377 – How Joao Marques became Portugal's home services market leader in 2 years

A story about turning impatience into competitive advantage.

This episode is for SaaS founders tired of building "professional" products nobody remembers—and anyone wondering if controversy beats convention.

Most SaaS companies fail because they try to please everyone.

They play it safe with every decision.

Joao Marques, CEO of Oscar, took a different path.

He quit his job, built the app in four months, then raised 70K euros to start acquiring customers. Created an on-demand home services marketplace that sends marketing messages designed to provoke action. Became Portugal's market leader in two years—by deliberately risking cancellation with every campaign.

And this inspired me to invite Joao to my podcast. We explore how strategic controversy creates memorable brands faster than perfect products. Joao shares hard truths about focus, growth over features, and why being hated by some customers beats being ignored by all. You'll discover why having your entire company obsess over one metric beats any complex strategy.

We also zoom in on two of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies: – Focus on the essence – Master the art of creating momentum

Joao's story is proof that market leadership often starts by doing what makes others uncomfortable.

Here's one of Joao's quotes that captures his philosophy:

"Just having one goal. My focus, for example, right now, is acquisition and then GMV, so volume in my app. I'm refreshing the dashboard every 10 minutes. Every decision that we make is based on that. Every goal is based on that. Everyone in my team, and we are, like, 50 people, from customer support to senior management, everyone knows GMV on a daily basis.”

By listening to this episode, you'll learn:

• Why building features before growth is startup suicide
• What happens when you do the unscalable things competitors avoid
• When being annoying drives better retention than being nice
• Why one metric beats ten strategies

For more information about the guest from this week:

Guest: Joao Marques, CEO Oscar

Website: oscarapp.com