To talk about entrepreneurship in practice, the ABES Portal brings an interview with Guilherme Coan, co-founder of Involves, who works in the trade marketing segment, with the Agile Promoter solution, so that he can present his vision on the challenges of entrepreneurship. Founded in 2008, in Florianópolis (SC), the company has a portfolio of more than 180 clients and operates in 11 countries in Latin America, with an emphasis on Colombia, and also in Africa. Agile is a SaaS solution, which favors a more strategic management of the point of sale, facilitating the monitoring of the field team, intelligent routing and performance monitoring of the merchandising execution at the POS, all in real time.
In addition to differentiating itself as a new and already internationalized company, Involves was selected twice for Endeavor's Promessas acceleration program and, according to Coan, the organization stands out as a scale-up, title given by the organization to high impact companies, that is, those that grow and employ above average. “Another characteristic of this group of companies is that it is formed by more partners. When we started, we were young university students and we got together because of our love for music. Today, the former members of the garage band share not only chords, but also the ambition to grow 200% this year, ”said the executive. Check out the interview:
- For you, what does it mean to undertake?
Entrepreneurship is synonymous with restlessness. It means leaving the comfort zone and challenging yourself daily in search of a dream. Don't be afraid to get your hands dirty and be ready to work 24 hours a day. The entrepreneur needs to be versatile and will need to be involved in all areas of the business. You will need to think outside the box, take a chance and, at the same time, be resilient in the face of difficulties and learn from them. Anyway, entrepreneurship is an attitude with a little bit of madness.
- Do you, from Involves, bet more on disruptive innovation or incremental innovation in business management?
Our development process is based mainly on incremental innovation. Through a platform of open innovation, called Get Involved, our customers contribute ideas for new features and suggestions for improvements to our Agile Promoter software. These ideas are evaluated in the first instance by our internal team, which checks the feasibility and compatibility with our solution. When approved, they are made available to our entire customer community, who can vote on the ideas that are most relevant to their business. Thus, we are able to develop on demand.
In addition, we have some projects aimed at disruptive innovation. We are looking for new technologies to combine them and integrate them into our solution. These are more time-consuming projects and require more energy, time and research. Finally, we are structuring an internal process to encourage our employees, the Involved, to think outside the box and to bring in suggestions for new products and projects. We want to create a space that favors innovation and encourage them to take these ideas off the ground.
- What is the first step, in your assessment, to be taken by a person who wishes to undertake in the technology segment?
The first step to undertake in any sector is to have courage and enjoy getting your hands dirty. This applies not only to the technology segment, but to other sectors as well. Most of the time, it will be necessary to leave a comfortable situation behind to bet on something uncertain and doubtful. There will always be a risk of wasting time and money. This risk can be mitigated with the support of family and friends. It will be more difficult without their help. Another important step is to seek partners who share the same values and who are willing to share the risks as well. Having someone in the same boat and who has the same desire to undertake will be an extra strength in difficult times. In addition, it is working, sweating and working a little more.
- What is the main tip for managing the relationship between partners, in your opinion?
At Involves we have six partners. We often hear that it would be difficult to build a company with so many different opinions and points of view at the helm. We have been together for almost eight years and I can say that we have never had a fight or a moment of great stress. We always knew how to listen to each other and, even when there were differences of opinion, common sense and respect prevailed. The arrogant ones that excuse me, but humility is fundamental. A partner cannot want to shine more than others. And, if at any time this happens, as a result of the business, the others need to support and applaud the one who is in evidence. Knowing how to recognize when you are wrong and that others are right is essential to the health of the relationship. In our case, we always say that friendship is greater than society. Nothing better than having my friends as partners.
- What are your tips for attracting investors?
The first step is to get the ideas out of your head and get your hands dirty. Hardly anyone will invest in a project that is only in the scope of an idea (I said "hardly"). Start with what you can and develop an MVP (minimum viable product, in Portuguese). Important tip: from the beginning, worry about the scalability of your business / product / solution. It will be much easier to attract investors if your business is scalable. It doesn't have to be any disruptive or miraculous innovation to get an investment. It needs to solve some latent problem and it needs to have a market for growth. Investors will always be open to hearing about new business. Another tip: don't expect anything easy. The investments will come after a lot of sweat and work.
- The Brazilian ecosystem of IT startups has grown. How do you evaluate this scenario? How can more startups be successful?
I have seen many ecosystems grow and gain visibility, especially in Santa Catarina, where we are located. The saying goes that a swallow just doesn't make a summer, so the importance of IT companies interacting and helping each other, together with associations and entities that foster entrepreneurship, to strengthen the ecosystem. Companies need to get out of their cocoons and participate more in events, discussions, visit other organizations to do benchmarking. This interaction is healthy for the growth of startups and also for the development of the ecosystem as a whole. The fact that there are high growth companies in this environment, such as scale-ups, also helps to give visibility to other companies in the region and to bring in more investors.
In addition to differentiating itself as a new and already internationalized company, Involves was selected twice for Endeavor's Promessas acceleration program and, according to Coan, the organization stands out as a scale-up, title given by the organization to high impact companies, that is, those that grow and employ above average. “Another characteristic of this group of companies is that it is formed by more partners. When we started, we were young university students and we got together because of our love for music. Today, the former members of the garage band share not only chords, but also the ambition to grow 200% this year, ”said the executive. Check out the interview:
- For you, what does it mean to undertake?
Entrepreneurship is synonymous with restlessness. It means leaving the comfort zone and challenging yourself daily in search of a dream. Don't be afraid to get your hands dirty and be ready to work 24 hours a day. The entrepreneur needs to be versatile and will need to be involved in all areas of the business. You will need to think outside the box, take a chance and, at the same time, be resilient in the face of difficulties and learn from them. Anyway, entrepreneurship is an attitude with a little bit of madness.
- Do you, from Involves, bet more on disruptive innovation or incremental innovation in business management?
Our development process is based mainly on incremental innovation. Through a platform of open innovation, called Get Involved, our customers contribute ideas for new features and suggestions for improvements to our Agile Promoter software. These ideas are evaluated in the first instance by our internal team, which checks the feasibility and compatibility with our solution. When approved, they are made available to our entire customer community, who can vote on the ideas that are most relevant to their business. Thus, we are able to develop on demand.
In addition, we have some projects aimed at disruptive innovation. We are looking for new technologies to combine them and integrate them into our solution. These are more time-consuming projects and require more energy, time and research. Finally, we are structuring an internal process to encourage our employees, the Involved, to think outside the box and to bring in suggestions for new products and projects. We want to create a space that favors innovation and encourage them to take these ideas off the ground.
- What is the first step, in your assessment, to be taken by a person who wishes to undertake in the technology segment?
The first step to undertake in any sector is to have courage and enjoy getting your hands dirty. This applies not only to the technology segment, but to other sectors as well. Most of the time, it will be necessary to leave a comfortable situation behind to bet on something uncertain and doubtful. There will always be a risk of wasting time and money. This risk can be mitigated with the support of family and friends. It will be more difficult without their help. Another important step is to seek partners who share the same values and who are willing to share the risks as well. Having someone in the same boat and who has the same desire to undertake will be an extra strength in difficult times. In addition, it is working, sweating and working a little more.
- What is the main tip for managing the relationship between partners, in your opinion?
At Involves we have six partners. We often hear that it would be difficult to build a company with so many different opinions and points of view at the helm. We have been together for almost eight years and I can say that we have never had a fight or a moment of great stress. We always knew how to listen to each other and, even when there were differences of opinion, common sense and respect prevailed. The arrogant ones that excuse me, but humility is fundamental. A partner cannot want to shine more than others. And, if at any time this happens, as a result of the business, the others need to support and applaud the one who is in evidence. Knowing how to recognize when you are wrong and that others are right is essential to the health of the relationship. In our case, we always say that friendship is greater than society. Nothing better than having my friends as partners.
- What are your tips for attracting investors?
The first step is to get the ideas out of your head and get your hands dirty. Hardly anyone will invest in a project that is only in the scope of an idea (I said "hardly"). Start with what you can and develop an MVP (minimum viable product, in Portuguese). Important tip: from the beginning, worry about the scalability of your business / product / solution. It will be much easier to attract investors if your business is scalable. It doesn't have to be any disruptive or miraculous innovation to get an investment. It needs to solve some latent problem and it needs to have a market for growth. Investors will always be open to hearing about new business. Another tip: don't expect anything easy. The investments will come after a lot of sweat and work.
- The Brazilian ecosystem of IT startups has grown. How do you evaluate this scenario? How can more startups be successful?
I have seen many ecosystems grow and gain visibility, especially in Santa Catarina, where we are located. The saying goes that a swallow just doesn't make a summer, so the importance of IT companies interacting and helping each other, together with associations and entities that foster entrepreneurship, to strengthen the ecosystem. Companies need to get out of their cocoons and participate more in events, discussions, visit other organizations to do benchmarking. This interaction is healthy for the growth of startups and also for the development of the ecosystem as a whole. The fact that there are high growth companies in this environment, such as scale-ups, also helps to give visibility to other companies in the region and to bring in more investors.
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