About me

I'm Joao, originally from Oeiras, Portugal, now residing in Switzerland. I started early, building websites in PHP and running home servers. By age 14, my entrepreneurial inclinations surfaced as I started renting out game servers for Counter-Strike with a friend, even if it was an immediate failure 🙈

Sports have played a pivotal role in my life, especially rowing and underwater hockey. I've held the title of Portuguese National Champion in rowing and represented Portugal in European Championships for underwater hockey. These days I play squash regularly and walk my dog Canela through the Swiss countryside.

Holding a Master's in Computer Science and over 15 years of professional experience, I've consistently navigated the web development space. 2018 saw my foray into blockchain with Taiga Market. The following year, I initiated Padely in Switzerland, which soon pivoted to Veertly, a virtual event platform built for the pandemic and later acquired by Swisscom. After Veertly, I built Materiality Master, a B2B SaaS tool for sustainability reporting, and I'm currently focused on Buildaloo, a voice-first game creation platform that lets kids aged 5 to 12 build their own games just by talking. My two daughters, Sofia and Maria, are the reason Buildaloo exists. I also write Inside AI Agents, a newsletter about practical AI agent use cases.

I've had the privilege of volunteering in Angola, which greatly broadened my worldview. Today, Switzerland is home, where I live with my wife and our two daughters.

My philosophy is simple: Work Hard, Stay Humble.

Follow me and stay updated as I share how I'm building in this new AI era.