Have Fun, Satisfy Customers, Make Money | Mobileum

I remember like it was yesterday. The year was 2000 and it was a sunny fall afternoon. Rui Paiva and I were in a hotel room near our office, close to my favorite football team, Sporting Clube de Portugal stadium and also very close to Lisbon airport. We were very far from guessing that this location would be so critical to our business, that we would spend so much time in similar places across multiple countries and that a great portion of our expenses would be directed to travel agencies and airline companies.

That day's to do list consisted of writing one new chapter of our White Book⁽¹⁾ and come to a conclusion on what would be WeDo Technologies' mission statement. After tearing down several sheets of paper, we decided to go simple and cut to the essence. The title of this article was the outcome of that afternoon's work. It remains one of the things that has not changed, even throughout our 14 fantastic years of adventure, and we still think portrays WeDo Technologies' heart and soul.

We are a technological company, a software company, but we are mostly a people company, with a large number of dedicated employees that were and will be the basis of all the success we've been showing in the past few years.

It doesn't make sense to be at a company where you are not Having Fun in working. If you are not comfortable, happy and motivated, you will not have success in what you put your mind to. You will not be innovative, professional and dedicated. This is the basis for all, and if this is accomplished, the following steps will come naturally.

We, of course, live to Satisfy Customers and we try to bring our culture, our way of working, our processes and our methodologies, our knowledge to everything we do. By doing so, we will be able to perform adequately and, if possible, exceed our customer's expectations. Consequently we will have a long-standing relationship that will be mutually beneficial.

We of course need to deliver value to our customers, but we also need to Make Money. Money to fulfill all our obligations to employees, suppliers and all interested stakeholders and shareholders.

We shouldn't be afraid to state our mission like it is, and especially to our customers, because we are a company that wants and was created to be long-standing. A company that needs to be profitable to continue to grow, to invest in product innovation, training, knowledge and is financially stable to support our customers for the longest period possible and meet their present and future needs.

I believe the infographic below clearly shows that a large part of our mission principles are being accomplished.

We have been satisfying our customers and the best indicator is the number of customers we've obtained in these 14 years. I should also mention that a large proportion of them have been our customers for extended periods of time, varying from 5 to 10 years, or from inception in some special cases.

We've been making money and the best indicator is our revenue numbers, specially the profitability indicators. We are proud to state that we've never had negative EBITDA numbers in our 14 years of existence. It's a corner stone of our principles and based on clear procedures and methodologies that are in the White Book, written a few months before we had even started the company.

Of course, they evolve and are fine-tuned based on experience and also inputs from our customers and remaining stakeholders. We've also learned from our mistakes. We had the courage to face them and create processes that allow us not to repeat errors and improve our software and delivery capabilities.

We've therefore built a company that is solid and consistent in all of its financial indicators. We are a company, that:

• Looks at risk seriously. We have the conscience that by avoiding and treating them will ensure its survival and the relationships with its customers.
• Honors all its commitments, and whose financial strength is key to fulfilling them.
• Is here to stay and continue to grow, to be profitable and continue to serve its customers.
• Finally, I believe that we are also having fun. I believe that if not, the above wouldn't be possible to achieve.

A special thank you to all WeDo Technologies' customers and employees for making this possible.