What does it take to be an entrepreneurial entrepreneur in Portugal? Massive doses of persistence, lots of resilience, lots of positive thinking and creativity. This was the recipe left yesterday by Luís Sá Couto and Pedro Monteiro Soares, the two guest speakers for the first of many sessions of Beta Talk in Portimão.
Luís Sá Couto, who for 30 years was a senior executive at the international consultancy Accenture and was even its first president in Portugal, is the owner of the Subnauta diving center and the mentor of Ocean Revival, a project to create an underwater park off the coast of Portimão, with the sinking of four Portuguese Navy ships. He admitted that this project has something of "madness". And the “first madness is the idea of sinking not a ship, but an entire fleet”. Something that will make this underwater park for divers unique in the world.
The businessman spoke of the difficulties felt over the five years that the project has already taken, lamenting above all “the tendency that Portuguese public institutions have to decide nothing and to pass the buck to each other”.
One of the main characteristics that an entrepreneur must have is «resilience and patience», he explained to about 40 people who participated in this first Beta Talk in Portimão. "After 30 years of Accenture, I think these are characteristics that I have," he said.
But it is also necessary to be “positive and optimistic: if there are problems we have to solve them”, as well as “using creativity” and being able, at all times, to “find solutions and implement them and also analyze the problems” .
Luís Sá Couto revealed that the Ocean Revival project has been «inspirational of other ideas», giving as examples the fact that «hotels are starting to look at diving as a tourist activity to be considered in their offer» and «various photographers and filmmakers have already use ships as a setting for further work'.
The sinking of the two ships that are partially ready is scheduled for September, after some setbacks that prevented the completion of the operation in August.
However, from this Beta Talk and from the exchange of ideas that followed Sá Couto's presentation, a new idea has already emerged: the possibility of opening the ships, moored at the wharf of the Portimão fishing port, to visits, before their sinking. Whether it will be possible to realize the idea is another question.
After the break to taste the wines offered by the producers of Portimão, those brought by the participants, and also to taste the little fig and almond stars and savory snacks, also shared, followed by a presentation by Pedro Soares, founder and owner of Solar One company, which chose the Algarve to undertake in the field of solar energy.
The businessman shared a little of his life story, to explain that it was a personal tragedy that led him to change Lisbon and the good job he had for the Algarve and «doing something that truly interested me».
That's how Solar-One came into being, working in the field of solar energy, especially photovoltaics, with "tailor-made and turnkey solutions".
Pedro Soares highlighted the failure of his first business, still in Lisbon – a company that conceived a computer solution for working on school hours, but which ended up foundering mainly for reasons related to the lack of attention paid to sales and marketing. «The mistakes I made then led me to learn a lot and it was without forgetting those lessons that we created the new company».
Therefore, the entrepreneur defended, as advice for potential entrepreneurs, the need to "start at the beginning, defining the mission, vision and values" of the company.
It is also essential to «have the business well thought out and structured», «make a business plan that is conservative in terms of income and as exhaustive as possible in terms of expenses» and «establishing partnerships that allow the company to grow at low cost and low risk».
Then – and this was a lesson learned from his first company – «the brand awareness and commitment to the commercial area are very important», «as well as a great focus on cost control and cash management».
Pedro Soares ended by saying that «being an entrepreneur allows us to do what we like and to be effective agents of change, shaping the world a little to what we think is important».
On the general characteristics that an entrepreneurial entrepreneur must have, Pedro Soares agrees with Luís Sá Couto: resilience, persistence, positive attitude and creativity are fundamental.
This was the first Beta Talk in Portimão – and on the same day there were also sessions in Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra. From now on, and under a protocol between the Chamber of Poirtimão and the Beta-i association, every 16th of each month there will be a new session, with other guests and free registration, in the Café Concerto at Teatro Municipal. .
At the beginning of the session, Pedro Pequenochinho, chief of staff of the Chamber presidency, stressed that this is "one of the first initiatives in the area of entrepreneurship to be developed by a team of technicians from the CMP, which the president constituted".
Salomé Cabrita, one of the members of that team, said that "from now on, every 16th of each month there will be a space for exchanging experiences here."
Startup Weekend is approaching
In addition to the Beta Talks – the next one is scheduled for August 16th – Portimão will also host, next weekend, that is, on the 20th, 21st and 22nd, the first Startup Weekend.
It is an intensive weekend where participants learn, network, build bridges between various trades and show the result of their work. The Startup Weekend event has the support of mentors and speakers, experts and local, national and international entrepreneurs, from various areas.
Startup Weekend is above all a relaxed and informal event that aims to create an environment where people passionate about entrepreneurship can come together and put their ideas into practice.
Registration for the Portimão Startup Weekend is open to anyone interested in http://portimao.startupweekend.org, with special conditions for students.
Beta Talks and Portimão Startup Weekend have the support of etic_algarve and Inesting and the media partnership of Sul Informação, as well as the collaboration of the University of the Algarve through CRIA – Algarve Regional Center for Innovation/Division of Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer, in addition to the Algarve Employment page at the level of dissemination, there is a receptivity for partnerships with other examples and agents of entrepreneurship regional.
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