Peixe Urbano and Start-Up Potential in Brazil

As someone who not only has a deep interest in Brazil, but also plans to move back there (where I lived for a time and where my wife and children were born), I've been watching the economic boom that country is experiencing with great interest. Of course, it could turn out to be another bubble, but I'm hoping it will be more than that. Perhaps the rise of Brazil as a significant world power, able to sustain itself and finally deal with the vast divide between rich and poor within its borders. One very positive sign is the apparently new-found start-up potential there. Of particular interest to me is news that at least one start-up, Peixe Urbano, is hiring talent from outside the country.

Another interesting factoid about Peixe Urbano: They’ve imported a dozen American engineers, product managers and designers. It’s not outsourcing, and it’s not insourcing. It’s something unique, and you don’t hear about Non-U.S. startups hiring and moving Americans to wherever they are very often. Perhaps we’ll see more of this over time. The company has hired people from Apple, Intuit, Tagged, Merchant Circle and other companies.

So if you’re an American techy and you want to get paid (including stock options) to go hang out in Brazil for a few years, you know where to send your resume.

Brazil’s Peixe Urbano Takes “Significant Growth” Round From General Atlantic and Tiger Global (Techcrunch)

Peixe Urbano is a Groupon-style daily deal website, and I've heard from several friends in Brazil about how much they love it. This and other web-based businesses could finally be coming into prominence in Brazil, as more and more homes are connecting to broadband. For the longest time those with any home internet connection at all were depending on dial-up service (remember the 1990s?), but lately that's been changing.

Between my efforts to master Ruby on Rails, my experience in social media and my work as a site producer, I'm hopeful that I may be able to step in and help fill the gap for some Brazilian-based tech company in the not-too-distant future.

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See Also:
Brazil's Boom Needs Talent (Barron's)
Brazil Vows to Connect Internet to Most Households by 2014 (TMCnet)

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Peixe Urbano

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