The trajectory of DB1 Group, a Brazilian company technology with international operations, it was built without external investors and with a growth logic based on reinvestment continuous and discipline long term. For CEO and founder Ilson Rezende, this choice shaped not only the size of the company, but mainly its culture and management model.
“The first year is the year that you work, you don’t get paid and you try to pay the bills. We started working a lot on the weekends. We had other jobs. Each of the partners put in a little money from reserves that we had. It was a self-investment in this process. The first projects started to produce results and this money was being reinvested. This logic followed DB1 until 2020”, comments the CEO.
DB1 was founded by Ilson and his partners in Maringá, Paraná, and today operates with annual revenue of around R$200 million. From the beginning, the decision to grow with own capital was strategic and reflected a long-term vision for the business.
According to the founder, the company was not created with the objective of selling or exiting quickly, but of permanence. “The thesis that we started DB1 was already a company that was not being built to sell to someone and put money in the partner’s pocket, but rather to build something that could be a legacy”, he states.
The businessman participated in the program From Zero to Topwhich tells the stories of successful companies, and explained how DB1 was born, conquered the market and became a reference in technology in Latin America.
Building a legacy
Over two decades, the strategy was to reinvest practically all of the results. “It was 20 years of us working almost like employees and reinvesting all the results in the business itself”, he states. “Software is capital intensive. It requires a lot of investment to grow.”
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This reinvestment logic remains today, according to Rezende. “70% of all results must remain with the company. This is non-negotiable”, says the founder. “It’s for reinvestment and business growth.”
Financial discipline allowed the company to grow without significant debt. “DB1 carried out this entire growth process without going into debt. There was no surplus, but it also didn’t go into debt.”
DB1 Group serves more than 5 thousand customers and has recorded consistent and exponential growth of 70% in the last three years. With around 800 employees, presence in 19 countries and significant revenue in the technology sector, the company currently discusses possible investors only as a strategic tool.
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“If we find an investor who wants a long-term journey and has similar values, they will be welcome,” he says. “But we don’t see this as a successful destination”, reinforces Ilson.
For Ilson, the main difference in the trajectory was consistency. “We had a vision of a company where we would be running a marathon. We didn’t need to grow and create a big company in three years.”
To find out more details about DB1’s entrepreneurial journey, see the full episode on . The program is available in its podcast version on the main streaming platforms such as ApplePodcasts, , , , and .
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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.
