Home / Articles / Sell to the companies that already have the problem: how Algarve Evolution can match businesses adopting AI with the region's service providers, starting when the business has built its own first app

Sell to the companies that already have the problem: how Algarve Evolution can match businesses adopting AI with the region's service providers, starting when the business has built its own first app

By Dinis Cruz · 2026-10-31 · article v1.0.0 · newsroom v0.14.24 · algarvevillagersexplorer-codingsmesbusiness-modelai-adoptionarticle

Abstract: Algarve Evolution wants to match the companies in the region that want to adopt AI with the service providers that can help them. The first attempts at this, everywhere, started with the technology and tried to fit it to a business process. António Guerreiro wants to start with the business problem instead, and I agree. My addition is about when to start: when the company has finished its brief, and the brief is now an app. With AI, anyone who builds a spreadsheet can build an application from it; that is explorer coding, and it is the moment of transition. So the model is this. Algarve Evolution encourages companies, with events, teaching and buildathons, to take their spreadsheets, notebooks and paper processes and build their own mini apps, with tools that exist today and a model they own. They will love them, because they are empowered. Then the apps will break: a change here breaks something there, half the data is deleted, it will not publish, someone else edits it and it falls over. That is a crash course in non-functional requirements: why backups, change control and security matter. And it primes them. The person who built it, often the boss or the most technical person, has a day job, and now five, ten or fifty people need to use it. That is the handover moment, and that is the market for the region's service providers: villager companies that do not sell a solution, or ask what your problems are, but productise what the company already built, robust, secure and scalable, with the model still the editor so nobody is locked in. Once trusted, they can sell everything else.

In short

• Algarve Evolution wants to match companies adopting AI with the region's service providers.
• Start with the business problem, as António Guerreiro wants, and start when the company has built its own first app.
• Encourage companies to build their own mini apps from their spreadsheets, with a model they own.
• They will love them, and then the apps will break. That is a crash course in non-functional requirements.
• The handover moment: the builder has a day job, and now five, ten or fifty people need the app.
• That is the market for the region's providers: villager companies that productise what the company built.
• Do not sell the technology or the problem. Sell to the people who already have the problem.

Start with the business problem

Algarve Evolution wants to match two groups it already knows: the companies in the region that now want to adopt AI, and the service providers in the region who could help them. The talent map is one half of that; this is the other.

The first generation of this kind of matching, everywhere, started with technology: here is a tool, now find a business process to fit it. That rarely works. As António Guerreiro described it to me, Algarve Evolution wants to start from the business problem instead, and I agree completely.

My addition is about when. The right time to start is when the company has finished its brief. And with AI, the brief can now be an application.

The brief is now an app

The power of AI, for small businesses, is that you can go from a spreadsheet to an application. Anybody who builds a spreadsheet can now build an app from it. That is what I call explorer coding: the company explores what it needs by building it.

That is the moment of transition. A spreadsheet, a notebook or a paper process that a business has refined for years becomes a working mini app, built by the people who know the work best, as two participants at the Vibathon set out to do with their checklist. Nobody has to write a specification, because the app is the specification.

Encourage the mess

So the business model starts by encouraging companies to do exactly that, with events, teaching and education: take your spreadsheet and build an app on it. Use the tools that exist today, with a model you own, so that even if any one of them stopped tomorrow, what you built would still work.

They are going to love it, because they are empowered, as I wrote in villager services for explorer coders. And then it is going to break. A change here breaks something over there. Half the data is deleted. It will not publish. Someone else edits it and it falls over.

That sounds like a mess, and it is the point. It is a crash course in non-functional requirements. The people who built the app learn, in the nicest possible way, why backups matter, why change control matters, and why security matters. Not from a consultant's slide, but from their own app.

The handover moment

And then comes the moment that matters. The person who built the app, usually the boss or the most technical person in the business, has a day job. But now they want five, ten or fifty people in the company to use it. They cannot maintain it and do their job, and they know it.

That is the handover moment, and it is when a company is ready to buy. Not before.

The region's villager companies

This is where the region's service providers come in, and their role is important to get right. They are villager companies. At first they do not create a solution. They take what the company created and productise it.

The offer is simple to say. You know all those spreadsheets you made, and the mini app you built from one of them? They are good. Let me productise that for you: make it robust, secure and scalable, so you can keep changing it. And the model stays as the editor, so the company can still change its own app by talking to it, and is never locked in to the provider.

It is not selling the technology. It is not even selling the problem, going to a company and asking what problems it has. It is selling to the people who already have the problem: the companies that built themselves a solution, and a hole, and now need someone to fill it. Those buyers are primed, because they already understand what they are buying.

And once a provider has won that trust, it can sell everything else the company needs.

Who it is for

The market is micro and small businesses, and within them the person who is willing to learn: the one who built the first version. A network of companies can then each do their specific part, from hosting and security to integration and training.

For Algarve Evolution, the shape of the programme follows: events and buildathons that get companies building, a map of providers who do villager work, and a way to introduce one to the other at the handover moment.

What this does not claim

• It is a proposal, from my conversation with António Guerreiro; António's own words are not quoted here.
• The breakage is a prediction, from what I have seen and felt building this way, not a measured result.
• Not every company will build its own app. The model is for the ones who do, and they are the ones ready to buy.
• My interest: The Cyber Boardroom is joining Algarve Evolution and offers villager services.

Where this comes from

• My voice memo of 31 October 2026, word for word in admin/notes/2026-10-31__algarve-evolution/memo-04.md in this site's repository.
• Related: villager services for explorer coders, explorer coding, from a checklist to an app you calibrate, an Algarve talent map, joining Algarve Evolution, software vendors as villagers.

Peer review Not reviewed yet. Review it

Want the next issue by email. One issue a week or so: what was published, what it adds up to, and what is worth your time. Subscribe to the SGit Newsroom →

← All articles