Starting without knowing how
How to open a business after going broke?
Sort out old debts, understand what caused the fall, start smaller and with cash, formalize properly and choose partners well. The lesson is capital.
bairogonzalez.com team, drawing on Bairo's story · Published
After going broke, opening another business looks like madness to those watching from outside and like too much courage to those inside. The fear of repeating the story is great. But whoever has gone broke knows things no course teaches. The secret is to use that knowledge, not run from it.
What to do now
- Put the past in order before the future. List the debts of the previous company and your personal ones. Negotiate whatever you can through official channels (creditors, Serasa Limpa Nome, the Regularize portal of the Office of the Attorney General of the National Treasury, Procon). Open issues can block credit, accounts and contracts for the new business.
- Do an honest autopsy of the fall. What really caused it? Lack of cash, wrong pricing, the wrong partner, a market that changed, growing too fast? Write it down. It's your manual of what not to repeat.
- Start smaller than you'd like. A lean structure, low fixed costs, few long-term commitments. Grow with the money the business itself generates.
- Sell before investing. Test demand with real customers before renting, hiring or stocking up.
- Formalize the right way. Talk to an accountant about the best format (MEI, sole proprietorship, limited liability company) and about how old issues may affect the new company registration. If the fall was a bankruptcy declared by a court, you are barred from running a business until the ruling that extinguishes your obligations (Law 11,101/2005, art. 102); see Can I open another company with a bad credit record?.
- Choose partners more carefully than last time. Values, track record and everything in writing, including how someone leaves.
- Keep a reserve, even a small one. Running out of cash is one of the most common causes of going broke. Protect a cushion for the bad months.
- Get free guidance. Sebrae (0800 570 0800) and entrepreneur groups. And, if fear turns into anguish that won't pass, CVV at 188.
When it happened to Bairo
Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez says he opened a business after going broke more than once. After his partners pushed him out of the cosmetics brand, he went to work in events and digital printing, reinvented himself and built up capital. After the next investment didn't hold, with many people depending on him, he decided to build again, this time something he didn't know how to do.
The first attempt on that new road went wrong. He stayed on the same ground.
Today, he is director of two companies registered in the United Kingdom in 2026 and administrator of the Brazilian company that operates the CEASA Bank brand.
The path
Going broke teaches what no success teaches: where the holes are. Bairo turned each fall into a criterion for the next thing he built. The attempt that worked, he says, was the one that carried all the others inside it. Your next business can be like that: smaller at first, wiser from day one.
Be transparent, too, with the people who will work with you in the new business. Telling them you've gone broke before, and what you learned from it, usually builds more trust than hiding it. Serious partners, customers and investors know that falls are part of business life. What they want to know is whether you learned from them. Show that you did, with facts and with care in every decision.