He began with R$30,000 promoting shirts in a Chevette; at this time earns BRL 200 million

At age 17, Raritom Pasquini, 48, borrowed R$15,000 from his father to make shirts and sell to shopkeepers in cities in the region of São José do Rio Preto (SP). Another partner contributed another R$ 15,000 to the business. After stopping so often on the road “to pray, ask for protection, health and good sales”, the brand was named Acostamento. Last year, the company earned R$ 200 million. Profit was not disclosed.

“Even without having a driver’s license at the time, my partner and I would go on board my father’s Chevette through the interior of São Paulo to sell the shirts”, he declares. On trips, they took 400 pieces of clothing and sold almost everything. The partner left the business in 2011.

In the beginning, in 1992, the production was outsourced to small companies in the city — one only cut, the other sewed and the third sewed on the buttons, finished off, ironed and packed.

Two years later, the partners opened their own clothing company in the city. Antonino, Pasquini’s father, also joined the company, leaving in 2019, the year the company was transferred to Itajaí (SC).

In October, the company launched the Vicinal brand, with an investment of R$ 10 million. Today, Pasquini owns the Pasquini Group, which has four companies: Acostamento, Vicinal, Pasqui Fios (production of yarn to knit clothes) and Pasquini Empreendimentos (builder that builds luxury homes in the interior of São Paulo).

Acostamento alone employs 550 direct employees and another 3,000 indirect ones. The brand is in around 4,000 multi-brand stores across the country. There are about 1,400 items.

From oranges to fabrics

Pasquini started working at age 10, in 1984, picking oranges on a farm in the city. The payment was weekly, but already in the first week he did not receive the money. “I never returned. Already at the age of 10, I thought that I needed to do something to earn money, ”he declares.

As a teenager, he worked at a furniture store, was an office boy at a registry office and sold cosmetics. At age 16, he started working in a fabric-by-the-kilo store. There, the owner used leftover fabric to make shirts, and Pasquini went out to sell the pieces in the region.

“Over time, customers began to complain, asking for novelties and more varied models, which the prompt delivery of the tailor at the fabric store did not supply”, he says. It was at that moment that he had an insight to create his own brand with a wider range of products.

It is risky to undertake without financial planning

Wilson Borges, a business consultant at Sebrae-SP, says that Pasquini has entrepreneurial characteristics, such as being persistent and looking for opportunities, but he took a risk by undertaking without having done a detailed business plan.

“Probably at the beginning, Pasquini did not carry out financial, strategic, marketing planning to open Acostamento. This could have been bad for the business, but he knew how to look for opportunities by understanding the customer’s needs. He did the best he could with what he had at the moment,” he declares.

Borges makes, however, a warning for anyone who wants to undertake: it is very risky to do this blindly, without financial planning, investing all the money in the business, as you run the risk of running out of working capital.

The consultant says that a point of attention of the company is the brand’s distribution logistics. “As the company supplies more than 4,000 points of sale, the logistics must be impeccable, to guarantee the delivery of the clothes, and lean, so as not to make the products more expensive”, he says.

Where to find:

Acostamento – https://www.acostamento.com.br/

Source: UOL