Orr Fellowship - Brazil (Day 3: Exact Target & Sao Paulo)

Oi,
Wednesday brought our first business meeting, one that would introduce us to the South American arm of Indianapolis-based e-mail marketer Exact Target (ET). Edson Barbieri, co-founder of Frontier Digital, a Sao Paulo IT firm whose origin was as an internet service provider, told us about his entrepreneurial past and how it culminated with an acquisition by ET. He has a great story and shared with his insight into the Brazilian economic climate and the advantages and challenges of doing business in Latin America.


Some of Frontier Digital's customers pre-ET acquisition

    
Edson Barbieri bulletpoints:

• ET LATAM (ET and the rest of the world regard Brazil as part of Latin America, but Brazilians don't identify themselves as Latin Americans, but Brazilians) has 72 employees with customers in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Paraguay and other South American countries.
• "The Brazil Cost" is a recognized cost of time/money caused by layers and layers of bureaucracy and seemingly unreasonable, sometimes compounding taxes (as high as 65% on automobiles).
• Economic classes A-E, with only the upper classes (A, B, C+) being tracked and paying income taxes, which gave birth to some of the higher transactional tax rates.
• Hurdles Brazil faces to keeping it's strong global presence (and build on the momentum they have leading up to the World Cup '14 and Olympics '16)
• Investment in infrastructure such as roads/public transport (both of which are under developed for the sheer amount amount of people - ~11M in metro Sao Paulo)
• Investment in the eduction and skilled workers as that sector's growth hasn't kept pace with the technical/economic growth of Brazil in the last 10 years.

After our discussion with Edson, we went to Ibirapura Park where we went to the AfroBrazilian museum (everything in Portuguese with little help from folks in our group who can read Spanish). The one thing that stuck out in my mind was the fact that Brazil was later to abolish slavery (1880s) and captured 10x more slaves from Africa than were transported to the US (5M to .5M). The rest of the time in the park was spent on walking paths and enjoying people watching as it seemed the park was a place to see and be seen.

Me and Kevin @ Ibirapuera Park

Maisia (guide) and Fellows (Bre, Kelly, Jamie, Conner
and Mitch at Luz Station

St. Paul and the Municipal Cathedral of Sao Paulo

    


















     We got back on the bus and headed to the Japanese-settled part of town, Liberdade. From Liberdade we made a walk to the oldest portion of Sao Paulo where we found the Municipal Cathedral of Sao Paulo and the original train hub, Luz Station, built from the fortunes of the state's original coffee exports.

Dinner was at a Brazilian steakhouse very similar to Fogo de Chao, all you can eat meat cut fresh from giant skewers that the servers carried table to table. Post-dinner we got back tot he hotel and everyone enjoyed the evening on the roof with a few drinks and music accompanied by some great conversation and catching up.

Obrigado,
Barry