Born in the Ponta d'Água neighborhood of Praia, Edmir grew up under the care of his paternal grandparents until the age of eight, when in the early 2000s he went to live with his parents, who were emigrating to Portugal.



Now 32, the young entrepreneur told Balai in an interview about his journey in the land of Camões, where he did all his studies until he decided to start a business in the real estate sector and then in the restaurant sector, with an artisanal hamburger restaurant.



"Ever since I was a child, I was sure of the future I wanted and my ambition was to excel in life. I always noticed that financial matters were a delicate subject at home, my parents only invested in what they thought was most important," he says of the reason that led him to dedicate himself to his studies as a way of changing his life.



"I've always been a dedicated student, which earned me a scholarship for higher education. I wanted to do pilotage but, due to limited places, I ended up opting for computer engineering, not because I mastered it, but I knew it was the area of the future," he says, while recalling the first years of study, which he says were challenging, but with discipline, he overcame the challenges and managed to enter the job market before completing his degree.



In 2016, almost finished with his degree and working as a software engineer, Edmir was taking his first steps into entrepreneurial life when he wanted to own his own home and got a loan from the bank to buy an apartment.



"When I decided to get a house, I wasn't looking for an apartment, I wanted a house, but at the time that was all I could afford, so I decided to buy a bigger apartment, with a view to selling it one day. Once that was done, I began to understand the processes of buying and selling real estate, saw that it was a good market and decided to take a chance," recalls Edmir about how he began buying apartments and renting them out to guarantee extra income.



In 2019, with two apartments already rented out, the entrepreneur decided to take a chance on a new business with his ex-partner and together they opened an artisanal burger restaurant, 2660 Sabores, where he acted as managing partner and administrator. As the business grew and more people were hired to join the team, most of them Cape Verdeans, today the business no longer requires daily management.



In the space of two years, Edmir Correia went from managing partner of the hamburger restaurant and real estate consultant to an investor in the business. That's when he decided to "mature the idea" and hire construction professionals to join the team, to carry out the refurbishment work, both on the properties that the entrepreneur buys and also on the properties of other people who accompany him and request his services.



"I currently act as both an investor and a real estate consultant, I buy houses for my clients and do the necessary work for them, but that's not my focus, I buy properties, remodel them and sell them," he explains.



Currently, in this process of buying and selling, which the young man shares online and has gained several followers, the entrepreneur has a total of five houses sold, since lately this aspect has been gaining more of his attention, as he explained in an interview.



"Recently I've been focusing more on that part, because before I only did it for myself and I didn't have the capacity to buy many houses. It was one at a time, because of the processes that involved three months of building work and another three months to complete the sale, it was as if I had two houses a year," he adds, while sharing the goal of buying more houses and carrying out more building work at the same time, since he has his own team.



In general, Edmir Correia currently has three professionals hired in-house and outside professionals when necessary.



In addition to his two businesses, the entrepreneur has been "timidly" exploring the Cape Verdean market, selling sports products, an area that Edmir says he has a "special affection for", since he practiced athletics in a federated way since he was a teenager and for this reason, he says he has always had "a spirit of resilience and discipline" that guides him to this day in his current activities.



"To be clear, sport has been the basis of everything in my journey. That will to take charge and overcome difficulties came from that period as a sportsman," he stresses.



As someone who emigrated as a child to a European country and who today runs two different businesses in Lisbon, Edmir shared a "different view" to when people say that "there are no opportunities in Portugal".



"If there are successful people in Portugal, why can't I try to be? Is the problem only in the country or also in the people? If in your country you're not willing to put in the same effort and work twice as hard as you do in other people's countries, you can't say that you don't have opportunities to achieve success there," he says.



"That's why I advise Cape Verdeans, especially young people looking to come to Portugal, to invest in knowledge and training, or at least make an effort to invest in knowledge, which opens doors for us and later enables us to live with more dignity and be where we would like to be," he adds.



In the meantime, Edmir Correia continues to invest in his business and win new clients, as he says that opportunities for partnerships and business financing are knocking at his door, making him feel "proud of the paths he has taken and hopeful about tomorrow".