"The way to survive and be successful is to have passion for what you do. Then there's creativity, determination and dedication. And lack of memory. It's very difficult to be an entrepreneur if you remember all the things that can go wrong."
It was a totally different world. Today Genexus (formerly called Artech), the company of Nicolás Jodal and Breogán Gonda, is an Uruguayan multinational with nearly 8,500 clients in more than 40 countries, offices in Brazil, Mexico, Japan and the United States, official distributors in countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas, and more than 100,000 developers worldwide using its tools. The company is recognized as an example of exporting neurons, and Jodal is one of the main exponents of the booming national software sector and a benchmark in the contagion of entrepreneurship in technology. In 2015 it was learned that the Uruguayan software industry, which employs more than 15,000 people, had a turnover of US$ 742 million in 2013, 41% more than in 2011. Exports exceeded US$ 300 million. Uruguay is the main software exporter per person and the third in absolute values in Latin America, with a growth in recent years above the country's traditional exportable products.
A mediados de la década de 1980, Jodal trabajaba en el Banco de Previsión Social (BPS). Cuando en 1984 renunció a ese empleo seguro, y en el que sin duda podría hacer carrera, sus compañeros de oficina no lo podían creer. Su jefe en el BPS, el reconocido ingeniero Breogán Gonda, le había propuesto instalarse en Brasil para asesorar a grandes empresas en proyectos de bases de datos, y Jodal aceptó el reto. Trabajando en consultoría en San Pablo fue que se toparon con una problemática empresarial… y decidieron hacer un programa de software para resolverla. Quisieron vender esa solución pero fracasaron en el intento, y fue así que en 1988 decidieron crear su propia empresa a la que en un principio pensaron llamar Art & Technology, nombre que luego fue sintetizado en Artech. Genexus, «un programa que hace programas», nació en un pequeño apartamento en 18 de Julio y Minas, lo que para Jodal es una muestra de que no interesan las condiciones físicas, sino la convicción y la capacidad de concreción.
Genexus is the first intelligent application and system development tool that allows you to automatically create, develop and maintain cross-platform software, databases and enterprise applications.
A clear advantage is that the applications created with Genexus adapt easily to technological and business changes.
They sold the first copy of Genexus in 1989; by 1995 it was already present in more than 10 countries. It was a real breakthrough, as it was the world's first automated software developer.
Jodal is seen as an example of the new entrepreneurs that the technological revolution demands: creative, innovative, motivator of his staff based on convincing and not imposing.
In addition, he is recognized for working for the development of the Uruguayan technology sector, considering that competition is with other countries in the world and that coordination must reign internally. He shares with his colleagues in the sector the idea of seeing the world as his market; he highlights Uruguay's conditions as an interesting laboratory and the generalist capacity of Uruguayans as a factor that favors their innovative streak. He praises the Ceibal Plan, as he believes that a country like Uruguay should maximize the talent of its inhabitants.
Dice sentir la responsabilidad de ayudar a otros emprendedores a crecer. Es así que fomenta ideas de los empleados de su compañía y los apoya para que puedan crear empresas propias. Pero, además, junto a Sylvia Chebi fundó Thales Lab, una «constructora» de compañías con el objetivo de crear empresas tecnológicas innovadoras.
Thales Lab is one of the youngest support organizations of the Uruguayan entrepreneurial ecosystem, which with a clear protagonism of the National Agency for Research and Innovation has been strengthening and consolidating over the last decade.
This article is part of the special publication of El Observador for its 25th anniversary.
Source: The Observer
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