You know the expression 'that story made a book'. Well, the story of Reason Automobile did make a book — interesting or not, that's already debatable.
We're not going to write a book, but let's enjoy our special « THE BEST OF THE 2011-2020 DECADE » to share our story with you.
How did it all start? Was hard? Did we have it all planned out or was it a fluke? There are many questions that we never answer to you. So far.
Let's answer all these questions and let's revisit some of the moments that marked Razão Automóvel, from our foundation to the present time. Going through the victories and also the defeats of a project that, without false modesty, has been leading the innovation in automotive information in Portugal.
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But, as it should be, let's start at the beginning. In fact, let's even go back a little further. The world has changed so much that we feel the need to contextualize the history of Reason Automobile in time.
The world at the beginning of the last decade
Founded in 2012, Razão Automóvel was born during the boom of the blogosphere and social networks. Simultaneously, the consumption habits of the «internet» were also beginning to change drastically.
It was around this time that mobile phones stopped being "mere" portable phones and began to assume themselves as true consumer terminals for content and entertainment. Since then screen size and processing power have never stopped increasing.
Cell phones lost their keys and we gained a world of opportunities.
All this was happening online
Remember Farmville? I know, it feels like it was in another life. But if you remember, kids and adults were addicted to this game. All of a sudden, the nights of millions of families were divided between carrot farming and soap operas.
At that time it was very strange. But today, no one finds it strange that we are always connected. From 9 to 90 years old, all of a sudden, everyone was online… always! And it was also around this time – late 2010 and early 2011 – that four friends started looking at this reality as an opportunity. Their names? Tiago Luís, Diogo Teixeira, Guilherme Costa and Vasco Pais.
At the same time, thousands of other blogs appeared daily. Even ours.
our opportunity
Millions of people were online and there was no offer for those who liked cars or were looking for their next car. It didn't make sense to us. And the little offer that existed in Portuguese was centered on magazine websites and had no autonomy.International websites were valuable to us, but the so important correspondence with the national market continued to be lacking. It was then that we decided to fill that space.
At this point, it would be too optimistic to say that we had an "idea". We had, at best, diagnosed a “need”. A need that still had no identity, name or structure, but that disturbed us.
The first meetings of the "thing"
If you are imagining a very elaborate meeting in an office, with graphics and Excel sheets, forget it. Exchange these elements for an esplanade, some imperial and good mood.
It was in this context that for the first time we spoke about the possibility of founding Razão Automóvel – which at that time did not even have a name. Now, looking back at Law, Management and Design students, we can say that we didn't do any harm in the plan we outlined for our editorial project.
It was at that time that we decided that it would be a 100% digital project, based on social media and whose website would be the central element. We know that today this formula seems obvious, but I believe that we do not commit any injustice, if we say that we were among the first in Portugal to think about digital in a holistic way.
Finally, in July 2011, after many meetings – those mentioned above – the name Razão Automóvel emerged for the first time. The names in the contest were many, but «Reason Automobile» won.
Our "little" big problem
At this point, mastering the tools we had at our disposal – some of which were brand new – was a huge challenge. As you can see from our academic background, no one really mastered programming or social media management.It was Tiago Luís, co-founder of Razão Automóvel and recently graduated in Management, who took the initiative to try to understand how a website was programmed. A few lines of code later, our first website appeared. It was horrible – it's true James, we have to admit… – but it made us proud.
While Tiago Luís struggled to keep Razão Automóvel online, Diogo Teixeira and I tried to find reasons of interest for people to visit us.
As soon as these two assumptions were minimally fulfilled, Vasco Pais began to develop the design of the Razão Automóvel brand. In less than nothing, we went from a logo that seemed designed by a five-year-old child to an image that today deserves everyone's respect.
The next step of Automotive Reason
To our surprise, a few months after the inauguration of the website, Razão Automóvel was growing at a maddening pace.
Every day hundreds of new readers arrived on the website and thousands of people chose to subscribe to our main social network: Facebook. The quality of our news was satisfactory and the stories we published were starting to become “viral” – a term that was only born in 2009.
That's when we realized that the “recipe” of the Automobile Reason was right. It was a matter of time before we went from hundreds to thousands of readers, and from thousands of readers to millions.
the first road test
Already with a very respectable audience on our website, conquered in just over a year, the first invitations for tests began to appear. Reason Automobile was officially on the “radar” of car brands.
It was a double reason to party. Firstly because we could finally test a car, secondly because it was a Toyota GT86. We had the car for three days, and for three days the poor Toyota GT86 had no rest.
A moment that we took advantage of to show the «world» what we were coming from. We went to the Kartódromo de Internacional de Palmela (KIP), had a photo shoot and filled our platforms with everything we produced on those days. Result? It was a success and was also the first of many hundreds of tests.
From then on, the invitations started to follow. Tests, international presentations, exclusive news and of course, more and more people are following our work.
All thought out. all structured
A little more than a year after Razão Automóvel was started, we started to plan the next steps of our project. One of the secrets of our success was precisely this: we always did everything professionally.
The image that is highlighted is from 2013, but it could have been from 2020. At that time, our size was small, but our posture and ambition were not. Financial or technical constraints are never an excuse for not projecting what we wanted to be.
There were many voices that discouraged us, but the voices that believed screamed louder. We were absolutely sure that if Razão Automóvel continued to grow as it did, it could one day be a sustainable means of communication – this at a time when 100% online publications were still scarce.
It was perhaps the greatest proof of "self love" and self-confidence in our lives. We really believed that the Automobile Reason was going to be what it is today. That alone could justify us working from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm in our jobs and in the remaining hours we still find the strength to push for the Automobile Reason.
three intense years
At this time, the only source of revenue for Ledger Automobile were Google ads and of course… our wallet. Very limited means, which forced us to compensate our editorial project with the only thing that money could not buy: creativity and commitment.
In just three years we were followed by more than 50 thousand people on Facebook and we generated hundreds of thousands of pageviews every month. Always attentive to international trends and best practices, we were the first to develop a 100% responsive car website. It was in these small achievements that we would seek encouragement to continue.
All around us, everything looked the same except for Automobile Reason. As a result of this difference and daring, in just three years we managed to conquer our greatest asset: the confidence of the automotive sector and the admiration of our colleagues.
Our first three years were like that, but things have just started. Shall we continue for the week?