Not Just a Dance App

It didn’t feel like New York. The skyline was the same, but the rhythm was gone. The city that prided itself on never sleeping was in the middle of a long, uneasy nap — restless but motionless. I’d spent the early months of the pandemic with my mother, and when I finally returned, I thought coming home would feel like reclaiming something. Instead, it felt like stepping into a museum exhibit of the life I used to live.

Everyone was masked. Everyone moved differently — slower, cautious, like they were measuring distance with every breath. I remember walking through Penn Station the first time back and feeling my chest tighten, not from fear, but from disbelief. You could hear footsteps echoing. No one was shouting. No one was rushing. It was New York, but it wasn’t alive.

I couldn’t bring myself to go back to my old apartment in Manhattan — too many ghosts there and after spending a week with a buddy in Manhattan I realized I needed space, tranquility and economy - so I found an Airbnb in Queens. A small house with 3 studio additions owned by a lively older Turkish man and his son. The father was kind, always offering tea or checking in through the doorframe, and the son was distractingly handsome in that effortless, unbothered way. The house itself was neat and quiet and my little studio was a converted garage and basement off to the side of the house, just past a small descent. 

It was more of a small 1 bedroom than a studio - the kind of space that could fit your life if you folded it down neatly. The kitchen and living room were one, and a door entered into a surprisingly large bedroom with a private bathroom. The space wasn't enough, but I made it work. I turned the kitchen counter into a desk, stacking three monitors and two laptops side by side like a small command center and set to work.

---

October had always been my favorite month. I loved the crispness, the energy of the city right before the holidays — that mix of excitement and melancholy that made everything feel cinematic. But this October felt off. I’d walk outside and see the trees changing color like they always did, but without the people, without the noise, it felt more like watching a movie on mute.

I've always had a habit of when I am in my thoughts and thinking "what was happening a year ago? Was I happier? Sadder? More successful? What had I changed? Was I building the life I wanted?"

The year before, I’d been deliriously happy. Dancing in Bogotá, madly in love, surrounded by friends, planning a life that now felt like someone else’s dream. Now I was in Queens, surrounded by screens, trying to convince myself that my first business, The HR Vault, wasn’t a total failure. It was.

I had imagined it as the culmination of everything I’d learned working in big companies — all that experience repackaged into something of my own. But I didn’t understand my audience. I didn’t understand what I was selling. I thought my name and experience would be enough. I spent thousands on branding, on colors and fonts and strategy decks, but no one cared. I had no product. No strategy. No real identity beyond the companies I had worked for. 

I still remember getting the cease-and-desist letter. I sat there staring at it, not even angry just "well of course this would happen" - I kept thinking, How did I mess this up so fast? 

Apparently "TheHRVault" was the name of an employee relation documentation system preferred by dentists and orthopedic surgeons in the New Mexico and Arizona area. They were understanding and knew it was just an inexperienced would be entrepreneur, but I did have only one week to remove all mentions, references, assets and pages associated with "TheHRVault". It took the better part of a day - and as I deleted the last of the online pages I sent a note to the web designer thanking him and hoping that one day we'd work again together. 

When I told my dad, he laughed in that way only a parent who’s been through failure can.
“What did you expect?” he said. “You thought you’d be rich on the first try?”
“Yes,” I said. “I actually did.”

It was humbling. The kind of humbling that doesn’t come with an inspirational soundtrack — just silence and the realization that the world isn’t waiting for you.

---

Before everything shut down, I’d started getting recruited again — Amazon and a company I’d never heard of called ByteDance, for their product "TikTok".

This was late 2019. I remember Googling it, trying to figure out what it was, wondering how I’d missed this entire thing that was already exploding. Everyone I interviewed with said the same phrase: We’re trying to show people it’s not just a dance app.

When they explained the role it was a level higher than where I was at Spotify, but I remember looking at the phone in shock that the compensation would be about double. 

The process dragged on for months. It had started in Mid-November and we were up to stage 6 in late January.  11 interviews, 6 time zones, 9 person panel interviews. I was not surprised that as of the first week of March, the position was put on hold indefinitely.

Months later, when The HR Vault finally collapsed, I downloaded TikTok out of curiosity.

---

It started as a distraction — a way to pass the time between creating content and taking hr consulting odd jobs.

TikTok, unexpectedly, became my teacher. It showed me what I’d missed: that success wasn’t about expertise or logos. It was about rhythm. Consistency. Community. I realized I’d built my business like a corporate project when what I needed was a conversation.

Most of my feed was on current events, I also added some horror and paranormal stories, then added interesting facts. It was always incredible. The content was almost always from experts - their algorithms were perfect. I looked over to what content I had been working on - I was trying to describe promotions, but as usual was getting lost in technical jargon on job family level design. I thought about what everyone wanted, what everyone was struggling about - job search and how to find actual employment in the pandemic. I searched those terms and it came with tens of thousands of hits. 

The very first video was a young, enthusiastic woman from San Francisco who confidently told her 19k followers a terrible piece of advice as a "secret trick". I watched comments flood, thanking her for this amazing trick and people showing enthusiasm to try it. This "trick" is terrible - it can actively work against you and I spent the next hour making a profile, getting the hang of the controls and I posted my first ever video a "stitch" to her video where I said "this is wrong, this is foolish. Do not do this. This is what will happen."

The video got a few hundred views, mostly from her followers - even herself and a nasty comment before she blocked me. I read the angry comments with curiosity - they attacked me as a person, saying I was a bully for a young woman just trying to help. They attacked me for being old, or in a poorly lit basement. I didnt mind any of those comments because of one thing. I knew I was right. None of them were defending the advice. 

And then I saw the one comment that kept me going: "Finally, someone who actually understands how this works. Ignore the kids, they are just loyal to their followers - but keep posting" 

At the HRVault, almost 10 months of running a business had brought me three customers. Two were family and friends. A week on TikTok and I had 500. A thousand within a month and 10 thousand by the end of the year. The first video that went viral hit 13,000 views in an hour and a half, half a million by the fourth day.

It was surreal. For someone who’d spent years behind the scenes helping leaders and organizations design employee-centric initiatives, suddenly I was the voice people were listening to. HR professionals started commenting, hiring managers chimed in to agree, and I realized something: people were looking for this information, they werent being told the same marketing hype, the buzzwords, the hidden secrets. I explained how it worked, I provided charts and examples, I showed diagrams and responsibility areas and heat maps - essentially the blueprint architecture of most of corporate america. 

For the first time in months, I felt awake again. I started going for walks, breathing in that sharp autumn air that only New York has — cold but alive. I'd obsess day and night about content ideas. Id spend easily 4-5 hours on having video conversations with a single person. 

Eventually one of my closest friends who works in Marketing took some time to review my content - and he gave me some good pointers - but also the best piece of advice. He had noticed I was changing my screename relatively often - it started with "TheHRVault" and then "HRExplains" and "HRExpert" and "wHocaRes" all of which he said had no real identity and the next thing I chose, try to build an identity with and stick with it for 30 days - but make sure it wasn't a duplicate.

I stressed. I knew the job search content was the most prevalent - but job search is less than 25% of what HRBPs do, there were qualified Recruiters who could handle that. 

HRMemeLover? HRGamerGuy? HRNycMan?

Stressed and exhausted I put my hands up to my head and noticed my hair was getting longer. Yech. I grabbed my Yankees cap and put it on - and then I saw it. The reflection from the monitor. 

The HR guy in a hat with a tiny mic, recording videos from the freezer since it had the perfect height. I spoke about everything, how job search worked, job families, non-niche roles, easy-apply, under 10 applicant pools. I debunked nonsense about ATS and best interview questions to ask or reply to. Within a month I had started to stand on my own and had done collaboration videos with others in the space that had more than 5x my follower count. I tried to do trend videos, or kitschy content using the filters or music trends, but it was evident I performed best when natural. No fancy lighting or backgrounds, no tell-tale opening or closing. Just speak into the mic and add value. and it worked. 

This is how DanFromHR was born. 

---

It was the week of December when my past caught up with me. I had just crossed 20,000 followers and had unintentionally found a natural sales funnel. Companies like "beacons" and "stan" reached out to me to pilot their products, basically quick landing pages and product lists for creators. 

Within weeks I was getting up to 5 bookings per week. Resume reviews, Linkedin redesigns, compensation analysis, promotions, etc. I had picked up a new consulting gig at a data and analytic company and had started to connect and bond with a number of HR professionals from all over the US, 2 of them I consider my closest friends now. 

I had spoken to the kind Turkish landlord and his handsome son about staying for a few more months. If I could save enough to keep investing back into my TikTok account and eventually my relaunch, I would be in a very good financial position. All sides were agreeable to it and I began to thrive in the hum of productivity and purpose - eager to hit these goals and that maybe by March I could find the path I had somehow missed and return to Colombia and Cristian and happiness. 

It was a freezing night in December when my phone began buzzing loudly. I looked up and saw it was Jorge. We had not spoken in a few weeks - after Cristian and I formally ended he had helped us both through the breakup, being kind, diplomatic and loyal to us individually. We were trying to navigate the choppy terrain of being friends without Cristian and it was more or less going okay. 

Doing the quick math in my head I realized it was almost 4am his time. I figured he was drunk at a party.

I was right.

I accepted the video call and was met with an intense scene - music pulsed through the background. I could see colored lights reflecting off his face, the deep bass, the yells and cheers - god I missed those nights. His handsome face grinned broadly as he yelled out a greeting that I could barely make out.

"SOMOS AQUI EN MADRID! TENGO AMIGO DE BOGOTA AQUI QUE QUIERE SALUDARTE!" 

"We are here in Madrid! I have a friend from Bogota here that wants to say hi to you!"

My stomach dropped. Cristian.

I told him to wait - I threw the phone on the table and  ran to the bathroom, splashed water on my face, fixed my hair, changed into a clean black shirt. My heart was pounding so loud I could hear it. I was going to see him. For the first time in 6 months I would hear the honey on gravel voice, the dark pitch, the handsome face of Cristian.

“Okay,” I said, “I’m ready.”

He turned the camera.

And it wasn’t Cristian. It was Enrique.

He smiled, a little drunk as well - and with that deep intentional way of talking  I found so fascinating that night we met in Bogota, he lifted a hand and greeted me and I smiled back, caught between relief and disappointment. We talked for a few minutes, shouted over the music, said the usual hope to see you soon and can't wait to party again type of things.

It took a few moments to get back to work, and when my phone buzzed again a few moments later, it was Jorge asking if he could give my number to Enrique. 

I said yes. Then I went to sleep.

The next morning, I woke up at almost 10am - I sleepily checked my messages and saw I had one new one on whatsapp from a number I didn't recognize and a simple message, it had arrived at almost 6:30am. 

"Hola! soy Enrique. Qué tal?"

"Hello! This is Enrique, what's up?'