Online video grows to the beat of samba in Brazil

"Samba" and "Tech" are two words you don't hear together very often, but that’s not the case in Brazil, where Samba Tech, a startup focused on video production, has become one of the most important companies in the online video market.

The enterprise was founded in 2004 by Gustavo Caetano, called by some "the Brazilian Mark Zuckerberg". Cell phones with a color display were a novelty and Caetano, then 19 years old, felt frustrated because he couldn't find games to play on the phone he had just bought.

Caetano emailed companies in France and England inviting them to enter the Brazilian market. Only one of them replied, explaining that a detailed business plan was necessary in order to take that step.

"There was a window of opportunity and it had to be seized before it closed." 

The rebuttal didn't deter Caetano. "I took a plane, went to London and brought with me a business plan that basically showed that Brazil was an unexplored market and that it was the right moment,'' says the entrepreneur. "There was a window of opportunity and it had to be seized before it closed."

That's how Samba Mobile, the first version of Samba Tech, was born. Then, in 2007 the success of Youtube inspired Caetano to explore the possibilities of online video and again his resourcefulness proved crucial.

While he was leafing through a magazine the entrepreneur came across the name of Silvia Saad, one of the owners of Grupo Bandeirantes, an important media group in Brazil. Armed with just that piece of information and guessing that she was a relative of Johnny Saad, president of Bandeirantes, Caetano was determined to get her attention.

"I tried all the possible combinations: silvia.saad, ssaad, silviasaad to send her emails and even asked her about Johnny,'' says Caetano.

The bold strategy paid off and through Saad Samba Tech got its first big contract. Now the company boasts five billion monthly visits to its video player coming from 26 countries and has established strategic partnerships with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Harvard Business School.

Besides working with television networks, Samba Tech offers other services, like video-classrooms, platforms to sell courses online as well as corporate education and communication.

Despite his success, the founder of Samba Tech refuses to move the company to the United States claiming that the creativity of his Brazilian employees is hard to find anywhere else. Caetano sums up his experience at Samba Tech with a phrase that sounds like a rallying cry for Latin American entrepreneurs.

"In our country there are great problems to overcome, but solving all those great problems can be the task of entrepreneurs in the areas of health, education and mobility, because where there are great problems there are also great opportunities."