In recent years, I have seen closely the growing wave of Brazilians who decide to undertake in e-commerce. It is a movement that is born of a legitimate desire: to gain financial autonomy, open a business of their own and transform life through the internet. Digital, after all, offers a democratic showcase, where anyone can start from scratch and, in theory, reach consumers anywhere in the country.
The mortality rate among new retailers is very high, and it is not uncommon for many to give up before even registering their first sales. This phenomenon does not happen due to lack of will or creativity, but because the beginning of this journey is still fraught with uncertainties, misdirected costs and choices that can compromise business continuity.
The root of the problem
Recently, during my participation in Expo Magalu 2025, I talked a lot about it. The big barrier is not in creating a product or putting a store on the air. The real challenge is to generate demand consistently.
What I often observe is that entrepreneurs arrive full of energy, but without clarity on how to advertise their products, without understanding how to price correctly and without being able to structure a showcase that really converts. Many even master their products, but do not have knowledge or confidence in marketing strategies to attract customers, for example. According to a global report by Constant Contact, most small businesses admit difficulty in disseminating effectively due to lack of knowledge, little time and low clarity. In fact, 73% of SME owners say they have no confidence in their current marketing strategies.
From a distance it seems simple, but in practice it is like opening a physical store on a deserted street: without customers passing through the door, all the effort with stock and structure does not find a return. This mismatch between expectation and reality is one of the main reasons that explains why so many businesses can not take off.
The side effect
When you are not clear on how to generate demand, the tendency is to seek quick solutions and that is where a dangerous side effect arises. Many entrepreneurs end up investing high right at the beginning: they pay for more complex platforms than they need, spend on store customization, hire third-party services or buy digital marketing courses in the hope of finding a ready-to-sell formula.
The problem is that all this happens before any financial return.The result is that the initial capital, which should give breath to the first months, is quickly exhausted.
At the same time, the feeling of frustration grows, because the effort and investment seem to not generate results. This cycle of spending without return ends up pushing many to early withdrawal.
My bet: validate before climbing
It was following stories as soon as I developed a conviction: the most sustainable way is to validate first and scale later. Before investing heavily to create demand itself, it is smarter to sell where it already exists.
According to the State of Commerce 2024 Report, 95% of global executives consider commerce on third-party channels such as marketplaces essential for growth and 70% state that up to half of all their revenue already comes from these channels, while nearly a third say that marketplaces account for more than 50% of total revenue.
In addition, three in five executives plan to expand their presence in marketplaces in the next 12 months. These environments concentrate an audience ready to buy and allow the retailer to test, in practice, which products arouse interest, which generate more margin and which are really worth the effort. Most importantly, they allow you to enter cash quickly. This initial revenue gives breath and reduces the anxiety of those who are starting.
With learning in hand and some capital circulating, it makes sense to take the next step: opening your own store, investing in social networks, creating customer communities and betting on traffic and retention strategies. In this way, building an ecosystem of your own channels happens in a more solid way, because there is already a basis to sustain it.
Why this is possible now
For a long time, this strategy was unfeasible for small entrepreneurs. The sale in multiple channels required manual effort, technical knowledge and expensive tools. It was necessary to register product by product in each platform, keep synchronized stocks, integrate management systems and follow different operational flows. Few had the resources or time for this.
Artificial intelligence is breaking down these barriers by automating precisely the most bureaucratic and technical tasks of the and e-commerce. It is now possible to automatically adapt catalogs for each channel, adjust prices in real time as per the competition, and even receive strategic recommendations from the performance data analysis.
In practice, the entrepreneur focuses on what no one else can do for him: create, sell and serve customers, while technology takes care of the rest.
Conclusion: the future of digital entrepreneurship
I believe we are living a decisive moment for digital entrepreneurship. More and more people will bet on opening their own businesses, and the role of technology is to ensure that these journeys are not interrupted before they begin. My mission is to help build this future. Over more than 15 years in e-commerce, I have been translating this experience into affordable, easy and autonomous solutions that make it possible to overcome the most critical obstacles of the beginning.
For me, artificial intelligence is not only a novelty, but the new infrastructure of e-commerce. It is it that will level the playing field, reduce historical barriers and return to the entrepreneur what he has most valuable: time, clarity and focus on the customer. And this is what can turn the dream of undertaking online into a concrete and sustainable opportunity.
