Ilson Rezende’s childhood was not very different from that of many Brazilians. Ilson left the countryside, from a city 100 km from Maringá, and discovered a computer for the first time as a teenager. “When I came into contact with the computer, I immediately said that this was what I wanted to do. Because my other option wasn’t that good, right? My parents came from the agricultural area”, he remembers. “But my first plan was never to be an entrepreneur. It was to work in the market, where I worked for years as a programmer, analyst, programmer.”
Years later, Ilson founded, together with other partners, DB1 Group, a company with around 800 employees, presence in 19 countries and revenue of more than R$200 million per year. The story of how this successful business began is the subject of a podcast episode From Zero to Top, which tells stories of successful entrepreneurs.
For the entrepreneur, who currently holds the position of CEO in the company, the main asset it was neither technology nor commercial strategy, but the construction of a organizational culture. According to him, this factor was decisive in sustaining growth and avoiding the loss of the company’s identity over the years. “The moment we managed to tie the culture together, it started to work again. The process helps, but it’s not enough”, he says.
The insight came during one of the company’s most critical phases, when DB1 grew rapidly and began to face problems with leadership and consistency in deliveries. “When we started to grow to 30, 40 people, it was the moment we had to bring in leaders”, he recalls. “And I started to become a leader of leaders, something totally new for me.”
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Growth crisis
During the company’s first big leap, efficiency fell and DB1 began to record losses on some projects. “There started to be projects that worked and projects that didn’t”, he says. “Those that didn’t work generated losses and this affected the entire company.”
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The initial attempt was to structure processes. “We spent six months structuring processes, but it wasn’t working.” The turning point came when the company decided to work on behavior and decision-making. “What makes the difference in software is always doing something new. It’s not just a process.”
According to Ilson, culture began to be trained intentionally. He summarizes the change in mentality: “We started training behavior, culture and skills. We reduced processes and it was just a master guide.”
Culture was also essential for climbing leadership. “I had to understand that I didn’t know several entrepreneurship disciplines,” he says. “Marketing, people management, organizational culture… I needed to learn all of this.”
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Today, the CEO argues that leaders need to understand all areas of the business. This mentality directly influences the company’s positioning. “There is no business between CNPJ. There are between people”, he states. “When a programmer writes code, there is a person on the other side who depends on it.”
According to him, preserving culture is an absolute priority, including in the face of growth. “We are very concerned about not losing our essence”, he says. “Losing the culture would be the biggest risk.”
For the founder, the future of DB1 depends less on financial strategy and more on maintaining principles. “If we don’t lose who we are, growth will come. Culture is what sustains everything”, he concludes.
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To find out more details about Ilson Rezende’s career, see the full episode on . The program is available in its podcast version on the main streaming platforms such as , , , and
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.
