CRM and cashback
Identify customers at checkout, with their consent, and use offers to encourage return visits. Payment becomes a touchpoint for building the relationship.
IVAN FERNANDES / MAQUINONA CASE STUDY
Maquinona.
From zero to scale.
I led and worked hands-on throughout the journey: from the first real processed to approximately R$300 million in monthly TPV. I helped shape the business model — P&L, pricing and viability — and build the product, platform and payments operation.
FROM ZERO TO ONE · AND TO SCALE~R$300 million/month
in total payment volume (TPV)
MEET THE PRODUCT
Maquinona
in action.
A look at the product connecting payments to the restaurant experience.
Interview with Bruno Henriques, COO of iFood and CEO of iFood Pago.
Watch on YouTube01 / THE PRODUCT THESIS
Payments open up
new opportunities.
Three areas help explain Maquinona’s role in the restaurant ecosystem.
Connected operations
Connect payments to restaurant POS systems and the restaurant journey, from ordering to management. 3S and Saipos extend this presence within the dine-in experience.
MY SCOPE
My team helped connect payments to restaurant POS systems. Those products were managed by other teams.
Payments and credit
Connect sales and receivables data to financial services, improving business insight and opening up ways to finance growth.
ECOSYSTEM PERSPECTIVE
Credit is part of the integrated financial services thesis. This connection does not mean the credit product was under my management.
IN THE CUSTOMER’S WORDS
A customer’s view of Maquinona’s impact on their business — Osnir Hamburguer
Watch on YouTube02 / BUILDING THE BUSINESS
From the opportunity to running
a payments business.
Identify the opportunity
Bring iFood’s relationships and distribution to payments taking place inside restaurants.
Strategy and value propositionBuild and validate
Work within the Jetski model: a lean, cross-functional team with autonomy over discovery, the business case, MVP and market fit testing.
Learning and go-to-marketSet up the business
Connect market sizing, pricing and P&L with payment terminals, partners, acquisition and operations. Make the proposition work end to end.
Product, operations and financial resultsPrepare for and sustain scale
Develop activation, growth and ramp-up alongside reliability, efficiency and profitability.
Ongoing operations managementMY ROLE
Connect product
decisions with
business decisions.
I led PMs, Design and Growth and was involved from the start. I helped shape the business model — P&L, pricing, monetization and partnerships — while building the platform, restaurant experience and payments operation.
The work covered both early experimentation and the needs of a running payments operation: activating restaurants, improving the experience and pursuing efficiency and profitability.
03 / THE PAYMENTS PLATFORM
The experience starts before
the transaction and continues after it.
An executive overview of the capabilities involved, from restaurant onboarding to financial management.
- RestaurantNeeds and relationship
- OnboardingSign-up and activation
- SmartPOSIn-person payments
- Payments CoreProcessing
- PartnersAcquirers, card networks and benefit vouchers
- SettlementFunds flow
- Financial managementReporting, reconciliation and portal
Experience
The restaurant journey and relationship.
Payments
Payment acceptance, processing and settlement.
Business
Pricing, P&L and connections to financial services.
Ecosystem
Restaurant POS systems and payment partners.
This flow is a simplified view of capabilities. It is not a technical architecture diagram or a description of the sequence of all integrations.
04 / EVOLVING THE ECOSYSTEM
The dine-in thesis
expanded into new areas.
Maquinona and CRM connect to a broader iFood initiative: bringing together dining, operations and restaurant relationships.
Maquinona + CRM
Payments as a touchpoint for offers, cashback and return visits.
Restaurant POS · 3S and Saipos
Restaurant management and dine-in operations connected to the ecosystem.
Comer Fora
Expansion into customer relationships, discovery, offers and reservations.
These initiatives coexist. This is a strategic perspective, not a technical migration sequence. My contribution was to Maquinona and payment integration; I did not lead the restaurant POS products, acquisitions or Comer Fora.
05 / CHALLENGES & LESSONS
A journey full of
challenges and lessons.
Find the right customer before accelerating
At launch, we bet on a customer profile that wasn’t the right fit for Maquinona. What we learned led us to rethink acquisition and reprioritize the product roadmap.
WHAT WE LEARNED
Validating the right customer is just as important as validating the solution.
Make it happen before everything is ready
In the early days, we operated in founder mode: we stored payment terminals at home, delivered them in person and took the first units to the post office ourselves. Our priority was getting the product into customers’ hands and learning from the operation.
WHAT WE LEARNED
Deciding what needs to be ready and what can be handled manually is part of building from scratch.
Help operations keep pace with growth
As we scaled, platform bottlenecks emerged and approval rates fell short of what we needed. We had to rethink monitoring and operations management to support the higher volume.
WHAT WE LEARNED
Growth also means changing how you operate — what worked at the start had to evolve.
Build the product and the business together
Maquinona required us to connect the restaurant experience, platform, partners, logistics and P&L. Every product decision also had consequences for operations and financial results.
WHAT WE LEARNED
Leading that work means seeing the whole picture and owning the trade-offs across these areas.
REFERENCES