
The Nearshore Cafe
Hear from Nearshoring veterans about what it's like living and doing business in LATAM. Join our hosts and numerous guests from LATAM & the U.S. with interesting real life experiences. This podcast is full of great stories and useful advice on how to navigate the world's most untapped talent market along with travel tips.
The Nearshore Cafe
From Google Sheets to Scalable SaaS: How PayTrack Transformed Travel & Expense Management in LATAM
🎙️ Featuring Pedro Góes, CEO of PayTrack | The Nearshore Cafe Podcast
In this episode, host Brian Samson speaks with Pedro Góes, CEO of PayTrack, a Brazil-based fintech that evolved from startup hustle to enterprise-level execution—growing from 20 to nearly 400 employees, largely without outside investment.
Pedro reveals how PayTrack built an all-in-one travel and expense management platform for medium and enterprise companies, combining travel booking, expense tracking, and corporate cards into a single integrated SaaS solution. The company didn’t just survive the COVID-19 crisis—while competitors saw a 90% drop in revenue, PayTrack’s diversified model allowed them to pivot and support clients through shifting demands, including managing home-office expenses.
We dive into Pedro’s unique founder story, his insights on scaling under pressure, and his sharp advice for startup founders across Latin America.
🧠Key Themes You’ll Hear:
• How PayTrack helps companies modernize expense workflows with an end-to-end solution
• Managing multi-currency challenges across Latin America
• Pivoting during COVID: from business travel to remote expense tracking
• Pedro’s rise from law school dropout to CEO after running seven departments
• Growing a nearly bootstrapped startup before securing a strategic investment from Riverwood Capital
• Navigating Brazilian business culture, taxes (~33%), and conservative venture capital
• Why Blumenau’s industrial roots helped create a thriving local tech ecosystem
• Pedro’s advice: Sales come first. Intelligence and infrastructure come second.
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New episodes feature Latin America’s top founders, fintech leaders, VCs, and nearshore innovation experts. Available on Buzzsprout, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
#PayTrack #LATAMFintech #TravelTech #ExpenseManagement #BrazilStartups #SaaS #NearshoreCafe #StartupLeadership #BootstrappingSuccess
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Welcome everyone to another episode of the Nearshore Cafe podcast. I'm Brian Sampson, your host. First, I want to thank our sponsor, plug Technologies PLUGGtech a great way to connect talent from all over Latin America to growing US companies. If you're interested in the world of fintech in Latin America, especially Brazil, this is going to be a great episode for you. I have Pedro GĂłes, the CEO of PayTrack, and we're going to have a great conversation. Pedro, thanks so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Hi Brian. Thank you for the invitation. I hope we'll have a good chat here.
Speaker 1:So as we let off PayTrack, it's a really interesting fintech that is for the Brazilian market. Tell us more. What does it do? What does the products do? Who is it for All that stuff?
Speaker 2:So PayTrack is an all-in-one solution for travel and expense management right. We help large, medium, large and enterprise companies to spend better their money. So from the beginning when we have booking travel so the hotel, the flights, the car rental from this part to the travel until the last part where you have to do the accountability of the expenses related to this travel and not only travels but also some department spends we also help the companies to control, to manage and to have an easier way to do all of this. As you said, as a fintech, we also provide cards where the company can use to manage and to spend their money. So it's truly all-in-one solution for Brazilian and not only Brazilian but Latin America companies.
Speaker 1:Interesting, so your customer base is expanded outside of Brazil.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, we have some customers outside from Brazil. First, of course, there were Brazilian companies that started to use PayTrack in other parts of the world. As we are helping enterprise companies, this is really common. They have subsidiaries around the world and PayTrack usually is the solution for all the companies.
Speaker 1:Interesting. If I may ask about currency, because it's much more complicated when you have multiple currencies that are in the system and sometimes you have volatility in currency as well. Can you talk about how PayTrack thinks about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually, first of all, PayTrack have to be prepared to work outside from Brazil, so our card solution is able to help companies not only in Brazil but in other parts of the world. And when we think about a currency here, actually we see it more as a problem of our customers, because the Brazilian companies that are traveling abroad to do deals, to provide services and stuff like this, that are suffering a lot nowadays because of the value of our currency, of real, which is our money. So we've seen it. We've seen that the international travels have decreased a little bit in the last year, but unfortunately, the the, the companies have to do their business and they will have to travel again. So it's not that good when you have this thisurrence, you know, as we have in it now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. You know, I'm the first to say I think travel is recovering. People are excited to go to conferences, they're excited to visit customers, they're on a lot more airplanes. How did PayTrack navigate, covid that?
Speaker 2:was very very turbulent.
Speaker 2:First, it's true what you were saying. The companies and people realize that of course, we can do a lot of stuff like we're doing now in a virtual space. This is awesome, but there are a lot of business services that it's really important to be connected with your customer, with your partner, and you will have to travel to be there period. And the companies are coming back and the volume of travel inside Brazil is bigger than it was before COVID. So when we were at the COVID, people started to talk the world will be completely different. Nobody will touch each other again. No, the things are coming back. Companies are bringing their employees to the headquarters again. So we've seen this movement that a lot of things changed, but a lot of things came back to the regular way, the normal way, the way it were before. So this is one point. The second point about your question PayTrack has a really strong solution for expense management, right.
Speaker 2:So during the COVID, a lot of those big companies stopped to travel, but they still had some expenses to be managed. As we are working with big companies, they didn't stop their operations. Sometimes they were not traveling by plane, but they were using cars to get to the customer, to do the service and stuff like that. So of course that we were impacted as a company. Our revenue had some damage, but as we have a good portfolio as customers and their operations didn't stop, they just changed it, we could help them to manage that money in the other way, for example, even home office expenses, right. So people were working from home and they had some resources that the company gave to them and we helped the company to to manage that. With the pay track card, uh, and all the solution.
Speaker 2:Again, we were, we suffered. But if we look to to some competitors I have competitors in one side of the market because I have one side which is travel management on that side my competitors went down 90 percent, eight, nine percent of their revenues. There was no, no revenue stream for them and I had all the expense management and software solution bringing money home, you know. So it was a time where we could even close a lot of big deals. You know, because big companies had a smaller operation, they could change to a modern solution like PayTrack. So, as you could see, I tried to have. Of course it was a huge problem COVID and all the health situation. This is something terrible, but I tried to remember as a business. We suffered a lot here as a company but I tried to have I don't know a good point of view. In portuguese we say to look the the glass.
Speaker 1:You know the glass is full empty or half full.
Speaker 2:You know, I try to to have this half full approach, you know. So that's it yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1:So your, your business, is that a like a sas model, like, uh, monthly per user, is that? Is that generally how you're billing your customers?
Speaker 2:exactly this is. This is the, the first revenue stream, and we've got the second and third one, which is, which are related with the, the, the travel services right that are bought inside of our platform, like the flight, the hotel booking and stuff like that, and there is also a revenue from our card solution. So we have multiple sources which help us to in a problem like COVID, to be more prepared. And of course, once that things got normal we could be fast and grow a lot, lot.
Speaker 1:So that's the story of pay track those years yeah, you know, here in the us, um, you know we'll hear about companies like expensify. You know that are maybe for smaller startups. There's obviously like mx travel and things like that. Um, for most companies that I think are small, that maybe don't even have a software you know they're using like Google Sheets or something to Exactly, is that the same thing, like they graduate from Google Sheets to a company like PayTrack?
Speaker 2:Exactly that's the same thing, and here in Brazil, when we started eight years ago, we found even large companies still using the Google Sheets, excel and stuff like this. So it was a huge opportunity here as a market and we started as an all-in-one platform and now, eight years after, we've seen that a lot of expense management solutions are bringing travel management solutions or card management solutions, and that's a really interesting part of the history that we are living in this moment, which is a market that is transforming, is evolving, and we are looking to this bundle solution. So PayTrack has a good position because from the beginning, the thought was to have all the possibilities inside the platform.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I want to dive a little deeper into your personal career journey, pedro. Super interesting and you know, for those that don't know, you're the CEO of the company but you didn't found the company. So that gives like a really interesting kind of insider, outsider viewpoint and a chance to bring a different perspective to the business. Can you tell a little more about you know how you got into pay track, some of the different roles you've had?
Speaker 2:yes, yes, so well, my story actually starts, um, I don't know, maybe 15 or 16 years ago. I started in a law school here in Brazil a really good law school in Brazil, a university right and after two years I used it to follow some business magazines and you know stuff like this. And I read a book which is called in English it would be something like letters to a young lawyer, letters to a young engineer, stuff like this. And I read a book about a young lawyer which he started his career as an intern and at the end of the life he became a really big lawyer here in Brazil. It's a true story, and the firm that he created was responsible for M&As's big M&A's in Brazil. And when I read that, I saw God, I want to do this, but I don't want to be the lawyer. I want to be in the business side. You know lawyers I don't know if there is some lawyer watching us. Don't take it personal. My father is a lawyer. Sometimes it's not that cool and well.
Speaker 2:So I changed it. I started to study engineering, I went to France, I came back to Brazil and I decided to have my own company, my own startup. Okay, now we're talking about 10 years ago maybe. And well, I created a solution. I got some money and we created a solution to help companies to understand their customer satisfaction. But it was a solution for small companies In Brazil. They didn't have that pain. So I learned in practice the idea of a nice to have product, you know, or a vitamin not a painkiller and that was tough.
Speaker 2:So I stayed almost two, three years in this project. I had just a few customers and I realized that to have my company or to be an entrepreneur in this technology area, I should have more comprehension about really things that the companies have. So I decided to work in other startups that were maybe some years ahead, you know, and that's how I got Npaytrack. When I arrived here we were less than 20 employees. I think I was 15, 16. Okay, and I came here to help the company because we were getting the first customers and there was a guy doing support, there was a guy doing the onboard and I would have to do the customer success right, More or less like that. And I arrived here and the first month they liked me, the founders really liked me and they gave me the support. So I had one person in my team now I'm a leader and the other two or three months I got the onboard team and things were going like this.
Speaker 2:One year later I had the opportunity to to structure the, the marketing and sales teams because from my from the company that I started and PayTrack, I work in another startup, in this meanwhile. In this startup I was responsible for customer success, but I worked with a product for marketing and sales people, right SDR, CRM, stuff like this. So I have more or less knowledge and I had the opportunity here at PayTrack and I stayed almost three years as responsible for marketing and sales and that was the time that PayTrack really could find a growth path, you know. So it was a really amazing job. I did it with a really nice team. The manager that was there at the time is still here Now. He is the director of sales director, right. So I had a lot of good team with me and good people with me and that was an amazing time.
Speaker 2:After Dani, which is one founder and it was the CEO, she put me to solve service problems. Then she put me to solve the travel agents problems. So in five years, I run in I don't know seven, eight areas of the company. I put them all together, I split them, I did a lot of crazy things and at the end of 2023, she invited me to become CEO, as the company was in a how can I say it? It's starting to become bigger and it would be important to have all this KPIs process. All this structure we should be able to put in the other areas to keep growing, you know.
Speaker 2:So that's more or less the challenge.
Speaker 2:So in 2024, my first year as a CEO. We did a really strong job in this part, so putting all the areas in a more professional perspective. And also it was a year that we did an amazing result as sales in this part, so putting all the areas in a more professional perspective. And also it was a year that we did an amazing result as sales and also it was able to get our partnership with Riverwood, so we had a deal with them. They put money in the company. At the end of the year the company always grew quickly and always almost bootstrapped. You know that's our story and now we have more money to really accelerate our growth path. So in in three or four minutes, that's the story, my story, and story of pay track a little bit that I've been able to to participate yeah, now, when you talked about the founding of the business and so interesting as you took it from, you know 15, 20 employees and now we have almost 400, almost 400, incredible.
Speaker 1:Can you talk a little bit more about um the funding to get started? So was it entirely bootstrapped or was there a? Little bit venture money to get it off the ground.
Speaker 2:Nice. So to talk about the funding, I think it's interesting before to talk about the founders, daniele and Edson. They are two entrepreneurs here in Brazil. They are amazing people.
Speaker 2:Edson is the product guy, the ideas. He had this view about all-in-one solution, bring cards, bring travel Eight years ago. Nowadays it's common, but he had this vision there. We have also a strong integration with our customers ARP HR solutions. So that's also a little bit of secret sauce of PayTrack. And Edson brought that from the experience that he had before 20 years in a big ARP solution here in Brazil Okay company. And the other side there's Dani, which is a really saleswoman Wow, a powerful woman. We say, like in Brazil, faca nos dentes, when you put the knife in the teeth, you know and you go there and make the things happen. So these two people decided to abandon their careers in like, in good companies, big companies, and started PayTrack with their own money. So during this time we one one, one small funding right during this time, actually two small fundings, but really small. We all we always had cash flow, you know, but it was more protection from them. They put their money in the game and work it a lot the past eight years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can't imagine how they work. So that's's what happened, and I told you this because what happened last year, you know it worldwide, not just last year, but last two or three years, the venture capital started to realize that not all the projects that have been sold they know we're going to grow seven times, 10 times, 15 times our valuation is 15 times the arr. And you know the crazy thing that happened. It slowed down and there were few good companies in the market and I think pay track was one of them, because we always had a consistent and a relevant growth, always in a more or less break even situation. You know, of course, at the very beginning, the money of the founders, but after a while we could grow with our customers.
Speaker 2:So that was something that it was really good in in the point of view of the, the funding you know. So that's what happened. At the beginning of the year, we we weren't looking for funding, we were let's do our job, we are growing, we have cash. But companies started to approach pay track and I want to understand, I want to know and and at the end of the year we said okay, I think we've got a good partner now it's not only the money, they have knowledge to help us to improve our management. You know, and that's the way we, that's the path we took last year. End of the year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's great. I think all companies, when they have the preference, they want smart money, you know, and advice, connections, infrastructure, all sorts of things. And I wanted to ask you, pedro, just as you've seen probably changes in the last, you know, eight to 10 years in Brazil. You know we've had a few guests on that are VCs and they've talked about the increased opportunity. More funding is going to Brazil. We've had a practical venture capital on. We've had BBC Brazil Venture Capital. Can you talk about, maybe, how that's changed over the last decade and are there more investors? Are there more startups? Nice, what does that all look like, nice?
Speaker 2:Well, brazil is a huge continent, a huge country sorry, it's almost like a continent, you know and which bring us to the fund, the funding groups, bring an opportunity mainly for b2c companies, so that, in my opinion, that's what I've saw in the in the first maybe five years that you mentioned.
Speaker 2:you said about last 10 years if we get the first five years and even even after this, but it was mainly b2c companies, because Brazil is huge, any number that you put in the sheets, it will be a lot of money if it works. So I think that's where the talking about VCs in my weekly experience I'm not so experienced, but in my point of view that's the first part of the story. And then, five years later, it started to achieve more in B2B companies, also Brazil. When we look about B2B companies, it's easier to SMB solutions. So that's another characteristic that we see here in the investment. Paytrack is a little bit different because our product is to medium and enterprise companies. So it's a kind of different approach. And I saw here in Brazil the same thing that happened around the world.
Speaker 2:The last three years that I mentioned before, the VCs started to become more I don't know more worried about high valuations, so the deals slowed down to understand if the opportunities were real or not, you know. So that's, I think, a quick review what happened. And now I've got some numbers worldwide. It seems that this first quarter it starting back to have more, more deals and more money coming from from vcs. Of course that a lot of this is is about ai solutions, right. So? So that's the new trend, that's the new buzzword and the money is flowing over there and we'll have to see what will happen in this next, next, that, that the next chapter of the story. You know, the AI solutions, how they're going to merge with the existing business and how it's going to transform the customer life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, the other thing I wanted to ask you about and maybe this is more like broadly about Brazilian culture is your perspective on risk-taking. You know, like you go to San Francisco and everybody's entrepreneur, you know like they're, you know, going crazy Other side of the world, like Japan. You know it's much more conservative and you know, make the safe bet Maybe if you could talk about for those who've never been to Brazil, you know what that culture around risk-taking and entrepreneurship is like. Really been to brazil. You know what that culture around risk taking and entrepreneurship is like really really good question.
Speaker 2:You know, because when you, when you talk about san francisco and what we've heard here, you went there and you have, or you had, access to money, you know. So I'm not saying it was easy, it's never easy, everybody has a tough job, that's not the point. But it was easier to get money to start your company, to start your ideas, to bring things from the paper to real life. In brazil it doesn't happen like this. You have to first bring to real and have something. Of course there were also cases that people would do good pitches and receive a bunch of money, but that's not the reality here in Brazil.
Speaker 2:Here I see that the entrepreneurs are risk takers, so they are people that really put their money, put their effort, put their careers, you know, in front of everything to start their business, to try to make something great. So that's one point. The second point here in Brazil we have a government that brings a lot of charge, a lot of taxes. It's not easy and if you want to do something really in the formal way, you will have to pay it a lot. Paytrack did it from the beginning, everything in the right path, but it brought to the founders mainly a lot of cash necessities for something that doesn't change the life of the customer. You know it's money that you're giving to the government and the government doesn't help that much.
Speaker 2:I'm not talking about left or right. In general, the government doesn't help that much. So I think that's the second point that we have here in Brazil. We used to say here that the government is like your partner you're associated in the business, you know Wow. It's one partner that you've got, because 30 something percent of your results you have to give to them, so he's associated with your business, you know.
Speaker 1:but he doesn't bring anything, he just collects.
Speaker 2:So that's, I think, the second point. So people who start business in Brazil, they are a little bit crazy, maybe because it's not easy, it's not easy, yeah, it's tough, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's an interesting concept of the silent partner that only collects.
Speaker 2:It's a silent partner.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You're partners. My company is me, Brian, and the government. 33, 33, 33, 33.
Speaker 1:That's it. I can appreciate that analogy. I think that the government 33, 33, 33, 33. That's it. I can appreciate that analogy. I think that's great. Tell us more about so. I'm sure you know there maybe was even pressure at some time during the journey to move the company to Rio or Sao Paulo or even Florianopolis, but you're in a city that not everyone knows about. Can you share more about the location and what's to grow in that city, nice?
Speaker 2:So our headquarters stay here in Blumenau, which is a city in the south of Brazil, near from FlorianĂłpolis. It's a really German city. So we have the second biggest Oktoberfest in the world and it's amazing, Really good. You have excellent beers here and the company started here. Actually, nowadays we have an office in Sao Paulo because we understood that to be close to big accounts, it would be easier, it would be better for the company. So we have 300 employees here, 100 there. That's the proportion and it's interesting.
Speaker 2:Blumenau, it's this place of the state, Santa Catarina State. It's a place where it came a lot of German in the last I don't know 100 years. They are a people that they are really, really industrial people, you know. So they started companies, some companies 100 years ago, companies that made T-shirts, that made bed sheets and stuff like this. Some of the huge companies in Brazil are from here. So as those companies started to grow, they needed some technology solutions for the HR, for the arp, so bloom and now started a technology pool, you know, maybe 40 years ago.
Speaker 2:And now the the people that worked in those in those tech companies tech companies from the other the other time started to create their companies. So edson edson, the founder, is one of that. He worked 20 years in a company that has 40 years more or less, and he started his own company. So it's interesting because we are from we're not from a capital, we are from a small city, but for this story it's a city that we have good tech team talents. Now, to end this part of the story, now we're starting to get some pain points because when we look, for example, some marketing specialists, some product specialists, some enterprise sales, you start to we have to go remote workforce or Sao Paulo or stuff like that, because we are reaching a roof. So that's the story and the point that we are now.
Speaker 1:Sure, sure as we start to close out the show. Pedro, as CEO of a successful FinTech company, as you talked about implementing KPIs things that more mature companies are worrying about what kind of advice would you have for other entrepreneurs, both in Brazil and throughout Latin America, that are trying to build a great company? What are maybe your top two or three pieces of advice?
Speaker 2:Nice. Two or three pieces of advice. I think first of all they will be like maybe common advices, but focus in in sales. Sales is is the first thing that you, you know, have to be looking to. Of course, that you don't have a good product, you will sale, you you'll do the deal and later you have the churn. But it's much. It's better to have this solution and then you will build a better product. Then you don't have sales and you don't even know that you don't have a good product.
Speaker 2:So at the beginning this is the first point you have to go out and make deals period, that's the first thing I would say.
Speaker 2:And after this, understand that sales one part is really you know run and put effort and put energy. That sales one part is is really you know, run and and put effort and put energy. But on the, on the next phase, you have to put intelligence, because you won't be able to to, you know, to go from 10 to to, to 80 or to 50 or to 80. You you won't be able just with energy and and effort. You have to put intelligence, you have to create a structure that will bring you leads, that will qualify them. That will you know. So I think that's the second part, that you reach your roof really soon after you discover the how to do the first sales and, from the beginning, have a good crm, have a good you know structure to understand what's happening in this process. I think that's the point and the other parts of the company you'll be able to solve after you're bringing everything you solve when you have customers.
Speaker 1:I think that's great advice and I think great universal advice. It doesn't matter if you're in Chicago or Montreal or Brazil right and try to start with a good CRM.
Speaker 2:start even you are small. Try to to start, you know, thinking big the sales, because otherwise you're going to stop really soon yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's it. Amazing, amazing. Well, pedro, this has been a absolutely fantastic conversation. I've learned a lot about building a real strong fintech business out of Brazil. Thank you so much for being here today.
Speaker 2:Thank you, brian. Thank you, it was really good.
Speaker 1:Let me thank our sponsor, plug Technologies. Pluggtech Great way to connect talent from all over Latin America, just like Brazil, to growing US companies. Thanks again, everyone. We'll see you next time.