In 2007, driven by personal and financial difficulties, Fábio Camara founded FCAMARA, an information technology company that today employs about 1,700 people, is present in five countries – including Portugal, England, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates – and has already surpassed the half billion reais in revenues. What began as a desperate alternative to balance the accounts, has become one of the main suppliers of technological solutions behind the scenes of the Brazilian corporate market.
Fábio’s trajectory was told in an interview with the program From zero to toppresented by Mariana Amaro. Franchisely, he revealed that, before becoming entrepreneurial, he was more like a “desperate unemployed” than as someone prepared to start a business. “I had an unplanned pregnancy and our son was born with comorbidities. I spent everything with treatment, I entered the overdraft. Desperation pushed me to try something on my own,” he said.
Without formal academic background in the area and coming from humble experiences, such as Office Boy of the extinct Banco Real, Fabio was hooked by curiosity to see a CP500 computer for the first time. The bank manager not only allowed him to explore the equipment, but lent money to buy a programming magazine – one of the few accessible forms of learning at the time. “It was a magazine called Electronicssold in newsstands. I learned a lot around, ”he recalled.
Another turning point
The experience in the Brazilian Army was another turning point. After solving a technical problem of a captain, Fabio was transferred to the corporation’s computer center, where he had access to advanced equipment. However, when he left the institution, he realized that he was technologically out of technologically in relation to the market. “I was a specialist in computers that were no longer used by small businesses. Without a university degree, there was no room in large corporations,” he explained.
The definitive turn came with a mix of intuition and stubbornness. Influenced by the book Crossing the abysswhich deals with technology adoption phases, Fabio decided to study a language that few dominated. “Everyone worked with a tendency technology, but I wanted something new. A year later came Windows 95, which didn’t work with the technology of the majority, but the one I was studying. That’s when it all started to work,” he recalled.
The episode also revealed curiosities about Fabio’s personal life. In a time of crisis, he spent a week at the beach house of an ex-girlfriend in Itaparica (BA), with no money, living on fish remains offered by fishermen. There, he met an Argentine who, even without charging, did a numerological analysis and suggested that Fabio exchanged the spelling of the name – from “camera” with “e” to “camara” with “a”. He accepted. “I don’t know if I believe, but at that point anything that helped already served as a stairs to get out of the well,” he said.
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Power
Today, Fabio celebrates the consolidation of FCAMARA as a power that acts behind the scenes of digital transformation. Although the company’s name is not in the radar of the ordinary consumer, its services are part of the gear of large retail companies, finances and other sectors.
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