Think Simple E-Book

Gustavo Caetano

• Herausgeber: Editora Gente
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 199

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

If you want something that does not exist it's probably because it has demand and a market! Today we have thousands of businessmen who dream of doing one thing: INNOVATE! Innovation is the sacred chalice of business of success. However, how can we start? Do you know what to do or which direction you have to take to do something that will touch people's lives and change your market? Gustavo Caetano learned to see small problems that needed immediate solution and how to change the course of your business to keep growing. What he wants the most is to see the reader innovate too. Whoever reads this book will find that, contrary to what one thinks and says, innovating is SIMPLE. In this book, you will learn: • How failure can shape the mentality for success? • What makes the innovative DNA? • What is the logic of simplicity to encourage innovation? • The importance of being agile and keep yourself with high innovative potential. • How not to believe the phrase "it has always been this way" Learn the simple business method with Gustavo Caetano, who started in this field with one idea when he was only 19 years old. He built one of the most innovative companies from Brazil. Gustavo Caetano is one of the brazilians most influential people on the internet, according to LinkedIn and GQ magazine. He studied innovation and creativity at MIT (Boston), Stanford (Palo Alto), university of Disney (Orlando) and Syngularity (NASA / California). His company, Samba Tech, is reference and was awarded in several countries. Caetano has already talked for companies like Algar, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Adobe, Bosch, Philips, TV Globo, Stafanini, Estácio, Fiat, Iveco, Visa, Shops Renner, Votorantim, Sicredi and Unimed, as well as international events on Nasdaq, MIT and SXSW in Texas.

Leseprobe

Gustavo Caetano

THINK

simple

You just need to take that first step in orderto have an agile and innovative business

Diretora

Rosely Boschini

Gerente Editorial

Carolina Rocha

Assistente Editorial

Audrya de Oliveira

Controle de Produção

Fábio Esteves

Analista de Produção Editorial

Karina Groschitz

Preparação

Anita Deak

Projeto Gráfico e Diagramação

Balão Editorial

Revisão

Leonardo do Carmo

Capa

Nine Design | Mauricio Nisi Gonçalves

Impressão

Edições Loyola

Produção digital

Loope | www.loope.com.br

Copyright © 2018 by Marcos Scaldelai

Todos os direitos desta edição são reservados à Editora Gente.

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Cataloging in Publicaton Data (CIP)Angélica Ilacqua CRB-8/7057

Caetano, Gustavo

 Think simple: You just need to take that first step in order to have an agile and innovative business / Gustavo Caetano. – São Paulo: Editora Gente, 2018.

 ISBN 9788545202912

 1. Business 2. Business – Technological innovations 3. Business sucess I. Title

17-0083                      CDD 650.1

Indexes for systematic cataloging

1. Business: Technological innovations 650.1

Foreword

The scars of serial entrepreneurship in an emerging market can be truly miraculous, especially in an economy where recent faith in politics has been jeopardized by the scandalous and corrupt, and with a rising generation that is restless, resilient and with access to more knowledge than any other generation before them. I first started to really understand this while living in San Pedro Valley, proclaimed Silicon Valley of Brazil located in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais - BR; a culture also founded by the subject and author of this book, Gustavo Caetano. With a wave of audacious yeasayers like Gustavo and others cited in the text, drastic cuts in investment in research and development in innovation and technology by the Brazilian government are combated by a growing group of creators, challenging that legislative shortsightedness. See it’s not always a product or service that can create change, but ideas now spread even faster, through scalable communication. Things like purpose, taking on the giants, coming out on top, and dissatisfaction with the way it’s “always been done”, are attitudes that tend to end up with an entertaining and animated story of success. If there’s one purpose to be understood from this book, in my humble opinion, it’s the difference that dedicated and inspired innovators can have on the turning point of a nation. Let us use curiosity as a tool for making a positive difference in society.

Acknowledgement

This book is especially dedicated to my wife, my children, my parents, my brother, my dear grandmother and my beautiful mother and father-in-law. You give me strength to always move forward.

At the same time I can’t forget to thank all my friends for everything they’ve taught me: Claudio Luiz, Marco Túlio Kehdi, Rodrigo Paolucci, Marcelo Miranda, Diego Gomes, Matheus Goyas, André Fonseca, Viviane Senna, Ofli Guimaråes, Israel Salmen, Cyro Diehl, João Baricelli, Paula Bellizia, Luiz Alexandre Garcia, Luiza Helena, Ricardo Amorim, André Barrence, Rodrigo Moreira, Breno Mirando (cover author), Breno Barros, Marco Stefanini, Marcela Rezende, Leandro Faria, Victor Salles, Renato Badaró, Patrícia Meirelles, Rafael Consentino, Braulio Lalau, Rafael “Truman” Pereira, Guilherme Tomé, Flávio Pripas, Rodrigo Cartacho, Pedro Martini, Alexandre Ziviani, Lucas Nogueira, Mário Almeida, Mariana Caetano, Alexandre Barcellos, Eduardo Polcaro, Edu Lyra, Lindália Junqueira, Tallis Gomes, Leonardo Rocha e Silva, Paula Girão, Daniel Costa, Iglá Generoso, Bruno Pinheiro, André Pallis, Eric Santos, Pedro Sorren, Fabrício Bloisi, Rodrigo Galindo, Angelica Maricato, Renata Abravanel, Nelson Carpinelli, José Roberto Maciel, Diego Felice, Roberto Oliveira, Amure Pinho, Guilherme Junqueira, Leonardo Carulla, Angelo Marzulo, Adriana Freire, Gabriel Azevedo, Fernando Schmitt, Marcos Hespanhol, Kadu Araújo, Luiz Gustavo Amorim, Daniel Lourenço, Rafael Rez, Lúcio Duarte, Flávio Duarte, Ronaldo Lemos, Márcia Naves, Márcio Figueira, Carmela Borst and André Diamand.

To my working comrades: Pedro “Feliz” Filizzola, Everton Alves, Lídio Ramalho, Rafael Piantino, Fernando Pacheco, Bruno Motta, Guilherme Valgas, Rachel Paranhos, Lilian Oliveira, Matheus Cardoso, Pollyanna Xavier, Michael Filippo, Ramon Souza, Rafael Carvalho, Rafael Meneses, Isabela Lima, Leonardo Maldonado, Thiago Miranda, Felipe Maia, Diego Duarte, and all the collaborators that make Samba Tech so incredible. And to our partners: Almir Gentil, João Caetano, Manoel Lemos, André Emrich, José Augusto Schincariol, Henrique Mascarenhas, Marcos Rosset, Márcio Paulino, Ivan de Moura Campos, everyone who has always believed and invested in my dream. My greatest thanks!

Foreword

Tumtum, Tumtum, tumtum

I’m a fan of Gustavo, and I’m going to start this foreword by explaining why...

I’m a fan of Gustavo, because this quick-witted guy from Minas Gerais, every time he launches a new project, makes me feel so small for never having thought of doing it myself.

I’m a fan of Gustavo because he’s one of the most genius entrepreneurs I’ve ever met. A good entrepreneur knows that a good idea, kept under wraps, is an old idea. That’s why he shares his in grandeur, in his lectures throughout the country.

I’m a fan of Gustavo because beyond being focused on his business, he’s focused on his purpose, or on the “landscape”, as he refers to it in the book. And for those who focus on their purpose, all lemons end up as sweet lemonade.

Anyway, “compliments aside”, I’m going to share with you a little about my own business, so that we can understand together, for reasons unknown, why Gustavo asked me to write this foreword (Alright, I confess, to do a little bit of advertising in his book as well...).

Have you ever heard of Reserva?

Although Reserva is a men’s fashion brand, you’re more likely to have heard of it if you’re an entrepreneur than if you’re a stylist.

Recently graduated in Production Engineering and working at Accenture, 11 years ago I decided to design a surf short with a childhood friend, and a year later I found myself in love with the possibility of connecting with people through clothing, fashion shows, showcases, social media, blogs and other media platforms.

I don’t see Reserva as a clothing company, but more as a huge table in a bar, full of friends and welcome drinks, where there’s no shortage of ideas and stories to share. That’s why our collections transmit essence much more than trends. We don’t appreciate unimaginative, “semi-God stylist” monologue, with regards to models and colors that people should use. We prefer to use clothing as a medium for topics that need to be discussed: prejudice, family, hunger, etc.

Reserva’s mission is simple: “To be a genuine friend”. A friend talks to you, has you over to his house (offices, stores, employees, clients and suppliers) and comes together when it’s necessary (through Reserva-1p5p, for each piece of clothing sold, we donate 5 plates of food to the hungry throughout Brazil. We donate more than 10 million meals per year, enough to feed 9 million people with 3 meals a day).

In just 10 years, Reserva has become a huge brand, and was elected by Fast Company as one of the most innovative in the world, and not because we invest heavily in marketing; our investment in marketing is less than 1% of our profits, unlike our industry peers that typically reinvest 4.5% of their bottom line. We have prospered because we knew, right from the very start, both how and to whom we should tell our stories.

And that’s precisely why I believe the brand attracts the attention of so many entrepreneurs. It’s also why my own destiny has crossed paths with Gustavo’s.

We have more than 1,500 people working with us at Reserva today. An army, passionate about what the brand represents. Most brands tend to spend fortunes on openly communicating their values and ideas, but neglect to communicate this internally. There’s no marketing tool more powerful than word-of-mouth, and there’s no brand ambassador more powerful than a person who leaves home each day to build a brand with love and dedication.

A good example: our last quarterly sales event was at Rio de Janeiro’s Maracanã Stadium.1 Attendees published more more than 10 thousand posts on social media during the event, and through those posts we reached more than 2 million people with personally and emotionally charged messages. I’ve been known to say that we’ll never buy mainstream advertising space because we prefer to design our own campaigns by using the lives of our people, and put them on the big screen at Maracanã, so that people can watch them with their families. As Leo Burnett said: “What helps people, helps business”.

We focus on communicating internally to our people, firstly because that’s our vocation, but secondly because we know that they’ll deliver our message to the world in a way that’s much more personal and genuine than some print advertisement in a magazine or newspaper. Quality, not quantity.

At any rate, I believe that Samba Tech exists for companies that think like ours. Gustavo was ahead of it all when he realized that we would all become media, and he delivered a solution for all those who intended to amplify, measure and monetize their message to the world.

When Gustavo invited me to write this foreword, I stopped to think about how we met... And you know what came to mind? Despite the enormous care and admiration I have for him, we don’t know each other personally. This would be crazy if not for this new and connected world, previously imagined by Gustavo, in which we recognized the urge to live through purpose, much more than through things.

The fact is, Reserva is quite similar to Samba Tech, or to any other company led by any entrepreneur. Not because we sell similar products or services, but because in such places, rhythm comes from the heart… TUMTUM, TUMTUM, TUMTUM!

And yours? Is it beating any faster? Happy reading!

RonyMeisler

Smiling (Because I hate the word “President”) and Storyteller of Reserva

1 Maracanã, officially Estádio Jornalista Mário Filho, is a football stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and is the official home stadium for Flamengo.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Innovation and Simplicity

Chapter 1: Nothing Lasts Forever

Chapter 2: Innovator DNA

Chapter 3: Uai not?

Chapter 4: The logic of simplicity

Chapter 5: Ask for help

Chapter 6: Between the map and the landscape, always choose the landscape

Chapter 7: Don’t lose sight of others

Chapter 8: Be light and agile

Chapter 9: Success starts small

Chapter 10:

Introduction

Innovation and Simplicity

If forced to choose just one word to define the current world of business, one of the most worthy candidates would be “innovation”. And for good reason. We live in a world of rapidly changing truths, where habits are transformed from one day to the next, and technologies are rendered obsolete in a matter of years. It’s for these reasons that business people – and future entrepreneurs – aspire to do one thing: to innovate.

Today, innovation is one the most important aspects of a successful business; but of course you already knew that. What must be bothering you, however, are a few questions that remain, ones which are seemingly simple yet packed with complexity: How do I begin to innovate? How do I figure out what I should bet on? How do I know which course of action to take in order to touch the lives of others and transform the market in which I want to operate in?

To create, and to innovate, is much more simple than you think.

I’ve asked myself these questions many times. They are what guide an innovator – someone who is by nature, not driven by answers, but by questions. What I’ve learned throughout the course of my path as an innovative entrepreneur, and what I would like to share with you in the following pages, is that everything is constantly changing: problems change, logics change, people change. And this is great! After all, this is the high velocity that keeps our world spinning. There is always space and opportunity to innovate and create new things, be it in terms of launching a new product or service or as part of an existing company or creating a new business. We are surrounded by innovation every day, it is closer than you might imagine and much simpler than meets the eye. Throughout this book you’ll begin to understand this, and by the final page you’ll realize that you too can be an innovator; that your idea can transcend the drawing board and begin to transform your surroundings – and, of course, change your life for the better.

I want to show you what my own strategy was, beyond innovating, to transform a company I founded in 2009, Samba Tech, into one of the most successful startups in Brazil. During our journey together you’ll be able to free yourself of the anguish, which, at one point or another, paralyzes every entrepreneur out there: the feeling that despite all the passion for your idea and your business, you just can’t get it to flourish and take flight. In other words, you’re not able to read the lay of the land and figure out which path to follow, and no matter how hard you try, the need to sell has begun to blur your vision, and is subsequently keeping you from choosing the right path to success. Everyone goes through this process, and my mission is to help you see that those with a clear vision stand out. And why? In short, because having a detailed understanding of the environment in which you mean to operate helps you to identify, above all else, any possible future changes to this scenario and what necessary adjustments might be needed in order to keep you on the right path to achieving your goal.

Now, and feel free to be honest, I bet you’re thinking: Who is this Gustavo that seeks to help me so much? You’ll get to know me better as we go, but first I want to introduce myself. I am Brazilian, from the State of Minas Gerais. I am 34 years old and I believe that the drive to be an entrepreneur—to innovate and do things differently—is in my blood. It is an urge that has been intrinsic to my nature , ever since I was a student. I’ve always asked myself the simple question: why not? I was never able to only see a problem, but instead would eagerly rack my brain to find the solution. I simply couldn’t catch the scent of change, something new, without thinking about how to apply it to my own life – personal or professional, it didn’t matter. I think that’s what ultimately led me to start working with technology and embarking on an entrepreneurial career. It was all because of that “uai not?”1

I founded Samba Tech in 2008, a company that was born as a mobile games distributor and – because of innovation, because you can’t stay frozen in time – went on to become the largest video hosting platform in Latin America. It was a jump, and then some. Things went so well in fact, that the company and I picked up a series of awards that I would never have dreamed would become part of my professional story. In Brazil, ProXXima Magazine2 cited me as one of the 50 most innovative minds in the country; GQ as one of the 15 most influential Brazilians on the Internet; and I have been named “Entrepreneur of the Year” twice, once by Pequenas Empresas & Grande Negócios,3 and once by The Next Web, a North American website. Beyond Brazil, on three separate occasions, Samba Tech was featured on the list of the 100 most innovative companies in the world; showed up on Forbes Magazine’s radar as one of the 10 startups to watch in Latin America; was elected by Fast Company as one of the 10 most innovative companies in Latin America; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the most prestigious technology universities in the world, named me as one of the most innovative minds in Brazil.

Please understand, don’t think that I’m listing all of these accolades in an attempt to suggest that I am “the man” or worthy of some kind of praise. It’s nothing like that. What I do want to show, though, is that something throughout my journey, and in my ideas, worked out really well. And I want to share this with you. I want to show you that seeing innovation, failing, recognizing changes and adapting your world is much simpler than you think.

Innovation isn’t the only word of the moment. Simplicity is equally relevant and topical. This is what I’ll look to demonstrate over the chapters to come. Together, innovation and simplicity culminate and give rise to a new word: success. Something that will become increasingly within your reach. One thing that the world expects from us all is our capacity to innovate and play our role in collaborating to make it a better place. To create, and to innovate, is much more simple than you think.

1Pronounced “why”, is a word that is spoken only in Minas Gerais and has no real vocabulary meaning, used as a filler-word at the beginning or end of phrases. (Don’t ask)

2 ProXXima Magazine, of Meio & Mensagem - A Brazilian communication, marketing and media news platform.

3 Pequenas Empresas & Grande Negócios – A Brazilian news and information magazine to help entrepreneurs manage their business.

1

Nothing Lasts Forever

In many cases, all you need is a great weakness. When people ask me how it is that a guy like me, from Araguari, a rural town of only 117 thousand inhabitants in Minas Gerais, is referred to as “the Brazilian Mark Zuckerberg” by Business Insider, one of my initial responses is: “I got this far thanks to an important weakness in my family’s history”. Yes, for me success came from failure – and from understanding that nothing lasts forever, neither weakness nor success. Let me explain why, that way you’ll see that I’m not talking crazy.

My family is Portuguese. Fuelled by a desire to become an entrepreneur and establish a way to live in Brazil, my great-grandfather founded a cork factory in 1925, in the garage of his home alongside his father-in-law. At around the same time the Fábrica de Isolamento de Cortiça (Cork Insulation Factory) was growing, and the founders manufactured wine corks and thermal insulation for industrial refrigeration. The cork used was imported to Brazil from Spain and Portugal. This changed a few years later when importing cork was prohibited by law, but that didn’t really affect the business. My grandfather then discovered a particular tree native to Brazilian hinterland, nicknamed “Gordinha” (or “chubby” in English), which has a bark quite similar to European cork, and in particular, perfect for producing thermal insulation material, which was the factory’s strongest arm in terms of production.

Things were progressing extremely well. By the time World War II ended in 1945, the factory was going from strength to strength and occupied two full blocks of the Alto da Lapa neighborhood in the western reaches of São Paulo. The administrative office was located on Ipiranga Avenue, a prestigious address in the city center, where engineers, analysts and salesman worked as well. In addition, there were three sites where “Gordinha” trees were stored, in São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Goiás.

It was one of the most prosperous industries in Brazil at the time, and it even got to the point of exporting material outside of Brazil, because any factory or business that needed industrial refrigeration used cork, which made thermal insulation possible – and it was in this same period that refrigerators were expanding in Brazil. Everything seemed perfect. The factory was in full flight, strong and true, seemingly unstoppable.

The only problem was that the world was changing, and my family wasn’t prepared. Then one day, a new type of material appeared, a peculiar substance that seemed so fragile that it almost crumbled at the touch. It was Styrofoam, which was on the rise in Brazil as a new solution for thermal insulation. Regardless, nobody was too worried about Styrofoam as it was deemed a low-quality substitute, and would therefore never pose a threat to cork. The rationale being that no one would ever replace something so well established, so well known and trusted, for something so novel – especially something that, above all else, seemed so fragile! But my grandfather was wrong. Completely wrong. Styrofoam, in addition to being just as efficient as cork, was lighter to transport and cheaper to purchase. North American and English companies preferred cork for some time afterward, but the complications associated with exportation began to jeopardize the business.

My grandfather was in charge of the company at the time, and in order to save the business was forced to make an important decision: to sell both the factory and the family’s house in São Paulo. With the money he made from the sale of the two properties he was able to build a new factory, this time in Araguari, a city close to the state of Goiás4, which would help facilitate logistics and minimize transportation costs. The business never fully recovered however, and in 1980 the operation ended in tragedy when a fire destroyed the entire factory. Araguari didn’t have its own Fire Station, and the brigade needed to come from Uberlândia5. But when they arrived on the scene there was nothing left to be saved. The worst part was that the factory wasn’t insured, and so the only option left was to close up shop.

Adapting to change is a key to success.

My grandmother would often tell me this story, ever since was I was a kid – she used to love telling it, and my brothers and I used to love hearing it. This, this point of weakness, has stuck with me ever since. But it wasn’t just the weakness in and of itself; that sour medicine that everyone has to take a few times in life. It was more the question of the imponderable, the transformation, and the changes, that if we fail to pay close enough attention, often catch us off-guard from one minute to the next. As someone who is always thinking about what’s to come, about what the future holds, this has made me almost paranoid. And I’d like to share my so-called paranoia with you – it is a mental state that has proven invaluable in business. It’s this apprehension and concern with change that helps me ensure that Samba Tech continues to grow. If you can develop this ability to look into the future as well, you will, without a doubt, be able to differentiate yourself in the world of entrepreneurship and turn your business into something sustainable. Throughout this book I’ll show you how I created this vision and how I’ve transformed my business time and time again. It’s not a matter of guessing about the future, or gazing into a crystal ball. Nor is it a talent shared only by a lucky few. It’s just a matter of training your vision and understanding a little bit about how the world works today – and anyone can learn to develop this aptitude, you just need to practice. It’s for this reason that I wish to focus a little on the cycles of change and their varying speed.

Shorter and faster cycles