In-Depth with Fabián Baptista: The Journey of an Entrepreneur

From his adventurous childhood to his achievements in the world of technology and innovation, this story invites you to explore the inspiring path of “El Colo,” an entrepreneur who has transformed his dreams along his journey and has focused on impacting society through quality software.

“It isn’t sufficient just to want – you’ve got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want” is a phrase attributed to former United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and that encapsulates the spirit of Fabián Baptista, also known as “El Colo”.

His life story is simply fascinating: bold, strategic, vigorous, and emotional, Fabián is always on the move and looking for ways to contribute to society through innovation and technology.

He was born in 1983 in Paysandú, Uruguay, into a loving family led by his mom and grandmother, who raised Fabián and his brother, and also a father who was always a significant presence in his life.

“I have 2 adorable children, Marcos (21) and Emma (4), who are the most important part of my life along with Gise, my favorite person in this world. My bond with my brother, Esteban Gabriel, is simply beautiful. We are lucky to have our mom in good health, which allows her to enjoy her 4 granddaughters. Not to mention her partner, the great Ruben, a teacher who came into the family to bridge distances,” he recounted.

Fabián lived in Paysandú until he was 18, when he moved to Montevideo city to study: “It’s an emotional challenge for any student from the countryside coming to ‘the big city’. Luckily, we were raised to be quite independent. From the age of 8, I already knew how to cook the basics, that combined with the package that arrived from the family every 15 days made life easier,” he remembered.

The Beginnings of “El Colo”

How would you characterize your childhood?
Beautiful. I have memories of spending hours and hours playing in many different neighborhoods, cousins’ houses, wild activities in streams or in the Uruguay River fighting with my brother in the backyard, playing soccer in some field, or hiding in storm drain culverts.

It was quite a struggle for my mom to raise the two of us; we were quite restless and intense. Or according to her, sharp. But it was a time when it was completely normal to go to school alone, and ask for credit at some store. When we grabbed the bike, we could escape and travel the city from end to end, even at night, without any fear other than the ‘enemies’ of the neighborhood.

What did you dream of?
I did a lot of sports, soccer, karate, and water polo, I wasn’t very good at any, my thing seemed to be art, but the truth is I didn’t enjoy it much nor dream about it. At 12, I graduated as an organ teacher with honors, but that wasn’t for me either. In fact, I never touched a keyboard again unless it was a PC.

I dreamed of being an astronaut. But that changed when I had the opportunity to go to NASA. I think it was in ’95 when my mom took us to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. When I saw what the candidates spent most of their time on and the slim chances they had of getting to the moon, I was disillusioned. I didn’t understand what research meant, and I gradually lost interest.

Fabián at the Kennedy Space Center.

How did your entrepreneurial spirit come to life?
My mom is an incredible entrepreneur, accustomed to getting ahead on her own. She started by recycling plastic and disposable materials from hospitals while studying to graduate as a dentist. Not only did she manage to finish her studies that way, but she also began working in small clinics in different cities and later managed to have one of her own. Later, she set up a respectable clinic, first with a partner and then independently.

Was there any event in her life that particularly marked you?
In the mid-90s, a lot of people in working-class towns in the interior of Uruguay didn’t have access to dentists. My mom bought a bus, parked it in the backyard, set up a workshop for sheet metal, painting, blacksmithing, and carpentry, and transformed it into a mobile clinic. I have very fond memories of going to remote places as her co-pilot. Thanks to an agreement she made with some factories, she managed to provide dental care to hundreds of families away from the city for years.

Fabián Baptista with his mom, at 16, in the bus that “she recycled” and used to attend to hundreds of people without access to dental care.

Her actions marked your path and left an indelible mark. How did your dad impact your entrepreneurial spirit?
A lot, but in a different way. He worked from the age of 17 to 65 in the same shoe store. He held a position of great responsibility, which involved buying at international fairs, as well as leading sales and staff at the headquarters. Even so, he frequently had to go to work in the early morning to prepare the shop windows. And he always told me: “Work for yourself, even if you don’t make as much money, it’s much better, ‘my boy’”.

Fabián with his younger brother Gabriel and his dad in Artigas Park, Paysandú.

A Path Full of Exciting Challenges

From a young age, mainly through video games, he had a great attraction to computing. At only 10 years old, he programmed using the now ancient platform “Amigos Logos” and was an Atari “gamer”. He was “lucky” to have friends in the neighborhood who had Nintendo, whom he waited for hours to wake up from their nap just to be able to play.

By the age of 16, he began programming in Pascal, one of the most influential and educational programming languages of those times, and later in Visual Basic. Much later, in 2001, he enrolled at the Universidad de la República in Uruguay to study Computer Science.

With his mom’s vivid example, his dad’s words that never faded from his mind, and the tranquility of having family support, when Colo started studying, he did so with a strong idea in his head: he wanted to become an entrepreneur.

Of course, this would imply a big change in his life, moving to the “big city”, and starting to have many more responsibilities as a teenager and being alone, far from his family. The truth is, while he knew it wouldn’t be easy, this motivated him greatly.

Fabián and Matías studying at the Universidad de la República, in Montevideo.

“I felt a great sense of freedom, something like ‘now I’m becoming the man I want to be’. Fortunately, I had everything I needed. The hard part was separating from most of my friends, my neighborhood, and especially my girlfriend,” he remembered.

Often, his friends told him it was very risky. But he saw it the other way around: “What’s the worst that could happen? Fail and start over? Having to go out and look for a job? When basic needs are secure, you don’t need much courage to take new directions.”

“Teen Dad”

Fully settled in Montevideo, at 18, Fabián found out he was going to be a dad. Pragmatic, responsible, and determined, El Colo and his girlfriend, until before the start of his university life, decided to get back together to raise their new great love, Marcos.

Until then, El Colo had been living a comfortable student life, laborious, with a lot of studying, but also comfortable. “That’s when it got tough. I went from being a full-time student to raising a child, going out to work, and studying took a back seat,” he reminisced.

“Despite all the difficulties, having a child so young brought me invaluable things that will always live within me. I’m sure that otherwise, I wouldn’t have been as lucky in my life,” he elaborated.

Fabián with his brother, his son Marcos, and the mother of his son. Behind them, as he calls it, “a fundamental archaeological detail,” his mom’s mobile clinic.

From His First Venture to the Creation of Abstracta

A natural enthusiast always full of ideas, the first venture he managed to invoice with occurred while he was still studying, along with 2 university friends: Nicolas de Maio, today Tech Director at Globant; and Fernando Martinez, today CEO of Big Cheese.

“We set up a Microsoft technology development company for the agriculture sector. The system was designed to manage the life cycle of a livestock batch, from registration and certification to validation and the generation of printed magazines.”

This process was carried out by one of Uruguay’s largest screen auction companies, and it served to gain confidence in his ability to understand problems and solve them with engineering.

In 2004, he began working for the company Quanam, an international consulting firm of Uruguayan origin that would have a great impact on his life as an entrepreneur. 

“The culture of quality, the work environment, and challenging projects gave me the opportunity to see how large companies worked in other countries, and to gain perspective and confidence in our education and abilities,” he said.

There, he served as a technical consultant for the implementation of the financial module of an ERP for 3 years. On this journey, he traveled to different countries, such as Mexico and Brazil, and lived in Brazil for a few months. Traveling was not only something he enjoyed, but it was also a way to earn more money and experience for his professional development.

Fabián enjoying the beaches of Rio de Janeiro before his life took a 180° turn with the creation of Abstracta

Rejection of a Great Offer

Fabian’s career was going wonderfully when he received an offer that seemed irrefutable. In his words, it was an “impressive” job with a salary that tripled his and allowed him to settle in Copacabana, which he liked so much. But there was something deep inside that moved him too much…

“I said no. I left everything, and I returned to Uruguay for my son, who was just starting school. I knew my trip would be temporary, precisely because of him. And also because I wanted to start a business. So much so that I returned, and we created Abstracta.”

Everything happened after a simple phone call, in 2007. That afternoon, after the phone rang, nothing would ever be the same. It was his friend Matías Reina (today CEO of Abstracta) who called him from Uruguay, a former university colleague.

“He called to tell me about an idea for test automation and GeneXus, he wanted someone to help develop the solution. Honestly, at first, the idea didn’t motivate me as much as the opportunity to do something together and start that entrepreneurial journey as soon as possible.”

Matías still remembers the exact words El Colo said in that phone conversation: “I have no idea about testing, I don’t know if what you’re telling me is going to be successful or not, but if you tell me it’s going to be good, let’s go for it.”

And so it all began…

Fabián headed to Uruguay to start a business with Matías and Federico Toledo. They presented themselves at the Fondo Emprender, a pioneering initiative in Uruguay for seed capital. They won a prize of US$ 2,500 that helped them get started.

El Colo was the first to quit his job to dedicate himself full-time to developing the idea and creating Abstracta. He had all the uncertainties possible, and a single certainty: he was starting a one-way journey that would completely change his destiny and that of his friends, and he was determined to make it worth it.

Even so, he had no real interest in testing; in university, he had learned it as a routine verification activity, which he found “tedious and boring.”

How did you find that motivation?

Working with friends, creating the company from scratch, and leaving my job to start a new dream. I was motivated to develop a tool that could automate the tedious part of testing. 

I found it stimulating to eliminate the tedious parts of the development process, and give non-technical people tools to make their contribution more significant. Building quality software is a great engineering challenge, and over time I realized that doing quality testing is a fundamental part of that path.

Preparing the first Abstracta office with Matías and his wife.

And from there, everything happened: you created a system to keep entrepreneurship, you also fell in love…

Exactly. I had the opportunity to start other business projects, all related to technology and quality: Monkop, upCamp, and Apptim. For more than a year now, we have been constantly innovating with AI Transformation, generating tools and co-pilots that are transforming processes, and results in various sectors. All this is expanding the horizons of our projects and our dreams.

On this path, I met Gise. We saw each other for the first time in 2009, at a meeting with GeneXus we had with Mati. She is an absolutely exceptional woman, the most beautiful and best person I know. We have been together for 10 years. She has cultivated me the most, and I feel very fortunate to share life with her.

Fabian and Gisela, his great life partner.

Other Voices

Fabián, alongside his partners, Matías Reina, Federico Toledo, and Sofía Palamarchuk, members of the Abstracta board of directors

How has Fabián’s leadership influenced the work environment and Abstracta’s projects?

Matías: Fabián has a pragmatic approach that ensures we focus on creating value. In teams, he often takes on the role of asking difficult and important questions. With a deep love for Abstracta and its team, and with great firmness, he often makes us feel uncomfortable, a place that mobilizes us to a better place. He also quickly generates a great deal of trust within the team and with partners. His influence on Abstracta’s projects is undoubtedly from doing, knowledge and innovation, ensuring new projects come to fruition.

Sofía: He is a great leader and always ensures that the team is motivated and connected with their purpose. With his business vision combined with his technical experience, he manages to provide a perspective that helps us question ourselves and grow as a team and company. He is always looking for ways to keep us at the forefront of innovation with a strong commitment to adding value to our projects.

Federico: Dreamy yet pragmatic, confident yet humbly technical. He makes his vision and thoughts clear but with great empathy and openness to listen and understand to converge ideas. Working closely with Fabián for so many years has greatly influenced my way of seeing and tackling problems, and I believe he achieves this with everyone he works and collaborates with.

Could you provide examples of how his approach to innovation and technology has impacted the company’s development?

Matías: From the beginning, when we started with the idea of GXtest, we were talking about just that, an idea. Fabian was the first to bet 100% on Abstracta and got to work on building it and turning it into a product. More recently, with the emergence of ChatGPT and GenAI, he was a great catalyst for launching new products, spreading the technology among the team, and ensuring that Abstracta quickly generates value using GenAI.

Sofía: Fabián has participated in the inception of all the products created from the R&D area in Abstracta, as well as our spin-offs. Creating intellectual property is part of Abstracta’s DNA and positions us as strategic partners in the co-creation of quality software. Fabián has been a fundamental piece in this value proposition and has managed to add value to many clients over the years.

Federico: When wanting to learn something about technology and think about it from the testing side and how to turn it into services for Abstracta, talking with Fabián helps me learn how to build and innovate, and together we refine ideas to think about the real value of the tester contributing to that process. This has been the case since we started Abstracta, and recently with topics of observability or GenAI. I am so grateful to share this path together. Having his perspective on this gives me more clarity and confidence when thinking about how to design our quality services, and that’s another way he impacts the company with his approach to innovation.

How have Fabián’s initiatives impacted the local community and the social sector?

Matías: Fabián collaborates with new companies by providing advice based on his experience, bringing them knowledge and also contacts so they can grow. He vibrates with technology and its positive impact on our day-to-day lives.

Sofía: He contributes his vision and experience as a mentor in all the initiatives we promote from Abstracta to have a positive impact on society. He cares a lot about being able to provide opportunities for those who do not have them today and solving social problems through the use of technology.

Federico: He is always very focused on software and how to improve people’s lives through technology, but at the same time enjoys collaborating as he can, from networking among people he knows to going to cook at a neighborhood food kitchen.

If you had to define Fabián, how would you do it?

Matías: He is an intelligent, integral, loyal person. A great friend, one of those you know you can always count on. He is very hardworking, a team player who empowers you and rows with you in each adventure.

Sofía: He is adventurous, optimistic, always willing to help, and a great problem-solver. He is someone who puts the needs of others before his own, a great leader and friend, with whom it is always a pleasure to spend time and, in particular, to face new challenges with enthusiasm and good vibes.

Federico: He is a great person and great friend, sincere, straightforward, fun, charismatic, loving. He enjoys playing with children like no other friend I’ve seen. He likes to do things, whether it’s building software or woodworking. He likes to experiment, from new technology to kitesurfing or paragliding. In the office, we all call each other “dear,” and he started that habit and spread it around. I think that defines a lot about his way of being and his leadership, sometimes unintentionally or unknowingly.

Deep Dive with Fabián: A Quickfire Q&A in His Own Words

Fabian with his family.

What do you think is the biggest challenge of being a father?

Achieving a balance to provide the best tools, show the way, set limits, and withstand. Children can make us transition between different states like crying, getting angry, and making us happy in a few seconds. They know our weak points, challenge the system, and test it permanently. I believe that the greatest challenge is knowing how to guide them being aware of the maturity level of each one.

What are the most significant challenges the IT industry faces with the recent advances in AI?

Intellectual property, security, trust, ethics, and responsible use. There are many widely discussed topics about the main challenges. Who are we going to believe and trust? Not only how fast we are advancing in training different models and applications but also the speed with which we can build more complex things will make debugging and testing tasks different.

In the short term, I think the main challenge is quality and trust. Which base models to choose? To what extent do I give it autonomy? How to introduce improvements or learnings without breaking what was already working well? It’s something that the industry is used to dealing with, but now with a very different and more chaotic approach.

There are things in which testing becomes very relevant: perhaps we can trust AI to create and execute code, but we need to trust humans, assisted by AI but not conditioned, to determine the validity and truthfulness of things. This makes the role of the tester very important to ensure the quality of the solutions.

How do you think AI will change the landscape in the next 5 to 10 years?

10 years at this rate is an eternity, I bet that in terms of intelligence, it will far surpass us. It’s likely that in much less time, 3 years, we as a society will have to deal with many dilemmas that do not have a consensus. There are also fundamental issues that have not yet been seriously resolved or discussed, such as work and automation, global income, regulations, centralization or openness, and its use in multiple areas such as education, health, and research.

AI will accelerate what technology has been doing, therefore changing the skills needed for different roles, as has been happening but in a more pronounced and rapid manner.

Speaking of changes, is there anything or anyone who has changed your life?

My children. I don’t think there’s anything more changing and influential than this in life, but that’s normal, isn’t it? You sleep less, work worse, and have permanent challenges and fears, but still for some strange reason (a.k.a love) the balance is positive and it’s the best thing that happens in life. Gise changed my life, I enjoy things I didn’t enjoy before, and I feel comfortable at home, at work, and with friends. Enjoying life with someone who always supports me is a blessing and makes me happy. My partners, of course! They also changed my life, choosing them and being chosen every year is wonderful.

What do you dream of today?

For my children, I dream of a world that is more engaged, with less screen time and fewer fantasies, and filled with more real-life stories and moments spent offline. I dream that the most difficult moments for them can be taken as learning and transform them into stronger and better-prepared people to be happy as adults.

I dream of an Abstracta with more challenging, exciting, and high-impact projects, with quality relationships. I dream of a company more human than ever, a reference in artificial intelligence in which our contribution makes a difference on a larger scale. With more Abstracters around the world, and more stories worth telling.

I dream of business chambers much more alert and acting as a bloc, concerned about the issues that matter and working towards them.

With a country and a region with governments more prepared for the challenges to come, we take care of our strengths as a society, with more and better education, something we have repeated since we entered university but see how our governments, authorities, and teachers fail. I dream that we can set an example and spread to other cultures and communities with ideas that work, while also learning from others to improve our own.

I dream that AI helps the scientific community to solve many of the problems that today are very difficult or costly to solve, that we can take the best of technology for our benefit and not numb or suffer from it.

Would you like to know more Abstracta stories? You can do it here.