Entrepreneurship is this: one day he realized that the pen drive that everyone uses to transport files were very expensive in Portugal. He asked questions, analyzed the market and concluded that there was a business opportunity here, but that, to take advantage of it, it was necessary to go to China. And that's what he did, with two partners, both in their 20s, like him.
That's how Ricardo Mariano, 27, created the company pens.pt, which directly imports these devices from a manufacturer in China, dominates the market in Portugal and has even gone international, expanding to Spain. This is the third company created by Ricardo Mariano, who has not even finished his studies – he is a finalist in the INUAF Advertising and Marketing Management course – but this year he already had his mother company, the SW - Success Work, temporary work, appearing in 32nd position in the ranking of SMEs in the Algarve, in addition to being distinguished as “PME Leader”, for having earned, in 2012, 7,5 million euros.
Daniel Machado has a different path: he has always been a lover of the sea, mainly influenced by his father, took a course in Marine Biology and Fisheries at the University of Algarve and then a Masters in Ecology, worked in research, but soon realized that he had to do something about it. sea otherwise. And that's how he created the company Ecoceanus, which bets on ecotourism. With its boats, it takes clients along the coast, but above all, it was one of the pioneers in taking visitors to see dolphins and whales on the Algarve coast.
With so many sharks being sighted on the Algarve coast, causing a real madness in the media whenever anyone got closer to the beaches, or the sharks were almost mythical creatures for their alleged ferocity, Daniel Machado realized that there would be an important niche here market to explore. Why not take tourists to see sharks?
If he thought so, he did it better, and in 2012 he launched the project We Like Sharks, which has the international support of the Save our Seas Foundation and intends to study the best way to observe sharks – better for sharks, which are wild creatures after all, without disturbing them too much, and better for tourists, in terms of safety. The project involves investigation, environmental education, and defining the rules of the game, with a Code of Conduct to be adopted by all companies that, in the future, will also dedicate themselves to the observation of sharks.
Now that the first part of the project is almost completed – the last trips to the sea, testing the observation conditions, are expected to take place in June, while the Code of Conduct is almost ready and the tourist product is expected to be effectively launched in the next summer – Daniel already has other plans: nothing more, nothing less than traveling around the world on a sailing catamaran, with his wife.
Ricardo Mariano and Daniel Machado were the guests of another Beta Talk, a conversation with entrepreneurs about entrepreneurship, which took place in April at the Café-Concerto at Teatro Municipal de Portimão.
Create the first company at age 21
There were two stories of very young lives – Ricardo Mariano is 27 years old, Daniel Machado is 33 years old – but already full of successes in the business world.
Ricardo started working at the age of 18, when he finished his 12th year and joined a temporary work company, Visatempo, for reception. “For half a dozen months, my life was just work, work”.
At 19, the director of the office of Faro from Visatempo left and Ricardo, who had proved his worth, was called to new roles: «I started to earn more, but also to have more responsibilities in the company».
«From here it was a shot, 19, 20, 21 years old, until they invited me to join a new temporary work company, to be a partner at SW. And I accepted». The second of many challenges that life has been giving him, and that Ricardo Mariano accepts with enthusiasm.
«Coworkers, friends, family, all told me: so you are doing so well at Visatempo, why are you going to give up everything to start from scratch?». But even that didn't deter Ricardo. THE SW it opened on October 1, 2007, taking with it, in addition to the partners, some of the people with whom he had worked in the previous company.
They opened offices in Quarteira (where the headquarters are), in Portimão and in Coimbra. «After two years we needed more and we opened in Lisbon». «We are often asked: so you are from Lisbon and have you come to the Algarve? But not us, we are from the Algarve and we were looking for more market in Lisbon, looking for an image on the scale of the country. We are a company from the Algarve, we are going to conquer the capital. It cost, but it was!».
But not even that calms Ricardo Mariano's desire to win. “At 24, 25, I felt a brutal urge to prove to myself that I was capable of doing more. Invited by friends, we open a new company, with minimal capital, with an office in my house. It was the portal jobsmanager.pt, job and training advertisements. But the site "never made a fortune". However, he guarantees, jobsmanager.pt is for keeping. "Along with other sites we have, this site is automatic, it hardly needs anyone's intervention and it earns advertising revenue."
Pen drives or the genesis of a business in China
But his thirst for entrepreneurship did not stop there. «One day a friend came from Cape Verde and told me: the pens there are a lot of guys! They all stayed there jokingly, but I was already thinking: let's go sell the pen drive cheaper".
First it was necessary to study the market, only to realize that the factories of pen drive they are all in China and Taiwan. A friend did a survey of ten and a half companies that sold the pens in Portugal and Spain to reach the conclusion that they did not buy their material directly from China, but in France and Germany, from intermediaries, making the product more expensive.
"And I thought: this can only be a business if we go to China, look for it directly". And that's what Ricardo, two more partners and a Macanese interpreter did: «suddenly, I find myself in China, with meetings scheduled. I traveled, worked and even managed to launch a business».
Counted like this, it seems like it was easy, but Ricardo Mariano recalls that, before the trip, there was a lot of research, contacts and selection of companies to visit during the five days they were in China. And in the Chinese megacity where the meetings took place, the distances and car traffic were such that they quickly found that they could not get to as many meetings a day as they had planned. But they ended up choosing the right partner.
A year ago, the company was launched pens.pt, which does not sell in stores, but on the internet, at least 50 units for companies. Mazda, Peugeot, GNR, IKEA, banks are their customers, so that by the end of the year they managed to sell 50 thousand pen drive.
“Nowadays our customers think that we are the manufacturers. What we are is experts in pen drive. We went to get a little bit of the market share of each company that already existed before».
Seeing the Iberian Peninsula as a single market was “inevitable”. Expanding to Spain was «logical to happen». And that's why about five months ago Ricardo and his partners launched the usb spot in Spain. But it was, guarantees the entrepreneur, «terribly complicated». “It is almost impossible to open a business in Spain without having an office there, without having a bank account there, without having a native working”. But that's what they did. They now have a website in Spanish, a free phone line for Spanish customers to call. And «USBSpot presents itself as a leading or potentially leading company». And, after all, at the age of 27, there are already three companies in Ricardo Mariano's curriculum.
Voluntary work and social responsibility
With so much work and his head always buzzing with business ideas, one would think that Ricardo doesn't have time for anything else. But he does: not hiding his humble origins ("my childhood was not properly paid"), in December 2011 he decided to have a different Christmas.
At that time, he was already a volunteer with the Missionaries of Charity, the nuns of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who are dedicated to the “poorest of the poor”. But that Christmas Ricardo thought: «today I'm going to think about those who don't have food in Faro. We literally walked from door to door, from store to store, asking for food. I handed it over to the Homeless Support Center (CASA). And today Ricardo is one of the coordinators of CASA.
Your next achievement is the project called Solidarity Hand Mission, promoted with two other colleagues who are also finalists in the INUAF Marketing and Advertising Management course, which will help CASA and the Apatris21 association, which helps people with Trisomy 21. This is the organization of a solidarity show scheduled for May 25, at the Maria Campina Conservatory, in Faro, with the gracious presence of many renowned artists, namely the actor and television presenter Fernando Mendes and the singer Diogo Piçarra.
But your social responsibility doesn't stop here. In the five years of the SW company, in October of last year, Ricardo and his partners decided to promote the campaign «5 years, 50 smiles» and offered 50 baskets to as many needy families in Quarteira, the city where the company's headquarters are located. “From then on, both I and my partners are very excited to be able to help and exercise social responsibility”, he guarantees.
This solidary rib also extended to his participation in the Socialist Youth of Faro, where, last Christmas, he organized a toy collection.
But what has been your greatest joy as an entrepreneur so far? It was seeing your SW company in 32nd in the ranking of SMEs in the Algarve, out of 23 thousand. «It was tremendous pride, you don't even want to imagine!… Who, like me, started working at the age of 18 because yes, and at 27 has the 32nd largest company in the Algarve…»
That's why he insists on stating: «nowadays there is nothing that discourages me or, if there is, I quickly forget! The choice is ours, our joy infects those beside us». And this year "I'm going to graduate", he shoots, to finish.
Joy and passion as key ingredients
"There is more than one thing fundamental to being innovators and entrepreneurs: joy and passion." That's how Daniel Machado, marine biologist and entrepreneur, began to tell his journey to the dozens of people who filled the Café-Concerto do Tempo, at the April Beta Talk.
Daniel's passion for the sea came when he was 5 years old, «when my father put me in a rubber boat, took me to Ponta João d'Arens, put some diving goggles on my face and I discovered a 3D world» .
At the age of 14, Daniel's father – professor Alberto Machado, well known in Portimão and beyond, for his enthusiastic contributions to the discovery of the secrets of the sea, particularly in the field of underwater archeology – organized a sailing expedition to the Madeira and the young man made his debut in great sea crossings. «And my head clicked: what you want is to be a marine biologist».
This was the course that Daniel chose at the University of Algarve, ending with a thesis on the Ichthyofauna of the Arade River Estuary. He then worked on fisheries research at Ualg, as part of a more comprehensive project on the Arade.
One day he thought that his life had to take a new direction and he decided to “take advantage of the scientific research work and promote a product that would please the general public”. With a “sponsorship” (the father already had a boat), he created the company ecoceanus.
“I wasn't a manager, but now I am. Making the products the best possible, making people have the best day possible is the easiest. The hardest part are the papers!», he guarantees, eliciting a laugh from the audience.
Ecoceanus was then created in April 2008 and is now five years old. «My company is not only active in the tourism sector. It brings together tourism and science. There is a great lack of logistics for science and research in Portugal. Things as simple as boats to transport investigators are missing. And we provide a service that is doubly specialized, because it has a skipper and a person specializing in investigative work. We are a company that is a partner of the University of Algarve, in fact, we are always being called to be part of applications for funding for projects. We provide logistics but also consultancy in the field of marine biology research. That's what allows me to work in low seasons».
In the area of tourism, Ecoceanus proposes ecotourism, scientific tourism and public participation in science.
With the catamaran, they promote the observation of cetaceans – dolphins and whales, which are also found off the Algarve. «In 2011, we had 70% of whale sightings off Portimão», guarantees Daniel Machado.
“A person who is going out with us is not just going to see whales. Go learn about whales. Who knows if we've already spotted that whale or why it uses the Portimão cannon [an extensive and deep underwater gorge located off Portimão]. Every day I leave the house, set sail and go on a BBC Wildlife Day a short distance from Portimão». What more can you ask for? Apparently nothing, but with Daniel Machado's restless spirit it could never stop here.
With his friend André Dias, also a marine biologist, he thought that this «model fits well in Cape Verde, which also has a lot of biodiversity and is explored only in terms of sun and sea. And we thought: let's make Ecoceanus Cabo Verde». They organized a dossier and took a business trip to that African island country.
«The project was very well received, but we learned that, despite all the receptivity, this type of product would have a lot of difficulty in penetrating there. Cape Verde's market is very, very controlled by the big tour operators, by the big chains, in a logic of all inclusive. Small businesses are joined by big ones. So when we returned, we thought: are we going to move forward? We decided not to. We decided to abandon it, but we didn't lose everything: the dossier is ready, the project is developed. resort with feet and head in Cape Verde, which will have qualified people in us to work with».
Anyway, the idea is to transfer the project to Portugal. Therefore, André Dias has already launched the company Wildwatch Algarve, based in Ferragudo.
What about sharks?
What about sharks? The project "we like sharks», which this summer should finally be released commercially, began when João Santos, a marine biology finalist at Ualg, told Daniel Machado that he wanted to investigate sharks, but in the Algarve.
And then the hypothesis of the feasibility of ecotourism with sharks on the Algarve coast began to emerge. There are many, just see the alarm that is created every time the tranquil hammerhead sharks are sighted near the beaches…
«We spoke with the gobius, a science communication company, with the Save our Seas Foundation, to obtain funding, and we defined the We like Sharks project, which, in the scientific part, has the support of João Correia, from the Portuguese Elasmobranch Association” (group to which the sharks and rays belong).
The project involves environmental education, namely at schools (“we went to 14 schools in the Algarve, talk to kids aged 6 to 12, warn that there are sharks on our coast, but that they are okay”).
But it also involves the creation of the “We like sharks” seal, to be attributed, for example, to restaurants that are “shark frindly”, that is, that do not serve dishes with rays or sharks (but rather, the shark or the shark of the our stews are also sharks).
And it goes, above all, through tourism. For this purpose, Ecoceanus had meetings with ERTA and AHETA. «The Algarve can offer this type of product, but it has to do it with quality and with companies that follow a code of conduct».
«Dive centers, sport fishing companies (catch & release) can all be part of the project. There are “n” operators that can be part of this. Shark diving can work in the Algarve and be another complementary product in ecotourism».
But because Daniel Machado is a perfectionist, a Code of Conduct is being drawn up, so that what happened in the Azores does not happen in the Algarve, where mistakes were first made and then there was an attempt to regulate the activity.
“The Code of Conduct, drawn up by a committee, is almost finished. It will then be presented to the We like Sharks project team, then posted online for public consultation. We'll finally introduce you to the secretary of state and tell him: if you want to do this nice, the rules are here. Such a product cannot be done in any way, nor can it be badly done!».
And what product is this? It's about getting people to see and dive with sharks. The rules, the “product standard”, are already defined, so that it can be massified, used by many companies. «There will be a small stainless steel or mesh cage (cage diving), where the divers will stay, there will be a concentration of divers at the dive site, to prevent them from walking on their own side, there will be an odorous bait (not for eating), to attract the sharks». All to ensure two things: the safety of ecotourists and minimal disruption to sharks.
"This can be done by people without diving training, who will be able to see live sharks underwater, which will be a unique experience!" The scheme set up by Ecoceanus and the We Like Sharks project allows a person, with just a pair of diving goggles, to observe the sharks. And whoever doesn't dare to get into the water to have the company of blue sharks (or blue sharks), miniatures or hammerhead sharks, can only do it watching shark, from the boat.
And how much will it cost? O cage diving (divers with autonomous diving gear in that cage) will cost around 115 euros while the watching shark (on the boat) will stay for 90, both for eight hours at sea…and a lot of emotion.
Although this new product is the result of research carried out by Ecoceanus as part of its We like Sharks project, all operators will be able to join and develop this ecotourism product. “There is a business opportunity for the market here. All ecotourism companies, all diving centers can take advantage of it», guarantees Daniel Machado.
Around the world in who knows how many days
«Until now, I have been following the calls of life. I studied what I wanted, investigated, made Ecoceanus. The company is done, but Ecoceanus, which for five years was my life, will now cease to be. If we don't pull our cart, nobody pulls for us. We have to make choices in life», explains young entrepreneur Daniel Machado.
And that's why, because of the choices that one needs to make in life, Daniel and his wife are going on a sailing catamaran around the world. A tour that should last three years, but you never know: “I'm tired of hearing stories from people who thought that and now have been at sea for eight or more years”.
To make this dream come true, Daniel has another activity that allows him to earn real money: that of observing marine mammals aboard oil transport ships…
To fulfill his dream of traveling around the world, he sold the catamaran he had and bought a “new”, a 30-year-old catamaran. "It's old, it has problems, it's been in the shipyard for five months." It is a catamaran (two-hull sailboat) of 44 feet, or 14 meters, designed by a boat builder who won two America Cups. "It's a classic. This is a Ferrari of the catamarans, but this one of mine is one of those from the 60s». mocks Daniel.
Will you ever return to your ecotourism company? «Soon to be seen». And not afraid of the future? "When people do things with passion, it's hard for them to go wrong!"
Tomorrow there is another Beta Talk
Tomorrow, Thursday, the 16th, the May Beta Talk will bring together the passion for wine and the seductive and inspiring capacity of the arts and design, which will set the tone for another entrepreneurial late afternoon.
From 19 pm, at Café Concerto do TEMPO – Municipal Theater of Portimão João Laborinho Lúcio, founder of Labirinto Contemporary, and Rita and João Soares, administrators of Garrafeira Soares and Herdade da Malhadinha Nova, will share their entrepreneurial journeys, in an environment informal and relaxed that reflects the Beta Talk spirit.
As usual, participation is completely free, although registration is required. http://beta-talk-maio2013.eventbrite.com/#, with the wine-break being up to whoever comes, so participants are invited to bring wine (or juice) and snacks to share.
This Beta Talk has the support of ETIC-Algarve and the media partnership of “Sul Informação”, with the collaboration of the University of Algarve through CRIA – Algarve Regional Center for Innovation/Division of Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer, ANJE – National Association of Young Entrepreneurs, NERA – Business Association of the Algarve Region, university radio RUA FM , APGICO – Portuguese Association for Creativity and Innovation GAIM – Academic Office for Research and Marketing and also by Inesting, in addition to the Algarve Employment page in terms of dissemination.
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