#12 João Barros on serendipity, necessity and fearlessness as ingredients for starting a deep tech company

João Barros is CEO & Co-Founder of Veniam, connecting all mobile things – from car to drone to dash cam – to the internet. We talk about what it takes to make that seemingly simple step of connecting moving objects to the internet happen and where this could take us once millions of devices use Veniam. And João knows what he is talking about; having been deeply curious and excited about the future of the internet since the 90s and having an active role in building it starting with 2G and 3G phones.

João has always been driven by his curiosity to try out new things and the serendipitous connections to passionate people that inspired him. We hear his story of how in 2011/12 a lot of those ingredients came together perfectly to build Veniam from the research and IP created at University of Porto. João traces back a lot to a sabbatical at MIT and the on-going cooperation with US universities that fueled his own interest in entrepreneurship with the conclusion that the only way to really learn it is to do it. Serendipity brought him together with his co-founder and necessity in an economically dire situation propelled him to build a company to create a future for his students at the time.

After nearly a decade of building Veniam, we talk about the ups and downs of creating and scaling a company, the scientific method applied to business, making tough decisions and having to let go a third of your company and how to ultimately accept that the saying “the technology is only 5% of your business” might be true although tough to swallow as a professor.