Movile is a global leader in mobile marketplaces with a dream to make life better for 1 billion people through marketplaces on their mobile devices. Movile is a remarkable story of innovation from Latin America, driven by people who are willing to take risks to learn and grow quickly.
I sat down with the CEO and founder of Movile, Fabricio Bloisi, to talk about why he started Movile and how he and his team grew it to the largest mobile company in Brazil and Latin America.
Movile focused on innovating and exploring advanced technologies
In its early stage, Movile focused on text messages (SMS) and then enabled ringtone commerce in Brazil, as well as the development of the country’s first Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) search portal. In 2007, Bloisi focused on expansion. In 2008, and Movile built itself into the largest company in the Latin American mobile commerce industry through new products and mergers and acquisitions, establishing a presence in over ten countries with offices in Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico.
Movile expanded to food delivery, ticketing, gaming, and education
Movile has business lines that include logistics, delivery, ticketing, online gaming and education, but it’s the food business that has grown the fastest. As of September 2017, its iFood unit had reached 6.2 million monthly orders and become the largest food delivery company in Latin America.
With more than 100 million active users, Movile is Latin America’s largest mobile commerce platform. The company has over 400 employees and is connected to over 40 carriers that collectively have 700 million mobile subscribers.
The culture behind Movile’s success
The culture at Movile is dynamic and always improving. Fabricio says they are a company obsessed with results and passionate about innovation. They understand that the world is changing quickly now, and will only continue to do so in the future. With this in mind, they make small, incremental changes every year that help the company grow. Much like Silicon Valley and China, Movile always has new projects in development.
Fabricio was confident that several of their projects would be successful in the near future. He is also aware that many of the projects will never take off, but the 10% that do usually bring about massive growth for the company. Besides this dynamic approach to innovation, Movile also rewards people according to their results. They create opportunities for people to grow according to their capacity to deliver.
Advice for founders and venture capital investors
I asked Fabricio what advice he would give to other founders in Latin America. His advice was to dream big, right from the start. He set very high goals for his team in the beginning, and they often thought he was crazy…until they reached, then surpassed those goals over and over again. He mentioned that people are often more capable than what they realize, so a little encouragement can go a long way.
Fabricio is one of the most active investors in Latin America, so his advice to try and work more with the founders initially, instead of just the lawyers, is very important. By doing so, the founder and the investor can brainstorm, dream and plan, and the legal stuff can come after. Check out the rest of the episode to hear more from Fabricio Bloisi and his plan on how he wants to make 1 billion lives better!
Outline of This Episode
- [1:22] Nathan introduces Fabricio Bloisi
- [2:00] Movile is on a mission to help 1 billion people
- [3:30] How Fabricio started Movile
- [4:30] How competition can create more success
- [5:30] Movile expands into other sectors
- [6:30] Movile branched out into food delivery, grew from 20,000 to 6 million deliveries per month
- [10:00] The culture and people who work at Movile
- [11:30] Why Movile launches 100s of different innovation projects every year
- [13:00] Comparing Movile to Silicon Valley
- [15:00] How Movile’s culture is obsessed with results
- [15:45] What Fabricio learned from Chinese startups like Tencent, Alibaba and Meituan
- [20:00] Expanding to Colombia and France
- [23:45] Advice for founders: Think big
- [27:15] Advice for venture capital investors
Resources & People Mentioned
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