An invite-only community for Entrepreneurs.
The Upside Club is a private community where relationships start and opportunities arise.
We help founders grow through authentic connection. We host in-person lunches, retreats, and topic-specific roundtables sharing valuable insights along the way.
Our members are a new generation of founders who believe in open collaboration over secrecy. We see sharing our learnings, experiences, and challenges as essential to growth.
Everything is real, intimate, and raw. No bullshit. No filters.
Our members run all sorts of businesses
- Unicorn founder doing $100M in annual revenue.
- 2x founder with a business with over $30M in revenue.
- Founder bootstrapping his agency, doing €300k in revenue.
- VC-backed founder trying to find product-market-fit.
- Solopreneur doing €200k per year on her own.
- Founder with a 10 year old company looking to buy out his investors.
We welcome founders with the most diverse backgrounds, years of experience and stages of their entrepreneurial journey.
The goal is that someone just starting out can learn something valuable from someone who runs a €10M+ business (and vice-versa).
André Oliveira
Founder & CEO
Pixelmatters
Isabel Sá
Co-founder
Character Studio
André Albuquerque
Founder
Builders Camp
Guilherme Faria
Co-Founder & COO
Luxclusif
Inês Silva
Co-Founder & COO
TejoMed
Ricardo Carvalho
Founder & CTO
Bloq.it
More about what we do
Lunches
Invite-only 4h long lunches. 14 people max. Founders talk openly about their businesses and we go deep into the problems to help each other candidly.
Taking place once a quarter: Porto (Q2 and Q4) and Lisbon (Q1 and Q3).
Previous: Lisbon, 12th Nov 2025
Next: Porto (TBD)
Retreats
Annual event. Full-day of relationship building and learning with other ambitious founders. Candid conversations and fun stuff. 60-100 people max.
Previous: Porto - 24th January 2025
Next: Mafra - 13th March 2026
What people are saying
Rúben Soares
Co-Founder at ProComps
Ecstatic. 💯 For the longest time, imposter syndrome kept me from putting myself out there...
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João Camarate
Co-Founder at GoContact (exited)
Just left the Upside Club founder retreat and I gotta say that for a first event this was top notch and really packed with great value...
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Jorge Monteiro
Founder & CEO at Ethiack
Yesterday, I was at Upside Club founder retreat, and f*cking hell. This is exactly what Portuguese entrepreneurship needed 🇵🇹 No bullshit. No filters...
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Gonçalo Sequeira
Founder & CEO at Hiire
I felt a kid again because I was learning so much with every single founder on the table. Big thanks to everyone that share their story, struggles and the real truth regarding being a founder...
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Andre Albuquerque
Founder at Builders Camp
This lunch took 4 hours and cost €2.000 per person. Let me explain... Where do you find answers to this, from others going through the same as you? Right. That's why 4 hours isn't even enough.
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Nuno Pereira
Co-Founder & CEO at Paynest
Founders are lonely. Building can be overwhelming, you are always the one accountable - towards clients, towards investors, towards your team. And who can help you? The ones on the same boat - other founders. Spending quality time to speak without filters between us every now and then is a game changer.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Make the entrepreneurial journey less lonely, by connecting ambitious founders and get them to help each other.
It doesn't. We're focused on bringing founders together, not on making money from this. What people pay to attend our events is solely to cover their costs (e.g. if it's a lunch, it pays for the meal and the private room's reservation).
You're expected to share as much as you're comfortable to. The only thing we really ask you to share are some financial metrics, like revenue and profit.
We don't sign NDAs. If you're too concerned about what other founders in the club may do or think about the stuff you share about your business and yourself, then maybe this isn't for you.