Changing my life in two years

In December 2015, I deliberately took a break from one of the hobbies I enjoy practicing the most. I was in a difficult situation in Brazil and knew I would need to eliminate some things to maintain focus on the little that mattered at that moment.

Like a child’s happiness at Christmas, you can imagine how I’m feeling now, two years later, with a brand new surfboard ready to hit the water here in Australia.

Entrepreneurship in Maranhao

Rewinding a few years, I had just returned to Sao Luis do Maranhao in 2010, after a work stint in Perth, Australia. I had a lot of energy and was eager to pursue some ideas in the technology area. As a base, we had Intertech, which I founded with Fernando Belchior a few years earlier and which worked in developing websites and systems for small and medium businesses. Nothing very innovative, but it paid the bills and became the great tool that enabled us to form a team of super talented professionals at the beginning of their careers. A perfect environment for innovation.

Next, we did various experiments, launched some products, and had some cases of failure and others of success. Without knowing it, we were applying the lean startup methodology to launch each idea. How could I forget the launch of Cafufa.com? With the first design made by a developer (the great Almir Filho, who works and lives in Hawaii nowadays) and with my partner on the project, Breno Pessoa, asking all our friends to buy tickets through the site, and not at the event box office.

In 2013, finally, I seemed to be face-to-face with what appeared to be my “big break.” Wanna Migrate was born, a set of tools to help the decision-making and immigration process of millions of individuals who dream of changing countries, that is, almost 15% of the world’s adult population. Before we wrote a line of code, we got support and capital from the Chilean Government, through the Startup Chile program.

Quickly, we captured thousands of users from around the world and started experimenting with various revenue models. What comes next, I consider my biggest professional mistake to date.

We had possibilities of raising investment for the project in Canada, Sao Paulo, and Maranhao. As someone who fought to improve the innovation environment in Maranhao, who founded Startup Maranhao alongside Bruno Lima, and who dreamed of a large technology office at Lagoa da Jansen (in Sao Luis), with local labor producing global solutions, the decision was quick. I opted for Maranhao.

The detail? The capital came through an innovation grant, that is, we signed a contract and partnership with the Maranhao State Government. We had a twelve-month project approved, which we followed line by line and at full speed. We took on several commitments: We signed contracts with a team, with other companies, and scheduled trips and meetings on crucial dates.

In the first months, alongside Marcio Oliveira, we achieved several results: We reached a total of 15,000 users, started generating revenue, won an award at the Brazil Innovation Challenge, and made it to the YCombinator finals twice, the main accelerator in Silicon Valley, with the highest number of success cases in the world (Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, etc.).

We received 50% of the capital at the beginning of the project and never saw the final part that was agreed in the contract for the middle of the project. Any surprise? The worst part is knowing that working in partnership with the public sector in Brazil was my decision. The mistake was mine!

The rest is history, but even with the company taking its first steps in revenue, I had to pay out of my own pocket to fulfill the contracts we had signed, but always with the information that “next month the payment will come.” The months went by, and even though the company was living its best moment, I was personally going broke. I’m blessed to have had financial support from my parents, or the story would have been even more complicated. Still, there I was, approaching thirty years old, very close to a dream, but needing to stop everything and start from scratch.

At the same time, my wife Leticia (girlfriend at the time) had just left her career, with the goal of experimenting with other areas, also starting from scratch.

Like many other young people, frustrated with Brazil, the decision was obvious: Leave!

Two years in Australia

And here’s the connection to stopping surfing.

Even though it’s a small thing, I mentioned it symbolically to understand the moment: The first step would be to stop everything and make the decision that I would pursue a job. Financial health and quality of life became the focus, with that, like almost everything in life, giving up other things would be inevitable. Entrepreneurship, surfing…? Everything would be left for another time.

Still from Brazil, I got a job in Sydney, at a company willing to “sponsor” our visas. With that, Lele and I spent Christmas 2015 on a plane (the cheapest fare we found) and arrived in the country that changed our lives.

Anyone who has been an entrepreneur knows how hard it is to go back to having a job. But I dedicated myself 200% with the focus of balancing finances, to one day go back to entrepreneurship.

I joke that for someone who had the war training - which is being born, working, and living in Brazil - Australia is “too easy,” from the moment you can manage in English. It’s an extremely fair country; if you go after it, you find it!

In a few months, I met Tom, who alongside Banjo, was running Wine Gallery, a wine subscription club with the ambition of building something more personalized, like a Netflix (or Spotify) for wines. After some experiments, we decided to form a partnership in the project: Tom is the most talented person I’ve ever met to lead, run strategy and marketing, Banjo is one of the best sommeliers in Australia, and I came in to write the technology from scratch.

I changed my work schedule to 6:30 AM to 2:30 PM. With that, I had time to dedicate the rest of the day to the project. Tiring, but again, with “fire in my eyes.” At the same time, Leticia was already working in a totally new area for her: Logistics, at one of Australia’s largest e-commerce companies.

As I said, here everything happens faster. After ten months in Australia, I was able to leave my job to dedicate myself only to the company. Finances were balanced and I had full support from my wife.

With a lot of sweat, focus, and saving money, we did our immigration process and became permanent residents. From then on, everything became even simpler: Public and quality healthcare, no work restrictions, greater ease with housing, etc, etc, etc… (I think I’ve talked a lot about this in other posts).

We closed the first year, but still with some small challenges to fully adapt here. In the first year, we shared a house with Tat and Daniel, who became great friends. The next step was to have our own little place, so we moved to an apartment we love at the beginning of 2017. A few months later, in November, we fulfilled our dream of getting married on the beach, in the Caribbean. We had magical moments with our families and best friends.

Another big news of the past year was a couple of friends from Sao Luis moving to Sydney. Ceres and Fernando arrived and brought not only the “eguas” (slang) from Maranhao but that family vibe. I’m in contact with at least five other acquaintances who are planning to come here, plus my family. Oh, and my surfing partner here is Thiago Guara, who was my school friend in elementary school in Sao Luis… Small world!

Wine Gallery is going full speed: We closed the year with 1000% growth in the number of subscribers, with more than 100,000 bottles of wine sold, and best of all, with many happy customers and an essential word-of-mouth growth base. Wanna Migrate died, but I created a project along the same lines, which I now run as another hobby. For those thinking about immigrating, I always try to help in some way through Duoflag or Quora.

Well, I feel completely adapted and at peace here and extremely grateful to have the health to chase what I need and desire. It’s really good to look back and know that every sleepless night has its reward.

Bring on 2018, with many challenges and surprises, for all of us.

Happy New Year!