Bruno, founder and CEO of Outdoor Builders, shares his extraordinary journey from a childhood in Brazil to becoming an eight figure entrepreneur in the United States. At sixteen, he and his eight year old sister were smuggled across multiple countries by coyotes, surviving a sinking boat in the middle of the ocean before finally reaching Florida. Undocumented and without a social security number, Bruno worked day labor jobs at Home Depot, eventually learning landscaping and construction from mentors who picked him up for work. Despite being cheated out of wages and betrayed by a business partner, he built Empire, a construction company that grew to over sixty employees and eight figures in annual revenue, working with NBA players and celebrities. After selling Empire in 2022, Bruno pivoted to technology, launching Outdoor Builders, an AI powered design platform that helps contractors create instant 3D renderings linked to real, purchasable products. His story is one of resilience, faith, and reinvention.
An undocumented teenage immigrant survived a sinking boat to later build an eight figure construction empire and an AI design startup.
Can you give us a quick intro to Outdoor Builders?
I'm building something to help immigrants and everyday people running construction businesses. We created a system that can scale a business from no revenue to six, seven, even eight figures a year using our AI technology. That's basically what I'm doing now.
Tell me where you were born and raised.
I was born and raised in Brazil until I was sixteen. My parents moved to the Bay Area when I was young, so I stayed behind with my six year old sister. Years later my dad said it was time for us to come to America, and that's when the real story began.
What happened when you tried to come to the US?
My dad hired people I'd never met, coyotes, to bring my sister and me from Brazil through Mexico, Cuba, and the Bahamas. My grandma sewed forty five thousand dollars into my pants for expenses. Eventually we crossed by fishing boat toward Florida, and it took twenty one days total.
What was the most intense moment of that journey?
In the middle of the sea our fishing boat started sinking. I was bailing water with a bucket and passed out from exhaustion and stress. They threw cold water on my face to wake me up. It was the most intense moment of my entire life, and I truly thought we were going to die.
How did that experience shape who you are today?
It made me become a man at sixteen. I was responsible for my sister and didn't trust anyone around us for those twenty one days. Since then I've never felt dependent on anyone to figure things out. I learned to handle things on my own because of what I'd already survived.
What happened after you got picked up doing day labor at Home Depot?
A guy named Bill taught me landscaping and construction. I kept learning, laying stones and pavers, connecting with the Brazilian community, and eventually worked as a subcontractor. By twenty I was handling jobs worth fifteen to eighty thousand dollars, all through word of mouth since I had no legal paperwork.
What pushed you to start your own legitimate company?
A contractor I worked for refused to pay me eighty thousand dollars and threatened to call ICE on me since I was undocumented. That moment made me decide I'd never let anyone take advantage of me again, so I found a legal way to open my own business using my tax ID.
How did Outdoor Builders come from your experience at Empire?
At Empire I noticed my closing rate jumped from twenty five to sixty percent when I showed clients 3D designs, but they took days to create. With my engineer Mark, we built AI technology that generates twenty designs in eight seconds, linked directly to purchasable products from manufacturers I already had relationships with.
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