Marcelo Lombardo CEO at ERP giant Omie: What no one tells you about building a $100M in ARR startup

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. Today we sit down with Marcelo Lombardo, the founder of Omie, to explore the journey from a seven-person startup to a 1,600-strong team transforming Brazil’s SMB ERP market. We discuss his unconventional path to entrepreneurship, pivotal business decisions like the shift to accountant partnerships, and how Omie became a key player in an incredibly complex and fragmented market.

The list of Omie’s venture capital investors includes the likes of Riverwood Capital, Softbank and Astella.

Marcelo shares insights on building resilient companies, navigating challenging fundraising landscapes, and leveraging M&A to fill strategic gaps. This conversation dives deep into crafting scalable sales processes, balancing growth with cash flow sustainability, and the lessons learned from his fascinating transition from tech to sales leadership. Whether you’re an entrepreneur scaling your venture or an investor seeking the next disruptive play, this episode is packed with actionable takeaways.

We discuss 👇🏻

1. B2B sales playbook mastery: How Omie crafted a science-driven approach to sales that closes 40% of deals in the first meeting.

2. Breaking the VC2G trap: Why raising venture capital to spend on performance marketing is a losing strategy and how Omie escaped it.

3. Navigating Brazil’s complex tax system: How understanding and leveraging local nuances created a competitive moat in one of the world’s toughest markets.

4. The accountant hack that revolutionized customer acquisition”: How leveraging accountants turned OMI into a lead-generating machine.

5. Acquisition as a growth fuel: How Omie became an M&A machine to fast-track innovation and fill product gaps.

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Follow Olga on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Olga is an entrepreneur, venture capital investor, mentor at Techstars and founder at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The J Curve⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Latin America's leading English speaking podcast about tech builders. She's been investing in the USA, SEA and Latin America for over 13 years. Companies she backed include tech unicorn ClassPass (acquired by Mindbody) and Vitalk (acquired by Gympass).