About
The story nobody tells.
I lost €250,000 in two years. Every penny I had saved over 15 years of consulting. Gone.
I was 45 years old. In a foreign country. With no network that could help. Starting from zero.
This is how I rebuilt. And what I learned about the only real safety net.
2005 — 2024
20 years of building.
10 years building for others. Nokia, SAP, Fortune 500s. Learning what makes large organizations tick — and what makes them break.
Then 10 years building my own company. Consulting, training, speaking. 5 books. 50+ organizations transformed across 3 continents. Faculty at Porto Business School.
By every external measure, I was successful. But late at night, staring at another corporate transformation project, I felt empty. I was always helping other companies scale. Watching other founders take the risks while I played it safe with consulting contracts.
I kept saying "someday I'll build my own thing." But someday never came.
2020 — 2023
The fall.
In 2020, I was invited to Saudi Arabia to work with the CEO of the country's biggest digital bank. The kind of opportunity you don't say no to. Then COVID hit. I left.
In October 2023, I came back. This time with €250,000 in savings and a plan to land consulting contracts. Do corporate transformation work like I'd done for 15 years.
The entire country was being built from scratch. The main industry was startups. Nobody wanted digital transformation consultants.
Everything I planned was wrong for the market. I watched my savings disappear. Business setup costs. Living expenses in a foreign country. Marketing that didn't work. Pivots that went nowhere.
I reached out to hundreds of people I'd met during my career. Colleagues. Clients. Conference "friends."
Three people. Out of hundreds. That's how many actually helped.
There were nights I couldn't sleep. The voice in my head asking: "What's the point? You're 45. You failed. It's over."
Late 2024
The darkness.
No safety net. No fallback plan. No one to call at 3am. Complete isolation with the consequences of my decisions.
But something shifted in that darkness. When everything was stripped away — reputation, money, network — I was left with just myself.
Then one of the founders I had mentored in a Saudi accelerator program showed me Claude. Taught me what AI could actually do. The person I had helped was now helping me.
And everything changed.
Early 2025
The gift.
With no money left, I came back home. Back to Portugal. Back to my parents' house. And I picked up where my friend in Saudi had left off — building with AI.
My parents — age 83 — bought me a €220/month Claude subscription because I couldn't afford it myself. They have no idea what I'm building. But they believed in me.
The most expensive lesson of my life — and the most valuable.
That was the last money I was willing to waste. Failure was no longer an option. It was no longer allowed.
January 2025 — Present
The build.
I dropped enterprises and turned to entrepreneurship. FIKR Space. MVP Builder. Unicorn Builder. MACHINE. Software built with AI. Methodologies refined with AI. Everything, with AI.
Not because I'm a genius developer. Because I learned how to make AI build production software. And then I built the methodology to teach others how to do it too.
From nothing to an entire ecosystem — alone.
12 months straight. I sacrificed my body, relationships, mental health. I don't recommend it. But I didn't have a choice.
The only real safety net is the ability to build something from nothing.
What I learned
The only real safety net
What actually matters when you lose everything.
Not your savings. I lost €250,000.
Not your network. 3 people helped from hundreds.
Not your resume. 20 years meant nothing.
Not your reputation. It evaporated when I couldn't pay rent.
The only real safety net is the ability to build. To create something from nothing. To ship. To solve problems. When everything else is stripped away, that's what remains.
The methodologies
3 methodologies. 3 problems.
BUILD — for non-technical founders who want to build real software with AI. The exact system I used to build everything. Now taught through MVP Builder Studio.
SCALEUP — for funded startups hitting growth walls. Enterprise best practices minus enterprise bloat. 7 pillars for scaling from 10 to 100 people. Powers Unicorn Builder.
MACHINE — for service business founders stuck as the bottleneck. 7 pillars based on what worked and what failed in my own consulting business. The system that gets you into the 4% that scale past the founder.
Each methodology was born from a real problem. Each one powers a company. Each company serves a different founder.
2025 & Beyond
4 companies. One ecosystem.
FIKR Space
The startup platform. 7 integrated products replacing 15+ disconnected tools. Startups run operations, accelerators manage programs, investors discover deals.
Visit FIKR SpaceMVP Builder Studio
For non-technical founders who want to build real software with AI. Academy, bootcamps, workshops, and the Exit Accelerator. Powered by the BUILD methodology.
Visit MVP BuilderUnicorn Builder
For Series A founders who need to execute, not just raise. 6-month accelerator with capital and a fractional C-suite. Powered by the SCALEUP methodology.
Visit Unicorn BuilderMACHINE
For service business founders stuck as the bottleneck. Revenue Sprint, MACHINE Accelerator, and MachineOS — the only ERP designed to make its owner unnecessary.
Visit MACHINESometimes you have to lose everything to find what you're really meant to build.
The proof