The theme of episode #18 of the Empreenda BSB podcast is family business. Brice Filiatre, from Rever (@oculosrever), a handmade glasses brand, and Mayton Campelo, from Brechó do Óculos (@brechodooculos), tell how they managed to develop businesses combining their family's experience and their own personality.

First, other ways

Brice Filiatre, before understanding himself as an entrepreneur, sought other paths. He graduated in Economics in France, practiced his profession and considered changing careers and becoming an actor on the eve of launching his brand. 

He says that, since he was little, he visited the factory with his father on weekends, a habit he repeated during college holidays. “I've always been in the eyewear business, but at the time I wasn't sure I wanted to work with it,” he says.

It was in 2008, when he was working at a multinational in Curitiba, that Brice decided to accept his father's invitation to return to Brasília and work together in the family's eyeglasses factory, which has been producing frames locally since 1982. 

After a few years, in 2016, the Rever project, a brand of handmade glasses, emerged in Brice's parents' factory: “it was a way of being able to do it my way, but at the same time supporting the family project”, says the entrepreneur. 

Mayton Campelo decided to start working with his father when he was left alone in charge of the store, after the divorce, in 2007. “I spent a long time in optics, but I didn't want optics", he recalls. 

At the time, Mayton wanted to work with cultural production. “My father said I had to take over the family business, but I wanted to work with art, with cinema, which was what I really liked”, he says. Therefore, in 2012 he left optics to work in the cultural area.

Two years later, with experience in planning, Mayton found his business opportunity within his father's store: "At that time the optician was 25 years old and I found some old glasses stored there and thought 'there's an audience that will enjoy these glasses' ”, he says. And that’s how Brechó do Óculos, Mayton’s eyewear curation, came about.

Challenges of starting a family business

Both agree that starting a family business has advantages, mainly due to its already consolidated trajectory in the market. However, they confess that there may be conflicts in relationships: “if you want to undertake in the same field. It helps a lot, but there will always be a conflict, because it’s not such a professional relationship, it’s a family relationship”, highlights Mayton. For Brice, it is necessary to know how to differentiate between having a professional attitude, within the company, and experiencing family relationships, when with family. “The most complicated relationships are the relationships with the people we are closest to,” he says. 

The challenge is to find the space to express yourself and express your ideas: “there ends up being a clash of cultures, of generations. But I see that we managed to find our way. I found a way to express myself, to do what I believe in, but still supporting the family business”, says Brice.

Personality in business

For Brice, the time he spent working at the factory with his father was important for him to understand what is important for the brand. As his father always sold his glasses to opticians, he faced the difficulty of showing the advantages of supporting a local business. Problem he turned into a solution.

“That's what I did with Rever: show this family story, local manufacturing, a more manual process, which really matches the moment we're living in, people are valuing the local and the manual more”, he explains. 

Mayton also found a way to unite family history with a passion, as he explains: “my relationship with glasses has always been like this: it was something that was part of my life, I was forced to go into optics because my father was alone , but I didn't want to take over the business. And I always liked thrift stores. So I gathered the old glasses from the store, which has been around since the 80s and had a lot of pieces accumulated from mining, which I love doing”. Today, Mayton already searches for vintage glasses in other stores and brands.

Therefore, the two entrepreneurs agree that it is necessary to put your personality into the business, as Brice concludes: “it’s putting what you believe in, it’s putting your truth”.

To learn the whole story of Brice and Mayton, just listen to episode 18 of the Empreenda BSB podcast , an initiative of the IDP School of Management, Economics and Business.