Croopi.org (Crowd Cooperation)

Like many Brazilians, I come from a poor family and emancipated myself through education and some luck. I developed a successful career in multinationals but in 2012 I dropped everything to undertake social business. I convinced my mother to sell her only property to invest in my startup that went bankrupt in the 2015 crisis. So, in parallel with activities to support myself, I founded nearbee.in, a solidary security startup that allows neighbors to help each other in emergency situations. Today the platform is a reference for emergency calls accessible in the country, for women who suffer violence and for qualified emergency volunteers, reducing first aid time from 25 minutes to less than 5 minutes. I discovered how destructive a hostile economy can be to one's mental health. And far from eradicating poverty, with robotic jobs and increasing concentration of income, I am in a hurry. (2019SingularityU Brazilian Speaker)

We are committed to solving the difficulty of less favored social classes that need to increase their income and wealth through entrepreneurship, aiming not to depend on government or charity, especially when they are elderly. We do this through a digital cooperative that unites people and companies, in which people are encouraged to create or support socially sustainable businesses, which are those that distribute their earnings, or part of it, to a large number of people. In other words, companies and startups that accept to give up shares in exchange for collective investments (consumption and support of cooperative members) increase their survival rate on the one hand and on the other generate income for people through these pulverized collective investments. A win win relationship between people and companies. Finally.

In Brazil, a large part of the population works hard without achieving a minimum of quality of life or even having peace of mind in old age, because they don’t have any financial security. We know that 5% of people own 95% of all wealth in Brazil, this shows at our gini index which is 0.54, and still, we have 12.5 million Brazilians that are currently unemployed in 2020. We can add to this scenario the forecast that in 10 years 52 million jobs will be replaced in Brazil by robots and even globally thinking, in 2050 there will be a bankruptcy of public social security. The environment collapsing through this hostile economy that grows each year is fundamental to companies survival. Is this really sustainable? Through a cooperative economy, we can reverse this scenario putting together freedom of choice and equality, focusing in the concept of sustainable social companies, that provides prosperity in the place of just concentrate wealth. We are bringing people and companies to cooperate in order to give access for anyone without initial capital to make investments and increase their income only with what they have: Your will power, workforce and consumption power at low risk. 

A startup formalized as a digital cooperative that, through a friendly platform, allows people to invest in business through their work and consumption, mixing an "equity crowdfunding" and a "multilateral exchange chamber" where what matters most is not the available capital today, but the willingness to contribute in the future.

To fulfill this audacious vision, we apply exponential growth strategies (growth hacking + direct marketing), lean startup, and process management methods (BPMs), ensuring governance and agility in horizontal management.

Our project is being accelerated by LiftLab.com.br, the official program of the Central Bank of Brazil, which provides us with a legal and fiscal "sandbox". In addition to support and legitimacy in the creation of our internal cryptocurrency with support from the most recognized cryptocurrency institution in the world https://www.r3.com, providing our "multilateral exchange chamber" with liquidity, since it will be possible simply to "mine" "croopis (cr $) helping businesses and then trading the currency if you want. A cryptocurrency backed by contracts that provide the right to share ownership. And this is a game changing approach.

We want to give the opportunity to excluded people in an entrepreneurship environment, so they can contribute with their skills and talents, without risking their few money or feeling hostile. Showing everyone that we can change the economic scenario through collaboration, where everyone wins in a fair way without government or charity.

We will assist both companies seeking seed investment or seeking to increase their sales (the business mortality rate in Brazil is + 85% in two years! They are born and die alone) and people who want to transform their workforce into equity , without having to invest their main income (the savings in Brazil is almost nil) or concentrate all their effort on the risk of a single business.

In practice, our goal is for people to contribute only 6 hours per month in their downtime, about 20 USD per month on average. Thinking of one million people (0.5% of the Brazilian population - our 2-year target) will make us the largest investor of seed resources in the country, enabling +200 deals invested in 100k USD tickets every month, not only distributing better but also growing up, which is good for everyone. (See you in the finishline, softbank!)

Between freedom and equality we choose both. It is possible? We don't know but we believe so. Through a perspective without taboos and fleeing outdated polarizations and biases, we work to validate the hypothesis that collective businesses can be more efficient than concentrated property businesses. We seek to inspire people to carry out the revolution without using violence or illegality, not seeking to distribute the wealth that already have owners, but looking for that in the future, through their own choice of consumption and workforce. We want to reframe the term "socially sustainable business" for what it really should mean.

I came from a poor family with many blacks and it was very common in my childhood to goand visit relatives in slums. Because I had a good education (studied at a military college on the night shift from the age of12), being white and having some luck, I managed to speed up my social, professional and academic life, always living between two worlds. So the idea of getting rich by leaving everyone I cared about never made sense to me. But what could I do but take care of myself?

The idea for the project started 10 years ago, in 2009, when I was studying administration at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), when in a group of young people from Rotaract I proposed a discussion about the book "The end of poverty" by Jeffrey Sachs. At the time, this book was reference for achieving the UN's millennium goals. As everyone knows, these goals have gone far from being achieved. And this project has emerged as an independent alternative for the fulfillment of the UNDP Goal 1 (poverty eradication), since there does not seem to be any real guarantee of the fulfillment through the private or governmental initiative.

The social gap that exists in Brazil affects millions of Brazilians. Family fathers, family mothers and the elderly are in poverty even though they have worked all their lives, while 5% of the population owns 95% of Brazil's wealth. Working on a project that can insert those left behind within the entrepreneurial environment is the key to changing this scenario. Basic for these people and fundamental for the country.

More than that, I am passionate about the term "sustainable happiness". Happiness is not binary, but the aggregation of factors. And people just cannot be happy today if they are apprehensive about the future. Nor can they be happy if the people they like, or even strangers, are suffering. So it is reasonable to conclude that we will hardly reach a fullness seeking prosperity alone, even if we are content with what we have. And this is such a legitimate purpose that its simple search is enough to make us happier, in matters that go beyond the personal ego.

I graduated from business (UFMG- 2009) and started a Sociology (Unicamp -2012) degree (This is me in two worlds!). Post-grad in marketing strategy and startup management (FDC Fundação Dom Cabral 2018).

With a history of an intense and successful corporate career, I went through banks (Itaú-Unibanco: certified complex operations “CPA20”), telecom companies (Embratel, Oi, “certified Green Belt”), Airlines (Azul - Manager of revenue management, dynamic pricing e market analysis) and industries (General Electric Transportation - FP&A: GAAP domain). But everything was left behind to start it all again. Without any support, back up. Just innocent optimism.

In 2012 I started my startup journey. Until today I founded 4 startups, two of them with great success (Nearbee it’s Govtech reference in Brazil and Aware Logistics it’s a Top20 Logistic Techs in the country, Ericsson's TMS system in several countries). I went through this without liabilities and honoring supporters, customers and investors. And today I know how hostile and inaccessible this path can be. I am a kind of survivor, seeking to transform traumas and scars into something good for others who will not be so lucky.

In the companies I worked for, I went through mergers, financial crises and mass layoffs, always being seen as a reference of optimism. As a consultant, I helped broken companies to restructure, where morale was down there and despair took over. When the risk was mine, I starred startups with negative cash flow forecasts for the next month a few times. More than once I turned an unlikely project into a promising business.

 I honestly know how challenging this project is. And the reason I think I am qualified to execute it has nothing to do with extraordinary skills (because this project believes that everyone is capable), but the stomach to endure severe adversities. And even a lack of skill: the inability to divert my attention from purposes that seem urgent and obvious. And so I am once again willing to drop everything (now less kamikase) to do what is right.

Well, since I already described myself, I told my past and I praised myself, I will list some milestones as a list of trackrecords, ok?

 Equity: (Self made man?) My participation in startups based on their valuations today exceeds 2MM USD, starting with zero capital investment.

 Awards: More than 20 awards for piths, projects, recognitions, such as UN WSA, CIABFebraban (best insuretech 2018, I won a trip to Money2020 in Vegas!), Connected Smart Cities among many others (see www.nearbee.com.br)

 Lectures: Last year I was invited to speak at at least 10 major events, such as SingularityU Brazil Chapter, Futurecomm, TED talk, among others.

 Investors: Between businesses that went well and wrong I had dozens of investors, all of whom have a great relationship. Many of us continue to talk and think about what will be the next business that "we will lose money together". :)

 But more than anything, I led and managed at least 100 people directly during this startup period, all creating a relationship of trust, honesty and respect. Many of them have leveraged their career through the opportunities created and that is perhaps what I am most proud of.

We not sure if a open cooperative aiming to spread income to everyone is a for-profit or nonprofit! =)

There is no cooperative in Brazil like the one we are structuring. Providing the experience of entrepreneurship for people and companies through an online platform, which allows people with no initial capital to invest their talents and skills while receiving profit share is, at the very least, socially disruptive.

Many people say that this project is unlikely, utopian, "too good to be true". So we can say that “innovator” is an appropriate term.

Every day we are faced with an uncomfortable reality: the social difference where on the one hand we have people who, even working, do not have enough income to accumulate capital and live a dignified life, and on the other hand people with surplus capital. We believe that we can include low-income people in the entrepreneurial scene and change the reality of so many in our country. Allowing access to the business environment through a digital platform where no initial capital is needed to participate, contributing your share through talents and skills and at the same time fostering companies and increasing their sales flow is a way to make the economy sustainable and cooperative combating the current aggressive economic environment.

We are in the pre-operational phase with only 20 founding people. Next year we have a target of 20,000 people and 4 million people in 5 years.

We want to change the current economic scenario so that within a year people can be made aware that we can build a solidary economy in a cooperative way. And in five years we hope to reach all countries in Latin America.

We have several challenges, from legal legitimation to user engagement and market fit. But honestly, we do not see essential bottlenecks that cannot be addressed.

Gaining international relevance and legitimacy is very important (it can be a game changer) for our initiative. So you can change our history and that of many other people

We are participating in an acceleration of Lift (Laboratory of Technological Financial Innovations) coordinated by the Central Bank of Brazil and FENASBAC.

We will assist both companies seeking seed investment or seeking to increase their sales (the business mortality rate in Brazil is + 85% in two years! They are born and die alone) and people who want to transform their workforce into equity, without having to invest their main income (the savings in Brazil is almost nil) or concentrate all their effort on the risk of a single business.

In practice, our goal is for people to contribute only 6 hours per month in their downtime, about 20 USD per month on average. Thinking of one million people (0.5% of the Brazilian population - our 2-year target) will make us the largest investor of seed resources in the country, enabling +200 deals invested in 100k USD tickets every month, not only distributing better but also growing up, which is good for everyone. (See you in the finishline, softbank!)

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