In 2015, Felipe Otoni's career took a drastic turn. At the time, he was working as a consultant for a vehicle protection company and was deeply involved in the business growth. However, Felipe realized that he had been deceived by his superiors, discovering that they were involved in fraud. It was then that he decided to leave the company and the sector he was working in. At only 25 years old, Felipe left Maringá, Paraná, and moved to Vitória, Espírito Santo, in search of new opportunities and a fresh start.
For six months, Felipe worked in digital marketing in the capital of Espírito Santo, helping to recruit new drivers for a ride-hailing company. It was during this period that he had an insight: the digital strategies he was using could be successfully applied to the sales sector where he had previously worked. This realization motivated him to return to Maringá and turn his idea into reality. With his own resources, Felipe borrowed R$ 10,000 from a colleague who became a business investor, returned to Maringá, opened an office, invested R$ 1,500.00, and in 2016, founded theSegSmart, a company created to optimize the sales processes of products and services over the internet for anyone or any company that needs to boost sales.
The company's first product, theSegsmart Marketingwas created to boost sales through a referral system. Companies can register their products and services, and anyone –be a digital influencer or someone ordinary- can you indicate these products. In this approach, both the business owner and the indicator benefit: the former with more sales, and the latter with a transparent and traceable commission. In the first four years of operation, when SegSmart primarily operated as a tool of Proteauto, a non-profit Vehicle Protection Association, the tool helped the company grow from 1,060 members to over 8,000 members. Today there are 37 thousand.
Due to the success, in 2018, the president of Proteauto invested R$ 10,000 in SegSmart to launch an additional feature, which boosted the business: they then created the first auto-inspection app, where the person themselves, following the instructions, takes the photos and uploads them to the tool. This enabled the number of sales to triple, jumping from 50 in January to 150 in February. In 2020, the company recognized the high potential of this market and, due to the demand from companies, separated from Proteauto, creating a monthly subscription plan for R$ 169.00.
By the end of this year, SegSmart's goal is to generate R$ 20 million in revenue and reach 1 million users. The optimism is mainly due to the launch of theSegSmart Web Plus,a WhatsApp Web extension that transforms the way clients manage their sales. By optimizing contact management, the solution enables the client to send bulk messages, create quick and personalized responses, connect the CRM, and manage the sales funnel through WhatsApp Web. With an initial investment of R$ 200,000, the new tool began testing in January 2023 and, still operating as an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), impacted more than eight thousand people who downloaded the feature for the free three-day trial. Of these, 3,615 signed up for the tool that costs R$ 59.00 per month, a conversion rate of over 43%.
From a 14-year-old boy to a future multimillionaire
If Felipe Otoni's "eureka" moment was during the transition from being a salesperson to the world of digital marketing, the entrepreneurial spark appeared early on, still in adolescence. Son of merchant parents from the city of Ponte Nova, in Minas Gerais, Otoni's first experience was at age 12. Wanting a video game, the father advised him to resell socks and, with the profit, buy the game himself. The project was very successful and he gained more clients. However, since practice interfered with studies, the father ordered it to stop. At 14 years old, he started washing cars. It started with the family vehicle and expanded to the neighborhood. At 16, he started working in the finance department of a construction company.
The time with a signed work card, which he secured at the construction company, lasted only a short time. With the desire to move to Maringá, the hometown of his then-girlfriend, he decided to look for an alternative that would give him more flexibility to work. At 19 years old, he became a consultant at Serasa Experian and started selling solutions to indebted companies. He moved to Maringá in 2010 and, in 2012, began to get involved with selling protection for trucks. Now, with an even larger market and enormous potential ahead, the next goal is to reach R$ 490 million in revenue by 2025, in addition to expanding its customer base to 10 million clients who, with the platform, grow and generate more revenue while investing less. Proving that, even in the face of challenges and disappointments, it is possible to build an empire from scratch with determination, innovation, and a clear vision of the future.
