-Programmer and entrepreneur based in São Paulo, Brazil
-15 years of experience with web and mobile apps, digital marketing and SEO
-Combined my websites received more than 200 million visitors
-Became a Google Premium Publisher in 2011
-Consultant for large institutions (U.S. Gov – Voice of America) and companies (Decolar.com)
-Won hackathons by Ford and MasterCard

Long Version

I was born in São Paulo, Brazil, and at the age of 15 I moved to Italy with my family. There I finished high school and went on to get a degree in International Economics from Bocconi University. Right after getting my degree (2005) I started working as a Market Analyst at Alcatel-Lucent.

Exactly one year after starting at the job I gave in my resignation letter. Technology and the Internet had always been passions of mine, and I already had a couple of websites gaining traction, so I decided to start a company to build and manage websites on different niches, called Online Profits LLC. Over the years more than 150 million people visited my sites, and I became a Google Premium Publisher in 2011.

After a while I decided to start building web applications. I learned to code by myself, and got in love with programming and software development. In order to improve my programming skills I even went back to university, taking some Computer Science classes at University of Campinas (UNICAMP).

Whenever time allows I participate in programming competitions, including Google Code Jam and Facebook Hacker Cup. I also like to compete in hackathons. Early in 2015 I won a car at Ford’s hackathon, and I also won MasterCard’s Masters of Code. You can visit my programming blog at ProgrammingLogic.com. There you’ll find algorithms and code snippets I find interesting, solutions to programming challenges, useful scripts and so on.

Given the explosion of the mobile segment, in 2011 I decided to start a second company along with my brother (who is also a developer), called Kubic Technology. The company specialized in developing mobile apps for the Android and iOS platforms, and we did projects for local banks, restaurants, and other organizations. Over time we lost interest in developing projects for other people, as we wanted to focus on our own stuff, so in 2015 we sold the brand and the website (and my brother went on to work for Facebook).

In 2015 I started my third company, called SmartShop.com.br. We tried to replicate the Gazelle.com model in Brazil (i.e., buying and selling used smartphones). Instead of focusing only on the website, however, we decided to have physical stores as well, as we believed this was essential to reach the Brazilian customers. It was a huge learning experience for me, as it’s the first time I built a business with an offline component. Our profit margin turned out to be much lower than initially expected, so late in 2016 we closed the company.

In 2016 I started my fourth company, called Botware, which develops chatbots to automate the communications between businesses and their clients. It spun-off a company called InstaDelivery (automated online menu/website for restaurants) which I still own. The Botware brand/website was sold in 2020 to HeyPink.com, a leading chatbot provider in Brazil.

In 2019 I started my fifth company, called AZpop. It is a mobile app that works like Yellow Pages for WhatsApp (starting with the Brazilian market). Our growth rate was above 10% a week for much of our first year, allowing us to reach over 1 million downloads in that period.

Over the years I have occasionally provided consulting services for companies and institutions, including large ones like Decolar.com (largest travel site in South America), Softpay, and Voice of America (official broadcaster of the US government).

I am fluent in Portuguese, English, Spanish and Italian (learning French now!). When I am not working I like to play chess, poker, and to play some blues on my harmonica.