Some companies emerge when the script fails. It was like that with Ceopag. Before founding the company, Kawel Lotti built a career in large corporations, worked for companies such as Xerox and Vivo and had a personal goal of achieving financial stability by the age of 40. Entrepreneurship, however, was not on the radar.
“I didn’t dream of being an entrepreneur. I was always conservative. I didn’t like risk. I was afraid of starting an undertaking and losing the things I had already achieved”, he said on the program From Zero to Topduring the episode shown with support from XP Empresas
The turning point came when a corporate reorganization ended his executive career. Married, with his first child still a baby, he needed to review his next steps.
Continues after advertising
“I was dismissed from the company. And at that moment it was a shock. “I was always that executive who did whatever could be done for the company with the objective of growth”, he said.
Also read:
From dismissal to national growth
After leaving São Paulo and returning to the interior of São Paulo, Kawel entered the world of entrepreneurship out of opportunity and necessity. The first project was an operation focused on selling SMS packages to companies, structured on a franchise model.
“In the first year as a franchise, we already had more than 150 franchisees spread across Brazil”, he recalled.
The business evolved into new fronts in payment methods until culminating, in 2019, in the launch of Ceopag. Today, the company that was born from a layoff competes in one of the most dynamic sectors in the country. The experience accumulated in previous companies helped shape the new operation from the beginning.
“Ceopag was born as a new, improved company. It’s like building a second home. The fact that I work in large companies, with goals, with discipline, working in São Paulo, was fundamental for me to be successful leading companies and ventures”, he said
Continues after advertising
Today at the head of an expanding fintech, Kawel states that he needed to develop new skills to continue growing. Among them, financial management.
“When you’re an executive, I led with a budget that wasn’t mine. Now, as an entrepreneur, the tension doubles. The risk is too great. One mistake can be fatal,” he said. “If you don’t take care of your cash flow, things won’t work,” he said.
The executive also recognizes that making mistakes is part of the journey. “My biggest mistake was trusting myself many times, making decisions thinking I already knew where I was going and then we broke down,” he said.
To find out more details about Ceopag’s story, see the full episode on . The program is available in its podcast version on the main streaming platforms such as , , , and
Continues after advertising
About From Zero to Top
The Do Zero ao Topo podcast is a production of InfoMoney and brings, every week, the stories of prominent women and men in the Brazilian market to tell their story, sharing the biggest challenges faced along the way and the main strategies used in building the business.
