Context
Cidadania Já was dependent on a single product — consultancy for obtaining European citizenship. The risk was clear: immigration laws change, the market is politically unstable, and a single-product company is a single-point-of-failure.
When I joined, Casa Lá Fora existed only as a hypothesis: a real estate brokerage service in Portugal for Brazilians who had already obtained citizenship. Nothing built, no process, no contacts in Portugal.
The Problem
Cidadania Já's client base had a specific profile: people who obtained citizenship primarily to emigrate. Research with that base revealed a pattern — many were selling assets in Brazil to start fresh in Portugal. The problem wasn't just "where to live" — it was doing it safely, without knowing the local market.
The company already had the qualified base. Acquisition cost was nearly zero — the client already existed, already trusted Cidadania Já, and already had the natural next step: arriving in Portugal and needing housing.
The Approach
The product was built in stages of progressive validation — nothing was constructed before confirming real demand:
- Interest landing page — before building anything, we measured real volume of interested people
- Qualifying form — those who showed interest answered questions about financial situation, timeline, and property type
- Automated SDR agent — filtered qualified leads before they reached a human salesperson
- Sales calculator — a tool for the prospect meeting, simulating cost of living, currency conversion, and property options
- Structured handoff — from SDR to salesperson, and from salesperson to real estate specialists in Portugal
Automating the SDR filter instead of using a human for triage reduced operational cost and ensured qualification consistency. The calculator turned the meeting from a pitch into a planning session — making the service concrete and reducing "how will this actually work" objections.
Results
The goal was 3 qualified prospects by year-end. We arrived with nearly 20. ROI on the R$30k invested in paid media was 15x. NPS stayed above 90.
Casa Lá Fora was incorporated into Cidadania Já's service stack and proved the company could launch new products with speed and validation discipline — no large team, no custom tech, just process.
What I'd do differently
Build a more structured onboarding for partners in Portugal. The most painful bottleneck was integrating with the local real estate agency. Mapping that process before the first client would have avoided friction that affected the post-sale experience.
Test pricing earlier. With nearly 20 qualified prospects, there was room to test a higher price point without losing conversion — which would have directly impacted ROI.
Document qualification criteria from the start. Criteria were adjusted through the first conversations. Formalizing them before opening the funnel would have saved sales cycles on unqualified leads.