October 31: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Marcelo Lombardo, founder and CEO at Omie, a São Paulo based ERP platform that has raised over $138M from the likes of SoftBank, Tencent, Riverwood Capital, Dynamo, Velt, Bogari Capital, Hix Capital,  Brasil Capital and Astella. 
In today's episode we will learn:  
1. Why is it so hard to build partnerships as a core sales channel? What was the impact of switching from digital ads to partnering with accountants on Omie's unit economics?
2. How to build, retain and scale trust with partners and customers in a low trust environment?
3. What are the unique characteristics of SMBs in Brazil? What are the unique challenges of launching an SMB-centric ERP platform in Brazil?
4. What's Marcelo's take on pricing model and why charging by the number of users or features doesn't work? 
5. What's Marcelo's advice to the founders who have to switch from 'growth at all cost' mindset to sustainability mode?

October 17: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Rodrigo Tognini, a founder and CEO at Conta Simples, a São Paulo based financial platform for SMBs that has recently raised $24M Series A from Tinder founders Justin Mateen's JAM Fund, Valor Capital, Base10 Partners, Y Combinator and Big Bets.
In today's episode we will learn:  
1. How do you define a product market fit? What are the actual signs of it?
2. How to think about market segmentation when launching fintech for SMBs?
3. What are the potential consequences of the inter charge fee reduction introduced by Brazilian Central bank for the fintech ecosystem in Brazil?
4. What's the most counter intuitive thing Rodrigo learned while doing business in Brazil? 
5. How being an athlete impacts Rodrigo's entrepreneurial mindset? 

October 3: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Daniel Ibri, a founder and General Partner at Mindset Ventures, an early stage Sao Paulo based VC firm that invests in B2B startups in Israel and the United States, that just did the first closing of their brand new $100M Fund IV and whose portfolio includes tech unicorns Brex and  Turing.
In today's episode we will learn:  
1. How to build a high performing portfolio on competitive markets like Israel and the US?
2. What's Daniel's biggest investment mistake and what are the key learnings from it?
3. What is the logic of raising 3 subsequent funds in 6 years?
4. Why recession in the best time to invest in startups?
5. What are the challenges of valuating early stage tech companies?

September 14: For this episode of the JCurve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Benjamin Gleason, founder and Head of Strategy & Corporate Development at Kamino, Sao Paulo-based end-to-end financial hub for high growth businesses in Latin America that has recently raised over $6M in pre-seed capital from Inspired Capital, Global Founders Capital, Fontes, Picus Capital and Flourish. 
In today's episode we will learn: 
1. What are Benjamin's key learnings of building Guiabolso and how the experience is different with Kamino?
2. What are the fintech trends in Brazil Benjamin is excited about?
3. What's Benjamin's advice to founders who have to raise in adverse market environment?
4. What are the critical elements of building productive teams?

August 31: For this episode of the JCurve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Parker Treacy, founder and CEO at Cobli, Brazilian telematics and fleet management platform that has recently raised $35M Series B from the likes of Softbank, Fifth Wall, Qualcomm Ventures and Valor Capital. Prior to that, Parker founded First Help Financial now one of the largest independent auto finance companies in the United States.

In today's episode we will learn: 
1. What are Parker's key learnings of starting First Help Financial fresh out of college?
2. How to build a high performing sales organization for SaaS companies?
3. Why founders' competitive advantage is their pace of learning?
4. What would be Parker's approach towards fundraising and running operations if he were to raise Series B during recession?
5. What are the next billion dollar company building opportunities nobody's pursuing yet? 

August 22:  For this episode of The JCurve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Guilherme Azevedo, founder and Head of Health at Brazilian healthcare company Alice that has recently raised $127M Series C from the likes of SoftBank, Kaszek and Globo Ventures. Prior to that Guilherme co-founded another health company Dr. Consulta and Brazil's largest tilapia fish farm GeneSeas.

In today's episode we will learn: 
1. What are the critical elements of building a founding team?
2. What are the key challenges of disrupting a health care system in Brazil?
3. What's the hardest aspect of Guilherme's work today given the adverse market environment?
4. Is Brazilian tech ecosystem sustainable at this point?

Monday, August 8: For this episode of The JCurve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Antoine Colaço, a managing partner at Valor Capital, the leading US / Brazil cross-border multi-stage VC firm, whose portfolio includes over 15 tech unicorns including the likes of Gympass, CargoX, Olist and Loft. Prior to that, Antoine spend 9 years in Google, launching operations for various divisions of the company in India, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.

In today's episode we will learn:
1. What are the key advantages of being a cross-border VC and why so few funds in LatAm are doing that?
2. What are the major headwinds that still inhibit the growth of tech & VC ecosystem in Brazil?
3. Why delivering venture rate of growth and building sustainable tech businesses are not mutually exclusive?
4. What are the similarities and differences between the current recession and the the prior market crises?
5. What are the key pillars of a productive  VC / founder partnership?

Friday, July 22: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Guilherme Assis, founder at Sao-Paulo based Iporanga Ventures whose portfolio includes the likes of Buser, Loggi, Olist and investment platform Gorila in which Guilherme is also a founder and CEO. Most recently Gorila raised over $20M in Series B from Ribbit, Apis and Monashees. 

In today's episode we will learn:
1) What were Guilherme's key learnings of building and scaling Gorilla across different market cycles?
2) What are some of the unique challenges of company building in Latin America?
3) What is Guilherme's advice to founders that have to raise in tough market environment?
4) What are the key Brazilian industries that have huge potential for IPO-ready companies in less than a decade?
5) Why crypto will change the way people interact?

Tuesday, July 5: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Ana Zucato,  founder and CEO ar Noh, a Brazilian fintech operating in shared finance space that has recently raised $3M seed funding from the Ikes of Kindred Ventures, Positive Ventures, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and The Twenty Minute VC by Harry Stebbings. 
Prior to founding Noh, Ana worked at Intuit, Truora and GuiaBolso.

In today's episode we will learn:
1) What are the unique challenges of launching consumer-focused fintech products in Brazil?
2) What are three things founders should NOT be doing while fundraising?
3) What are the ultimate advantages of building a diverse organization from day zero?
4) What are the creative go-to-market strategies Noh used to launch its product in Brazil?
5) How did the Brazilian fintech market evolve over the last decade?

Tuesday, May 31: For this episode of The J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Jorge Vargas Neto and Vanessa Muglia, co-founders at BHub a Brazilian startup that offers full back-office SaaS for small and medium businesses in Latin America, that has recently raised $20m in Series A from the lines of Monashees, Valor Capital and QED Investors.  
Prior to BHub, Jorge co-founded Zen Finance that was sold to Rappi and Biva that was acquired by PágSeguro. Vanessa was a co-founder at Civi, an app that makes cities safer by providing security-related information and notifications in real time and prior to that she spent a decade as a lawyer. 

In today's episode we will learn:

1) What are most challenging aspects of managing growth?
2) How did the fundraising environment change with rising interest rates and inflation? 
3) What's Jorge and Vanessa's fundraising advice for tech founders?
4) What are the out-of-the-box go-to-market hacks that BHub used to launch?
5) What are the key learnings of building and selling  Zen Finance and Biva that Jorge brought to BHub?
6) How big of a role luck plays in startup success?