After those three days of Launch in Lisbon I not only was more knowledgeable about starting my business in Lisbon, but I also felt welcome here.

“And why Lisbon?” is a question we get a lot, often from people who already have an idea of what the answer will be, the open secret that attracts people to Lisbon these days. As a Belgian interior designer, with my partner who is a digital product designer from San Francisco, we always just say: “it’s in the middle between Belgium and California!”We fell in love with Lisbon last year while on a three-month road trip around Spain and Portugal; after the trip, we decided it was the next place we wanted to call home. The sunny weather gives me so much great energy compared to rainy Belgium, and it also has a “West Coast” feel that goes beyond just the color of the bridge. Professionally, so much investment and renovation mean there are interiors to be designed, and the new focus on tech means my partner has opportunities too. Great! So we find an apartment and drive down from Belgium last December, our car loaded with books, my material samples, work equipment, and our dog. It’s only after arriving that all the logistical questions hit me: how do I actually move to Portugal, as a person, and professionally?

The former is a whole story in itself — European countries are masters of bureaucracy — but the latter question led to my finding Launch in Lisbon. Even though it’s more geared toward a tech startup audience, I thought the content would still be relatively useful to me, as well as the networking, having worked on tech company offices in the past.

I was nervous showing up on the first day, but that dissipated quickly as each of the three days were packed with activity. Being in a small, multinational group was awesome; we benefited from close attention to our questions and a mix of life experience. It provided a great background in different areas: applicable Portuguese laws, immigration, tax, real estate, and grants. And interspersed, excursions to visit coworking spaces, incubators, hip landmarks, and to eat great food. We got an overview of the entrepreneurial environment in Lisbon, and in addition, an introduction to the city itself through the entrepreneurial lens. As an interior designer, the most interesting part of the program was being able to visit so many coworking spaces and offices. They were very different than the tech offices I’ve worked on in the past, but they conveyed the energy and accessibility of the scene here. Each has its own vibe, and it’s clear that you can find the right place and community for you. I now have the dilemma of deciding which one I want to work from!After those three days I not only was more knowledgeable about starting my business in Lisbon, but I also felt welcome here. Our choice of city was affirmed by the positive energy of the program, which motivated me to keep going and dive into starting my business without hesitation. I got answers to the many questions I had about starting a business, met some like-minded entrepreneurs starting their own companies here, toured some really cool co-working spaces, and made friends. Also, being introduced to trusted professionals was useful — there are so many lawyers and accountants in Lisbon that finding one shouldn’t be hard, but it’s difficult to find reviews online, so recommendations are key.

If you’re thinking about Lisbon, you should give it a shot! It’s an amazing city. I hope to meet you at a future Launch in Lisbon get-together or other community gatherings. And, shameless pitch: in case you’re in Lisbon (or not, I work remotely too) and have a project that needs interior design services, get in touch!

Lola Cwikowski

Originally published at www.startuplisboa.com.

Startup Lisboa is pleased to announce that the third edition of Launch in Lisbon is going to be held between the 20th to 22nd of June.

The 3-day intensive soft-landing programme is tailored by Startup Lisboa to help foreign entrepreneurs, companies, and investors launch and develop their businesses in Lisbon, as well to set up their life. It’s a kick-start to collect necessary contacts, get introduced to the local entrepreneurship scene and slowly blend into the country with the help of the cultural programme.

Following the success of the pilot edition , which was held on the eve of the Web Summit 2017, the second edition of Launch in Lisbon took place in February, with a participation of entrepreneurs coming from varied countries, including the United Kingdom, South Africa, Germany, France, and Brazil. Checking on the feedback received from the participants, the last edition again proved that the programme continues to fulfill expectations. Accordingly, the 2nd edition of the programme received an overall rating of 8/10 from the participants, with 72% saying that it exceeded the expectations and 28% stating that it fulfilled the expected.One of the participants, LoveSpace from the UK, explains Launch in Lisbon as follows:

“Launch in Lisbon was extremely helpful in providing an overview of the key topics that concern all start-ups in the very early days: how to set-up, how to deal with tax and labor law — basically all of the things that are usually a pain to understand but are absolutely necessary. This way, when evaluating Lisbon as an option, it was easy to have a head-start. With the information obtained it was no longer like peaking into a black-box. There is a clear direction on how to get set up in Lisbon so that this stage can be dealt with fast, and we can move on with growing the business in Lisbon.”

Another participant, from Belgium, underlined:
“After those three days I not only was more knowledgeable about starting my business in Lisbon, but I also felt welcome here. I got answers to the many questions I had about starting a business, met some like-minded entrepreneurs starting their own companies here, toured some really cool co-working spaces, and made friends.” Read her full testimonial here

Participants from the pilot edition, VixTape and the Secret City Trails already moved to Lisbon and became a part of Startup Lisboa family. In addition, Datapage decided to move to Guimarães. Over 60% of the participants from the second edition of the programme, on the other hand, are also considering moving to Lisbon.

Launch in Lisbon in a glimpse:The programme includes intensive workshops on the incorporation of a company according to Portuguese Laws, fundamentals of corporate and personal tax, labor laws, immigration and talent recruitment all held in English. Obtaining grants and subsidies, the real estate market, networking events, an entrepreneurial ecosystem tour and visits to incubators and accelerators are also a part of the programme.

The workshops are provided by the expertise partners: PLMJ Law Firm, Moss & Cooper Consulting, Hays Recruitment Company, Deloitte and HomeLovers (one of the alumni of Startup Lisboa).

How to participate:

The next Launch in Lisbon will take place between the dates June 20th-22nd, 2018. The deadline for application is June 8th and can be done through http://www.startuplisboa.com/launch-in-lisbon/ The cost of the program is €375 (VAT exclusive) per participant. Please check the website for further information or contact: aey@startuplisboa.com

Originally published at www.startuplisboa.com.

Life is full of decisive moments, those in which a slight change of direction — going or not going to an event, meeting that person or not — can change the course of our existence forever.

One of the most decisive moments in my life was accepting an invitation to join the Startup Lisboa team. Fate may have placed me on the path of certain people, but it was free will which led me to say yes.

At the beginning of 2013, the word entrepreneur hadn’t yet pierced our social media, and the little public opinion there was had a tone somewhere between hysteria and contempt. We never dreamed that Web Summit could ever happen in Lisbon, that would be like winning the Eurovision — impossible.

And quite frankly, despite being an internet addict and a happy customer of several startups already, I was working in the public sector (comms and culture), and really had no idea what a startup really was.

But fate wanted me to work in a place where entrepreneurship was never really spoken of as if it were the salvation of the motherland. I wouldn’t have lasted long at Startup Lisboa if I was surrounded by the kind of people who say to the unemployed in this country: “If you don’t have a job, it’s because you’re not an entrepreneur”.

Here, we believe that not everyone was born to be an entrepreneur and that people aren’t more or less for that. We also believe that helping companies develop means helping to create more jobs and more wealth and development in the country.

And please don’t tell us that it was the economic crisis that made us see the light. The crisis wasn’t good for anything. It’s not because of the crisis that there are more companies, entrepreneurs and news articles in the international press praising us.

The crisis sucks.

The crisis destroyed families.

The crisis destroyed morale.

The crisis meant many of us lost everything. And when you lose everything, you lose your fear, too.

The credit for all this newfound fame goes to a new generation. One which has emerged from a certain dark side of our country. That side which is shy of speaking about money at all, lost between guilt, fear and that impoverished humility of those who owe everything and can demand nothing. This new generation hasn’t been given much, but it has made the most of its education. They’ve made the most of that particular Portuguese DNA of talent and determination, taking up a truly global vocation in a way that is putting to shame those nonsense theories that we suffer from “southern lethargy”. We don’t.

My days at Startup Lisboa have shown me this: countless hours of hard work, dedication, sweat, tears, laughter (and laughter among tears) of the almost 300 startups that have passed through the six floors of number 80 on Rua da Prata. To them, the entrepreneurs of this house, and to the team at Startup Lisboa, I pay my tribute. They — we — are good people. It would be false modesty to say otherwise.

Despite the competition and the worst habits inherited from the Silicon Valley mindset… in the end it’s all about people. Those who we want to sit at the table with us. You invest more in people than ideas.

These past six years at Startup Lisboa essentially make up the history of the Portuguese entrepreneurial ecosystem. With all due respect to some early pioneers — Talkdesk, Farfetch, Aptoide, to name a few — who ventured before this time, the birthplace of the entrepreneurial nation is in Lisbon’s baixa.

“Who would ever start a tech incubator in the historic city centre?” — we heard that a lot at the start.

Where have you ever seen a country like this, with incubators popping up from north to south? We can’t take the credit for them, but after these past six years, it’s good to know that we weren’t wrong. It’s good to know that there is now an entire country doing more, and better.

As for us, we continue to do what we’ve always wanted to do: to help entrepreneurs by providing the space, services and favourable environment they need to turn their ideas into profitable businesses that create jobs and produce wealth.

Recently, I re-watched Sliding Doors, the 1998 film starring Gwyneth Paltrow; in Portuguese it was called “Critical Moments” (Instantes Decisivos) and it was my inspiration for writing this. I can’t help but smile when I remember that at one point in the movie, the boy says to the girl “nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition”, quoting Monty Python to cheer her up (but without resorting to the more obvious “always look to the bright side of life”).

Having been traumatised by the bankruptcy of a company I owned in the 90s, STARTUP LISBOA has helped to free myself from the fear of failure. In this time, I’ve learned that perfection is but an illusion. Just do it.

Above all, Startup Lisboa taught me that every day is a good day to start. Or to start over, because, you know, “nobody expects the Spanish Inquisiton”.

Thank you, Startup Lisboa.

Ana Santiago

P.S. — This text was originally written in Portuguese and translated into English by Unbabel. Thank you!

Originally published at www.startuplisboa.com.

Lisbon is on the radar internationally and we acknowledge that. However, if you are a foreign entrepreneur that is interested in Lisbon to launch your business, you might feel a little lost in all the information that you need to know. Do not worry, you are not the only one.

Based on many emails we received, conversations we had with many entrepreneurs and potential clients on how to set up a business and life in Lisbon, we had this hunch that there needs to be something done. After all, one of our aims as Startup Lisboa is to help the Lisbon startup ecosystem be more inclusive and better structured.

We came up with the idea of Launch in Lisbon hoping to ease the pain of these people. Although it seemed like a good idea, we still had to test it to see if it would fit the needs. We initiated Launch in Lisbon this autumn to help foreign entrepreneurs, companies and investors develop their businesses.
The challenge we set up for ourselves and for our participants was to cover everything they need to know on how to set up a life and business in Lisbon in a short span of time (3 days).

The First “Launch in Lisbon” proved we’re on the right track

The first edition was held between the dates November 2nd-4th, 2017 on the eve of the Web Summit, with the participation of a diverse group of 15 entrepreneurs, coming from all over the world, including USA, France, Brazil and Israel. We received positive feedback from the participants, many of them stating that they have a better understanding of the Portuguese legal and tax framework. We heard statements like “We are so glad that we did this!”, “This programme made complex information simple!”, “I feel like I gained 6 months of work only in three days!”.

In fact, 80 percent of the participants said that they have changed the next steps that they were going to take in order to have a better structured business in Portugal. Participants were also very pleased with the high quality of the experts providing workshops and the networking opportunities they had during the programme. According to them the content was “super rich” and they felt like they are a part of the Startup Ecosystem in Lisbon and toured “super cool” places that they never would be able to do themselves.

Hearing these statements, we are pleased to say that the first edition was a success and second edition is on its way!

How to participate:
Following the success of the first edition, the next Launch in Lisbon will take place between the dates February 7th-9th, 2018. The deadline for application is January 25th and can be done through: www.startuplisboa.com/launch-in-lisbon
The cost of the program is €375 (VAT exclusive) per participant.
Please check the website for further information or contact Elif Yıldırım: aey@startuplisboa.com

Launch in Lisbon in a glimpse:
Launch in Lisbon is a 3-day soft-landing programme tailored for foreign entrepreneurs. The programme includes intensive workshops on incorporation of a company according to Portuguese Laws, fundamentals of corporate and personal tax, labor laws and talent recruitment all held in English.
Obtaining grants and subsidies, the real estate market, networking events, an entrepreneurial ecosystem tour and visits to incubators and accelerators are also a part of the programme.
The workshops are provided by the expertise partners PLMJ Law Firm, Moss & Cooper Consulting, Hays Recruitment Company, Deloitte and HomeLovers (one of the alumni of Startup Lisboa).

Originally published at www.startuplisboa.com.

O segredo já não é a alma do negócio

A Startup Lisboa tem três anos de vida e desde o início muitas têm sido as pessoas que nos batem à porta à procura de ajuda para lançar o seu negócio. Normalmente explicamos o nosso modelo de incubação e informamos que os projectos que apoiamos são seleccionados através de candidatura. Acontece muitas vezes as pessoas dizerem-nos que têm uma ideia, mas não podem dizer qual é pois têm medo que a roubem. Isto é verídico.

Este mindset, embora num contexto diferente, ainda está muito presente nos empresários portugueses, mesmo nos mais jovens. Há muito a ideia de que o produto tem de ser desenvolvido em sigilo e aperfeiçoado ao máximo antes de ser lançado cá para fora.

Numa época em que assistimos à vivência da primeira geração global, em que os modelos de economia digital mais disruptivos e escaláveis têm a sua génese e crescimento no âmago da economia de partilha e de consumo colaborativo, essa atitude deixou de fazer sentido.

Quanto mais cedo o promotor de uma ideia começar a falar do seu negócio com clientes, parceiros, empresários, melhor será a execução da ideia, melhor será o seu modelo de negócio e maior a probabilidade de sucesso. Um plano de negócios muito perfeito, cheio de tabelas e estimativas, que na maioria das vezes fica fechado numa gaveta, de nada vale se não for um instrumento de trabalho, de teste e de validação do negócio em permanente adaptação ao mercado.

Nota-se também ainda por parte de alguns empresários portugueses pouca apetência para a partilha de casos de sucesso e de insucesso, para o envolvimento na comunidade de empreendedores que estão a dar os primeiros passos. A tradição anglo-saxónica é o oposto. Nos EUA, por exemplo, o mentoring é muito valorizado e é um dos factores críticos e de distinção no tecido empresarial e no espírito empreendedor que tantas startups de sucesso têm lançado para o mundo. Na Europa, e em particular em Portugal, partilhar casos de sucesso é visto como gabarolice e os casos de insucesso como falhanço.
Tecnologia, consciência de comunidade, maior flexibilidade na gestão financeira, capacidade de correr riscos, partilha de conhecimento, inovação são o que agora define os empresários e as empresas do futuro, porque as empresas do futuro têm cada vez mais como clientes uma geração que decide o que consome com base na partilha, no que está referenciado por outros, no que é viral, na disseminação de tendências.

Quem se fechar no seu escritório a desenvolver uma ideia de negócio sem noção de como os seus clientes usam (e querem usar) o seu produto corre o risco de chegar ao mercado e ter desperdiçado tempo e dinheiro que deviam ser aplicados no terreno.

Na Startup Lisboa defendemos a cultura da partilha, porque criar um negócio é difícil e pode ser muito solitário. Para além de todo o mentoring, investidores e parcerias estratégicas que facilitamos aos empreendedores, a nossa motivação maior é criarmos um ambiente de incubação que promova a partilha de conhecimentos, sucessos, erros, soluções e criação de sinergias. Aquilo que queremos são empresas viradas para fora, para o mercado, para o que designamos genericamente de ecossistema — clientes, investidores, parceiros.

E esta é a altura para o fazer. Há três anos não havia um ecossistema. Começámos finalmente a ter capital de risco — graças à Portugal Ventures, à Faber Ventures e à Caixa Capital-, business angels, incubadoras, programas de aceleração, startups que começam a suceder e a escalar, empresários e profissionais interessados em ser mentores (na Startup Lisboa temos mais de 80), investidores estrangeiros que começam a incluir Lisboa no seus tours.

Esta é a altura em Portugal para o empreendedor desde o primeiro momento do seu negócio (ideia) contar a sua história, ir ter com o seu cliente, falar com empresários do seu sector, sondar investidores, incorporar esses feedbacks na criação da sua empresa. O segredo só é a alma do negócio se for partilhado com quem sabe, quem compra e quem pode ajudar.

João Vasconcelos

Director Executivo da Startup Lisboa

Failure: talked about, feared, uncomfortable, unwelcome, obnoxious, displeasing. We all hate it. The goal of this blog post is to show you why you shouldn’t fear failure.

Yes, failing sucks: your energies get drained, your motivation levels hit new lows and everything is grey, rainy and sad. However, I honestly believe that failure (or having failed) can work in your favor and help you see, think and feel clearer across your paths and journeys.

GetSocial wasn’t born GetSocial. GetSocial was born Wishareit. Wishareit was an online platform that helped people to find, recommend, give and receive the perfect gifts with their friends and family. Wishareit failed; I failed.

Here are the 5 mistakes I made while launching this startup:

1.You are not your users: You found a pain in a particular market. Frequently, you also feel that pain. Feeling a pain is one thing, but building a product around your pain and how you would like it to be solved is a different thing. The first is going to help you understand a certain problem and probably guide you to a first draft of solution. The latter is going to blur your customer and product development vision and cycles.

2. Validate your business model early (!): And I mean seriously early. Before building a product and before writing that first line of code. At all times during your journey, you should have a clear answer of, “Why am I doing this?” and “Who am I building this for?” As mentioned above, while learning from your possible customers, ask them, “Would you pay for a solution like this? How much?” Start gathering, crunching and analysing the data. Are people willing to pay for your product/service? No? How is your plan going to comprise such premise?

3. Early hiring may kill your company: You launched your startup two or three months ago, and feedback from “people you know” or “what you’ve been hearing about us” is more than great. Metrics are starting to stack up and you now feel it’s the time to accelerate the business. This is a great tactic should you be sure of (1) who your paying customer really is, (2) who/where your market really is and (3) what your business model really is—and boy, those are three really hard certainties to make/have when you’re two or three months old. At Wishareit, we hired too many people too soon and it cost us months of runway that we could have saved with a leaner strategy. With just a few thousand users and without having the business model validated, we reached a team of seven people. Error.

4. People are really hard to manage: This is one of the most important learnings I can take from the Wishareit experience. At the end of the day, the future and success of your product, company or vision is directly linked to the future and success of those who work with you. And if it’s hard to get everyone on board on the least amount of time, it’s even harder to get everyone on the same page, with the same ‘higher purpose’ in mind. People have different goals, different interests, different personalities and different ways of leading with different issues. Managing all of that while maintaining a healthy and productive culture is a hell of a job, but it pays off in the future.

5.Customers are your investors: Bear with me—in a perfect world, investors will help you accelerate your business, not create it. A paying customer, someone who is genuinely interested in trading money for your product or service, is your best investor: he or she will give you feedback on product, insights on pricing and most of what you need from several stakeholders, in a centralized way. If you’re launching a startup, invest most of your time getting to know this ‘customer,’ getting to know his needs, his frustrations, his expectations, and make sure that in everything you do, that your higher purpose is to provide the highest value to that customer and profit with that. Simple formula, great outcome.

Wrapping up, failure is not the end; failure is a bridge. Failure helps you and your peers learn and improve. Without failure, GetSocial wouldn’t exist and dozens of customers wouldn’t be able to connect with their users in a more social and collaborative way.

These are simple lessons that I believe you can rely on and that might help you in pursuing your vision. Should you have any comments or question, feel free to drop me a line at joao@getsocial.io or find me on Twitter: @joaoromaolx.

You can also comment on our the blog.

João Romão, co-founder GetSocial

5 mistakes I made launching a startup was originally published in Lisbon StartUpers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Oscars selfie taken by Ellen DeGeneres. Terry Shipman from Texas trying to beat the record of retweets on Twitter with his dogs. And Zlatan Ibrahimovic answering to his fans on Twitter as only he could answer. That’s what I’m talking about.

On March 2, during the 86th Academy Awards ceremony, Ellen DeGeneres, famous TV star and the host that night, took a selfie with a bunch of actors including Jennifer Lawrence, Angelina Jolie, Bradley Cooper, Kevin Spacey, Jared Leto, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Lupita Nyong’o and Brad Pitt. Result? The most retweeted image ever, with more than 3.2 million RTs and counting, and probably the most epic and known selfie of all time. More impressive: it garnered more than 1 million RTs in just 45 minutes, easily surpassing President Barack Obama’s “Four More Years” tweet after being re-elected to the White House in 2012 (781,000 RTs since Nov 2012). Behind this record-breaking Oscar selfie was a perfect product placement for Samsung. The picture was taken with a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and it represented a bright move compared to the usual investment on TV ads.

If only Bradley’s arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscarspic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap

— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow)March 3, 2014

Four more years.pic.twitter.com/bAJE6Vom

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama)November 7, 2012

Two days later, Terry Shipman took a selfie with his two little dogs, challenging the now-famous Oscar selfie record. However, there was a big difference between the two: while DeGeneres tweeted to 25 million followers, the small business owner from Beaumont, Texas, had almost no followers. It was as simple as this: a picture of an old man, two dogs and a message saying, “Let’s see if we can beat the Oscar re-tweets.”This tweet has been retweeted more than 185,000 times. One more time: impressive. And it proves the power of social networks nowadays — any average user’s message can be heard by the entire world, for the very first time in the world history.

Let’s see if we can beat the Oscar re-tweets! pic.twitter.com/hke2BbcUJb

— Terry Shipman (@terry_shipman)March 4, 2014

The Swedish football player Zlatan Ibrahimovic, champion in several countries and nowadays competing for Paris Saint-Germain, tweeted for the first time on January 15, 2012, but he never made the most of it (up to March 9, 2014, he’d tweeted less than 100 times). However, last Sunday he launched a new campaign called “Dare to Zlatan” and started tweeting like never before (18 tweets during just Monday). Better, he tweeted to answer his followers who were daring him, which was the purpose of the campaign (set up by Nike). It’s worth it to take a look at some of his answers. His character is well known by all football fans and this video shows enough to understand who he is. With this, and just in three days, he added more than 250,000 followers, having now 872,000, which is, once again, very impressive.

Hi @Twitter. For tomorrow Zlatan needs more than 140 characters. Please change rules for Zlatan#DareToZlatan

— Zlatan Ibrahimović (@Ibra_official)March 9, 2014

Dear @EdgleyLFC. Daring to Zlatan is easy. Start by trying moves that can’t be done. Keep trying until you are Zlatan. #DareToZlatan

— Zlatan Ibrahimović (@Ibra_official)March 10, 2014

Dear @ArmouredGuy, a wise man once said, surprising your opponent is the key to surprising them. That wise man was Zlatan. #DareToZlatan

— Zlatan Ibrahimović (@Ibra_official)March 10, 2014

Curiously, all three used Twitter for this. But it could be Facebook, Instagram or another social network. What I see here is one of the biggest trends in the modern world, brought by the Internet and by the potential of social networks. People are becoming stronger than traditional brands, building their own brand with their names.Brands no longer only communicate about their products because people no longer want annoying and non-interactive advertisement. And the biggest brands, seeing this trend growing, are now using people in their own marketing campaigns.

How? With stories. Any of the cases pointed out continue to act as they really are. It’s what people want to consume. It’s with whom people want to interact. Famous people like DeGeneres or Ibrahimovic just have to be themselves and give what they are to the brand. It doesn’t matter if they clearly say to the world to buy the product; they just need to use it.

And where does that old man from Texas fit into this story? Well, he isn’t at all a famous guy. He gained a few thousand followers on Twitter but probably we’ll never repeat so much attention around him. But he’s the proof that any of us can reach the world — by being yourself. And it works only through personal and interesting stories.

People don’t want ads. They want stories. After all, people like to talk with other people and not with a logo in the profile picture, right?

By Filipe Castro Matos, Business Development Manager at GetSocial

DeGeneres, a Texan old man and Ibrahimovic in one single post. And why you must do what they did. was originally published in Lisbon StartUpers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Escrevi este texto porque gostava que ficassem a conhecer a história, os momentos, as decisões e as consequências da Wishareit. O porquê de termos de fechar e como, já no fundo do poço, algo de bom e novo pôde surgir.

A Wishareit

A Wishareit nasceu no fim de 2011 com uma missão clara e simples: ajudar as pessoas a encontrar, recomendar, dar e receber os melhores presentes, com amigos e com a família. Tínhamos uma visão bem definida: queríamos mudar a forma como as pessoas faziam compras online, transformando-a numa experiência ‘social’ e ‘colaborativa’.

Foi assim que eu e o Pedro Moura nos lançámos numa aventura que construímos e desenvolvemos no último ano e meio. Desde cedo nos apercebemos de algumas falhas no modelo, tanto do ponto de vista de produto como de negócio. Motivados, por vezes deslumbrados, sempre acreditámos que não seriam essas falhas a levar-nos a ‘atirar a toalha’ e, assim, seguimos em frente.

Depois de participarmos num primeiro programa de aceleração, reunimos as condições necessárias (ou que achávamos necessárias) para avançar com o projeto. Construímos rapidamente uma primeira versão do produto e o resto, o resto é história. Concursos ganhos, viagens pagas, notícias em todo o lado ajudaram ao deslumbramento de algo que acabaria por se verificar insustentável. Cautela.

Hoje, encerrámos o capítulo Wishareit.

A importância de validar o modelo de negócio

Hoje posso dizer, confortavelmente, que percebi os erros cometidos na Wishareit. Desde cedo, não houve foco suficiente para validar o nosso modelo de negócio. A premissa era simples: por cada produto vendido através da Wishareit, nós ganhávamos uma comissão do mesmo. Embora a frase seja simples, o processo era complicado: era necessário aceder a ‘n’ redes de afiliado, fazendo depois o match de todos esses produtos com os nossos.

Por outro lado, o nosso posicionamento, enquanto produto/serviço, obrigava-nos a permitir a adição de qualquer produto na plataforma por parte de qualquer utilizador. Foi desta forma que chegamos a cerca de 50.000 produtos diferentes na plataforma em que apenas algumas centenas ou curtos milhares possuíam possibilidade de monetização. Não crescer com este modelo de negócio validado foi uma das principais razões do nosso fim. Deixo o aviso: escalar prematuramente pode ser o fim de uma empresa. Mais vale crescer de uma forma mais conservadora, validando os diferentes pontos em que se baseia o nosso negócio, do que tentar crescer apenas numa ou noutra métrica (e.g., número de utilizadores) desenfreadamente, na esperança que a escala nos valide o modelo.

É o modelo que valida a escala, não o contrário.

Benefits over features

Outra das razões pela qual acredito que o projeto não escalou da forma que desejávamos foi, a certa altura, a solução para todos os nossos problemas passar por acrescentar novas features. Cada vez que sentíamos que o crescimento semanal estava abaixo do esperado, não pensávamos noutra coisa senão desenvolver mais e melhores features para melhorar a experiência do utilizador. Caímos no erro de desenvolver uma plataforma que servia toda a gente, yet não servia ninguém.

Hoje defendo que se desenvolva uma primeira versão muito simples, que teste as nossas propostas de valor básicas, alinhadas desde o início com a nossa hipótese de modelo de negócio. Construir mais e mais funcionalidades só vai deixar o processo de teste mais confuso.

E se fosse de novo?

Hoje, depois de ter passado por tudo isto, e ao ver todas as poupanças/esperanças/forças da nossa equipa investidas e dissipadas neste projeto, certamente teria feito muita coisa diferente. Fomos aprendendo ad hoc é verdade, mas a experiência é isto mesmo e creio que seria complicado imaginar, nas condições que tínhamos na altura, um outcome diferente.

Hoje, lançando uma Wishareit do zero, ter-me-ia focado numa proposta de valor mais clara e mais direta, teria definido um modelo de negócio simples e ter-me-ia focado, desde o dia zero, em perceber se o modelo de negócio era sustentável e escalável. Hoje, desligava-me da Wishareit em dois tempos, caso percebesse que certos requisitos de crescimento não estavam cumpridos.

Fall, Rise

Foi numa altura já esquizofrénica, onde tudo valia (no que toca a gestão de empresa, produto, oferta), em que a luz (a má, não a boa) estava já ao fim do túnel, que tomámos a nossa última decisão.

Foi já com uma data de fecho da empresa/projeto/equipa definida (n+2 semanas) que pegámos num plano Z e começámos a posicionar a Wishareit (ou a sua tecnologia) como um produto valioso e poderoso para empresas e lojas online.

Depois de falar com algumas marcas, percebemos que podia ali haver uma oportunidade. Percebemos que as marcas estavam alerta quanto ao tema do ‘social’ e que tinham graves lacunas na integração plena das redes sociais nas suas lojas online. Se, por um lado, as marcas estão atualmente proficientes em gestão de comunidades nas redes sociais, por outro, é-lhes muito complicado transformar essas grandes comunidades em tráfego qualificado e ‘engaged’ para os seus sites.

Por outro lado, sabemos que cerca de 71% do consumidores online têm maior probabilidade de fazerem uma compra se vierem referenciados de uma rede social.

É aí que a nova Wishareit entra: colocamos as lojas online, através da nossa tecnologia, a funcionarem como uma rede social onde os seus utilizadores podem encontrar, recomendar, dar e receber os melhores presentes com os seus amigos e família. Tudo isto num esforço transparente para aumentar a visibilidade, retenção e vendas das lojas online.

Hoje a Wishareit tornou-se GetSocial.

Raid para investimento

Começámos um processo louco quando, relembro, já tínhamos o fim pela frente: fundraising. Era a nossa última hipótese de continuação. Financeiramente estávamos exaustos (imagine cerca de dois anos sem qualquer tipo de rendimento).

Long story short: comunicámos a investidores com quem já tínhamos falado da Wishareit a nossa intenção de fazer um pivot de negócio.

Acredito que tenhamos gerado interesse, não só ou necessariamente por esta mudança, mas também por toda a perseverança e resistência que demonstrámos ao longo do caminho (isso acredito que nunca nos faltou nem vai faltar).

A Faber Ventures, que sempre nos acarinhou (mesmo enquanto Wishareit) durante o processo, foi um parceiro óbvio para este investimento. A Portugal Ventures, outro dos nossos parceiros de investimento, tinha-nos conhecido enquanto Wishareit (com decisão de não-investimento) e abraçou também esta oportunidade.

Em menos de dois meses conseguimos fechar um investimento que agora conheceu a luz do dia. Aqui só posso agradecer a todos os intervenientes pelo sentido de urgência que sempre demonstraram, trabalhando sempre para o futuro sucesso da nossa empresa.

GetSocial, S.A.

Foi assim que nasceu a GetSocial. A nossa promessa é simples: queremos aumentar drasticamente as vendas dos nossos clientes (lojas online). Para o fazer, utilizamos um conjunto de aplicações que, de diferentes formas, ajudam os retalhistas online a transformarem as suas audiências de redes sociais em maior percentagem de vendas online.

Não prometo que a GetSocial vá fazer um exit, não prometo que seja a melhor empresa a fazer o que pretende fazer, nem prometo sequer que isto seja um excelente negócio. Uma coisa posso prometer: tudo farei, com a minha equipa, para que todos os stakeholders possam ter a melhor experiência possível em todo o processo de interação com a nossa empresa. Tudo o que fazemos tem de gerar valor para clientes, investidores e para nós próprios. É nisso que nos baseamos, é sobre isso que trabalhamos, é com isso em mente que vivemos.

João Romão
http://getsocial.io
http://joaoromao.com

Ascenção, queda… e ascenção de uma startup was originally published in Lisbon StartUpers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

After months of development we’re very excited to be releasing the next milestone of our journey through software testing.
From Qamine, we’ve become Codacy which is the result of months of listening to developers and trying to understand their pains.

We’re also very proud to announce the closing of our investment round.
We’ve partnered with Espírito Santo Ventures and Faber Ventures who will bring a huge amount of experience and now join Seedcamp who invested in us earlier this year.
The combination of enterprise know-how, consumer focus and network outreach is amazing and we’re very fortunate to have such value adding investors join our vision.

We generalized our analysis and now we want to help you make your code better, faster.
We’re on a mission to make your code reviews faster by removing boilerplate (such as code style checking) from your todo list.

Codacy works by having a collection of code patterns (code analysis algorithms such as making sure you remove your debug code from production releases) applied to every commit of your code repository.
For each commit, we give you a code grade so you can monitor your overall quality.

We are focused on three things:

• Curating a collection of code patterns;
• Maximizing the usefullness of each result;
• Making sure Codacy is important to every company added to the private beta.

We’re currently under private beta as to slowly scale the platform and ensure a good experience for everyone.

From everyone on the team, we’re thrilled to be doing what we’re doing.
Setting the controls for the heart of the sun.

By Jaime Jorge (https://twitter.com/jaimefjorge)

Qamine becomes Codacy and announces investment was originally published in Lisbon StartUpers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Lisbon Startup City

We’re very happy to now learn that the following new Portuguese startups that joined the Seedcamp family: Cashtag, Zercatto and Popcorn Metrics.

Last year, 4 companies out of Startup Lisboa also joined the Seedcamp family. We are very excited to see that putting in the effort into the growth of our ecosystem is paying off.

Following this announcement, I wanted to personally express my joy in knowing that Seedcamp invested in 3 more of our Portuguese companies.

We’re in the business of supporting startups and providing them with a hub where they can exchange experiences and startup know-how. We want to provide them with the platform where they can not only learn from mentors, but also learn to help one another. Something which was previously not very common in Portugal.

Following the second year Seedcamp showed their love to our startups, I wanted to describe in detail why I believe this pattern is sustained by the great job Portugal is doing to push entrepreneurship.

Why Portugal matters

It is refreshing to know that Portugal, a relatively small European country, now has a number of startups which are emerging in the European Startup scene. Considering the tough economic situation our country currently finds itself in, it is great to see this positive shift of mindset.

Given that Seedcamp is famous for selecting that “1%”” of European Startups, how did Portugal provide so many promising startups in such little time?

I believe there are a few reasons that make the ingredients for success.

For one, we have great engineering talent supported by Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade do Minho and Universidade do Porto. Not only good research, but also very qualified and inquisitive engineers are formed here. We’re also seeing a paradigm shift: instead of pushing all engineers into consulting jobs (which is what still happens to 90%), some individuals try to create their companies. Our work at Startup Lisboa supports this, by giving them space to flourish and blossom.

The cost of living makes for cost-effective business model validation and inexpensive operations. You can rent a house for €400 and live comfortably (the reason why we have so many foreign entrepreneurs living here). This reflects also on the salaries; a salary of an engineer is a fifth of the price of an engineer in San Francisco, without paying the price of low code quality (which is what you get when outsourcing to more traditional outsourcing partners further East). This enables you to create an inexpensive, but very qualified company that provides quality work that can compete worldwide.

Another success factor is Startup Lisboa. Startup Lisboa is a state/private-funded incubator which houses the majority of the most promising startups in Lisbon. It’s the highest density startup incubator in Europe. All of the current Seedcamp companies have their offices here, just footsteps from one another, which allows them to share and grow together. We’ve created more than 250 jobs in the last 1.5 years. We’ve opened and requalified 2 buildings and we’ve just been granted another one, to fill it with startups. Our work is not only providing credibility to startups but also supporting them through value-added mentoring as well as opening doors for business partnership and expansion plans.

As an incubator, our aim is to provide our entrepreneurs with office space at reasonable rents as well as a support structure, to maximize their chances for success. We do not charge them any additional money to be part of our family and we do not take any equity either. We are about providing a platform for entrepreneurs to think big and think global. Portugal serves as a great place to test an idea or a product, but we encourage founders to think beyond Portuguese borders and the connection with Seedcamp has helped us make this a reality for Portuguese startups. Companies like SimpleTax, which started in Portugal, now have a team in London. Codacy, Hole19 and Crowdprocess are always in & out of Startup Lisboa, flying to either London, San Francisco or Germany for example. The Portuguese Seedcamp teams have attracted investment from foreign investors, which also helps place Portugal on the map and serve as an example, that a startup doesn’t always have to be in Silicon Valley to find great investors. It is with this network and support structure that Portuguese startups can address global challenges and have the opportunity to succeed. Successful Portuguese startups, means more jobs can be created, which in turn means that we can shape our own future and do our part to help bring the economy back to where it’s supposed to be.

Portugal and Startup Lisboa are slowly positioning themselves as focal point of entrepreneurship and disruption. We will continue to serve startups and we want to hear from yours. From our side, we are looking forward to collaborate with Seedcamp. We’ve learned immensely and we’re just starting. On behalf of Startup Lisboa and the city of Lisbon, Seedcamp will always be a priority and will always be able to count with our support. Startup Lisboa is proud to build that bridge to Europe’s leading Early-Stage Tech Accelerator.

We’re proud and we’re enriched today. And we’re just starting.

Joao Vasconcelos