Carlos Monteiro:

Give yourself a chance: Learning from experience

My name is Carlos, a Brazilian happily living in Odense. I have a degree in business administration from PUC in Sao Paulo. I also studied economics for three years before deciding that the marginal cost of pursuing economics was higher than the marginal happiness derived from it. (That was a bad economics joke.)

The big move
In January 2012, my wife and I decided to flip our lives upside down. Sounds very certain and bold when I put it like that. But in truth, I had absolutely no idea how exactly we would pull this off. All I knew is that the decision was made and now we had to do it.

So I got the idea to build denmarkbrazil.com, a site where I gathered and collated information about Brazil aimed at businesses in Denmark. I did several video interviews with people in my network who had valuable information about the Brazilian market.

But I had no idea how it was going to work. I was not even aware of what content marketing was. I didn’t think about building email lists or using free information to upsell people to my consulting services.

Lessons learned
I learned many things along the way. Like how Denmark has a strong volunteering culture, and you should help out whenever you can. Gain a reputation for solving problems wherever you go. Danes are collectivist people – therefore contributing is both valued and rewarded.

And don’t forget, whether you are running a blog, posting job applications, or working on your business, be consistent. And don’t be held back by limiting beliefs like “I don’t speak Danish,” “I’m not a specialist,” “I don’t have experience,” and “First I will become an expert – then I will offer my service.”

To conclude
I chose entrepreneurship because I believe I can make a difference. I enjoy the thrill of being able to create something out of nothing.

But not everybody wants to be an entrepreneur – and that is okay. Several people want to work in a corporate environment and build a career. If that is you, pursue it. There are a multitude of jobs with very diverse roles
Regardless of where you are on your journey, keep on walking.

Carlos Monteiro: Give yourself a chance

Carlos (cm@biassa.com), a Brazilian resident of Odense, started his business from a blog known as denmarkbrazil.com. It later became Biassa, a business development company, which under the motto ‘Bringing forth results, not reports’ is focused on supporting Nordic businesses that want to tap into and thrive in the Brazilian market