Shauli Zacks
Published on: August 12, 2025
Luis Cordeiro, CEO and co-founder of Bydas, has spent more than a decade helping businesses navigate the fast-changing digital landscape. From launching one of Portugal’s first dedicated digital agencies in 2010 to becoming one of the earliest Shopify Partners in Europe, Luis has built Bydas into a go-to partner for e-commerce, digital communication, and technology solutions. In this SafetyDetectives interview, he shares the story behind Bydas’s growth, lessons learned from working with global brands, and his insights on how AI, strategy, and adaptability are shaping the future of digital marketing and online retail.
Can you tell us the story behind the founding of Bydas? What inspired you to start the company?
Bydas was officially founded in January 2010, but the idea began taking shape a year earlier while I was working as Interactive Art Director at McCann Erickson in Barcelona. At the time, I was collaborating with my friend and master’s degree colleague, Xosé Lustres, with an initial plan to establish the company in Spain. However, given that I’m from Porto and Xosé is from Galicia, we realized Portugal might be a better strategic fit, both geographically and culturally.
The main driver was our desire for independence. We were both working in large agencies in Barcelona, but the high stress and lack of creative freedom pushed us to pursue our own entrepreneurial journey. My personal turning point came when I was assigned to work in Lisbon several days a week. The experience made me realize I wanted a fresh start, so I resigned and returned to Porto. Xosé eventually decided not to move forward with the project, so I invited my brother, José Cordeiro, to join me as co-founder.
Back in 2010, the Portuguese market was still lagging behind in digital communication. Concepts like “Digital Agency” or “Social Media Agency” weren’t widely understood or explored. We saw a clear opportunity to fill that gap and entered the market with a lean, bootstrap approach—heavily investing in SEO to position ourselves at the top of search results for these emerging services. That early SEO investment was crucial: despite being a micro-company, we consistently ranked above large agencies, which helped us secure many new clients.
Over time, Bydas evolved into a more technology-driven agency, expanding into technical areas such as e-commerce and mobile application development, while keeping digital strategy and innovation at the core of what we do.
For readers who may not be familiar with Bydas, can you give us a quick introduction to the company—what you do, who you serve, and what sets your services apart in the digital space?
Bydas is a digital communication and technology agency with a strong focus on e-commerce, content creation, and strategic digital solutions. While we started as a broad-spectrum digital agency, the COVID-19 pandemic marked a turning point in our technological profile. During that period, the e-commerce sector experienced exponential growth, and our long-standing partnership with Shopify—established in 2011—positioned us as one of the oldest Shopify Partners in Europe and the very first in Portugal. As Shopify’s popularity surged over the last eight years, we became the go-to provider for Shopify solutions in the Portuguese market.
In the summer of 2024, we strategically broadened our focus to reclaim ground in digital communication, launching projects like Packnode to strengthen our presence in publishing and investing heavily in AI-assisted content creation for social media. We recognized that artificial intelligence would transform the way agencies work, and we committed to leveraging it to offer faster, more innovative, and cost-effective content production compared to traditional methods.
Today, e-commerce—especially Shopify setup and app development—remains a key service, but we have a strong and growing portfolio in content creation, paid media, SEO, strategic consulting, and branding. We also develop web applications, mobile apps, and websites using technologies like Drupal, which we first adopted over a decade ago and recently reintroduced.
Our typical clients are Portuguese SMEs and Spanish SMEs looking to enter the Portuguese market. As a native Portuguese speaker who is fluent in Spanish, I often manage cross-border communication and strategy directly, which builds trust and ensures cultural alignment.
What truly sets Bydas apart is our flexibility, agility, and speed of response. We don’t just call ourselves an “agency” as a label—we live up to it by being fully in service to our clients, helping them solve day-to-day challenges and equipping them with the information they need to make the best possible decisions.
Bydas was one of the first Shopify Partners in Europe. How has that early adoption shaped your e-commerce capabilities and client relationships?
We have worked on more than 300 Shopify stores to date, ranging from small business setups to major Shopify Plus operations. Our portfolio includes high-profile brands such as CR7 Footwear, Portuguese Mint House, Mr. Blue, and long-term collaborations like our 10+ year partnership with BW Group for the Gianni Kavanagh brand. With Gianni Kavanagh, we had the privilege of supporting their growth from inception to becoming an internationally recognized fashion brand—an experience that was both challenging and deeply rewarding.
Being an early adopter always carries risk, but in the case of Shopify, I was confident it would succeed. From the start, I believed the SaaS model was the future for scaling digital projects, and Shopify’s approach validated that vision. Their decision to offer partners a 20% share of all revenue from the stores they created was a true game changer, attracting a global community of developers and agencies seeking sustainable revenue-sharing models.
This early adoption was instrumental in Bydas’s growth. As we delivered high-quality projects, Shopify began recommending us directly to potential clients—not just in Portugal, but also in Spain and the UK. At one point, even customers calling Shopify’s support line were referred to us for local expertise. This recognition not only strengthened our credibility in the e-commerce space but also opened doors to long-term, trust-based relationships with clients who valued both our technical capability and our understanding of their business goals.
Plenty of companies invest in digital marketing but end up with poor ROI. What do you think most businesses get wrong when it comes to SEO, ads, or content—and how can they course-correct?
In SEO, one of the biggest issues I see is an overly mechanical approach—professionals working from outdated checklists, focusing on optimizations that were crucial a decade ago but bring little value today. Many still prioritize technical elements like perfect H1 structures because “an article said so,” while neglecting high-impact strategies such as building quality backlinks or producing genuinely unique content. These areas require investment—either in time or money—which is why they’re often deprioritized, to the detriment of results.
At Bydas, we’ve always approached SEO with intention rather than superstition. From day one, we chose a short, readable .com domain and strategically targeted keywords like “digital agency”, “social media agency” and “digital communication agency.” For years, we ranked #1 for these terms in Portugal, driving a steady stream of new business. We focused on creating original, value-driven content, generating backlinks, and introducing new concepts to the market—tactics that consistently set us apart in search results.
In paid media, the most common mistake is relying on it exclusively without a parallel SEO strategy. This makes businesses dependent on paid traffic, and the moment they stop paying, their visibility vanishes almost overnight. Our approach has always been to balance short-term wins with long-term stability: use paid media strategically—especially in e-commerce where it’s often irreplaceable—but anchor the overall strategy in sustainable organic growth.
Course correction requires a mindset shift: stop chasing “quick tips” and start building a durable ecosystem where SEO, paid media, and content all reinforce each other. That’s the path to long-term ROI.
Startups and small teams often feel overwhelmed trying to keep up with the pace of digital change. What advice do you give companies who feel they’re constantly reacting instead of planning?
My first piece of advice is: don’t step into the digital world unless you truly understand it. You should be able to develop code, design strategies, and execute marketing actions yourself—or have a partner who can. That foundation gives you independence and resilience.
Secondly, always bring a clear differentiating factor to your clients. Something obvious and easy to understand—otherwise you risk selling “air.” This differentiation is what will make people remember and trust you.
Third, think long term. Too many entrepreneurs treat their business as a short-term vehicle for quick cash, which often ends in burnout and failure. In reality, the early years can feel frustrating and financially challenging, but if you steadily build a loyal client base, over time you create an ecosystem that sustains itself. The key is not to be greedy—trust your instincts, be patient, and focus on building relationships that last.
Avoid chasing every trend, especially those that force constant changes to your workflow. If you’re always switching tools or methodologies because a software update dictates it, you’ll be trapped in someone else’s structure instead of building what works for your business. In our case, we’ve developed much of our own in-house management software, which keeps us independent and our operational costs low.
As for planning tools, the best one is your own mind. Capture your vision on a whiteboard so your team can see it, and document it in your notes. Digital tools can help with market analysis and execution, but they should complement—not replace—your instinct. Without entrepreneurial instinct, no tool will save you.
What role do you see AI playing in the future of digital marketing and e-commerce—particularly for small and mid-sized businesses?
At Bydas, AI is no longer a theoretical concept—it’s embedded in our daily work. We use it extensively across multiple areas: technical support for systems, servers, e-commerce, paid media, SEO; programming, where AI assists in writing and debugging code; and content creation, from text to video to audio. In real-world projects, AI has boosted our overall productivity by at least 30%—and that’s with current limitations requiring human oversight. I believe this number will increase significantly as the technology matures.
In e-commerce, AI has transformed repetitive, time-consuming tasks that once took hours into five-minute processes. This frees us to focus on higher-value activities like advising clients on logistics, payment strategies, UX design, and creative direction. In digital marketing as a whole, AI helps professionals ensure operational completeness, test their work, and gain multiple perspectives on the same strategy—making campaigns smarter and more resilient.
I believe AI will benefit small and mid-sized businesses first, simply because larger corporations tend to adopt change more slowly. This gives smaller players an agility advantage, enabling them to outperform and, in some cases, become acquisition targets for bigger companies that failed to adapt.
In terms of impact areas, I see paid media being almost entirely AI-driven—campaign planning, competitor analysis, budget optimization, and real-time performance tuning will be automated. Marketing teams will focus on setting overarching strategies, developing creative assets, and ensuring brand consistency, while AI adapts and deploys creatives at scale. Chatbots, too, will dominate first-line customer support, evolving into more humanized, avatar-driven, multi-platform experiences.
Search marketing will change fundamentally. AI agents will guide consumer decisions based on personal history and behavioral data, enabling a form of retargeting far more precise than what we know today—reaching not just those interested in a product, but those with a high probability of genuinely wanting it. This opens new opportunities for researching how AI agents interpret and use website content when making recommendations.
Of course, there are risks in AI adoption, but as someone who entered the market at the dawn of the internet—and heard all kinds of dire predictions about it—I’m not inclined to a doomsday view. Just as the internet brought us vast amounts of information, AI will help us refine it, giving people a powerful tool to make better decisions.
At Bydas, we’re integrating AI across our services to improve everything we deliver, while also developing AI-focused offerings. One example is our recently launched Digital Transformation Consulting service, designed specifically to help companies integrate AI into their operations and culture.
