Idea to Market
Do you have an innovative idea, but need help moving forward?
Are you looking for a low-risk approach to act on your idea?
Do you need a founder as a service by your side?
Are you looking for great professionals to turn your dream into reality?
You have come to the right place.
All successful businesses are the result of learning journeys.
Reality will prove you wrong time after time. It’s the agility to adapt continuously that makes the difference.
People usually say that ideas without execution are meaningless. And they are correct, but there’s more to the story...
Execution is far from a linear process; you need to keep zigging and zagging. So, it's not only about acting - it's about building a learning engine to adapt continuously to feedback loops. One step at a time.
Invest at the same pace you reduce uncertainty
You need a process to only invest at the same pace as you reduce uncertainty — and guess what? We’ve got you covered.
For an agency it’s hard to resist when a client wants to buy big projects from the get-go, but for a network of decentralized top professionals, it isn't.
What moves us, besides the financial side, is to impact people's lives and work on meaningful projects.
Life is too short to spend on projects that are doomed to fail.
So more than buying a project, you're hiring the collaboration of a highly engaged team on a shared learning journey.
And we’ll be the first to tell you when it’s time to pivot or even quit.
Is this service for me?
We’re open to all interesting challenges, but we’re aiming at two mindsets.
From Idea to Market. One step at a time.
Usually, both friends and service providers will cheer you up about your idea, but...
The first do it unconsciously because they want to please you; the latter because they need to sell their services. And from one day to the next, you’re committing to long-term projects without even checking the basics.
We follow a different path. And you can jump in or out at any time.
- We’ll have a two-hour Idea Bootcamp around your idea. Buckle up, it’s going to be intense!
- We’ll facilitate a Collaborative Session — where we bring together people with different backgrounds and mindsets to work on your vision.
- Still eager to move forward? Time for a Minimum Viable Concept (MVC). Yes, not an MVP yet. MVC is a low-risk approach towards innovation. A more feasible and less stressful way to discover new paths and learn about the future of your business.
- If your idea has survived so far, it’s time for a Discover & Roadmap project — where we dive deeper and plan the future ahead.
- Now that we are fully prepared we can move to a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) — with just enough features so you can test your businesses hypothesis.
- After validating your business idea, we can move to a fully functional product and launch it into the Market. We’ll help you to find the right partners, build an in-house team, and work with you on your go-to market strategy.
A one-on-one two-hour session with Gustavo — who has many years of practice spotting and acting on good ideas and people.
Think of it as a stress test; it will help you reflect on your idea from different angles and evolve it or screen it out from the get-go.
"It is hardly possible to overrate the value... of placing human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves, with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar.” — John Stuart Mill
Unlike brainstorming, where the alpha effect prevails, in a collaborative design session, we alternate between individual and group exercises — which opens the door for divergence, emergence, and convergence in a diverse and inclusive way.
We'll be working on your project for two intense weeks, doing project analysis, "quick and dirty research”, ideation, and finishing with a pitch ready to spread your idea around.
The intention is not to have a bulletproof approach but make your idea tangible and sharable based on a lean but thoughtful approach.
Think of a Discovery & Roadmap project like a deep dive on your idea to prepare it for implementation.
The stages vary according to the project, but these are the most common ones: project analysis, benchmarking, user research, collaborative sessions, concept and testing, technical discovery, and roadmap.
A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is an approach that stresses the impact of learning before putting all your bets on the product. The main idea is to introduce your new product to prospective clients with just enough features to gather validated learning about how your users react to your offer.
At this stage there are many forms to "fake it ‘till you make it" — no-code tools will come in handy.
After this, it will be time for us to split apart.
You see, we work to be replaced but will give you all the help you need to move forward.
And we can still collaborate from time to time or move to a position of paid advising.
Why me
I’m an avid lifelong learner with almost two decades of experience in strategic design, experience design, productivity systems and leading digital transformation processes.
My life path was marked by vast professional and personal experiences, which allowed me to adopt an approach based on radical diversity and leverage knowledge from different "worlds" and areas of expertise.
You can think of me as a founder as a service and the person that brings together teams of top professionals and organizations according to the task at hand.
Take a look at my Professional ID to know my path highlights and testimonials.
Working Digital for Two Decades
It all started when I decided not to take the academic route and accepted my first offer to work on "the internet," doing pretty basic tasks.
I had to learn everything from the bottom up, which allows me to feel at ease in the trenches as well as in the board room.
Cross-Sector / Cross Organization
I've led teams from all types of organizations — from startups to big corporations; as well as across many sectors — from banking to human resources.
That diversity empowers me to cross-pollinate knowledge between different fields, and to have a holistic view about the project at hand.
Radical Diversity
Some people call me a "bridger of worlds" because I've lived "many lives" and love to mingle and connect people.
I usually say I feed off of diversity. That allows me to empathize with people from all walks of life.
Collaborative Design Evangelist
After many years of preaching the collaboration gospel, I know its ins and outs.
I teach collaborative processes and write about the topic, but most important than that, it has become a trait of my own personality.
No Code Advocate
Since I was young, I started to look for workarounds to streamline everything in my life that I consider a waste of time.
Today I'm a Notion Ambassador and a No Code advocate, and I'm always on the lookout to leverage these tools to move the needle without investing unnecessary time and resources.
Infinite Player
I see life as a big infinite game, and I'm playing for the thrill of it and not to reach the podium.
This means that I put my heart and soul into every project I work on.
Actions Speak Louder than Words
Allow me to share some projects I’ve worked on so you can have a broad vision about what the teams I put together can achieve.
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I started collaborating with Seedrs from the very beginning. I still remember a meeting in the soon-to-be first Lisbon office with five or six people.
At the time, due to rigid regulations, our maneuvering space to create an excellent experience for our customers, both entrepreneurs and investors, was very tight.
It was the start of the equity crowdfunding space — and we were tackling uncharted territory. After that, I started to work with Seedrs regularly — as a Director of User Experience.
Today Seedrs is one of the major international players in the field.
“We hired Gustavo to overhaul the user experience (UX) and design of the Seedrs platform. His--and his team's work was absolutely outstanding: the product he delivered was a massive improvement on what we'd had, and it has received praise from all quarters.
Key to this success was not only his inherent talent but the time and energy he spent understanding our business, appreciating what we needed to achieve with our UX and design, and then rapidly iterating with us as wireframes and then mockups came together.
He is, simply put, world-class at what he does: we were very fortunate to get to work with him, as would be anyone else who wants the best of the best UX and design.”
Jeff Lynn Executive Chairman and Co-Founder at Seedrs
Pedro pitched me Talent Protocol with a single sentence: "We're going to do what you have been doing for the past decades but at a larger scale." I accepted the invitation to become an advisor immediately; it perfectly fits my life purpose— helping other people grow.
As a contractor, I'm also dedicating part of my time to helping with product and community. We build in public, so you can see everything we’re doing by yourself. Take a look at Web3 — Stories from the Trenches where I share inside stories from the Web3 world.
“Gustavo is a highly passionate, energetic, dedicated, and hard-working professional with a keen eye for ways of incrementally improving, always thinking about how to improve processes and products and never settling with the norm. He brought a fresh perspective, a new mindset and improved every aspect of Talent Protocol.
When Gustavo joined we were coming up to the release of our MVP. At that point we had a moving car with no transmission and the car was moving at full speed, Gustavo came in identified our issues, recognized that stopping to create the transmission, and then starting the car again would be its doom and instead helped us in building what was missing while moving!
Simply put, Gustavo solves problems and elevates products and the people around them. With his skill set and experience, he is able to deliver and bring value from day 1 and any team or project will benefit from working with him.”
Francisco Leal CPO at Talent Protocol
I started to work with Matthieu for Harpoon.jobs from his first idea — not on the back of a napkin, but on a corporate-style presentation.
Back then, the idea was completely different from today, and the first step was doing deep user research that demonstrated that Harpoon was pointing to the wrong segment.
Matthieu usually says if he’s the father of Harpoon, I’m the mother, which symbolizes how I see projects as my own.
After four years, we collaborated again to transform Harpoon into what it is today — a successful business with an agile team that stands out for providing a fantastic service in the present while thinking ahead about what the future will unfold.
"I have known Gustavo for 6 years and I can say he has been a masterpiece in the success of Harpoon.
Gustavo first brought us his expertise in the conceptualization phase of our product, our business model and finally our go-to-market strategy.
His insights have been extremely useful to challenge our vision and scale-up strategy.
He has always been a great listener, an honest and transparent professional and a very trustworthy and generous person always available to give a hand without expecting anything in return. If you are looking for a game-changer, go for him."
Matthieu Douziech Founder at Co-CEO at Harpoon.jobs
I met Pedro Oliveira when he was working on his first startup, and I immediately thought — this guy’s startup doesn't make any sense to me, but that is irrelevant because this guy will make things happen.
When people ask me how I have mentored so many top performers, I always say the same thing: I'm a better spotter than mentor.
After a couple of months, Pedro co-founded Landing.jobs, where I was an advisor and then a service provider helping build the platform's first version.
“Took me six months to convince Gustavo to join Landing.jobs because I knew (call it gut feeling?) and he has the track record to prove he's a UX leader and he would bring us to the next level.
And he did.
On a personal level, I'm going to highlight Gustavo's trustworthiness and a strong sense of responsibility. He's really committed and hard-working, has listening skills (very hard to find these days!), and a keen eye for minimalism and design. These allow him to become an advisor/mentor.
For me it's a no-brainer: Looking for help with UX? Go. Thinking about hiring his company? Go. Looking for advice/mentorship? Go."
Pedro Carmo Oliveira CEO at Talent Protocol and co-founder of Landing.Jobs
Survs is the flagship product of Enough Pepper, a startup I co-founded with three colleagues working at Tecnico at the time.
And it was quite a journey. Four people, working moonlighting and competing with the big boys of the space.
Survs was acclaimed by media outlets like Washington Post and TechCrunch and won the award for the best online survey product by .Net magazine.
Fun fact: Although I love chili peppers, and my surname is Pimenta (pepper in English), the company's name was a pure coincidence. Enough salt was already taken.
"Gustavo has a broad range of experience and understanding of all aspects of the user experience design space from information architecture and user research to project management.
As a team manager the passion for his work shines through and keeps the team engaged and motivated
He also has a very professional work ethic and is a pleasure to work with."
João Alfaiate Co-Founder of Enough Pepper (builders of Survs)
Better together
From the in-house teams I've created from scratch to the teams I put together on a project basis, I’ve been lucky to work with top professionals. If we work together, you also will.
You will be working with a multidisciplinary, dedicated, experienced, agile, and fast-paced group of people.
A fixed structure does not constrain us; we are vast network of professionals who join forces according to the project at hand.
Together we are many.