Fonte: Portal do Franchising
Link: How I built the largest FRP pool factory in the world
As a teenager and attending business school, I started as an office assistant in a family business in the small pool business and in a bankrupt state (annual sale of about 700 pools).
At that time, I had no great idealisms or aspirations, nor had I decided what to do with my life.
He was a simple middle-class boy, without many perspectives or ambitions, and just out of the sport’s dream.
In less than a year, I took a liking to work and started a major transformation in life, dedicating myself full time to this true passion I developed for the business world.
At the age of 19, after an automobile accident suffered by my father, I stayed for more than six months as general director of the company, undergoing such a transformation that my father declined the direction and definitively took over the company.
After approximately five years and in the midst of real economic chaos in the country (1983-1988), I was finally able to get out of debt and experience rapid and well-structured growth.
When he left the company in 1993, it was a monopolist in the South Region, leader in the Brazilian market and with some external actions.
We sold more than 3,000 pools / year through a network of exclusive resellers (pre-franchising that we started in 1984).
I also had bad times, in the midst of what I consider to be a great success, as it was a large, innovative business movement and one can say worldwide for the time in the pool business.
During this period, we invested in the footwear business in a company that was also weakened, where I struggled to heal it for about three years without success and it ended up going bankrupt in 1991.
For reasons of divergences about the future in conducting business, (in this case, I intended to open society in order to grow even more and in the face of the refusal of the majority who were my parents), I decided to leave the company in January 1994.
In 1995, at the insistence of some ex-clients, I devised a plan to start a new pool factory, where I would be just a manager and after receiving a certain amount, I would hand over the business and go on with my life.
‘Curious proposal’, but given the moment I lived and the amount involved, it seemed to me the most appropriate proposal to make to investors.
In addition, I was not willing to connect completely with any business.
After about three years and as soon as I received my earnings, when I said goodbye I was surprised by the proposal to be presented with a quota from society.
Since then, already as a partner and main executive of the company, we have had a considerable and continuous advance, which has enabled us to be today the largest pool seller in the world, with a brutal difference in relation to the closest competitor.
The plans for the future are big.
They undergo consolidation in the national market as a brand that serves the consumer market for pool maintenance products, through iGUi TRATABEM, in addition to expanding our traditional service from the middle class to the A and C-D classes.
We still have in mind the international market, which has been advancing rapidly.
Today iGUi is present in more than 40 countries, on five continents, with more than 800 franchises, manufacturing and selling up to 20 thousand swimming pools per year in Brazil alone.
In addition, we directly employ more than 5,000 people.