. my parents, it was like a test, right? Like, if you survive this, you’re ready. So it’s like, yes.
Jason Elkins (20:25.486)
That’s true. It would really suck if they signed up for four years of school and, and then when it was time to actually go flying, you got sick on your first day. Yeah. Okay.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (20:30.115)
And then I don’t know, I start throwing up, you know. I don’t know.
And the other type of flying that I’m interested in now, it’s, well, I call it flying, but maybe it’s five second flying, it’s kite surfing. So it’s like, you know, like with this big, big height on the sea. And if you fall, you fall in the water. So nothing, nothing wrong happens.
Jason Elkins (20:53.827)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (20:58.488)
Well, I’ve seen a few videos of guys that are doing the kite surfing and you can do some pretty good jumps and get pretty high. And you know, some, don’t always come back into the water. I’ve seen Rocky outcroppings or hitting the beach.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (21:10.337)
Yes, well, I’m not that good to play with those crazy kids. No,
Jason Elkins (21:18.03)
Very, very cool. All right. So let’s, let’s progress through this. You go to school, you graduate. What was it like getting started in the airline industry?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (21:31.201)
It was hard. It was hard because I graduated right in 2008 when the big economic crisis hit in the whole world. But in Spain it hit like maybe one year or a couple of months earlier because we had some other problems with the real estate market. So.
Jason Elkins (21:51.235)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (21:52.364)
everybody started losing their jobs. And because of that, airlines in Spain were not hiring. On the contrary, they were fighting. So I had to find a job somewhere else. And I knew that would happen because in the airline industry, you go wherever the plane tells you to go. So I landed a job in Austria. I started working for Austrian Airlines. So a country…
Jason Elkins (22:01.454)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (22:22.155)
I never know where it was in the map before I heard about this airline. Yeah, I never left Spain. I traveled very little when I was a kid. So I was just 22 years old. I had no experience at all. And yeah, so I arrived there. I landed a job with them. And all surprise, they speak German in there. And I knew nothing. I could say eins, zwei, drei.
Jason Elkins (22:26.922)
Really? Okay.
Jason Elkins (22:47.586)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (22:51.907)
because when I was working at the airport, I had a couple of German passengers and I have to tell them where was their gate. So I said, ein, zwei, drei, that’s all I knew. So yeah, it was hard because for me, like the first job was not one job, but two jobs. So one is learn how to be an airline pilot. And the second one was to learn German.
Jason Elkins (23:15.438)
learn German. Actually, this is a question that I think maybe some of our listeners I know I would like to know is. So when if I just hear you say, OK, my first job, I went to work for an Austrian airline, they spoke German, I would think that sounds like, my gosh, that’s dangerous. Why would they hire someone that doesn’t speak German to fly an airplane?
in Austria or whatever. So what do you say to our listeners? Because my understanding is there’s kind of the English is kind of the standard language in aviation. But at the same time, I suspect that when you’re in the cockpit with a German pilot or an Austrian pilot, it’s not all English is I mean, tell us what is it? What? How does that play into it?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (23:39.297)
Yeah.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (23:47.51)
It is.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (23:57.997)
So, yes.
There are like a couple of languages, like official languages in aviation. One is the most popular one is English, but then you have also Spanish and Chinese. So it’s just based on number of people in the world speaking those languages. So it wouldn’t make any sense for Chinese pilots to speak English because it’s like they are the whole population, most of the population of the world.
Jason Elkins (24:21.198)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (24:30.275)
or the Spanish-speaking population. I think in number of speakers, the first one is Chinese, then Spanish, and then it’s English. So it wouldn’t make sense to try to change a whole community. Now, with that being said, then you go to small countries like Austria with just eight million inhabitants, seven or eight million inhabitants. Yes, they speak the same language as Switzerland and Germany, but it’s still a small community.
So just because of the regulation, it’s in English, all books, all documentation, everything, all manuals, all circulars, everything is done in English. But that being said, you are an Austrian, sitting next to an Austrian with all the STWRDs that are Austrians, it’s weird to speak in English with this community. So…
Jason Elkins (25:26.158)
So there’s no rule that says you can only speak English, Spanish, or Chinese in the cockpit. It’s just that the official, like when you’re communicating with air traffic control, stuff, okay, there.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (25:35.021)
So there is, no, there are rules. There are rules, there are rules. and there are specific phraseologies. In the cockpit, when you talk to the pilots or when you talk in the cabin, when you talk to the stewardesses, you do not talk, you do not have like an informal conversation like you and I are having here. We first agree on a set of words and sentences that we are gonna use to refer to one thing or the other.
And all of us need to learn these words, these sentences. Even if you go to the level of pronunciation, know, we Spaniards have a different accent than you or the Austrians. So when you study the sentences and the procedures, you also study how to pronounce them. So all of us sound nearly the same because all of those communications normally take place over the radio and radio loses a lot.
a lot, a lot, a lot, lot of the character, the accent. So we have to make sure that the words that we’re using are… When I’m speaking it, I have to make sure that when you’re listening, you’re listening after thousands of kilometers, weird or bad radio communications, you still know exactly what word I’m saying. So we have all these procedures in place. Then…
If you’re in the cockpit and it’s like a two hour flight, then you have everything under control. And with the, because there’s always like two or three pilots, then, and you want to say, I don’t know, because he’s your friend or because you, I don’t know, you know, about his family, can ask, Hey, how are you doing? How is your wife doing? Or those things. There is no frasiology of that. And those things, normally you say it in the language you feel most, most comfortable with. So if he’s Austrian and you live in Austria.
Jason Elkins (27:32.673)
Okay.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (27:34.827)
Man, you’ve got to learn Austrian.
Jason Elkins (27:37.582)
So were they resistant to you? they, if, if two Austrian pilots showed up and you’re assigned to the crew and they see you they’re like, it’s that Spanish guy again, you know, not because of you, but just, did you feel some resistance to the look, to the local pilots or was it just, it’s just a normal thing.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (27:39.427)
.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (27:58.155)
No, it’s airlines are international crews. it’s something that even it’s enriching. It enriches you, you know, like to be able to have like this type of conversation with people from thousands of kilometers apart, different points of view. For me, the only problem was learning German, man. German is so difficult for a Spanish speaker. I didn’t even speak English properly at the time. So now I had to learn two languages.
Jason Elkins (28:03.297)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (28:09.549)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (28:28.065)
That was the hard part. And yeah, you can talk to the passengers, but you don’t need to. But you know, there are those little things that make your job more comfortable. yeah. I worked for seven years and it was a long time for me. It was my first. I’m so grateful that they gave me this job without speaking their language, without being from their country. So I will always be grateful. There were moments of…
Jason Elkins (28:40.696)
So how long did you work for that airline?
Okay.
Jason Elkins (28:54.958)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (28:57.877)
of stress, but in the end I have to be grateful.
Jason Elkins (29:03.404)
Well, you know, since you brought it up moments of stress, I think a lot of us, you know, are just kind of curious. Like. We don’t have to go anything into anything you don’t want to go into, but share with us some insights into the life of a commercial airline pilot. Cause it sounds pretty glamorous to some people and other people might think, my gosh, that just sounds so mundane and so routine. share some insights. Cause I know there’s somebody out there listening that’s thinking about signing up for four year.
college degree in aviation or taking flight lessons. So what would you share with them?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (29:38.401)
Well, first of all, if you have heard or if you have seen any movies like Catch Me If You Can, Leonardo DiCaprio or don’t know, The Flight, just bear in mind that this is fiction. We are not in the 60s anymore. Being an airline pilot, and there is this joke, you know, that there are like Boeing’s and there are Airbus flights, you know, the brands of the planes.
Jason Elkins (30:04.963)
Right?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (30:06.733)
So there is this joke that when you’re an Airbus driver, you’re just a bus driver, Airbus driver. It’s a bus. It’s like this long tube, you know, with lots of seats. The only difference is that a bus can stop.
Jason Elkins (30:13.548)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (30:21.304)
But Boeing’s not the same. mean, help us understand that. I mean, I understand the play on words, but.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (30:25.183)
It’s the same. Yeah, you can only make the joke with with Airbus, but it’s the same. It’s the same. Of course, the complexity is like maybe 10 times higher than driving a bus, because if the bus stops, OK, you just stop on the side road. If the plane stops, you cannot stop it. So it’s there is more complexity. But today, you know, with flights, low cost, low fares, airlines and even
Jason Elkins (30:30.382)
okay.
Jason Elkins (30:39.694)
You
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (30:54.251)
new companies, new airlines competing with each other to get you board their plane. How much does a flight cost today? You can buy flights with 10 euros, 10 dollars, the cheapest one. How glamorous do you think?
Jason Elkins (31:12.492)
Yeah, I don’t, I don’t tend to run across those often, but I do, I do know that, especially in Europe. think sometimes you’ve got some. Yeah.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (31:18.241)
You can see that even if I tell you $100 for a one hour flight, it’s still cheap. How does this apply to glamour for the crew? it’s impossible now to have this glamorous lifestyle anymore.
Jason Elkins (31:23.51)
It’s still, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Jason Elkins (31:29.07)
Well
Jason Elkins (31:35.214)
Let me ask you this, because I think what I just interpreted and being a pilot myself, maybe it’s a little different. It probably is quite a bit different actually flying a balloon as well. I’m sure it’s different. like, for example, with the balloon, you’re constantly putting inputs and, know, as a pilot, if you just stop doing things, the balloon comes down. So, you you’ve got to keep adding hot air, for example. You’re pretty engaged the whole flight.
I’m imagining that with the airplane, especially large commercial airlines, I guess we’re going with this is I feel like I want the pilot to know what to do when things go wrong. Like I don’t, I don’t think necessarily there’s a, well, I don’t know. You tell me when you fly a commercial flight, do you feel like you’re tapping into your, your abilities, your skillset, or does that only come into play when there’s a problem?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (32:34.711)
Well, you have to always be ready for a problem. And that’s why we go to the simulator every six months to test all known errors, mistakes, problems, emergencies, incidents, accidents that have happened in the past. So you’re always awake, always, always ready for a problem. So you are monitoring the system. So it does, it’s not like as you were explaining with the balloon that you have to be adding inputs.
Jason Elkins (32:38.327)
Right.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (33:04.203)
or taking action. No. In the airline, you don’t want to take action because every time you take action, it’s like…
Jason Elkins (33:10.542)
That’s what I was just thinking. It’s like if you’re action, something is going sideways.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (33:15.693)
Something’s wrong. So you have to make sure because you’re flying for a pass, you have a group of passengers behind you. So they want to nothing. They want to feel that they are not moving. So you have to make sure that the airplane does exactly what you planned in the flight computer system, which is going this route, going up, going down, to the right, to the left, up, down.
Jason Elkins (33:30.467)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (33:45.525)
always being like one or two seconds ahead of what the plane will do. And if you start seeing, he’s not gonna do this, then you correct it. And then you have more energy, you know, like you’re sitting this monitoring that everything is going according to plan. And then you have energy in case something happens. And then it’s like, okay, take action. And then you fix it.
Jason Elkins (34:06.19)
So what I hear you saying is your job is to make the flight as boring as possible. Right?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (34:12.033)
Definitely. know, passengers are scared. Nothing at all.
Jason Elkins (34:17.262)
They don’t want excitement. not, they didn’t sign up to go have an adventure. Okay. All right.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (34:22.945)
You know, turbulence, to me, I don’t feel turbulence. I can sleep with the turbulence, but the normal passenger, even if the plane just moved like one millimeter, they will feel like, we’re gonna die. So you have to make it boring for them so they don’t lose their minds.
Jason Elkins (34:29.454)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (34:34.434)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Jason Elkins (34:41.602)
That would to me and I want to hear your insights, but to me that actually sounds like a fairly painful job. If my job is to make the flight as boring as possible, it’s kind of the opposite of what I was doing. Like with the balloon rides, people, you I wanted it to be exciting as exciting as you can make it. So I was constantly looking like, okay, what can I do to make this more exciting? And it sounds like you were kind of on the opposite end of it. So right.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (34:59.735)
Yep. Yep.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (35:09.943)
Yes, because I used to fly for passengers and my passengers’ safety and well-being was my top one priority. So to me, a successful flight was the one that you didn’t feel it happened.
Jason Elkins (35:19.694)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (35:25.006)
that nobody even remembered the flight, right? It’s just like, if they remember it, it was a bad thing, right? Cause it was, yeah, all right, I get that.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (35:27.907)
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Maybe for you it’s exciting because like, wow, yes, we went right, we went left, we avoided this big cloud or we jumped. No, no, they don’t know because you in a balloon, have all the time, the perspective of where you are, you can look left, right. In a plane, this is a bus. It’s a tube, you see nothing. So you’re scared. So it’s like the, you know, the fear of the unknown.
Jason Elkins (35:41.867)
So.
Jason Elkins (35:50.424)
Yeah, you’re in a tube. Yeah, you’re in a tube.
Jason Elkins (35:58.638)
So let me ask you this. If you could make the same, you know, financial, if you could make the same money flying a smaller plane, maybe that does sightseeing flights over the Grand Canyon or bush pilot in Alaska, if you could make the same amount of money, have the same lifestyle with pilots.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (35:59.139)
That’s what happens.
Jason Elkins (36:24.45)
prefer to go do that stuff that’s a little bit more interesting or do most pilots just kind of like the routine and what are your thoughts? mean, I you can’t speak for everybody, but I’m just curious.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (36:32.739)
Yeah. So, well, first of all, for the audience, forget about making a lot of money being a pilot. Okay. This is, if you want to make money, I don’t know, you go work for the financial market or something, but that used to be a thing, but it’s not anymore. It’s like, consider being a pilot, an airline pilot, like a surgeon, like a doctor, a medical doctor or surgeon. So,
You can make good money, but because you’re working a lot under a lot of pressure. this and good money is, I don’t know, like how much? 100K a year, 200K a year? To me, that’s not good money. If you wanna make good money, you do something else. So the type of pilots that they go to these example of flights that you said, like maybe it’s smaller planes doing like sightseeing, those are more…
adventurous type of jobs that maybe you are making, I don’t know, 50k, 100k if you’re lucky a year, but then you feel like you’re in a perpetual vacation. So it depends on the type of experience you want to have. To me, being an airline pilot gave me lot of drive, a lot of organizational skills, and without the need or without the…
the downside of being in the military because in the military you get order, you get control, but you never take action. You’re always following orders. In the commercial airline industry, you can stop whenever you want if you don’t feel like it. So it depends on how you are or who do you want to become. To me, I liked having the skills of being able now to…
You know, all these skills that I learned by being like a commercial airline pilot, it’s not only the boring part of following orders, but of understanding how those orders are created. So now I am capable in my new job. I can create.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (38:46.531)
standard operational procedures based on what I learned on how you make decisions that can save lives. And now I don’t have to save lives, but I know how the decisions that you make in one type of industry can help you set your standards for business. It’s only I’m applying this to business because we’re talking about a job here, but you can apply it to any part of your life that you want. So it depends on who you are.
Jason Elkins (39:10.766)
you
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (39:16.307)
you want to be, what feels better for you at any time of your career.
Jason Elkins (39:22.412)
All right, well, let’s discuss that. Let’s discuss the transition because you said you were with the airline in Austria for seven years, I believe you said. So walk us into getting a little closer to Satlantis and so we can discuss that.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (39:37.387)
Right, so I was a traveler as an airline pilot. I just didn’t know. So I went to many, I discovered many new countries, new cities, and most importantly, new cultures. So with that, I started building or creating my own personality of like, you know, I’m Spaniard, I’m Catalan. So, you know, we are very close-minded. We have only our own set of rules. So I started…
opening and broadening my understanding of the world. And from there, I was so lucky. I landed a, I don’t know, like to go to, to reach the Satlante’s job, which is where I’m now, I had to learn something else because I knew a lot about cultures because Satlante’s is a social network for travelers.
for maybe perpetual travelers, sovereign individuals, like these people that is very aware of what’s going on at the macro level. But for me to be able to land a job in this type of company, I work at growth as you discussed before, but I had nothing, I had no idea what growth was in a startup. I know I’ll travel. So before this, I spent 10 years, so between my aviation job and Satlantis, I spent 10 years launching.
scaling startups and working with corporations that were integrating startups. So I had like this transition that helped me understand how online businesses are made and how online business scale, you know, to the point of hyper growth, which was an amazing journey, exhausting, very exhausting. So, and the same way I started.
Jason Elkins (41:29.454)
Why is that? us more about that. What is it that makes it exhausting? it just the nature of startups or tell me more.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (41:36.419)
So a startup, right, for the…
For the listener that has maybe heard the word startup, but never thought deeply what the meaning of startup is. A startup is, you know, like you have companies, have like businesses, like you can open like a cafe, restaurant. This is not called a startup. This is called a business. Then why do we use the word startup for newly created businesses? Well, and I’m gonna use this metaphor that I think it’s appropriate here.
Jason Elkins (42:01.966)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (42:13.155)
Starting a start-up is like jumping off a cliff with a lot of pieces with you. Metal, a wheel, a steering wheel, all with you. And while you are falling, you have to combine them together to build a plane before you touch the ground. So this is a start-up.
Jason Elkins (42:34.498)
before you hit the ground.
Okay.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (42:41.535)
When you open a restaurant, you have your business plan, you more or less understand how it works. Real estate, a chef, waiters, more or less, you know what you need to do. But when you start the startup,
Jason Elkins (42:54.19)
I think of the phrase, you know, if you build it, they will come is kind of a business. It’s like, have some confidence that if you build it, customers will walk in the door where the startup maybe is like, if you build it before you hit the ground, great.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (43:05.197)
But in a startup…
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (43:09.641)
And if you build, even if you build it, what have you built? Imagine again, let’s go to this example, this metaphor. You are, you’re assembling the whole thing before hitting the ground, but you assembled a motorbike so it doesn’t fly. So you crash. So this is a startup. You don’t know what you are assembling and the time is ticking before you kill yourself. So that’s, that’s what I did for 10 years.
Like, building.
Jason Elkins (43:39.178)
I love this conversation because you see on LinkedIn, see, we’re looking for somebody to join this startup, somebody that wants to join a startup. it can sound pretty sexy. It’s like, it’s going to grow and get big, or it’s going to crash and burn. And you’ve got to have a certain level of, I don’t know, adventure, I guess. I have a lot of people. Go ahead.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (43:51.573)
It is. Yeah.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (44:01.643)
Exactly. And this is the part that I didn’t have in my aviation industry, as you were mentioning, like being an airline pilot. And I have like this separation of being an airline pilot or being a discoverer, you know, like, let’s go back to when they discovered the Americas. there was Christopher Columbus in a boat that said, I think that if we go this way, we’re going to find something.
Jason Elkins (44:18.872)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (44:32.331)
So this is an, that’s a startup. We don’t know the names of the others that failed. We just know the one that succeeded. And that’s the same with startups. We don’t know how many Facebooks were there before Facebook took over or how many Instagrams or how many WhatsApps. We only know the ones that succeed. This is a startup. There’s the sense of adventure. So it needs to you to be awake. It’s like, maybe you can compare it to flying the the air hot balloon.
Jason Elkins (44:32.866)
That’s a startup, right? Okay.
Jason Elkins (44:46.68)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (45:01.358)
I was thinking of the balloons. was like, because I mentioned you take off at the beginning and you don’t know where you’re going. And the phrase I was used to kind of tell them, I don’t know, share was, I don’t know where I’m going, but I have faith in my ability to figure it out along the way. And so when you actually use the jump off the cliff metaphor, was like, oh yeah, I kinda get that. Maybe not quite at the same level.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (45:02.775)
There you go.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (45:24.973)
So then you would make a good startup CEO if you have this mindset. Because you know that things will go south. You start being aware of these being like not a possibility, but the norm. So you are always maneuvering among uncertainty. And this is the beauty of startup. And not everybody is ready for that.
Jason Elkins (45:29.299)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (45:48.429)
Hmm?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (45:52.514)
and there are startups that they start and one month later they have to shut down. So you have to be always in this mindset that we could die.
Jason Elkins (46:01.642)
It’s there’s so many parallels here to, you know, our conversation is tying into my life personally. I mean, even as a digital nomad, as somebody who’s traveling, like I never know where I’m going. I buy a one way ticket, you know, and I think a lot of, you know, a lot of the people that participate in Satlantis or startups in general, it’s like, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I know I need to take action and I’ll figure it out.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (46:25.795)
And we are not alone. You see, now you and I are having this conversation and I’m certain that most of your audience that is listening to this is like, I’m the same. And the problem is that sometimes you don’t talk about those things. You don’t know that you are a part of this big community that we all think, we all wake up, we all live the same way. And that’s what, when I discovered that, it’s when I clicked and I said, oh, I’m part of this community.
Jason Elkins (46:37.326)
Hmm?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (46:54.955)
I’m part of this. want to be in touch with all of you guys because people that do not work in or that do not have this mindset, it’s more difficult to talk to them because maybe they are, I don’t know, they have like a regular job, nothing wrong with it, but it’s difficult to click, difficult to connect with them. And that’s why, and this is how I finish my whole story, and this is how I landed, pun intended, in Satlantis. So.
Yes, I found my tribe here. And now I want to use it to expand my tribe and to be able to wherever I go, like you, if I have a one-way ticket, before I reach the destination, I want to make sure I get in touch with my tribe.
Jason Elkins (47:41.088)
It’s, super, super important. And I know that some of our listeners get it. I shouldn’t say get it because that means if you don’t get it, it’s not a negative thing necessarily, but it is a tough thing. Jordi. I know you can appreciate it. I know I’ve experienced it. I was out last night. I’m in Tbilisi, Georgia, as I mentioned earlier, and they’ve got a pretty good expat community here, which is really cool. But I was out last night and we’re sitting around a table with a group of people that I just met. There’s people from.
you know, from England, from, geez, from, from all over Iran, all these places. And we all have the similar, the conversation is all coming around to these things that we all have in common. And honestly, one of the biggest challenges is I’m going to say loneliness, because that’s the word we use is it can be kind of lonely when you’re traveling and having these, this lifestyle. So that ability to connect with the tribe is super, super important.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (48:38.795)
I feel you, I feel you, I feel the people there. I feel this, I feel this and again, this is why I joined this team. So, Satlante started like one and a half years ago with a completely different idea. And I’m glad that it took us a while as well to schedule this call because now we expanded our services so much. Like trying to bring people together. That’s what we’re trying to do because…
Jason Elkins (49:05.89)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (49:08.001)
We are humans and there are always degrees in everything that we do, but most of us like to stay in touch somehow to connect with each other. The problem is that when we’re eight billion people in the world, so it’s easy to connect with somebody, right? Well, physically, yes, but at a deeper level, you’re looking for people that think or have the same experiences than you.
And that’s the part that becomes harder. If you go, you’re in Tbilisi, Tbilisi, Lille now, I mean Barcelona, yes, like crowded places, but not all of them think the same way as you do.
Jason Elkins (49:48.94)
Well, I get that because I’m thinking, you know, cause we’re obviously we’re discussing this Satlantis and how that’s different. Cause I think, okay, well, if I go into Facebook or Instagram or there are some people that kind of live life the way I do, but the vast majority of them don’t. And finding those ones that do, are there’s, are there’s special groups? Yes. But people just join groups sometimes and finding that that commonality.
is really, really important, which is why I was excited to chat with you because I, you know, took a look at the platform and I thought, oh, this is like something I could see myself using. And I’m sure a lot of other people that I meet. I’m happy that we came on to discuss it.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (50:28.675)
And we are inspired by Facebook groups because I’ve used it as well as a perpetual traveler. For example, a couple of years ago, I lived in Seoul, in Korea. So the first thing I did was like, go to Facebook, all Facebook groups, Spaniards in Korea, Korea’s experts, Korea friends. And what you realize is that those groups are temporary.
So there are people that join just to ask their questions. So how to get there, directions, a flood, living.
Jason Elkins (51:00.62)
The same questions, honestly, over and over and over over.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (51:04.269)
What’s the price? So what’s the best airline? What internet company shall I ask? How much oil prices cost? So it’s like…
Jason Elkins (51:11.267)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (51:15.608)
Can I get, can I get cash at the airport? You know, how do I get a taxi from the airport to my hotel? And it’s very repetitive, but you’re right. They come in, they get whatever they want. They’re gone. And let me ask you this, Jordan. I wanted to ask you this too, as in my experience, I don’t know why this is, but several of the expat groups, that I’ve kind of, I don’t know when I say get involved in, cause I tend to not, I’m kind of more of one of those lurkers, I guess, but.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (51:26.657)
And they gone. And the problem with this, yeah.
Jason Elkins (51:46.318)
I’m not going to mention any groups by name, but there can also be a lot of negativity in those groups. I don’t know if you’ve experienced that as well. It seems like kind of a place for grumpy, grumpy people to complain about where they’re at. And that doesn’t really bring a lot of value to maybe people like me and you. I don’t know if that’s your experience or not, but
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (51:56.396)
Maybe.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (52:05.749)
Maybe, maybe I haven’t thought about it deeply. I’ve seen things and what I see is that Facebook has a, it’s a good tool, but because it’s a generalistic app, because it became so big that when you, when you’re big enough, you have to make all your user. Yes. And that’s good. And it’s bad. So for these things, that’s why we build something more.
Jason Elkins (52:11.31)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (52:25.674)
Appeal to everybody, right?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (52:33.357)
core, specific, more directed to specific needs, which are the perpetual travelers, the nomads, frequent travelers. And then it’s like an each platform. You will not have billions of users like in Facebook to continue with the example. But who cares? I don’t want to have a billion. I cannot connect with one billion people. Maybe.
Jason Elkins (52:51.694)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (52:59.054)
You
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (53:00.405)
You know the number number we can know like 150 people roughly so I don’t need to have more than five friends you know.
Jason Elkins (53:07.63)
Right, right, Do you, so how do you, you know, how do you describe the platform through a media like a podcast where we can’t show our listeners what it looks like, how it works. So let’s try and touch on that just enough that people kind of have a concept. So then hopefully they’ll click on the link in the show notes and go take a look.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (53:14.328)
You
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (53:21.697)
Okay.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (53:29.729)
All right, so to start with, we are another app. It’s an app that you can download on your Play Store or your Apple Store, or you can browse directly through our website on satlantis.io. So first of all, so for people to understand it, it’s an app. What does this app offer? As I said, we are a social network, not to be confused with a social media platform.
You’re not going to see reels or stories like on TikTok or in Instagram that will suck your energy and you haven’t realized that no doom scrolling, no, no ancientification. Yes. So we are a tool for you to meet other people. Social media, it’s a very good tool for amplification and for discovery, but normally the things that you see are not related.
Jason Elkins (54:04.416)
No, no doom. No doom scrolling on Satlantis. Okay, cool. I should I should download it right now.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (54:24.803)
to your geography. Maybe you see fun videos of cats or memes or whatever that make you happy for a while, but then it’s like there is no direct input. Satlantis is a whatever the algorithm, things that, yes, exactly, exactly. So, you know, like social media platforms are competing with Netflix or with the cinema or with any sports activities that you would do. It’s like they are competing for your attention.
Jason Elkins (54:37.048)
Yeah, whatever, whatever the algorithm wants to put in front of you, whatever they think is, yeah, is going to keep you on longer. Yeah.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (54:54.135)
just stack there. We are not this type of tool. We are a tool that maybe you use once a week or twice a week. So it’s a tool for you to discover places and people in these places. So you download it and yes, you will see a feed. So when you download the app or when you log in to the website for the first time, we will ask you a couple of questions. Hello, Jason, what do you like? You like travel? You like this type of food? You like this type of restaurants? You like…
this type of activities. So we’re gonna create a profile. And based on that, this profile is called the social graph. We are using a technology that it’s not ours, it’s open source, that there are many other apps on the app store that use the same profiling. Meaning that everything that you do on Satlantis, you are not just doing it for Satlantis. You can then bring it with you to a dozen apps that will…
Jason Elkins (55:25.804)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (55:53.415)
use the same thing. So you create like this social graph. Then based on that social graph, you’ll see a feed of things that people post that we believe will be interesting to you because you asked, you told us what you like. So this is the beginning. So the beginning looks like a little bit like when you download Instagram that we show a feed, but the feed is boring. You know, there is not a lot of content there.
Jason Elkins (55:55.192)
Okay.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (56:21.079)
because we ask you a lot of questions, we do a big profile of you, and we don’t want you to spend time on the feed. But then we have two other things that might be interesting for you. We have events and collections. And the events tab will be for you to discover what’s going on in your city. You can tell me, well, there’s already an app for that. It’s called Meetup. Yes, yes it is. And I use it every now and then.
The problem with Meetup is the same problem that we said before with Facebook. It’s a generalistic tool and there is a lot of things that you don’t care because on Meetup, yes, you can add some filters, but you add the filters of what you would like to see. In SatLantis, you see things based on your tribe. And the tribe is this what I was saying, like the frequent traveler, the digital nomad.
maybe the geo-arbitrary, now there is like this big community of people like getting different passports based on which country treats you better, or the free cities movements. So there is people that is like discovering some cities that are inside of different geographies that have like different sets of rules. All these people are in Satlantis. So.
The number of events that you will see in Satlantis, it’s maybe 100 times smaller than what you will see in Meetup.com because we don’t care about all these other events.
Jason Elkins (57:57.068)
Right. Cause, cause meetup, mean, I’ve, I spend time looking at meetup and you gotta kind of filter through the, you know, knitting and knitting workshop or, whatever, which is fine. I’m not knocking knitting. and if you’re trying to make friends, but it’s yeah. If it’s, if it’s like, these people are nomads travelers and yeah, it’s to, to get around your tribe. Yeah.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (58:06.989)
Yeah… No, no, but… But you don’t care!
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (58:20.289)
We have a strong community of freedom seekers. If you would have to ask me how would I describe Satlantis, it’s like a social network for freedom seekers. These people that is looking for freedom, geographical freedom, financial freedom, control from the government, freedom. So all these type, and I think that we all know much feed in there. We might not have gone down to all the rabbit holes of freedom.
Jason Elkins (58:26.136)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (58:48.855)
But just by being an home or a remote worker, we are in the geographically free bucket. And because of that, you will be able to discover people that is like you, that you use the example of knitting. I will use the example of finances. You will see a lot of events about Bitcoin. People say, no, Bitcoin, crypto, scams and all this. Well, Bitcoin is once you understand it,
Jason Elkins (58:55.287)
Yeah, yeah.
Jason Elkins (59:04.014)
Hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (59:18.051)
it’s another bucket of the freedom category that I was saying. So maybe you’re a nomad and you discover that and you will start, you will meet people that share the same interest with you about freedom in different areas that you still didn’t know. And that’s what we’re trying to help you. We’re not gonna show you, I’m making now fun of the knitting example that you gave, but we’re not gonna show you a knitting event.
Jason Elkins (59:22.53)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (59:35.938)
Right, right, right, right.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (59:48.439)
if we do not think that this is not related to the freedom that you are looking for. So what we’re trying to do is to help you get around people with activities that you might not have thought about before, but that align with your mindset, with your values. And this is the event section of Sartlandis.
Jason Elkins (01:00:05.186)
Yeah, what?
Right, right. you said, that’s one of the things you want. There was something else, another part that I think you wanted to touch on as well.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:00:13.229)
And then there is another part, yes, the collections. So, you know, when we travel, use, what do we use? We use Instagram to discover places. We use Google Maps to get directions and reviews of the places we discovered. We use Meetup to find events, to meet people. So the problem is that you have like different tabs, different apps, and they are not interconnected with each other. So everything you do in one app is sealed and it cannot be shared with the other. So what we did is we built all this together. We built a clone of Meetup.
Jason Elkins (01:00:37.571)
Hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:00:42.475)
a clone of Instagram and a clone of Google Maps, all using your same identity that I told before that you can bring this identity even outside of Satlantis to an ecosystem of other apps, which I don’t want to get technical into it. So the other feature that we have is like this map, and it’s not a copy clone of Google Maps, meaning you will not see all the places in Google Maps, but you will see the places that like-minded people like you
Jason Elkins (01:00:57.038)
Mm-hmm.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:01:11.693)
would like to see. And because it’s all using the same social graph, the reviews that you will see in this co-working in Sibili that you are today will be from other friends of yours that have been there. Because why do you care about the reviews of a random person that he put on Google Maps? If you don’t know this person, you don’t know his tastes. You don’t know if he’s into traveling. So why would you care?
Jason Elkins (01:01:11.79)
that sounds great. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:01:35.246)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (01:01:38.926)
Well, a good example, yeah, a good example is, know, if I go on Google and I search for coworking cafe and Tbilisi or Medellin or whatever, I’ll get some sort of response that may or may not really be related to coworking. And then there’s, there’s 40 some reviews, but not a single one. I mean, I’ll scroll through them and not a single one of them mentions plugs or wifi or how long they can hang around there. So if I could just look at the ones from people that are
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:02:00.906)
Uh-huh.
Jason Elkins (01:02:07.564)
doing similar things to me, that’d be great. I like it.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:02:09.751)
And that’s what we built. this is why our core audience are like these frequent travelers, normally nomads or remote workers or freedom seekers, that they care about that. Do I need to bring my charger because there will be a plugs or does it matter or not? And those like when you have those three things combined, then you can build a whole network.
And then of course we have chat, you can talk to people, if you’re an event organizer you can organize events. For example, this is a new thing that we launched a couple of weeks ago, the collections. Because you have the map, but the problem with the map is that there are a lot of places. So we launched collections so you can save in a city, you can create an itinerary of your most recommended coworking spaces.
Maybe for you, I don’t know, maybe you arrived in town, in a new town and you don’t know where to go. Well, if there is other people like-minded like you that already have been there and have created this collection, then you can download their collection. Or maybe this person that doesn’t want to spoil his favorite co-workings. So you can build private listings, private collections for you and just your friends. And in the future, you can even sell them.
So it’s like, oh, it took me a while to create this collection. So only if you, I don’t know, if you pay me five euros, I don’t know, you set the price, whatever you want. So that is like a way for you to monetize your knowledge in a city.
Jason Elkins (01:03:45.26)
Right, right, right.
Jason Elkins (01:03:49.878)
that’s a pretty cool, cool feature. And I don’t want people to have to click through on the link to answer this next question. So let’s just answer it. Is this app free to use? for the user, what should they know? Are they going to, is this a download the app and then you’ve got things you can purchase inside and it’s useful only if you purchase those things or what does it look like?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:03:59.031)
Okay.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:04:02.487)
Yes. Yes.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:04:10.051)
So at the moment, it’s 100 % free because all the services we offer are free. But at the moment that you start making money with us, maybe selling these collections or organizing paid events, we will soon have paid events where you can sell tickets inside of the app. So as soon as you as a user start monetizing through our tool, we’re going to keep a part of the money that you are making.
Jason Elkins (01:04:29.517)
Okay.
Jason Elkins (01:04:35.31)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (01:04:39.274)
Okay, yeah, that’s fair enough.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:04:39.963)
It depends on the users. If the users, if they want to offer everything for free, then the app will, for the other users will be free. But if, but I mean, if you’re an event organizer and you organize like two or three events a month and you want a set of features that are professional features. So, so then, then we’re going to charge only for those professionals.
Jason Elkins (01:04:52.974)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (01:04:56.471)
Yeah, makes sense.
But the person that’s using the app to find events and find places isn’t necessarily unless they choose to buy somebody’s collection or something like that. But it sounds like they get a lot out of it without Panadime, right?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:05:02.849)
Yeah, no, no, free. Free for free.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:05:08.726)
Exactly.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:05:12.541)
And as I was saying, and if you don’t like it, you can bring all your social graph with you. And this is deep, this is profound. So imagine that you could download, let’s use the example now of Twitter. Imagine you could download all your profile with all your messages that you can do now in Europe because of some regulation. But imagine that if you could also download your likes, so who liked all your comments? All your comments? All your…
Jason Elkins (01:05:18.765)
Okay.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:05:42.155)
reposts that people do and all your follower list and following list. Yes, now you can download it and have it on a spreadsheet, but imagine that now you could bring, you could plug in this spreadsheet into Instagram. So in Satlantis, Satlantis is part of a bigger ecosystem of many apps that if you download Satlantis, you play with it, I don’t know, you like it, you don’t like it, I don’t care, but you interact and you start making friends.
Jason Elkins (01:05:50.444)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:06:09.153)
You can download all your social graph and then plug it in into any of the other apps and you will bring with you the likes, the connection. So you will own your followers. It’s never owned by Satlantis. It’s always you own it.
Jason Elkins (01:06:14.126)
Hmm?
Jason Elkins (01:06:21.17)
Okay. Which, which is big for, you know, I’m a digital marketer. I work with companies and we talk about, should we spend our time and effort building out our Instagram or our Facebook or, should we go with emails? Cause at least we own the emails. We’re not real, we’re not relying on the algorithm because Facebook might decide, okay, we don’t like you anymore. So we’re not going to push you to anybody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:06:36.771)
Correct. Correct.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:06:43.233)
Yeah. Shadowbun.
Jason Elkins (01:06:48.59)
It’s a tough thing. Jordi, I think you and I could go on and on and on, because it’s a fascinating conversation. I definitely want to get back with you and continue the conversation. But for today, what is there that I absolutely should have asked, forgot to ask, or that you want to make sure our listeners know either about you, your philosophy on life, Satlantis, or anything like that? What do we need to discuss before we wrap up?
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:07:12.835)
So I like everyone to start thinking about, because you mentioned it now and I wanted to touch it as well. I want everyone to think about the social media accounts. They are not the owners. They are renting a space in a digital land that tomorrow the rules can change and then you are not an owner. So think about all the effort that you are putting YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Netflix,
Twitter, anywhere, just think about it. And there’s nothing wrong with using these tools, but I want the audience to understand how those tools work because one day they will gonna get shadow banned or they’re gonna get their accounts frozen. Just think about it.
Jason Elkins (01:08:00.942)
Isn’t it devastating when you see somebody, you know, I saw one a couple of days ago, a tour operator that came in and said, wow, you know, they, I got hacked, whatever they blocked me and I’m trying to, and I’ve, I’ve spent the last two years building up my business through Facebook or whatever. And now I don’t have access to my followers, my connections. it’s like, you know, people can go out of business over stuff like that.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:08:24.077)
So, exactly, if you’re listening to us, you probably are an entrepreneur and you have your own business. So think about this. And if you would like to have like a plan B, we, Satlantis, are the first step for you to get into this new realm of digital ownership. Just think about it.
Don’t do anything, just think about it, read through it. Listen to this example that you, Jason, just said. Just think about it. This is for me my last piece of advice I would like to give to your audience.
Jason Elkins (01:09:02.552)
Good, good advice. Cause it’s a conversation that comes up a lot. And I think if we can save one person from, from going through that, that would be pretty darn cool. That’s why I’m all about the email marketing. I believe it or not. And you know, podcasts, you know, do I put my podcasts on social media? Sure I do, but I own the podcast. You know, I can do whatever I want with it. I’ve got, he lives on my website and you know, all that stuff. So.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:09:23.383)
But you own it. Yes.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:09:29.932)
Yes.
Jason Elkins (01:09:32.43)
Anyway, Jordi wise words. you so much. Fascinating conversation. Let’s let’s do it again. And yeah, listeners go click the link. Take a look. I thought it was pretty cool when we when I first came across it and I was really excited to have you on the show. So thanks, Jordi. Appreciate it.
Jordi Llonch (Satlantis.io) (01:09:46.913)
Amazing, Jason, thank you for giving me the opportunity to share it.
Jason Elkins (01:09:50.712)
Chat with you real soon. Thanks Jordi, bye.
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