Cheers to the heroes: congratulations to Eric, Bruno and the RD Team

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned to have the life that is waiting for us.”

― Joseph Campbell

History was made in the Brazilian startup ecosystem with the announcement of RD’s R$2B exit to TOTVS. First, I’d like to congratulate my friends Eric Santos, Bruno Ghisi (plus the founders Guilherme, André, and Pedro, and the team, of course). They are the perfect representation of the new type of founder that transformed venture investing in Latam into a real asset class, one that every investor should have exposure in their portfolio.

I met Eric Santos back when I was still working at Nimbuzz in 2008 (pre-iPhone when Nokia phones were the jam, lol). Then, I’ve gotten to know Bruno when we provided RD with a Silver Plan coupon for startups when SendGrid had just raised their Series A. I left SendGrid after the Series D, and, at that time, RD was already a top-10 customer alongside Pinterest, Uber, Airbnb, and Spotify. Not an easy feat. For the record, at SendGrid we were also Hubspot’s, and Pardot’s infrastructure. RD was often growing faster than them during multiple periods. Incredible.

Eric and Bruno are the perfect representation of abundance and divine forces into the material world. They understand that you must start before you are ready. As an inevitable founder, one must face resistance and fear daily to build the life one wants to live. This divine loving force is what is behind inevitable founders—Magnum opus in leadership.

I was a speaker in the second or third RD Summit ~7 years ago. The energy was exceptional; you could sense the beginning of a movement that was just getting started. One particular scene that comes to my mind was a room where they had an army of small business owners signing contracts with pen and paper. I remember thinking to myself: “Wow, this team hustles hard!” — years later, RD Summit quickly became the “Dreamforce of the South.” One must love the magic of Florianopolis.

As we enter the third chapter of startups in Latam, with multiple companies about to go public (thank you Israel and $CASH3 team for opening the window, btw), we have a new set of challenges ahead of us, not only to sustain but also to transform the ecosystem. Others that are about to start their companies will have better support, both financially and spiritually.

Salute to my dear friends Anderson Thees and Manoel Lemos at RedPoint eVentures and Patrick Arippol at DGF; you guys saw the future before it was a reality and now are getting paid for doing a great job. May this get SaaS GOATs such as Byron Deeter, Jason Lemkin, and David Skok even more excited to partner with Latam companies.

Remember that business is personal, and the game of life doesn’t get more comfortable, you just get better.

Cheers to the heroes and their families.

Kudos to the heritage.

Now back to work.