Rubens Costa

From startups to cities

I build products that move businesses

Product executive building and scaling products across marketplaces, SaaS and platforms

São Paulo, Brazil

Craft

ProductAIGrowth

Business Models

MarketplaceSaaSPlatforms

Industries

EducationHealthMobilityGovernment

12M+

people reached through digital products

6

markets and sectors

+R$23M

savings and efficiency

Great products are built by great organizations. My work is to build both

find the constraint
make strategy explicit
build shared context
design the system
measure the movement

0 → 1

Build the product, the team and the operating logic from a blank page

10 → 100

Scale what works through systems, talent and sharper decisions

+R$23M

Savings and efficiency in public contract management

Bets I’ve made

01 / Caraguatatuba · Technology & Innovation

A city as a platform

i-Gov TI · ExcellenceTCESPA top-tier public governance benchmarkGrade A is TCESP’s highest i-Gov TI classification. In the 2023 statewide results, only 29 of 644 audited municipalities reached it — 4.5%Source · TCESP IEG-M Yearbook, 2023 results
i-Gov TI Grade A recognition from the São Paulo State Court of Accounts

Municipal IT operated primarily as reactive support, without Product, Data or an integrated digital operating model.

Redesign the organization first, then build the governance, products, data and decision layers required for Digital Government.

  • Grade A i-Gov TIreported as the first in city history
  • R$3M+ direct savingsselected digital initiatives
  • R$23M+ broader contract savingsunder the executive mandate
  • +86.6% service capacity
  • 80%+ reduction in SLA times
  • LGPD compliance
  • 16 months to substantially deliver a four-year roadmap

Lead teams, budgets, vendors and contracts across Digital Government, AI, data governance, privacy and security. Connect the product portfolio to public-service outcomes.

Data Lake and Data Warehouse architecture · Executive situation room integrating 10+ departments · 8 internally developed products and 14 executive dashboards; six selected products explored below

Public record
Case chapter
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02 / G4 Educação · B2B / B2C SaaS · Education

Personalizing education at scale

An 18k-user SaaS depended on event-led acquisition, offered less than 100 hours of content and lost 39% of invited users before login by day 15.

Use an AI assessment as the PLG entry point, operate activation weekly with Customer Success and deepen strategic and tactical content to create an acquisition-retention flywheel.

  • +25% engagement
  • +30% visitor-to-lead conversion
  • 39% → 4% users without login by day 15

Lead Product for Skills, a B2B/B2C education SaaS with 18k+ users and approximately 4k daily active users. Connect a cross-functional team, personalized onboarding and AI-powered recommendations to a broader PLG strategy. Results reflect the combined work of Product, Engineering, Design, Data, Sales, Content, Growth and Customer Success.

18k+ users · AI Individual Assessment · PLG and 30-day freemium motion

Case chapter
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03 / Buser · Mobility & Logistics · Marketplace

Scaling without breaking trust

Series C hypergrowth was creating operational complexity faster than the marketplace could observe and coordinate it.

Build a reliability layer connecting marketplace economics, telemetry, real-time operations, partner quality, safety and customer trust.

  • ~R$2.1M in estimated savings over six months~R$80K weekly × 26 weeks
  • >90 min → <15 min incident coordination
  • 80%+ fleet connectedin ~1 month
  • 15+ partner-quality signals

Work at the intersection of the COO, Operations and Product & Technology. Lead the creation of the Logistics Control Tower as a central intelligence platform, helping teams anticipate risks and coordinate decisions across the operation.

Marketplace and route economics · Fleet telemetry and the Control Tower · Incident orchestration and partner quality

Case chapter
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04 / Kintsu · HealthTech · SaaS · Controlled/Compliant environment

Turning demand into repeatable delivery

Kintsu had signed enterprise demand, but Product and operating capacity were not yet ready to deliver it repeatedly.

Build the operating system and scalable Product core required to convert signed demand into repeatable delivery.

  • ~2.6× revenue
  • 2 → 5 pharma relationships
  • 5,000+ patients reached
  • 2× physician engagement

Joined as CPO in January 2024 and expanded to Product & Operations in February. Partnered with the CEO on company vision, team formation and business priorities, with P&L responsibility.

Operating clarity and shared context · Productization and delivery capacity · Pharmaceutical contracts and B2B2C reach

Case chapter
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Speaking & public signals / 7 records

The thinking travels beyond the work

Operating principles

Great product organizations don’t ship more. They learn faster

  1. 01

    Strategy creates constraints

  2. 02

    Talent compounds

  3. 03

    Design is a business advantage

  4. 04

    Data informs. Judgment decides

  5. 05

    AI changes the interface, not the need for taste

Career, compressed

7 chapters. One obsession: building products people choose

  • Caraguatatuba
  • Quero Bolsa
  • Kintsu
  • V4 Company
  • G4 Educação
  • Foregon
  • Buser
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