First Episode With Geoff

Welcome to the ADAPT podcast, a podcast for executive leaders looking to be successful

in the digital age. Get practical tips from successful leaders and listen as digital movers

and shakers talk about how they transformed companies into the digital era. Here is your

host, Luis Gonsalves. Welcome to another episode of the ADAPT podcast. Today I have my good

friend, Nuno Margodinho. Nuno is the CEO and founder of Ouija Labs. Nuno, welcome to another

show, man. Thank you so much for having you here. It's a pleasure to have such a nice guy that knows

how to turn all companies around to the digital era. Thank you very much for the invitation again

and thanks for having me. Cool. Nuno, just for our audience to understand a little bit about yourself

and what you do. Could you please give us a little bit about your background so that we know with whom

are we talking to? Sure. So I've studied computer science and after graduation, I worked for a

company called Wide Dreams here in Portugal for up to a year. And then I moved to Germany where I lived

two years and I was working there for a contractor company for the European Space Agency. After two

years there, I moved back to Portugal and started my current company, which is Ouija Labs. And it's

a digital agency specializing in WordPress development. Within Ouija Labs, we have national

and international clients. We do everything around WordPress. So websites, e-commerce, also

marketplaces, e-learning, everything you can imagine around WordPress, we do it. And we've been

lucky enough to work with some strong brands already. So Forbes, Vodafone and others. And here

in Portugal, we've been part of the team that launched Observador.pt, which is a famous digital

newspaper here in Portugal. And also following that, we launched Echo.pt, which is another digital

newspaper, but more focused on the economic side of things. But as an agency, we're always working with

different clients. Sometimes we're doing a bikini e-commerce shop. And the next week, we're doing

maybe an insurance and also working with startups. So we've worked, for example, with UniPlaces.

We did their first prototype was done with us using WordPress. And then with that, they were able to

win a competition that was happening at the time, which was called Startup Weekend. And after that,

they kind of proved the market a little bit and were able to raise their initial seeds money. And

they're now an international case study. So they threw away the prototype and started the platform

they have now, which is all in-house made, etc. But the prototype served its purpose. And so we have

this experience of running websites with millions of page views like Observador and newspapers. And our

team is developers and designers. Our focus, our core, our mission is really the web. We're just

very passionate about the internet and internet-enabled businesses.

Awesome. So you are the right guy to be in this podcast. So starting with the first question,

so you develop or helped customers to develop a lot of websites for them to be more present in the

digital era. So I want to start this podcast asking you, what is digital era for you?

I think for me, digital era has to do with, you know, the explosion of the internet usage,

mainly through the use of smartphones.

And also social networks at the global scale, you know, and this has resulted in exponential growth for e-commerce and business in general throughout the world, right?

And so the biggest disruptions we're seeing in the traditional businesses are fueled by the digitalization.

And I think what we're seeing is they're impacting the client experience, the user experience.

So I was just now recently chatting with one of my students because I also teach a few classes at the university.

And, you know, we were discussing just how simple it is today, for example, to open a bank account through your smartphone in 15 minutes.

And comparing that with just a few years ago where you had to present all this documentation, you had to go in person, you had to prove you had an address, etc.

And that's all been simplified.

And really the benefit is for the user.

So the client experience, the user experience is being very, very impacted.

And so for me, the digital age has to do with that, through a completely different client experience.

It's just in the way brands communicate with consumers, in the way transactions are made, in the way we relate with brands and companies.

There's just many aspects to it.

But I think the main thing is this.

So you have been helping a lot of companies.

And one of the things that I would love and I always like to understand is, from your point of view, what are the biggest challenges that the traditional business are now facing when the digital age is here?

What do you think that they are the biggest difficulties they will face, they will have to take into consideration in their business?

I think one of the main challenges is just understanding what's going on.

There's so much going on.

There's so much complexity in the world right now.

But if we try to simplify it in a way, I would say what we're seeing is acceleration through technology.

So there's a few technologies that are allowing businesses to accelerate in terms of innovation and just general business growth.

Those are, for me, intelligence, artificial intelligence, but also the Internet of Things, but also blockchain, virtual reality, big data, cloud, API, so many things.

So I think there's a challenge there, which is to just understand what's going on and how to take advantage of that for your own business.

You know, for your own teams.

And in a way, that has to do with how can you become excellent, in a way, technologically excellent, because every business is now also a technological business, right?

But there's obviously some constraints to that.

You cannot, it's difficult to hire good tech talent.

And I think traditional businesses have a few friction in becoming technological in some way.

So, but I think that's the only way forward.

We've seen already the most valuable companies in the world are the technological companies, and that's for a reason, right?

And they've already surpassed all those traditional businesses, industries that we associated with money, you know, oil, insurance, tobacco companies, all of those, the most valuable ones are now technological companies, right?

And so that should be, that gives us a sign of where the world is heading and where we should focus as well.

So help me here.

So if you are a CEO of a company that is not really a technological company, talk about tobacco, you talk about so many other areas.

So if you are a CEO of a company that is not a traditional technology company, what is your advice for them?

What can they start doing in order to bring their organization further?

What's their founder?

to the digital age so that they can adapt and basically survive and nourish in this new era?

So I don't like to be moralizing. I don't like to moralize people. But I think one of the

challenges we have is, well, a little bit here in Portugal, but also in Europe, is many CEOs are

too much into the operational side of the business rather than leaving the operation

for someone responsible for it and thinking more strategically. If you're already doing that,

I think the next step is to really educate yourself on what is happening. And also, I mean,

most CEOs will already be thinking independently and thinking by themselves, which is great. But

also, I think it's very important to continue doing that when it comes thinking about what

technologies to deploy, what channels to explore, etc. Because there's also many information being

stormed at CEOs and companies of where they should focus on. And the problem is when someone tells you

and we've chatted about this before, when CEO tells you, we need to go, for example, we want to focus

in products, right? That's something we hear a lot as well. We want to build a product. Okay, but why do

you want to build a product? And people are, in a way, saying, well, because everyone is telling us

that's the way to move forward. That's the secret, in a way. And so, I think we have to get past that

and think strategically on how we're going to achieve what we plan to achieve. It's not easy. I don't think

there's a formula. There's no trick for it, right? But there's definitely a big opportunity when it comes

to this global market we now have. Do you want a guide to ensure you will not become irrelevant

in the digital era? Download the free ebook, Stop and Adapt. www.adaptmethodology.com slash book.

From your point of view, what are the biggest barriers that executives pose to you in order to

really go into this direction, to go into digitalization, to really thinking a little bit

about all these technologies that you really talked. So, I'm pretty sure that you are trying

to build some really nice websites that are kind of a platform for them or it's a channel for them

to really access to the digital age. But I'm pretty sure that, of course, the ones that come to you and

they ask your help, they are ready in the next level, let's say. So, they understood. But I'm pretty

sure that you encounter as well people that are still not yet at the level that they need to take the

next step. So, I really would love so that you could share with us some of the barriers, some of

the excuses, let's say, that some of your leads, potential customers share with you so that you

could actually utilize or we could utilize that knowledge into our audience so that some people

could say, oops, maybe I'm doing this or maybe I'm doing that. So, maybe I should think in a different

way. Well, something that happens to us is normally when we first talk with clients, they have this

idea of what they want to do, but they're not seeing the whole picture of how it can be. And so,

they're either thinking about a small part like the website, but they're not thinking about their

whole digital ecosystem, what they need to have in place for the website to be an asset for them as

a business asset in this case, right? What we try to do is kind of educate them towards that. Look,

the website is great that you're thinking about this, but there's...

other like cogs on the machine that you need to get working as well so this becomes an asset and

not a liability or or a cost for for just a cost for for the business right yeah because the website

is just a channel right the website is just a small tool to achieve the big picture right it's

not a lot of people think that okay we have a website now we are digital and that's that's

quite exactly far away from the true right exactly so you need all different cogs and you need also

someone that knows how to take advantage of the digital uh of the internet how how it works so

i would say two things where where i think people are are kind of making a misstep somehow one of them

is thinking they know how things are going to pan out how things are going to work you know many times

clients come to us and they say i'm planning to do this and that and when we approach them and say

are you interested in testing that out you know making a prototype see if it converts or not or do

some adjustments normally people many clients at least they kind of refuse that push back and say

no you know we're already convinced this is what we need many times even without having any data but

as humans we're afraid of being wrong you know and people telling us we're wrong and so we get a bit

emotional about that when in fact we should kind of be opened about that we should say actually you're

right i don't have any data to support this yet so maybe that's a that's a good approach if we can

test and see how it pans out or if we need to adjust something and the second aspect is understanding how

the digital marketing side of things will work so besides having the website you'll probably need

either ads or organic seo to bring traffic to your website so the two main channels we have today are

for website traffic our social networks which is a thing right and search engines which 90 percent of

the market is google or more and so we we have to know how to work those two engines very well in order

to take advantage of it and then i think many times as businesses where ceos are doing this a little bit

which is we are not so limited as we think we are so for example as a ceo you might be thinking oh

i have a small structure and we don't have enough resources to maybe work on this new initiative you

know or we don't have enough budget to invest in this new technology or or some other excuse right and so

we kind of tend to get stick on those excuses and many times what's uh preventing business growth is

just lack of initiative rather than lack of knowledge or lack of knowing what to do is more lack of

initiative lack of action at least that's my feeling from my point of view from my customers i believe as

well that a lot of executives still do not see what is coming now with covid i think covid was was a huge

event that happens i talk about this many times and i even say it on my on my latest book that for me

covid it's um it will be remembered in few years as the the beginning of the digital age it's my opinion so

fort was kind of uh named the beginning of the industrial era i truly believe in couple of years

10 20 years or even more people will look back to covid 19 and believe this is the beginning it was

the beginning of the digital era and i have these conversations many times with a lot of people and

i believe that one of the big issues is and i discussed here as well on this podcast a lot of

the executives they are over 50s not all but a lot of

the executives they are over 50s not all but a lot of people and they have these conversations in the

get a lot of access to the checkout so that they talk about the business they have made and

And they're over 50s.

And they did a lot of really good stuff in the past.

Right.

So now it's a matter of for them to kind of relearn everything.

Right.

And the pace that companies were working some years ago, it's not the same pace as we are

working today.

So I think a lot of people are still thinking, oh, we still have time.

We still have time.

But I really believe that I'm very excited because I truly believe that after this COVID-19

is gone, society will really change tremendously.

Companies will change the way how they operate through digitalization.

Ways of working will change and companies will become much, much faster than before.

And the ones that will not be able to adapt, they will simply die.

There's no question about it.

I really think that one of the biggest challenges that organizations face or leaders face is

the fact that they need to relearn a lot and they need to keep themselves quite updated.

And it's not easy because from my point of view, it's not anymore a process change.

It's a completely mindset change.

And those are the hardest ones because what you were doing in the past does not work anymore

in the current scenario.

And basically you need to relearn everything, how you run a company and how you manage everything.

And I think that's, that is extremely difficult, but okay.

We talked a lot about the, yeah, we entered already a little bit into this topic, but we

talk about the challenges and you talked a little bit about the marketing.

You really need to think, and I think marketing, the digital area, it's a completely different

monster.

I would say, but from your point of view, tell me what are the biggest opportunities that digital

digital age gives to leaders and gives to organizations?

For me, the biggest opportunity is just accessing the global markets.

And so if we look at the latest data, let's say, we can see that, for example, Asia already

has, I think, 2,000 million people on the internet, but they're only at 48% of the population.

So they still have almost another 50%, you know, the second half of their population is

not yet connected to the internet.

And so in the next few years, what we're going to see is they're going to add another 2,000

million to the internet.

And if you compare that, for example, with the United States, it's very different.

You have, I think, 700 million people, but that already corresponds to 98% or 99%.

So everyone has internet already and is using it.

So there's not a lot of space to grow there.

But in Asia, in Africa, in other places, there's still a lot of growth to happen.

And we're going to see that in the next few years.

And when you think about that, this is already the biggest market we ever had, but it's also,

it's going to become even bigger, right?

And so I think the biggest challenge is not get trapped by local optims, local maximums,

where, for example, here in Portugal, you also have good opportunities here in Portugal, right?

But it's difficult to say, no, I'm not going to take this opportunity, even though it's good,

because I can see there's a bigger opportunity at the global level, right?

And so there's obviously different strategies to cope with that and to approach that.

But I think it's the biggest opportunity is just accessing that global market and be operating

at the global level.

I actually share, completely share your idea, because this is the reasons why I came back

to Portugal, after so many years being abroad, is because I truly believe that we, our culture

has a tremendous imagination, you know, we see from the discoveries times, was 500 years.

ago, but Portuguese went to the world to explore. Our culture is in that sense, I think we are

adventurers and we have a lot of imagination. So I truly believe we have imagination to do

great products. And for many, many, many years, I heard that saying Portuguese economy is very

weak because our market is very small. Even if I never thought that was an excuse, because if you

think about Sweden and Finland, they are countries with much less, the market is much smaller than

ours. They still were able to do a lot of good stuff, but still today, I truly believe where

Portuguese can really shine away from this small market is using the digitalization and the global

market. And a lot of people is asking me, hey, you come back to Portugal, the market is so small here.

Why did you come back to Portugal? And say, yeah, because I came back to Portugal because of the wine,

food, friends, and the beach, right? Because my entire market is the world and this digital

leadership accelerator that we are starting, it's an example how we are basically creating

all content in English because we actually want to tackle or giving the possibility to be an entire

world. Imagine a very small company accessing the entire world. And I think this is what Portugal can

do as well. We are a very small country, but I truly believe that now we have the imagination,

the culture to be seen as a reference in the world because we are not anymore this small country

here, the last or the first country in Europe, right? So we have the entire world for us to grow

and to leave a mark. Yeah, I think there's a balance to be made because in technological terms

and in engineering terms, we have very good engineers and technical people. And it's funny when I moved to

Germany, I kind of realized this, which was we have so many talents across the world, right? We have

Portuguese engineers working at Facebook, Google, all those major tech companies, which proves we have

good talent. But there seems to be a thing where if the Portuguese go to work outside, they go to work

abroad, they kind of somehow they stop relying or thinking the government has to support them in some

way. And they grow from that. And they expand what's possible. One thing I see is that when we

Portuguese engineers go abroad, we make things happen. And we grow from that.

Yeah, and the support is a bit different in Portugal and outside of countries. I truly believe that the

leadership plays a huge role. And we have great leaders in Portugal, but I still believe that we

have a lot to do in that area. So when we go abroad, and I was an example of 15 years abroad,

when you are abroad, and you get good strategy on what you need to do, then it's very easy for you

to deliver as an engineer. In Portugal, we are very good in what we call in Portuguese,

meaning doing something just to get stuff done. But the strategical part is missing completely.

And that's a tricky part. And this is actually one of my dreams is actually able to bring this

culture, plus the methodology, the systematic way of Germans to do the things because this is something

that I improved a lot myself in Germany, the systematic way of doing things, plus my Portuguese

culture of getting stuff done. It's really good. And this is one of the things that I want to bring

to Portugal. And I think it's fantastic if we would be able to do this.

Let me just add a small thing to that, which is, as humans, we cannot see our own blind spots,

right? We cannot see what we can't see, right?

And so we kind of need someone from the outside to point us at what we're not seeing. And so one of

the things that I think we're not seeing as Portuguese people, especially those that haven't

gone abroad and seen other things and had.

other similar experiences to what we have is that we're as good as the other guys you know

the engineers at google or amazon are not better than the ones we have here and once you understand

that then sky's limit the sky is the limit right the sky is the limit i think i definitely think

one of the problems you mentioned is correct so thinking strategically but also trusting

ourselves knowing what we can do do you want to accelerate digital leadership knowledge

register for the digital leadership accelerator www.digitalleadershipaccelerator.com

tell me something we all went through this covid we are still going through this covid

what did change for you and for your business uh during these crazy times that we are living

did it grow did it shrink what happened to us was when covid started we had a few leads that uh that

went away just because people were you know suddenly with a different focus and and trying to figure out

what was going to happen but also we've seen with some of our clients especially in e-commerce and

in learning they actually grew from this so they started seeing more more orders and more clients

and so they ended up contracting us more or asking us for more allocation and so that balanced

things a little bit and uh and we're a small company right so we're always at the distance of

one client distance of either dying or being very well you know things are are very are stable for us at

the moment we've we have a few good clients that we're working with and i think what what changed

during covid was obviously all communication now is online all the meetings are online all the work

part is also online luckily we already had the processes in place to do remote working so we do

you know daily scrums code reviews etc as a tech company we already had those processes in place that

allow remote work to happen effortlessly in a way so to be honest not much has changed

for us i'm a bit reluctant to say this but apart from that it's business as usual uh you were lucky

to be in the digital business obviously obviously we're so very i'm very grateful for that because

you know many businesses are are struggling at the moment things things are closing and we're just

very very lucky to be on this technology sector which is obviously not as much impacted as as others

cool so i have two more questions for you for this show today what is or what was the biggest lesson

that you received during your entire career that you want to share with our audience i'm not sure if

it's a lesson or or an insight or or how you want to call it but something that uh impacted me was

this one time i was in in germany with with a friend and we were outside actually we were in a

garden and we were practicing martial arts because at the time i was training martial arts and so we

were there practicing and after that we we kind of ended up chatting one with one another he was

actually going through a dark phase he was actually unemployed at the moment a bit struggling

uh what to do next and he kind of had this dark gloom around him in in a way and actually i was

totally in the opposite side i was so happy at the moment very

uh

just had started working by myself. So I was pretty much fulfilled. I was, you know, full of

vitality and energy. And I was seeing everything in the opposite way. I was seeing everything light,

you know, instead of dark. But actually, we were there face to face with each other on the same

place, you know, in the same surroundings, same sunlight, the same people around us, etc.

What struck me was, how can this be? You know, how can two people who are exactly in the same place in

the same environment, both healthy, etc, but so much feeling different things, right? And I think I

kind of understood that it's up to us, in a way to deal with that, right? And we can either,

we're always moving either towards or afar from from that dark and that light, right? But it's up

to us to do that. And so I'm sure if it's a lesson, or like I said, an insight, I think it's important

to always understand where the other person might be at the moment as well. So we always try to do

that. I always try to do that with my clients as well. Awesome. So the last one to close the show,

what is your advice for leaders that are starting their career, or a little bit more specifically for

for this show, leaders that are trying to move their companies to the digital age? What are the

advices that you have for those guys that are struggling, and they are trying to move into this

new world? You know, whenever we try to provide advice, it's difficult to avoid the cliches.

Right? Those common phrases. I think one important bit is, obviously, to think independently and think

for yourself. Something I read recently about Plato, Plato and Socrates, where Plato, one of his rules,

one of his principles for leaders was to avoid what he called doxa. And doxa is all the common sense stuff,

right? What everyone is telling you, you should be doing. And now we have a lot of that. We have all

the gurus online, kind of throwing things at you, different courses, different options, different

people, different ads, etc. So much thing being thrown at us. And we have to, obviously, we have to be

critic of that. And first of all, understanding what we need as a leader. For me, that is just reflecting,

writing, writing, and arriving at my own conclusions. And it's something I'm also learning how to do each

day better. I think that's very important. Because the next step after that is, if you educate yourself,

you can then start to educate the markets. And that's where you become valuable to the market,

right? So you go maybe work for a company. If you're educated, you can educate other people,

and you can elevate the entire organization. And as a CEO, the same thing. If you're educated,

you can, you know, hire the right people to maybe come in and help educate and raise the whole

organization to another level. So especially because I'm a parent, I think I have to say this,

which is, as parents, we cannot educate our kids, if we're not educated ourselves. How can I

recommend a book if I haven't read the book? You know, or how can I explain how to approach life

if I haven't all that much explored life in some way?

And if I would get your advice now, so focusing a little bit on the digital part. So imagine that

I am a guy that wants to start, I'm a very traditional, let's think, let's think about shoe manufacturing or

work.

textile or any traditional business that would like to come to you so i want to go into the

digital era what what the heck should i do where should i start to bring my my business into into

a completely different stage excellent question my preferred approach these days to answer that

question is i would call it scorecard your industry where you look at your industry and

you see when you think of a scale of one to ten and you think who's at one and who's at ten right

which companies are at level one and which companies are at level 10 and then where is mine

where do i fit in that scale at the moment and how do i help clients go from level one to level 10

in my industry what people want is not so different from industry to industry right so as humans we we

have those basic needs of variety certainty growth meaning etc i think the correct answer would be

to hire professionals to work with you and to help you one of the biggest mistakes of companies

trying to do all the transformation by themselves without experienced persons that were able to do

it in the past i think this is one of the biggest mistakes organization do today i mean you wouldn't

hire a personal trainer who's you know who's not fit right and so what i think what distinguishes

professionals is that professionals have achieved the result you're looking for before you have to take

into consideration that that criteria you know you have to ask that question have they achieved the

result i'm looking for i think the summary of it is look for someone that already did it look for

someone that achieved some previous results and get help from them because most probably ever they have

some way that already utilized it in the past to help you and also think where you are in the stage of

your business because if you're going from maybe zero to a better version there's someone that might be

helpful for you to work with right but if you're going from a better version to a commercial version

maybe there's someone else who's who's a better fit if you want to go or if you're looking to grow from

commercial to maybe a remarkable version there's even someone else which is better right so you have

to understand where you are where you want to go as well to look for the right partner okay nunu thank

you so much it was a pleasure to have you here was super nice to get your insights i hope you enjoyed

man and wish you all the best for you and for widget labs thank you so much man have a good one

thank you very much wish you all the best as well thank you wish bye bye thanks for listening to the

adapt podcast head on over to www.adaptmethodology.com slash scorecard to benchmark your ability as a

leader to adapt your entire organization to the digital era you will be able to identify plenty

of opportunities for leveraged growth

you