Enterpreneurship and the cost of a dream | Arthur Dambros | TEDxLaçador

Arthur Dambros, graduated in Business and co-founder of TAG - Literary Experiences, a book signing club founded in 2014 and present in every Brazilian states, presents entrepreneurship seen behind the scenes. The learning that "yes" is much more restrictive than "no" and that the uncertainty is the only thing present in the life of the entrepreneur.

Prior to entering the literary market, Arthur Dambros invested in shares, worked with business consulting and organized the National Meeting of Business Enterprises (ENEJ), an event that brought together 1,500 people around the theme of entrepreneurship. In addition to books, bicycle trips and sports are part of his life.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Entrepreneurship is grandiloquent.

It's almost always stories like,

"How I left my well paid job
and founded my millionaire company."

Obviously those stories are told
by those who succeeded,

looking in the rearview mirror.

Losers or those who simply
didn't get there don't tell their stories.

Or has anyone ever heard about those
who broke their company

and are now working
in a job they don't like?

Very few people would like
to hear this story.

I was reading the book
"The Shop of Everything,"

about Amazon's biography,

it has more than 300 pages,

and at page 20, Jeff Bezos
is already a multimillionaire

and Amazon is already one of the most
successful companies in the US.

And this is unfair, because
it is not what usually happens,

we know that this is not what happens
for 95-99 percent of the entrepreneurs

who try to build something.

But what is the everyday reality

and the entrepreneurship
seen behind the scenes?

I know how it was for me and I'll tell you
a little bit of my story.

Everything didn't start in a garage,
as the legend says;

it started in a library.

And it began with
an entrepreneurial impulse

that I compare pretty much
with an artist's impulse

to create, to compose, to paint.

At the time I was studying Business

and entrepreneurship was
the expression I found to myself.

Expression of what?

Expression of being able to see
that my work influences people's lives;

to create a company with a purpose
a little bigger than just profit -

not that this doesn't have its merit;

I wanted to do what I really love,

to put something I like
into my daily work.

And what I love are books.

Not only books, of course,
but they are one of the things I love.

Gustavo, my partner,
always wanted to have a bookstore,

but he never found a way,

so we met, we discussed

and we came up with the idea
of a subscription book club.

It's a model that already existed,
some of you must know, of beer, of wine,

but there was nothing for books.

But book clubs have always existed,

people come together to discuss,
so we thought the model could fit,

"There's a chance for me
to do something I like,

to work with books and culture,
in a business opportunity."

So, we started with this idea

and a year after the first conceptions

of how a subscription book club
would look like,

we founded, in August 2014,
TAG Literary Experiences,

which is a subscription book club.

And that's how I started
my pathway in entrepreneurship

and the learnings I have to share.

The first one is that it's very difficult.

We all know this, but, anyway,

every learning is a truism that one day
we perceive its truth;

and I realized how difficult it is.

The Brazilian author Rubem Alves

has an analogy in which he compares
the jequitiba and the eucalyptus.

He says that the jequitiba
is a splendorous tree,

with personality,
that takes centuries to grow,

and the eucalyptus, on the other hand,
is planted under a commercial perspective,

one next to the other,
as if they're saluting someone.

And this is a metaphor
that can be understood for innovation.

I always wanted my company
to be a jequitiba, to be different,

to spread my values
and beliefs to the world;

but working with literature -

the literary market
is extremely conservative,

and, after all, we are in Brazil,

it's very difficult to sell something here
other than "Fifty Shades of Gray."

(Laughter)

But we wanted to try

and to know that if one day
Brazil becomes a country of readers,

maybe we have taken part in this process,

maybe not, well, if it doesn't work,
we would do something else.

But the hidden part of this metaphor

is that until the jequitiba becomes
this beautiful and splendorous tree,

it's only a strange and intrusive sapling
in a universe of eucalyptus.

And how difficult it is to be an intruder,

trying to bring your
different idea to the market.

So much so that this is the second comment
in the history of our Facebook page.

We had just launched the company,
we were euphoric, and someone commented,

"Why should I pay 69.90 Brazilian reais
to receive a 1986 book

that by the way I already have,

and which costs 55 Brazilian reais,
and a used one costs only 25?

You promised new authors,
new readings and perspectives

and offered a champion of sales
from almost 30 years?

What's the point?

Just making money from the unwary

or really spreading
the taste for reading?"

Pow! A punch in the stomach.

And it had six likes.

(Laughter)

So he wasn't alone.

(Laughter)

Little did we know
that this would be the keynote

of the next five, six, or seven
months of business,

and that this would be
the preponderant comment

on our first attempts
to bring the idea to market.

We started with 65 subscribers.

We are three partners; if we add
the family and friends of each one,

that's more or less what we get.

(Laughter)

So few people were customers
we didn't know.

And six months later,

we had one hundred subscribers,
almost no growth.

Obviously, I didn't make any money.

In fact, I earned my first wage,
a trainee wage, by the way,

almost three years after
we founded the company.

We wouldn't make money, and worst,
we knew that if we continued this way -

six months had passed,
with one hundred subscribers -

if we continued this way, we'd have seven,
eight months of life, and it would end

because we weren't going anywhere.

And the money I'd saved throughout college
to open my business would end.

And then I'd wonder where love is.

After all, love was one of the great
reasons for me to try to do business.

And I realized something:

when we think about the future,
we don't pay attention to small things,

we don't think about the ordinary details
that make up our everyday.

We think about the great blows,

the moments when we feel proud
of what we've built,

and that's what we want,
what we think about, so we take action.

But we forget that
a 10, 11, 12 hours workday

is made up of small things,
of ordinary things,

like answering to a customer
like that one on Facebook,

trying to promote our brand,
talking to cultural institutions,

setting up a box,
issuing invoices, buying books,

a universe of things that in the end
may lead to nowhere.

And we would do all those things
with great affection.

I remember the first shipment,

we wanted to send a beautiful box,

with our logo, with literature drawings,

but we couldn't buy 1,000 or 2,000 boxes,
which was the minimum order,

we had no money or need for that.

So we made a stamp with the company logo.

And we stamped each box 20 or 30 times

so as to make it look cute
and deliver it to the subscribers.

And we did these kinds of things
not only with the boxes,

but when chosing books, the magazine,
everything that composes the kit,

just to realize, at the end of the month,
that we had no new customer

and that we were
a month closer to the end.

And if it's love,

at least in the early stages,
it is an unrequited love.

(Laughter)

And then I remembered
the story of Roberto Medina,

who had 70 meetings with 70 bands,

trying to convince them to take part in
the first rock event he wanted to create,

and he received 70 negatives.

At the 71st he received a yes,
and today it is Rock in Rio.

And I asked myself two things.

If my 71st meeting would ever arrive.

(Laughter)

I had already had
around 70 meetings, I think. Anyway.

Or, worse, if I would be one
of many anonymous Robertos Medinas.

Those who didn't get 70 noes,
but 80, 90, 100, 200,

and things never happened to them.

The amount of these guys is much higher

than that of Robertos Medinas
who tell their story.

I discovered, another truism,

that entrepreneurship
is a bet you make in the beginning,

and you never know if it will happen.

It doesn't matter how much planning
you've done, you don't know.

And it would be easy to endure the pain
of difficulty for six, eight months,

if we knew that at some point
it would end, in two, three years,

that we would get something good
in return, but we don't know.

To work without clients,

without knowing
if there will be any client -

you may handle this for one day,
maybe two months,

maybe six months,
but then you'll start to weaken.

And I was weakening.

I remembered Amyr Klink;

in the book "One Hundred Days
Between Sky and Sea"

in which he writes
about his entrepreneurial project:

he came from South Africa
to Brazil in a rowing boat.

That was his idea.

Crazy!

Just like any idea of entrepreneurship.

And the worst, he studied many guys
who tried to do this before him

and they all died.

(Laughter)

But he thought he could do it.

And he made a 40-page dossier

where he discriminated
the color of the boat to avoid mosses,

the route he would take, the tides,
the sea currents he would get,

the port from which he'd depart,
the ship's design, sponsors, everything.

And that's how he thought he could do it.

He hit his chest; but then it's time
to put the boat in the water.

And that's the easiest moment,

you're still immersed in your convictions
and thinking that everything will work,

you just paddle,

but then, a month later,
you're in the middle of the ocean.

Then you look forward and see the horizon,
you look to the side, horizon,

look back, horizon,
you don't see anything else.

And then you start having cramps,

some equipment of the boat
are no longer working,

you couldn't meet the goal,
so you're not where you imagined you'd be;

and then you begin to doubt

and the 40 pages of conviction
turn into 40 pages of doubts.

You think your project won't work,

and six, seven months after starting
the company we were feeling like that.

However, I've learned that "yes"
is much more restrictive than "no."

The moment you say no to something,
you move away from it

and you get closer to every other
option, which are infinite.

When you say yes, you move away
from a whole world of possibilities

to cling to the one that you decided.

And this hurts because you give up
not only the life you had -

in the case of entrepreneurship,
of working eight hours a day,

not taking so much work home,
not taking as much responsibility -

but you also give up everything
you could have had,

projects that you could accept,
trips you could make,

that now you can't anymore
because of your choice.

That's me during a bike trip I made.

Cycle tourism is something I love to do.

I rode my bike from Camboriú
to Porto Alegre,

and I'd like to repeat it,
I want to repeat it, I can't repeat it;

because I have no money and no time.

But I will, I hope.

(Laughter)

As the Brazilian philosopher and economist
Eduardo Giannetti says,

"Betting on creation,
in any field of human activity,

is like entering a huge lottery.

The bet has to be paid at the entrance,

and it usually takes the best part
of the hopes and energies of a youth."

I felt this way, with the energies drained

by my dream and by the idea
that I'd like to create.

But there is a poor guy
in whom we put all our hopes,

which is time.

And we think time will change things.

And sometimes it disappoints us.

But sometimes it doesn't.

And our initial stock,
that was at the library, first,

then at my partner's home,

then at a little office
that we managed to rent,

it was a small one, for 65 subscribers;

today it has grown,
as we have 5,000 subscribers.

I'm proud ...

(Applause) (Cheers)

And I'm proud of it
just because I know how hard it was.

And it's not just a numerical issue.

We were three partners
who were just arguing with one another,

because when things don't work,
obviously we just get stressed.

And it's not a relationship issue;

in the context we were
immersed it's pretty usual.

And we are no longer three people,

the team has grown, there are another five
or six people besides these ones.

And seeing our friends working

on something they believe in

and now that it seems
the wheel is spinning,

that's extremely rewarding.

And if we used to talk to nobody,

now we're talking to someone.

So every month there's a flood of messages

from people who receive our box,
even cats enjoy it, not just the readers.

(Laughter)

And the smile of people who receive it,

who now see that it's not just a book
for 69.90 Brazilian reais.

No, we don't want to fool the unwary

who don't know about literature.

That's not why we face
all the difficulties,

it wouldn't be worth it.

So things changed
and this is the goal of TAG

and, after all, I think this should be
a little bit of the goal of any business:

to foster smiles.

And literature is this, the kit is this -

people say that receiving a TAG kit

is like opening
a Kinder Surprise in childhood

or celebrating your birthday every month.

And that's it, discovering
new authors, new perspectives.

And once a subscriber -
this is an emblematic example,

which represents
what we're beginning to do now -

she sent a video to our email;

she spent a month in the hospital
for a surgical procedure, I don't know.

In fact, she had asked to change
the delivery address, we didn't know why.

She asked to have the kit
sent to the hospital.

She recorded the moment the kit arrived,

saying it was the happiest
day of her month.

This represents a little bit
of what we want to bring,

what we tried to bring, and that's why
it was so hard, so difficult -

but today it's happening.

We now begin

to experience and to glimpse a possibility
of reward in entrepreneurship.

Not from everyday, those 11, 12 hours
are not a presentation,

so we pick up the best highlights.

It's hard, it's still hard, but today
we start to see another side,

we start seeing
that perhaps it may be worth it,

it's already worth it.

And if today

the experience that's most alive within me

is the price we pay
for trying to invest in a dream,

I hope that one day I can talk
about the reward that we really have

when going after a dream.

At least that's what I'm looking for.

We have no guarantees, this is not a ...
there is no message in this talk,

or, if there is one, it's a message
that there's no message, neither ...

(Laughter)

neither optimism nor pessimism;
it may work, it may not work,

and this uncertainty is the only thing
that's present in the entrepreneur's life.

Thank you.

(Applause)