Joe Maristela

Early life

Maristela was born in the City of San Francisco, in St. Luke's Hospital, where his mother, Ofelia Maristela, was an active pediatrician. Maristela grew up in Atherton, California. Growing up he periodically visits and even studied in the Philippines as well.

Entrepreneurship

During his high school years, Maristela worked summers at his parents' clinical facilities, including PediaHealth's clinical facilities. His work at the time largely involved installing simple networks of computers, mostly AppleTalk networked computers. He installed and maintained networks of 20 or more computers per site. The computer systems ran simple practice management software, ranging from simple calendar programs that he'd written himself to licensed server-side software some as Millbrook practice management software.

It was via this work that Maristela had learned to "officiate and legalize business and work," as he'd say. He created a sole proprietorship corporation and registered a DBA. He learned about cash flow and how to curb income expectations by factoring taxes and a reasonable cushion of "incidental expenses."

Serial Entrepreneur

Maristela has established several companies in the Philippines and in the United States, ranging from healthcare, to an online investment platform for startups.

PediaHealth Medical Group

PediaHealth is a clinic-network, with medical and healthcare operations on the West Coast (USA). PediaHealth began in the 1970s, founded and established, initially, as a private practice of Maristela's mother, Ofelia Maristela, who was then a resident in training at the University of California, San Francisco. In the 1980s, the practice grew its number of stakeholder providers. In the 1990s, PediaHealth restructured, segregating the medical professionals into one corporation, and the other as a business services corporation.

PediaHealth is known for being an early adopter of technology, and deploying technologies in healthcare in medicine in new and creative ways. PediaHealth served as a beta testing facility, which tested various communications technologies from Google, including Hangouts and Google's enterprise class video conferencing software. These technologies were tested in a number of application scenarios, such as in conducting patient interviews, conferencing together various providers and medical specialists from all over the world, as well as in telemedical and telemedicine type of scenarios and applications.

Reed Business Services

Producer of private medical practice software, the software had its initial run and testing at the PediaHealth clinics . Also operates a BPO/Call Center in Portland, Oregon.

Star Business Centers

A general purpose collaborative space with licensed medical professionals that provide services for clinical cases.

Katalyst.ph

In 2015, with a series of larger investments ranging from $100,000 to $250,000, and mostly in speculative spaces, such as in FinTech (i.e. Bitcoin and Blockchain), Maristela launched a private venture office; actively investing only personal funds into the local Philippine startup ecosystem.

Investments

Maristela's investing experience dates back to the late 1980s to early 1990s, when his father taught him and his brother to call in broker buy and sell orders via touch-tone menu with various brokerage accounts. At the time, Maristela and his brother were required to report on their trades via paper ledgers and to literally graph their portfolio's performances onto graph paper.

By the time Maristela turned 16, he was attending private investment club and network meetings with his father. Investments ranged from real estate (such as golf course developments, REITs, medical and clinical real estate properties, apartment buildings, and rental homes) to investing in securities, bonds, and other financial instruments and derivatives.

2015: Exploratory Investment Program in the Philippines

In early 2015, Joe Maristela invested in $200,000.00 in various Bitcoin startup companies in the Philippines, prodding the investment and business community to take interest in the local so-called startup scene. In 2015, Maristela had invested in startups such as Satoshi Citadel Industries (a universal bitcoin startup company), Qwikwire (a bill payment, so called fin-tech service and solution), Kntent (a post-production studio and social media advertising platform), Nooovle Corp (an IT outsourcing firm, solutions provider, and distributor of Nooovle Tracks—Mainlinepower Tracks in the Philippines), and others. Maristela plans to increase and grow his exploratory investment program in the Philippines in 2016, from $1,000,000 (USD) to $2,000,000.

2016: Manila Angel Investors Network

In 2016, Joe Maristela was recruited to join the board of the Manila Angel Investors Network (MAIN). MAIN's origins is as an investment club made up of mostly peers and friends that dabbled in independent, relatively small investments, into local, Philippine tech startup companies. At the time that Maristela joined MAIN, the club was on a path toward evolving toward being more of what's commonly understood and known as an angel investors network. As of 2017, MAIN is largely known to be the largest committed angel investors network in the Philippines, based on the number of paying members that it has in its organization (a member base that includes individual investors and corporate members and sponsors, such as investment banks and professional services firms).

Social Entrepreneurship & Advocacy

Beginning in June 2015, Joe Maristela began an lobbying the Philippine government to become more proactive and inclusive about so called "disruptive" technologies.

Bitcoin Organization of the Philippines

Joe Maristela is a member of the board of directors of the Bitcoin Organization of the Philippines (BOP), which is the Philippines’ only NGO dedicated to the promotion of Bitcoin and the Blockchain.

Maristela, along with the rest of the board of directors of the BOP, are working with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on a path and track toward the legalization and regulation of Bitcoin—especially as it pertains to remittances. Due to this work, in December 2016, the BSP issued several statements stating that they are working on a path toward regulation of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. “One class of operations framework that we’re looking at right now will allow virtual currencies to operate in the country, and that makes them accountable for certain matters like anti-money laundering initiatives,” said Nestor Espenilla, a deputy governor at the central bank.

American Association of the Philippines

In April 2015, Maristela was elected a board of trustee of the American Association of the Philippines (AAP). In May 2015, Maristela invited the AAP to his residence in Makati City in order to boost membership for the American-themed organization in the Philippines.