Explore Diego Mendes Alves's journey in the Software Publishing Industry

So, the initial idea was not naming the app “Gopetie”, it was “Pet & Tie”. I later changed it because Petie means ‘selfie with your pet’ and I added Go because people love going places with their pet. The idea came by connecting the two pieces together. Also, all the proper names related to pet apps were already taken. It’s hard to come up with an original name. The first thing you need to check is if the name is available online. – Diego Mendes Alves

I think the answer to that is related to my journey as an immigrant. In a way, I think all immigrants are somewhat ‘rootless’. Leaving your home country and going into the unknown is the same as doing something you’re uncomfortable with as an entrepreneur. You have a vision, you think it can work and you just go for it, even though you have no experience, no knowledge or anybody helping you. I was born in Brazil. I was in my early 20s when I decided to leave my country. I was in college and decided to study in the US for a year. Initially, I was supposed to go back after a couple of semesters but had an opportunity to stay so I transferred to a college in the US and here I am now, running my own business. – Diego Mendes Alves

In Brazil, I was in college and was also hired as an intern in a bank. Eventually, I was promoted to a teller but I wasn’t happy. At that point I wanted to try something new. My family owns some local businesses in Brazil like grocery stores and bakeries, nothing fancy. So, I always dreamed of doing something different, something big. However, doing something like that requires a lot of time and dedication. I knew English was necessary so I came to the US. At first I used to live in New York but then I used my connections to get into “Worcester State University”. To be honest, everything started there, at the “Next big idea” competition which is still held to this day and I enjoy watching the entrepreneurs presenting their ideas. The winning price has increased since then. Participating in that competition was the trigger that lead me to believe I could really do it. Basically, I started my career just like any regular person, I went to college, I was very driven, then I pursued an MBA but Worcester State was the place I really realized I could be an entrepreneur. I had enough resources here in the US to do something. I found people who believed in me, who enabled me to pursue my dreams. – Diego Mendes Alves

I always had ideas, I just didn’t know what to do with them. I like to think of myself as creative. Participating in “The next big idea” gave me a taste of what it would feel like if I went down that path. I won 2500$ and all I had to do was to put together a presentation and sell my idea. That was like the “Shark Tank’ for me. You only believe something when you actually see it happening with your own eyes. I won with an idea about the beauty industry, which has nothing to do with what I do today. Nonetheless, that’s where everything started. That was the beginning of my research, when I started studying on how to become an entrepreneur. The “GoPetie” idea came to me during the summer of 2016, when I realized the pet industry was growing everywhere. Pets are treated almost the same as humans. So, I wanted to create a mobile community for pet owners. In the beginning, it was more of a social community than a pet license database. – Diego Mendes Alves

The first step is writing your idea down. I think we as entrepreneurs often keep our ideas in our minds and don’t share them. Even if we do, we don’t share much. In the beginning I wasn’t sharing information because I was afraid someone could steal from me. Honestly, after doing this for three and a half years, I realized that people are too busy, only a few can start doing what you do and maybe only 1% can do something similar. So, you should write your ideas, share them and ask for feedback from friends and family. I think that’s the key. – Diego Mendes Alves

“Do your due diligence for everything”. I made some bad decisions engaging people that I thought were good but weren’t. Sometimes you might waste time and money. An entrepreneurial life takes a lot of time because sometimes things happen too fast. My first and most important advice is to do your homework. Get references on whoever you’re going to work with, check their social media, leave them on a trial period if necessary. It’s like when you want to know someone, you date them first and then you form a relationship. I trusted people who seemed nice but later found out that they weren’t and resolving these issues cost me a lot of time and resources. – Diego Mendes Alves

Launching an app is a complicated process. App developers make the process seem easy but it’s not. I worked with three different teams before I was able to build the incredible team I am currently working with. Firstly, you need some money to start. It’s good to build a prototype or a basic website in order to display your idea and have something there. It’s good to show commitment and to get other people to notice that. Writing an e-mail or buying someone a coffee is great but that doesn’t really work as a first move. The first move should be about showing people you’re serious. So, just show them your work, they’ll appreciate it. – Diego Mendes Alves

Pitch Deck is hard. As a business person, you’re sharing your vision, your mission with others and people are going to criticize you. I think the best way to put something together is to write it down and that can be the beginning of your Deck. Then you can show it to your friends and family and get their feedback. Afterwards, you can start showing it to professors, investors and other people in your network and they will be so be ready to meet with some potential investors in the future. I think there is no perfect formula or pitch because based on my experience, investors will have different perspectives on the same thing. You’re never going to be perfect but I think that as long as you can prove that you can make money, everything else will eventually connect. So, I think you need to worry more about the numbers and less about the story. Firstly, prove that your start-up is scalable and profitable. You can deal with the story later. – Diego Mendes Alves

I actually invested my own money at first. I used it to build a prototype of the app and a website. The prototype is completely different from the app we have today but it was something to start with. That’s when I began approaching possible investors in order to raise money. I leveraged my own network. I initially spent almost 10,000$ for the prototype. I later found out it was overpriced but at least it was something that I could show people. It was important that they knew what my idea would look like if I had the money and resources. That’s how I started to engage people. Afterwards, I created a nice PowerPoint presentation but that is a bit costly so saving up is a good idea. Nowadays, presentations are much easier and depending on what you are trying to build, your financial investment will probably be low. – Diego Mendes Alves

The app has been around for a little more than three years. The first app was a social media network and we had a few thousand people using it. It was a fiasco because it wasn’t a good app, it had a lot of bugs but it helped me understand what I needed to do. I had to find the right partners. Back then, people downloaded the app and gave us feedback, nothing big. However, I realized there was a market demand for my idea because we got traction on social media, we got local press interested and people were downloading the app. So, I thought I could at least partially validate my plan since there was a need for it. Then I found out about the pet licensing business, which was fascinating because I didn’t know anything about it. To this day, every single investor that I have met has never heard anything like us before. So, we have a really great opportunity to really start something with no market reference because there’s nobody doing it but us. We changed along the way and I think that’s part of the journey. I never met a founder who kept the same idea they started with. Always change! Once we got the pet licensing, I went to Summerville and I talked with the mayor. The mayor loved the idea and that’s how everything started for the pet licensing. It changed the business completely. At that point we had users willing to pay because they needed it. Today, we have 19,000 users in the system and we have others interested. The pet licensing business has been around for a year and a half. Pet ownership has increased by 23% these last few months. People are getting more and more pets and it’s time to modernize the system. I truly believe we can become the global pet registry. It’s like having a license plate for your car. There’s a database that shows where the car came from and went to. I believe that pets should have the same system because they have rights too. I think this can solve the problem regarding stray dogs and cats in developing countries. For example, Brazil has a huge social problem with pets on the streets. It’s sad but I believe the diseases and other problems they can cause is solvable by implementing licensing. Having every pet assigned to a person or a person being assigned to a pet could be a huge help to solve this issue in developing nations. – Diego Mendes Alves

I am the sole founder. Believe it or not, I don’t have a co-founder as of right now but I have team members that enable me to do what I have to do. I’ve got a great CFO, an incredible CTO/investor, a PR to help with marketing, etc. We are trying to put the team together now as we’re still on an early stage. The timing is very important. We are trying to hire 5 full-time employees in the next 2 to 3 months. I have some initial key players and I think they helped with everything I needed. – Diego Mendes Alves

By making the customers happy. In the beginning it isn’t about making money, it’s about getting the customers to enjoy their experience. Nowadays, we’re still not profitable even though we generate revenue. Since our goal is to have satisfied customers, we spend a lot towards that. They are the Beta testers and are valuable because they give us feedback on how to improve. – Diego Mendes Alves

We have been active for a year and a half. During this time we faced many problems, bugs we needed to fix, adjustments we needed to make and we learned that pet licensing isn’t as easy as it sounds. Then, we built the software to fill out the gaps and address the concerns the customers brought to our attention. In the next few days, we are launching a new platform, which will essentially be a Beta version until it has matured. I believe we will continue developing and altering it over time. – Diego Mendes Alves

I think you need to be unique somehow in order to get attention. If you want to copy someone, you have to do it better because that’s how competition works. You should be unique not because you want to but because your customers want to. You have to know what the customers want, what the market is demanding. – Diego Mendes Alves

I would say “Keep fighting, don’t give up”. This path is never easy. If it was, everybody would do it. I almost gave up several times but here I am now. So, if you really think you’re on the right track, you’ll eventually have people believe in you. It comes to the point where it’s not about you anymore, it’s about people putting their faith in you. Think about the future. That’s what motivates me, thinking what happens when I get something right. That’s what keeps me going. If I only focus on what’s happening right now, things may seem hard or boring and I might give up. I think not many people realize what you can achieve in the future if you get the things in the present going in the right way. – Diego Mendes Alves

If you think you’re on the right track you should just keep doing what you do, don’t worry about competitors. I know who they are, my team maps them out, are but I don’t think about them every day. If you think that you are on the right track, you’re going to get traction because if you get validation, you saw there is a need for what you’re offering. Some people will believe you and some won’t but once you reach that milestone, a lot of people are going to come to you. If you make your customers happy, they will bring you more customers. An entrepreneur needs to be ready for change but changes happen very quickly. The ideas you have today aren’t going to be the same tomorrow. I think some entrepreneurs don’t like change because they are fixated on their initial idea. – Diego Mendes Alves

I want to make a difference. I want to be remembered for something good, make a positive impact. I could be wrong but I believe in that. To be honest, in the beginning I was thinking I had ‘a billion dollar idea’ but I’ve realized it’s really not about the money. If you’re right, things will come together and you’re going to make money. Money should be a consequence, not the reason you are doing this. – Diego Mendes Alves

I think I’ll go back to the advice I gave in the beginning, Do your due diligence! If you choose the wrong team or partner, you’re going to waste a lot of time and money. When you’re the entrepreneur, you’re biased and you can forget to be realistic sometimes. You really need to know who your partner is, where they’re coming from, get references because a partnership is like a marriage that is not easy to break up. That costs money and a lot of companies actually fail because of that. Whenever there’s a massive break-up with partners or employees, the business crumbles. – Diego Mendes Alves

In the beginning I worked part-time and it has been almost two years I’m working full-time. Sometimes I even work extra hours. If you’re the founder, you’re going to be working crazy hours, there’s no weekends off. At first, I didn’t have a fixed location. I had to respond to e-mails and phone calls even if I were traveling. That’s the nature of being an entrepreneur and if you want to be one, you have to be ready for that. During the first few years, the company will be your priority and your social life will be secondary. If you really want to move this forward, you have to be ready for that. – Diego Mendes Alves

I’m not afraid of fighting. Also, my family has been a driving force for my journey. They were never rich, we had enough to survive and travel a little bit but didn’t live luxurious lives or anything like that. I always thought that I could do better and wanted to do better. I was willing to work hard towards achieving my goals and that’s what I did. – Diego Mendes Alves

You don’t necessarily need to go to any Workshop, Accelerator or Incubator. They certainly help but you need to understand yourself and make sure when the time is right for you. I think many entrepreneurs waste time going into incubators, accelerators. Application can take from a few hours to entire days to be completed (depending on what you’re working on). I think you don’t really need that. I’ve heard a lot of times that this process works but you need to know if you’re on the right stage for it. – Diego Mendes Alves

Yes, it has. You have less time but you also learn how to spend time wisely. So when I go and see my family, I won’t be watching TV on the couch and saying nothing. I’ll be actually interacting with them, laughing, crying, going out and doing things that are meaningful to me and them. It’s all about how you choose to spend your time. As an entrepreneur, you really have to be able to manage your time. Otherwise, you won’t get things done. You need your social life and family, you need to travel for pleasure and it’s hard to balance everything. I’ve seen “mad men” entrepreneurs fail because time management is hard. – Diego Mendes Alves

I see us going global, maybe in the next five years. We have contacted some foreign countries which have shown interest and they are already using demos. I truly believe that we are selling the future of pets. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. I’m very excited about that. Also, this pandemic could be beneficial for us in some way as the government is realizing they have to transition to pet licensing. However, this prospect involves a lot of work and no vacations but I’m really optimistic about trying. – Diego Mendes Alves

Instinctively I would say that I would do some things differently but then I think that if I hadn’t done them I wouldn’t have the amount of experience I have now. So, I wouldn’t really change anything. Also, I mostly made mistakes in the early stages when it wasn’t a big deal. On the other hand, if I made those mistakes now, the impact would be greater. They prepared me to get better moving forward and to not make the same mistake again. – Diego Mendes Alves

Many investors. A lot of investors think that dog licensing is silly and not profitable but I could also be the one to blame. I probably didn’t know how to properly sell the whole picture. As you go out there and get feedback, you get a sense of what people are looking for and that helps you put the story together. I got many noes, many investors didn’t know about pet licensing at all. But that was also our uniqueness, something they hadn’t heard of before. I hope those people who said no will eventually come back to us. – Diego Mendes Alves

You shouldn’t be afraid to fight for what you believe. If you believe your business can be great, prove yourself, show some effort and everything else will eventually come together. Don’t be afraid of sharing your ideas and thoughts because that’s the first step. – Diego Mendes Alves