In itnig’s Podcast #27 Bernat Farrero, CEO at itnig, Jordi Romero, CEO at Factorial and César Migueláñez, Product Director at Factorial speak with Alexis Roig entrepreneur in China about how he got started and the challenges and opportunities he faces on a day to day basis.
Summing up 9 years of living in China in terms of bureaucracy, local partners, recruitment of talented team members, cultural differences and the effects of pollution.
Before moving to Shanghai I was living in France. Little decisions bring you to new places. To me, European culture felt pretty similar once you learn the language. So, after a time in France I was looking for something new, a cultural challenge. And in that sense China, Shanghai really seemed like a personal and professional challenge with huge opportunities for business and technology.
I moved to Shanghai initially working for a French company — and I arrived there without knowing anything. If you have something entrepreneurial in you, China is contagious. It has another rhythm, everybody has another company, side projects. In the first year I started with my own personal project while working at the company.
What kind of projects did you start?
We started out with Food & Beverage products that were innovative at that time. Later I dedicated myself to education, developing collaboration between Europe and China and now lately consulting projects in technological diplomacy. International relation paired with science, innovation and technology.
In general, Chinese don’t cook at home, most people eat out. So we launched a restaurant with mediterranean/ catalan cuisine. Far away from technology, this was a very interesting project.
How do you create business in China?
If you are thinking more about the bureaucratic aspect it’s not easy: As foreigner there is a format to follow, a lot of regulation and norms for taxes and recruitment. These rules for foreigners differ from rules applied to Chinese businesses.
And it’s not just bureaucracy — you need a new approach to everything.
Chinese internet is another world.
You’ll have to think of other ways of doing business — Amazon Web Services, Google Apps, GitHub …. you won’t be able to do business as usual and have to find new ways. When you want to start in China, you’ll need maximum humility and you should look at it as if it were your very first project.
What is the work culture like?
For me as entrepreneur this is probably the hardest challenge. Talent lack, no team work, not much creativity — based in education system. You listen to the teacher but you never question his wisdom. No creativity, no critical thinking, no group work. This education system helps to keep up the system but it also means that China is lacking talent working in new areas of science and technology.
People are only children — this also has an implication on their behavior. In a family there might be six people who are looking after one child, all frustration, aspiration and expectations are focussed on one child. This child receives a look of pressure on what to do in life, whom to marry, where to work, if to buy a house or not…This also affects the way you look at work.
You ask somebody for an opinion — but it’s hard to get an answer.
This is generalizing of course, stereotypes. Now the trend is to bring back Chinese population who left to study abroad, start business or work in laboratory. They know how to move in the Chinese society and have seen the ‘world outside’.
How do you sell in China?
In terms of Internet, the Chinese internet user is very accustomed to buy online. 8 years ago when I arrived to Shanghai, I was surprised! In the subway in the morning everybody around me was buying online through their mobile. At the same time in Europe, we had Amazon but it wasn’t the same thing. I still use my desktop to shop, compare prices and find information about the product looking to buy. And when arriving at the office, the reception was swamped with parcels.
Most Chinese people’s first contact with internet is through the phone. Like in other areas of development, the first product introduced to the market was a phone not a desktop pc.
30 years ago China was a miserable place but now people are dressed with international brand, big cars, use the latest smartphone. The boom of consumer society, deleting the story of the country, religion is the money, the big aspiration is making money, paying a good education for children and finding a high paying job. What’s left of communism is probably only the leading party’s name.
Listen to our podcast to learn more about Alexis’ adventures in developing businesses in China. Learn more in this Podcast in Spanish on our Youtube channel, listen to it on iTunes or enjoy it through iVoox and subscribe to our newsletter to stay always up to date.
In itnig’s Podcast #26 Bernat Farrero, CEO at itnig and César Migueláñez, Product Director at Factorial, talk with Pol Narbona, Product Owner at Typeform about Product Management.
Pol shares his story with us: How he arrived at Typeform, how he started out as a Product Owner and gives us a little overview on how he works with two road maps — Discovery & Delivery — in Product Management. For the whole talk you can view this video on the Dual Track Agile methodology:
First of all, we ask him to situate us and give us a bit of context before we enter in detail into his career path.
What is Typeform?
Typeform is a software for online data collection: forms, surveys, register forms — converting a bureaucratic thing into a conversation. But this is probably just the boring explanation of the produc t— we are really strong in design and user interaction.
How did you arrive at Typeform?
I am from Barcelona and started to study here but then I had the chance to go to the US with a sport’s internship. In the 3rd year at uni I was doing some market research and needed to create a survey, I used Typeform and when I shared the survey the respondents were really surprised. I was studying Business & Tech and when I was finishing uni I started to look for jobs all over Europe. Actually I think Typeform was the only company in Barcelona I applied for. As they did not have any open positions in the Product team I started as Data Analyst, as part of the Customer Success team. Here I came to understand user behavior and I started seeing how the product team works. After a while and a restructuring of the teams, I applied internally for product owner position and here I am now.
I finished my university studies and started working at Typeform a year and a half ago. At that time I was employee #90 if you will and now, 1.5 years later we are about 180 people in the team. I think this gives a good impression of our rapid growth.
How do you work at Typeform in Product Management?
At Typeform we separate ourselves into different product teams, distributed along the User Journey:
Discover (top of the funnel, acquisition, public sites)
Subscribe (user subscription, demo environment to try product)
Conclude (results based work, e.g.integration with partners)
In the Conclude team for example we work in different colonies with Designers, UX, Developers, QA and Product Owners. The colonies give us the info that people working in this colony are focussed on this part of the user journey.
These colonies are not hermetic, we switch between teams, actually it is pretty common for developers to be working on different parts of the funnel from time to time. This allows us to divide the product up in different parts and assign an objetive and metric to each of them.
However, we are changing this again as we discovered that there are lot of dependencies. For example: We wanted to create a user journey for a specific persona but if other teams are working on other priorities there are dependencies that arise. Now we are going for a more horizontal approach to have more context at the moment of working together.
And you said you use Dual Track Agile as work methodology?
Yes, we do Discovery & Delivery in parallel. While the team works on delivery of a tested feature, I can dedicate myself to identify new opportunities that come later.
In general, throughout all teams we work in 2 weeks sprints and with Scrum. We have seen that these are compatible with the Discovery & Delivery Agile roadmap.
Listen to our podcast to learn more about Product Management at Typeform and Pol’s experiences with Discovery & Delivery. Learn more in this Podcast in Spanish on our Youtube channel, listen to it on iTunes or enjoy it through iVoox and subscribe to our newsletter to stay always up to date.
As women are still heavily underrepresented in the startup world, we think it’s time to shed some light on all those amazing female entrepreneurs in Barcelona who are already crushing it. In the beginning of this year we therefore took a close look at the Barcelona startup scene to identify female entrepreneurs who are working on promising tech ventures. Below we’re introducing you to 10 women in tech who we think you should keep an eye on in 2018. Why? Because they are awesome, and working on exciting projects that have a great year/future ahead!
We also asked them to share with us what their biggest business challenge was in 2017 and how they eventually mastered it. Here is our list of promising female entrepreneurs from Barcelona, and some of their insights:
Cecilia Tham is known as an innovation activist in empowering individuals and organizations by building communities to innovate for impact with design and tech. She is the co-founder of multiple companies such as MOB, Makers of Barcelona, a collaborative co-working community, FabCafe, a new concept that brings digital fabrication tools to the everyday environment of a coffee shop. Her latest venture FutureFunded is a crowdfunding platform focused on training the next generation of women in technology. Cecilia is also the founder of MEAT — an agency that enables companies for corporate transformation to innovate with technology.
Regarding her biggest challenge in 2017 and how she mastered it, Cecilia stated: “2017 was a really tough year for us because of many unexpected obstacles and events, from the unbearable noise of the heavy renovation work of our neighbor to the lack of leadership from my own decision to take 3 months off work to attend Singularity University. There wasn’t one major event that was problematic, it was an accumulation of multiple events, one after another throughout the year that had made it difficult. I myself was overwhelmed, but my team of 14 pulled together, each took on different responsibilities and tasks and really tackled every single difficulty that we had to endure, many of which I wasn’t even aware of. There were times when the situation was tense and even conflictive, but the team manage to resolve the issue on their own, something I gleam with pride now looking back. It was a hard year, but it was also the year where we learnt the most and the lesson I came out of 2017 is that perhaps good businesses make money, but great businesses make leaders.”
Helena Torras is the co-founder and CEO of Bwom, which aims to change self-care for women. Prior to that, together with the entrepreneurial team, she lead Abiquo, which she joined in 2007 as shareholder. Abiquo raised more than $28 million in VC funding and established operations in US, UK and Spain. Helena has also invested in more than 8 tech startups through Paocapital, and she is board member and mentor of several startups.
Regarding her biggest challenge in 2017 and how she mastered it, Helena stated: “My biggest business challenge in 2017 was not only one, but 3. First of all, we pivoted from a pelvic floor trainer app to a digital coach. Second, we were just a B2C company and we started to do our first steps on the B2B2C. Third, we adjusted and consolidated our team for the next phase we were facing. We went through it having a full commitment of the team, and with the incredible support of our investors, who not only helped us financially in 2016, but advised us and oriented us regarding the business decisions we had to take. We validated everything and although having big challenges, we divided them in small ones, to keep moving and improving.”
Laura Urquizu is the CEO of Red Points — a technology company that provides a solution for brands and content owners to counterfeiting online and digital piracy. Red Points is the preferred brand protection partner in the sporting, entertainment, fashion, editorial, design and luxury industries, providing unique products across the entire digital spectrum. One of her prior career steps was Capital Semilla, were she was subsequently responsible for the venture capital investments area and a portfolio of 90 investments.
Regarding her biggest challenge in 2017 and how she mastered it, Laura stated: “2017 was a year of aggressive targets, and we at Red Points are super happy to have surpassed expectations! It wasn’t easy, as one would imagine: we managed to grow 350% while staying customer-success oriented (the reason why our a churn rate is still close to zero). And we did all this while hiring and onboarding new professionals that doubled our team to 75 employees. The explanation as to why we were able to master our challenges is simple, teamwork: it wouldn’t have been possible without the true commitment of all our departments. This dedication is the main reason why Red Points has managed to arrive to 2018 as the #1 technology solution in online brand protection.”
Mar Alarcon Batlle is the founder and CEO at SocialCar and Co-Founder at Social Energy. Founded in 2011, Social Car is an Internet based P2P platform where car owners can safely rent their car to their neighbours. It’s the first P2P carsharing player in Spain. Mar is also a board member of Barcelona Tech City, Adigital and a mentor at Conector Accelerator.
Regarding her biggest challenge in 2017 and how she mastered it, Mar stated: “From its origin SocialCar has been a model looking for real disruption on mobility habits. The challenge itself was to make it feasible. After some years of evangelization, the challenge turns into consolidating the business. 2017 has been an amazing year in terms of results. However, the highlight of last year was the shaking impact on the industry. The mobility and automobile industry is finally is shifting to a world of real connected mobility services. Cars are finally seen as a mere mobility tool and not a status asset. Achieving that is a question of patience and perseverance. A long way to run without losing focus. Personally, the biggest challenge is to keep always filled with energy to keep running to improve things.”
Laura Fernandez is the Co-Founder and CEO of FutureFunded. Officially launched earlier this year, the Barcelona-based startup aims to bring more women to tech, by helping them crowdfund their education in renown coding schools. FutureFunded recently completed its first crowdfunding campaign and has already two new campaigns up and running. Aside from running FutureFunded, Laura has more than 5 years of experience as COO of Makers of Barcelona. She’s also a mentor for young entrepreneurs and a tech curator.
Regarding her biggest challenge in 2017 and how she mastered it, Laura stated: “My biggest business challenge has been an inner challenge I would say. To understand and accept that I won’t have the power to have everything under control, that nothing will be perfectly set up and done because a startup is an experimental project 24/7 and this shouldn’t stop you from moving forward. You need goals and objectives, more for your mental health than for the growth of the project itself, because those metrics will probably change every week because of the organicity and the own life of the project, at this very early stage. A startup is not a sprint but a marathon, so you need to keep yourself hydrated and this water is your team, your mentors, your users and the drive that it took you to start this adventure. So you have to take very good care and awareness of this water and your own hydration, to keep running as far as you want to get and this is also up to you.”
Gemma Sorigue is the co-founder and CEO of Deliberry — the online grocery store that delivers your food to your doorstep within one hour. Last year, Deliberry has received about €3 million in funding. Gemma has over 13 years of experience in e-commerce companies. She’s taken part in the startup and growth stages of top online companies like Atrapalo, Emagister and LetsBonus participating in different management positions as General Manager in LetsBonus.
Regarding her biggest challenge in 2017 and how she mastered it, Gemma stated: “Our main challenge in 2017 was to grow in sales while achieving operational profitability. We closed 2017 with +60% in GMV. We have managed to reduce the cost per order by 24%, thanks to technological improvements that allow us to have a more efficient operative. And we have doubled the revenue per order thanks to the new Revenue Stream CPG that we offer to manufacturers. Thanks to this, since Q2 we are in a positive unit economic and growing in sales.”
Carlota Pi Amoros is the co-founder and Executive President of Holaluz — a new generation energy company solely for 100% renewable green energy. The Barcelona-based company was founded in 2010 and was able to raise more than €12 million in funding. At Holaluz, Carlota is focusing on Strategy, Marketing and Fundraising. Aside from that, she’s a professor at the Universidad de Barcelona and the mother of three girls.
Diana Moret is the CEO and founder at PANDORAHUB, a Barcelona-based company which is accelerating growth stage startups in villages and rural areas. She started as social entrepreneur at the age of 25 founding the NGO which organized the DJs Against Hunger Festival (a charity electronic music festival) and the PACAS courses (Cultural Activities Program for Social Action). As a social innovation consultant she also designed and created the amusement charity campaign for families One Red Nose Day.
Beatriz Amilibia is the COO of SocialPay, which operates the two payment solutions Marketpay.io and Lemonpay. Marketpay enables escrow payments in the sharing economy, and provides a safe, immutable, double ledger API for marketplaces and e-commerce. Lemonpay enables individuals to trade (buy/sell) safely with each other. Before focusing on SocialPay in 2016, Beatriz founded another company called tuMédico.es.
Cristina Galán is the Co Founder and Managing Director of LOYALTIO is a tech company that leads the digital transformation of businesses and public institutions, offering end-to-end products and solutions, provides development, and offers consultancy services. Founded in 2014, LOYALTIO aims to become the loyal tech partner you need to make your digital projects come true. Prior to LOYALTIO, Cristina co-founded other companies like Bitcarrier and Profitail.
In itnig’s Podcast #25 Bernat Farrero, CEO at itnig, talks with Javier Llorente, an old friend of itnig and investor of itnig and Quipu & Camaloon investor about how he became a professional investor from scratch.
For this Podcast #25 Bernat Farrero, CEO at itnig and Javier Llorente come together to talk about the beginning of his career, the founding of Grupo Intercom and subsequent investments.
Javier is a professional investor, the European Found of Investment (who invests alongside Javier) names him the most active investor in Spain with more than 40 investments. We talk with him about his beginnings?
Javier, how did you start?
I started working when I was 14 years old to contribute to my family’s economy. When I 16 years old I joined the Banco Vizcaya even before it fused to become BBVA. However it was not a job I liked, the days were long and it was boring to me. (Actually I studied clinical psychology but have never practiced).
It was at a time where you said: ‘Internet — what’s that?’
How did you start working with Antonio González-Barros?
When I left the bank I started working in a school focussed on technology. Antonio was the neighbour of the school were I worked and that’s how we were introduced. Antonio was introduced to Axel Serena, a youngster at that time who had lived in the USA and was the first to tell us about Internet. He told us about Internet at a time when in France people were using Minitel.
In May 1995 we founded Intercom as internet provider. Antonio brought together 30 friends, who were all fascinated by email.
In 2000, before the crisis started, Intercom was bought as one of 10 Internet providers but in these past five years other than the Internet provider we had started different classified sites like Softonic of Infojobs.
On Infojobs uploading your CV was free but the companies publishing job offers were paying for the service. After the first three offers we had different ad packages for companies. Monster, leader on the US market, spent an enormous amount of money on the market but there was not much they could do. Infojobs kept growing and became a monopoly.
From then on this was our success at the new Grupo Intercom: To achieve that these classified sites converted into leaders in their category. Softonic for Software, Infojobs for the job market and later on Emagister.
Did you start investing after selling Intercom STA (Servicios Telemáticos Avanzados), the Internet provider?
Yes, we invested in new businesses, some went well others didn’t. There were some business models that had worked in the past but were hard to replicate in 2008/2009.
I remember that in ten years 1999 to 2009 the value of a participation in Infojobs grew from 100 to 3124.8 Euro. in 1999 the 100 were pesetas in 2009, the 3000 were Euro. This is really hard to replicate.
What are you looking for in an entrepreneur for you to invest?
Excel sheets adapt to anything but what really counts is the person.
When you meet somebody, you see the enthusiasm, you connect on a personal level. I am looking for honesty, somebody who is engaged and is hard working. For me the important factor is the team and the entrepreneur who manages it.
I think we invest emotionally and then we rationalize.
Is it important for you to know who invests? Do you lead or co-invest?
I have been in both positions. It’s good to know who else is investing and to be able to exchange opinions. It’s important but not determinant, it’s not a sure fire rule.
Actually I think there are no rules, you kind of improvise.
As a psychologist, what is the profile of entrepreneur you are looking for?
Firstly, the attitude is more important than aptitude. With attitude alone you cannot work of course but for me attitude comes first and then the capacity to create what you want, to learn what you set yourself.
Listen to our podcast to learn more about Grupo Intercom’s beginning and development story. Learn more in this Podcast in Spanish on our Youtube channel, listen to it on iTunes or enjoy it through iVoox and subscribe to our newsletter to stay always up to date.
EU-Startups.com, one of Europe’s leading startup publications, just moved into the itnig co-working space
With the start of the new year we are opening up our 5th floor as a co-working space to welcome talented individuals and promising startups to join us! Earlier this month, Thomas and Pablo from EU-Startups have arrived and are joining us in a collaboration, sharing their insights and startup knowledge not just with us internally but with you through our blog as well.
EU-Startups.com is one of the leading startup blogs in Europe with up to date information on startups, in-depth analysis of different sectors and many interesting interviews focussing on specific aspects of business. Next to the online publication, Thomas and Pablo are organizing the yearly EU-Startups Summit — this year to be held on the 24th of April with 750 founders, startup enthusiasts, corporates, angel investors, VCs as well as media people from all across Europe.
Thomas and Pablo met at MY-WAY, a project by the European Union thought to foster startup creation among students and asking what the EU can do to support them. Pablo was then working in Brussels with the student organization AEGEE and joined EU-Startups at the beginning of this year, focussing on the organization of the EU-Startups Summit.
They found together through a common interest for Europe and entrepreneurship, and the with the goal to foster innovation cross-boarder, spanning all of our countries and facilitating access to different resources. Undecided about which city to move to, Thomas finally settled for Barcelona last year as he thought it might be an easy pitch to convince event attendees, and future contributors, to visit to sunny Catalunya.
“Berlin might have more capital, cheaper rents and more tech talent, but I see a bright future and high quality startups here in Barcelona”.
While talking about the business model of EU-Startups as a magazine, Thomas talked about everything but a magazine. A job board, premium reports, a startup sourcing service, sponsored posts by corporates, and the EU-Startups Summit they are organizing since 2014 is what brings EU-Startups revenues. Actually we could be speaking about several business models.
Thomas, how did you get started writing about startups?
I was always interested in tech and new business models, and in 2010 I felt there is a need for an online publication that covers startups from a European perspective. More and more cross-boarder funding deals were happening, cross-boarder expansion, acquisitions, etc. So I started EU-Startups.com. Today the site attracts over 80,000 founders, investors and startup enthusiasts each month.
What have you learned from reading countless press releases a day?
You don’t learn a lot from reading press releases. I think you learn much more from talking to founders, investors, corporates and by doing your own research. Press releases always just paint the picture that a startup wants you to see. The reality looks often a bit different.
How should I pitch my startup to be featured in EU-Startups.com?
First of all, you should have something newsworthy to announce. As long as you didn’t invent a time machine or a teleportation device, the fact that your startup exists is not news. I actually have a little presentation on how to increase your chances to get press coverage, which I presented in some events. If you’re interested to read it, send a short email to [email protected] and I’m happy to forward it to you.
When you hear the word Blockchain what is the first association that pops in your mind?
It’s a hot topic. A bit too hot in my opinion. I sometimes have the feeling that all tech startups these days are either doing something AI, chatbot, or blockchain related. I mean it’s an interesting concept, but there are not so many actual use cases for it yet. In theory, yes. But in reality, we’ll have to see which kind of impact the blockchain concept will actually have going forward.
