If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.
An inspiring quote, yet one that rarely works out in the real world.
One entrepreneur, however, was able to not only find a way to do what he loves for a living, but to turn it into one of the most promising companies to come out of Portugal that's raised siginifcant funding and won numerous awards.
Mário Mouraz, like many entrepreneurs, knew early on that he wanted to start a business and had personal interests that would eventually be the inspiration for businesses to come.
After studying Management in Lisbon for his bachelor’s degree, Mário earned a master’s degree in Hospitality Management. He then worked at a number of jobs and internships before diving into the startup scene.
From the time I was at university, I knew I wanted to set up my own company, but I thought that it would happen when I was 32 with kids.
His interests in travel and tourism became the basis for the three companies he’s founded since.
In 2013, he founded Travel with Mario, a website that sold digital travel guides for European cities and provided a blogging platform which aimed to inspire potential travelers. In 2014, he founded Trip Dashboard which aimed to help tourists companies optimize what they offered, using tourist data to make visualizations of tourism indicators.
I wish I had known before looking for jobs the professional areas I would never want to work for. I thought I couldn't because I didn't have experience, but know I feel the best experience you learn it on the go.
Working on Trip Dashboard, Mario had the experience of talking to hundreds of hoteliers, which helped him think of the product for his most recent and most successful venture, Climber.
I understood that they were missing a tool that would price their rooms automatically according to market offer and demand. Such a tool was inexistent or unaffordable in the market for the majority of hotels, so I decided to create it.
Armed with considerable knowledge of the travel and hospitality industry and a strong business acumen, Mouraz graduated from the Lisbon Founder Institute in the summer of 2015, and now his company, Climber offers independent hoteliers that missing tool that Mouraz had imagined.
There’s no shortage of data for hoteliers, but before Cimber, independent hotels would be stuck looking at enormous spreadsheets. Climber is a revenue management software, that takes data from external sources, such as weather, air traffic, online shopping, claims regarding a hotel’s reputation, and cross analyzes it with information from the hotel user, in order to provide - automatically - what to sell and how much to sell it for.
In addition, Climber takes good care of your data by offering a completely secure application using a cloud-based system, and also assures that your hotel's data is seamlessly synced across all devices.
But why are all of these features useful for hotels? Because not only can a hotel utilize Climber’s unique service to maximize revenues, but it also make their business more efficient and competitive while reducing risks and costs, all while providing a 24/7 dedicated team that supports them with hands-on assistance.
Since launching, Climber has experienced much success during its growth and expansion. Soon after forming, the company was accepted into Fábrica de Startups, an accelerator that promotes entrepreneurship to contribute to the development of more and better Portuguese startups with global growth potential, and later pitched at the first ever TechCrunch Lisbon Meetup and Pitch-off. Later, they represented Portugal in the International Venture Academy Special Travel event in Nice, France, and won the category of Tourism in the 9th edition of “Concurso de Ideias de Negócio de Cascais” organized by DNA Cascais. As another sign of the company’s progress, Climber has since raised £77,340 in seed funding from Rising Ventures and Seedrs.
However, while Mario’s success so far is primarily the result of his ample startup expertise, he still acknowledges the invaluable help the Lisbon Founder Institute has provided him during Climber’s formative stages with its unique approach to helping aspiring entrepreneurs bring their ideas to life.
Climber Hotel is my third startup and still I needed a working plan I could follow and would prevent me from making the same mistakes from the past. Founder Institute is exactly that – a fast (and challenging) structured program to help guys (and gals) like me in taking the right first steps to build a successful startup. It saved me months of unnecessary run-around.
And when it comes to giving advice to those looking to pursue business as a career, Mario, as expected from a global and entrepreneurial pioneer, keeps it simple:
Say 'no'. Do everything you want to do and not what your family, friends, professors or partners want you to do. It’s your life. Follow your passion.
