Kicked off by Chair of the IPBN Board Aoife Healy, the June edition of the IPBN's Member Meet Member (MMM) event began with a warm welcome to members far and wide. As connectivity is the main goal of the network, Healy encouraged attendees to reach out and make connections via the chat function on the zoom platform or through direct emails easily accessed on the searchable member directory section of the IPBN website.

Pedro Henriques, founder and CEO of Bridge In, began the MMM with a short history of his experience as a software engineer and small tech business owner, and continued on to give a brief presentation on the main mission of his company: using tech for the service of people. Henriques' company helps companies scale and expand into Portugal as it is now being more often seen as a burgeoning tech hub. Focusing mainly on tech companies, Henriques offers services to streamline the paperwork process and make companies more efficient through digitized processes, enabling entrepreneurship by adding predictability to the business process. Through building tech teams and offering unrivaled support to businesses both large and small, Bridge In is truly bridging the gap in the Portuguese Tech world. In fact, Henriques, it should be noted, was a keynote speaker at the IPBN's recent Hiring and Investing in Portugal web series earlier this year. In the future, Henriques noted that he hopes to make business dealings more transparent to combat corruption. Fun fact: Pedro is an avid coin collector!

The next presenter at the MMM was Teresa Taveira, Business Director and TA Specialist of Craftable Software, who gave a short powerpoint presentation about Craftable Software— a software house that specializes in systems that require quality, reliability, and scalability in a highly transactional environment. In her words, they "rely on our craft and drive to solve these problems, while enjoying the journey." With two Portugal offices, one in Porto and another in Aveiro, they are able to meet the challenges of technology through their assistance in building teams to take over business development, allocating tech experts, and support using the best cybersecurity practices available, among other offerings. From retail and logistics to fintech and agrotech to healthcare, this software company does it all, and promotes an easygoing environment to software problem-solving with their close-knit team of top-notch developers. 

Anthony Robinson, founder of the new company Loyalty Audit, told attendees that the company is set to launch in September. With over three decades experience working for and with some of the world’s leading B2C businesses, Robinson began by mentioning the big change in data that has been driven by Apple as a hardware and software business to their customer base. Apple, Robinson said, is "drawing a line between themselves and Amazon and Facebook, among others, as companies that track your behavior and have been doing so for years." The critical takeaway is that by building a service that is truly valued, people will be compelled to share their data freely, and Robinson is there to help businesses establish themselves as that trusted party. "Building a direct, transparent relationship with your business' customer base is the most important thing that businesses can do to invest in their future," Robinson said, and his coaching services via Loyalty Audit can help change mindsets within this landscape. The company will offer 30 minutes a day to working with businesses by setting customer loyalty goals and effecting the necessary change toward achieving them.

Founding partners Michael Averbukh, M.D. and Rita Matias from the five-month-old company Serenity Portugal, started by telling attendees a story beginning with the understanding that Portugal offers a good universal medical plan, good hospitals, surgeons, and treatments, and in general, high standards of care. "Let’s imagine you leave the hospital after the consultation: you find yourself absolutely alone." Averbukh said. He reminded us that understanding how to combine prescriptions, find extra help, cope with a medical condition, managing daily errands during recovery, is an issue not covered by the state. Serenity offers continuous companionship and expert care to help people cope with these challenges effortlessly. They are now looking for business collaborators who see the mutual benefit through partnership, and seed investment as sales have begun and systems are fully deployed. He offered to send more information to whoever might be interested in either of the above. 

Claudia Caramelo from Viseeon, an international network of enterprising accountants, was the last to present. Caramelo told attendees that in Portugal, people don’t do budgets and forecasts as they should. Viseeon fires innovation and gives companies and individuals the business language to grow. She stated the importance of having real figures in your accounts and stressed the advantages of planning ahead. To that end, Viseeon has updated the accountancy process, bringing files online in a digital format, as opposed to the older and more common way of working with physical papers and files that can get lost and are impossible to access 24/7. The personalized approach to accounting sets Visseon apart by allowing them to look at the customer’s goals and work accordingly toward the necessary results through accounting, payroll, and more. “We don’t like surprises with taxes! We like to prepare through better planning practices.” Caramelo invited attendees to visit the site (currently only in Portuguese) for more information, stressing that soon, other languages like French and English will be offered there. 

Following the presentations, the floor was open to members to ask direct questions, make connections, and request more information on areas of personal interest. If you or your company is interested in presenting information about what you are offering to the network, get in touch with Arnold Delville at arnold.delville@ireland-portugal.com.