Hello emperors, how are you welcome to one more edition of CAFI tols startups
in the BC with Make Buness Flow, where we have as always a great
character, a great guest, a great ally, the entrepreneurial ecosystem and will
entrepreneurship in the world. Expert in many things, in entrepreneurship, experts in
business. He has worked from very large companies to startups that has already launched
him and that he will talk to us today our good friend Alejandro Peñas,
who from Madrid, Spain, accompanies us to talk to him today and reads
a little bit his review, who engineer of telecommunications for the UpM. He
also worked for five years in the world of conjuring in Mackenzie and after that
he was another four years working in the corporate world for TMF Group between England
and the United States. After that period in the world of big business,
he spent a brief period working on a startup called Ondtrack and, although it
did not work as such, it was the lever to launch himself into the
world of entrepreneurship, where in the two thousand eighteen he mounts two planes as
a partner that is a construction company focused on the world of detail reform and
after that, three years later he remains as a single partner and continues to
grow to the company, until reaching the twenty- three employees and six seven
million euros of affection in two thousand twenty- three, opening office in Malaga,
Spain at the beginning of the two thousand twenty- four, but from
the two thousand twenty- three he combines the leadership of two planes with the
launch of first, a project focused on the formation and accompaniment of the SMEs,
as they hear it and as they see it This is Alejandro Peñas who
accompanies us today and before talking about these, of the welcome also to our
friend Karina Razic and to the taste of Kinnin, who accompanies us, does
not talk about how boys are happy to be here again and above all with
Alejandro. So thank you very much, moving away from participating, so,
comrades, we started welcome to Star Cups Copy Tolks, the first podcast designed
by the incubator and accelerator Stark Cups and conducted by Alejandro Lómez. Our main
objective is to connect more entrepreneurs with the innovation and penture capital ecosystem in Mexico,
Latin America and the Ligueon Valey. As we enjoy a delicious cup of
coffee together, we begin now. Yes, welcome, Alejandro Peñas, how
are you telling us please, where this character named Alex Peñas comes from,
who from Madrid, Spain, has done so much to talk about entrepreneurship as
they see you in the cooperative world. But how it' s born,
how you really decide to get into business. And I know you' ve
been working for a long time for a Big Fight company called McKenzie, where
I' d like you to talk a little bit about where you come from
and, above all, I know where you' re going. So Alex
is welcome to this Stark of PS Tolks program. Thank you very much to
Alexander for an enlarged question. Look I tell you why I started or how
I started in the business world, because I study telecommunications and I, when
I was seventeen, which is the phase in which you decide what to study,
I had the doubt whether to throw in the life of engineering or on
the path of business. I always liked riding things there. I liked including
you when I was younger and I decided because I said Mira, I can
do engineering and if I' m wrong, then I do a master'
s degree and business study. Otherwise, I think it was possible and well,
I didn' t finish more or less right because I studied engineering.
He didn' t convince me and I said look, let' s go
to business life and do a master' s degree. In fact, in
the last year of career I studied a master' s degree that was a
bit of a bridge, was a master in strategy of new technologies. Then
I went from the technical part to the more management part. And at that
time the world of consulting, as it seemed like a great opportunity to learn
from business in a very wide way, to discover different industries, to work
with very good people, to learn from them. And it was a first
great experience for five years working first in Spanish or in England. If you
want, I' ll follow a little how it came to this day.
But the world of consulting, what took me was to work with the hand
of big companies and hence, when I spent a few years of that consultant
I wanted a little more action, because the consultancy did not stop being to
make recommendations. And well, what happens when you run. And that'
s why, after those years, I went into the corporate world. Why
corporate at that time, because it was the natural thing, the most common
thing when you were in the consulting world working for large companies, because the
most normal thing was to make the leap to the big company. We'
re talking about two thousand thirteen. The world of startups still perhaps in Europe
was not so developed and it was very normal that the one who worked in
consulting passed to the big company and the truth I had a good time.
I was working between England, after the United States, four and a half
years, working in a large company with nine thousand employees and was fortunate enough
to work near the management team and to have access to positions of some leadership.
Although I was a young man at the time, but I arrived in
Miami, I was responsible for the Central American and Caribbean area. In fact,
he was traveling a lot to Mexico. We had him there in an
office with a hundred people and we really had a lot of trouble. Then
I spent the day between Miami and Mexico and learned a lot there. I
learned more from very good bosses, but I felt a bit like going back
to Spain. And then, at that time two thousand seventeen, I had
the opportunity to join a status in Madrid, in the world I was doing
for maybe some kind of truck Uber. It' s called a track and
I came as a business responsibility in Spain. The thing didn' t play
and I said look, now or we' ll never start what happens when
you' re working in the world of big business it' s very difficult
to jump into entrepreneurship, because that' s what you say the opportunity cost
pays you very well, you pay very good salary and you say hey I
' m going to stop charging this and put me to zero tomorrow. Besides,
at that time I had a baby on the way back in the second
then, well I got fired back then and I said Mira, it'
s time. And that was my hard one. It makes my first company,
in the 18th plan is the construction company, I set it up with
a partner, with the idea of improving a little what I was already observing
as a customer, which was the world of reform in Spain. In that
case, although then I' ve already learned that I' ve really passed
the same place almost everywhere. WOW. And, yeah, there' s
already five and a half years to set up the company and make it grow.
And along the way, then, according to the company, it has
been settled, for I have been able to devote the time to the second
project. First of all, years and a half ago, to support small
business as the PIME world. I think he' s there, there'
s little talk about him and he lends himself a little sele gives little affection.
And as in the constón, I have seen myself surrounded by pynes all
day, both from my suppliers, in my competition to one of my clients,
but an architecture studio. I have seen the difficulties of small business and
to make it do a small project and I appear some idea of a project
to try to support and collaborate with small business, Well how interesting the topic
is, because I am still very intignant with you with which you talk to
me. Like you, I lived that subject of studying engineering. I first
studied four years as an engineer. Number of engineer I changed at the end
of the world, business, you marketing. I realized it was better for
that subject. Creativity was more my thing than engineering. But it was because
from also very young, I went to work on the topic of the radio
and I realized that good. Now I do, though not literally on the
radio, but the topic of communication, entrepreneurship, but whenever you see with
the desire to consult and you are right. The conltura is very funny.
But it simply gives recommendations when you enter the challenge of you to live that
same world of entrepreneurship and to say ah gee not only the recommendation lived to
the man what you are going to do, you do not have to live
or to learn it very bad, that you tell me and what I would
like to enter with you a context, to open the two planes. I
know you started your project because you were working for companies too those issues and
you decided now I' m going to do the best, I' m
going to start and I' m going to work on two S talk plans.
Really how this project is born, two plans and at what point you
decided to leave Mackenzie to enter this project. The move to the plans occurs
when I am in Spain at that time I had been in this startup for
months that doesn' t work the thing, then I was already in a
position to be basically jobless. The most normal, the most common thing with
my profile would have been probably to return to the coprobative world. It had
been ten years for me and after having a bad experience in the startup world,
perhaps the most logical thing would have been to go back to a company.
But always, I always had a little entrepreneurial restlessness and at that time
I put several ideas on the table and well, we can throw it down
the startup way. When I say I' m going to start, I
mean a project that withdraws to funding to grow a high pace that then,
because that' s looking for round of funding and I said Mira. I
don' t fancy that model, because it came from an experience right where
it was a startup that had grown too fast, too soon. And well,
I went out a little bit with the choice learned from trying to look
for something different and it seemed to me that setting up a zero company,
that is, without presence of correction going a little bit to polmon, it
seemed to me that it was what attracted me most in the long term,
that I think a very important difference between the world pimn the world of startups
is been horizon, temporary. I think the startup that starts I think has
in mind I want to break a market, I want to grow this all
speed, accompanied by investors and powerful equipment. And the normal thing is that
these companies go well, because at the age of five or ten, they
come pay the bag while riding a pynet. In my opinion, to look
for a project of life from a professional point of view, i e I
am going to create a project. And well, in my case, I
hope that it will pass through generations. Am seems very nice to me.
So a little romantic. When you see a company that says it is a
third generation, he said he was cool to see how a project started sixty
years ago, already passed by grandparents, parents and the new generation are getting
into business. I like the idea. I know it' s not going
to be a lot of challenges, but good that the decision is passed a
little bit and why, why in construction, I had no idea of construction,
but I was reforming the house with my wife and the reform sector,
the construction in general and the reform in particular, it' s a sector
that I think is unprofessional, it' s a very difficult but very difficult
sector. I didn' t know that at the time. I saw the
unprofessional thing and I saw that I had many opportunities from that perspective, very
consulting, not from outside, not that you say look here someone comes one
day. There' s no one in the day. The next day someone
shows up and then he doesn' t come back and you say here a
fifty percent chance to improve those caus It' s fast we do sometimes as
consultants. Then I said good. Okay, here' s a chance.
A large market is a market that will not disappear in the short or medium
term. And there I threw myself with a partner who was the person who
had reformed our house, trying, therefore, to lay the foundations of a
modern project and to always seek, for what I say the continuous improvement,
that makes that little by little, because you can differentiate yourself from your competition.
That was a little reason to start on two planes you put, always
in the center of business finance. Then I' d like you not to
tell me why there' s a visitive publication making a little time where you
have the finances in the middle and around operations, marketing, etcetera, etcetera.
I' d like you not to source or why you think finance is
at the center of business. At first we organized the company around five pillars.
So we talk about strategy, we talk about the commercial area, the
equipment, the operations, the finance, so, when I tried to represent
those five pillars, for me they have a sequential order, that is,
strategy. For me it is the starting point, because without strategy, because
it does not know what you do, or why or how you differ.
After the strategy, I think the next step for me is a logical point
of view, is commercial. If you don' t sell a euro,
because it' s already true and good, you sell a euro which is
the following, because you sell a little more, because you have to hire
equipment. All right, you already have business strategy, team and as the
team grows, because you have to lay the foundation for a solid operation,
operations and finances, because for me, the bonds, then, for me
there is a sequence of those four pillars, it is four areas and that
passed the bonds that for me are continuously at the center of the challenges,
that is, each of these four hours that I write. I think they
need to be reasonably attacked. Sequently, although you' re always going to
have a team challenge, even if you' re already trying to improve processes,
but finances from day one or you' re very careful with the business
model, or it won' t work when you' re growing up as
you' re not able to sell, because you' re going to break,
but as fast sales, you can also break then. For me finance
is that piece of the five that you have to keep an eye on it
all the time. Continuously it can take you the Not that the bond takes
you to the fret of the company is that if you do not have enough
attention to the finances of your company, the prodidos can end you at any
time, then carry very badly, as if you are going very well.
And that' s why we put it in the center, because you can
never stop thinking about it. Usually, a pima, when it starts,
usually starts to work with the gesture shop because the accounting part is not optional.
The accounting part is a regulatory issue and you need someone to do the
accounting part as well as the tax part as labor. So there' s
your partner, who is the gestoria and the small entrepreneur, usually doesn'
t have a strong management training. So I think that, in a slightly
wrong way, he considers gesturery to be his financial parnel and that is not
entirely correct. The story. It can help you to present, therefore,
the accounting accounts, to present taxes for payrolls, but it is not that
person who will necessarily help you, to prepare a budget, to understand that
they will have challenges in your box within three or six months. So I
think there is a very strong lack of support for small businesses. From the
source. I lack support is the entrepreneur and the one who does not seek
it. He does not look for it because he is not aware of the
importance that finance has for his business, things like really understand from a conceptual
and then practical point of view, the difference before an account results and a
cash flow, which may sound very obvious to some, but a lot of
small entrepreneur does not finish understanding why I am growing up, why I am
doing very well, because I am very profitable and I have no nest in
an account. That is a tough challenge or preparing a budget for next year
and seeing where I have to invest. If I want to grow up,
then I' ll have to invest somewhere. They' re the type of
o. Let' s analyze my gross image how it evolves, because it
marges in rutuous is what allows me to hire people in office. It'
s going to allow me the day in a piece of furniture to a bigger
office. These are concepts that I in the world of a big company,
because they are totally out of control and, that is, you have financial
departments within the company, be big, with equipment from the control was the
financial or small company, you do not stop to think when you are very
small that I will invest 500 euros in a strong person that will help me
to lay the financial bases, it is not your priority at that time.
Maybe it was one way. I always encourage small businesses since they start running
their business a little bit, to seek financial help as soon as possible and
the more, the less prepared one feels. For the issue of numbers before,
it is important that you have that support. Speaking I have an external
financial director, because the company does not give me the numbers to have a
financial director and full- time would not make any sense, probably with the
size of business I have. But for three years now I have been working
with an outsider who dedicates me a few days a week and thanks to that
because I have a senior external perspective of someone with experience can help me think
about business in the medium term. I know I trade with him, so
he' s very good. Well and you realize how finance thinks, because
not necessarily engaging in the world of fractional finance as I say part- time
means that the person knows, not that, he/ she also has to
have knowledge of what it means for a pyne finances. But what happens to
me many times and I talk with august a lot and sometimes with aleh is
that today he made a publication on Linkedin. That is exactly the subject of
the tanicatap of finance. There are many entrepreneurs who can' t deal with
the excel sheet beyond you making it perfect for them. I' ve worked.
I have, I' ve had partners and partners where I did the
forms and there was no way that they read them and I mean, and
accept us and explainable. Well, now let' s go over the valachir
and we' ll understand each of these numbers. And it' s very
difficult. I mean, there' s a kind of panic tac that grabs
them when they have to understand the finance companies that are growing up right now.
I am working with several companies in Spain. We' re getting a
little billed. Facuran well, but today, for example, I was called
by one of the entrepreneurs and she told me I' m having a panic
with what you' re teaching me. But not because you teach it wrong
or because you demand me too much, but because I find it hard to
understand all this and move it for the business to offer as having as a
turning point. I don' t know if it happens to you, they
listen to it, you see it. We' ve followed him through the
work we do. Yeah, yeah, you see, there' s a
percentage of the population that' s not a lot of numbers and it'
s okay. I mean, just like me, I' m not art
from artistic elements. I' m a deniability to paint, to sing,
to do anything that has to do with the artistic event. I' m
an anticus denied and I think I do, because I think the numeric issue.
There are people who are not attracted to them or are not well and
clear, you put an extel with an account, results, with forty lines,
and it should not be obvious. Yeah, I see it, and
of course that' s a huge risk, so that person has to have
a right hand. It is a business to someone who does have common finances
responsibilities, because if not, on the contrary, it is tereogrific. I
was listening to cases you' re talking to a person less close to someone
who had bought a short- term debt asset, so I was eating him.
I was basically eating the debt back. I couldn' t because I
didn' t, because that was simply a very bad financial management if I
didn' t have long- term debt with an asset that incorporated something of
a term. They are very basic things that can throw you away, because
it was the business, especially businesses that on top grows more or less fast,
because I know how to know a similar case to little by little with
a person who comes opening beauty clinics very careful with that type of growth that
requires an initial strong investment, which then delay openings for a thousand reasons.
Then he doesn' t come in. Income doesn' t come in when
you expected, because it' s three months you can break your east and
the extels already know how they are, they' re very nice, but
they don' t work. They' re never real, never mind the
excel you do. I' ve done a lot. I already realize that
I am incapable and, moreover, being aware that of how dangerous the death
is, I continue to do it very badly, especially when they are new
ideas. Extremely, when you have a new idea in your head and you
try to project it into this one. I' m not going to be
conservative in conservative milk. Sales always start much more. This one you'
re waiting for. You like it or you don' t like the coastals
you have there from day one, because you need it to try to get
the ligros that you don' t get, then it' s a very
difficult exercise, even for those who reason us. You also like it I
don' t tell you anymore to make you don' t enjoy it and
it gives you a little favor. That alexo is very torrent because as a
cojutor, a business or entrepreneurship mentor, it has been my turn to work
with both roads, with startups, entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs who have time in the
work with their SMEs, if you want to accelerate. But if I have
noticed two different things, at least finance, for example, when we do
the financial runs, be an SME, because it is safer because you see
historical, you project sales, costs, expenses and more or less it was
matching up with the caps you put and that goes at least we analyze them.
When it' s a startup that starts, which is an innovation factor
that doesn' t exist in the market and projects those finances in the long
term, you never get the reality is that they never fit, because that
learning curve, which is at the beginning that is often called the death curve
or death fence, where many things happen. The primer doesn' t visualize
that reality. The market doesn' t even know them, not because it
hasn' t made a mark, but because the value proposal has communicated to
us. Or the market is too new that it does not adopt this product
so fast. But here, speaking of the subject of entrepreneur, entrepreneur,
I see two very interesting things. One is adaptability. The advantage I see
in startups or entrepreneurs is that they adapt quickly to the need to tighten the
belt for many times. They' re not going to eat, they'
re not going to make any profit. You know that very well and well,
they have more endurance to get it out. When I see entrepreneurs coming
in the coporative world, as is your case that I do not see that
there is decided like this with you, but I have seen it with other
people are so used to a good salary, to a good life, to
travel, to make big budgets. So we' re going to sell so
much and sell so much. And when it happens in the world of entrepreneurship,
that world collapses very quickly. It' s not really that when you
say" wow" if it' s very different to work for a company
established for many years to undertake this project that with this ideology, doesn'
t work quickly. In your case, it was your job to make those
mindset changes, to say, to be in the coporative world. Let'
s call the less comfortable part of being a startup emperor more comfortable. You
got that exchange. I think it' s inevitable, the shock, the
big company show. The annoying thing is that when you invite yourself to your
big business career and work around for a few damages, you' re not
aware of what you' ve got, you' re not aware. Then
you leave the big company and start a company and what I do in the
bad. How nice it was to have paid the payroll and at the end
of the month that was wonderful. Now, if the first few years,
if you get something at the end of the month in the box, it
' s already one. Then I think there are a number of things going
on there. On the one hand, usually, the person who comes in
the corporate world and who is well- off has also I think that an
older age, then has already settled in. And when you get settled back
what you already have. That is very complicated the one who undertakes directly,
because by definition, it will be younger and easier, because having a very
austere life when you are not young, very young, than getting used to
having a great apartment, having therefore travel up down every day and, suddenly,
not being able to continue doing it. Then the shock. I can
see it very clearly there. Hey, there' s one topic I see
interesting because I' ve had to work with many emperors in Spain. I
feel my perspective. As a Mexican, I have had to bring in Silicon
Valley and also in Mexico and there is a lot of Spanish doing entrepreneurship outside
of Spain. That tells me that Spain is a great entrepreneurial world, a
great country that wants to undertake. It' s your perspective on Spain and
the entrepreneurial spirit. Well, good question, I don' t think we
' re in valleys yet. The entrepreneur is still a little more fond of
him when he embarks on business. I believe the entrepreneur much less. In
Spain, at least the entrepreneur is very often associated with employee primer, with
wanting to enrich himself at the cost of giving the ball with the image of
those cases that have really been like this, which have not been the best
examples of entrepreneurs. That' s a perspective, a perspective of vision within
society. And here you start in a startup way, that' s still
very cool. So that says it looks good and I learn it a SME
and I try to give it a little color there in Linkedino, because I
think it' s just like saying challenger that I set up a startups and
sees the same recognition then from there Spain, and not just Spain, I
think they are countries where it is difficult to undertake. It' s a
point of view. One of the biggest challenges is the issue of hiring and
answering is a very complex issue when you have regulations that are very supportive of
the employee and probably for good historical reasons, but perhaps no longer such a
good reason. Today, it is very difficult to make the decision to incorporate
employees into the company, both labour costs and then the difficulty of firing even
of necessity. I' d tell you, even in case of poor performance,
they' re complex processes. They' re getting more and more challengers
and that puts a lot of obstacles on you when it comes to wanting to
grow up and hire. Then I would not say that it is a country
especially like saying that facilitating understanding is a shame. Then it is reflected in
the mentality of many Spaniards who do not necessarily seek entrepreneurship. Then they'
re in studies in the past that there' s a lot of Spanish they
want between official or similar And understanding, I think maybe they see a lot
of Spanish. That way, because the difficult thing in Spain, goes to
the United States, to Mexico to undertake. There' s a little,
a pity. I think you can make a better country interesting. There is
one subject that I have also seen a lot about Spain, especially in Mexico.
I heard a subject I think in a document, documentary or magazine I
don' t remember well, but I know that in Spain it is forbidden
to start in garages, when, for example, in Silicon Valley, because
everyone is born in a garage. Apple, Google, Facebook was born in
garages. What reason do you think you consider a country like Spain, even
in Mexico, is the same, although it is not as such and legal.
The issue of starting in garages is not really a very good breeding ground.
Mexico to undertake. There are possibilities of there, but it doesn'
t have the capabilities that your torrent, for example, a California, where
everyone is enterprising or seen European countries like Finland Switzerland, who really like entrepreneurship
and from the government, push everything to do it. What do you think
about these policies in Spain, where it is forbidden to undertake in a bucket.
This is, this is real. I hadn' t heard it.
He' s heard a lot of stories from the American who set out in
the garage. I hadn' t heard the stories in Spain. In Spain
most people live in an apartment, they don' t have a garage.
I had not had policies against entrepreneurship. The one with the garage, usually,
has a house and in a house that I refer to a chalaine,
a family member, with which I think he can learn in his garage.
I don' t think anyone will tell you otherwise. Another thing is that
there is not much support for entrepreneurship. That' s what I buy from
you, and I always say one thing is that small business is treated like
it' s a company. It' s the rules, it' s
almost the same. The tax regime is almost the same. I say almost
the same, for example, to pay less taxes for the first two years,
the first two years, practically does not give the benefit. Well,
then, there' s a little advantage. But as you grow a little
bit. I have the situation myself of growing up and finding myself in which
I am paying much more taxes than I am bringing into my literal pocket because
I have no money in the bank account to do both, i e,
or paying taxes, because I have given a profit, but the benefit I
say last year I do not have that child in a bank account and that
is sometimes not understood. Then I have to pay myself fifty zero euros of
taxes or seventy zero and I haven' t paid that money in my pocket.
Then how could I be paying more taxes? That in an individual is
not given. In an individual they retain him with a percentage of what they
do. Here that you can find this situation and especially hard, it seems
to me that it is a small company and I think that there, then,
would have wondered if there can be no progressive regimes like the one that
gains grinding two hundred and zero euros has from the fifty zero has a marginal
tax of forty- five to forty- seven fifty percent and it is not
the same as the one that gives twenty zero that maybe they do not stop
anything, because I think that the small company should be facilitated, especially when
you are creating employment, you are leaving employment, because hear support because this
company is investing not in that growth, because no, no, do not
put the entrepreneur between the sword and the wall of having to pay too little
and living on the limit or paying the same taxes as if it were a
consolidated company. For example, I didn' t go to the garage,
I hadn' t heard it. But the lack of a little support,
better support in the initial stages and I think it could be improved. I
didn' t want to comment here in France lately they' re implementing special
policies and there' s no better question. What differences there Spain, for
startup and for SME entrepreneurship, when it is already a little more advanced,
because being I incorporated in the ecosystem, I see that there are a lot
of people who do not want to join as a limited company or limited liability
company or with the types of companies that exist in Spain, because they find
it very expensive to have a company. Then they' re autonomous. Most
are entrepreneurs, self- employed who then arrive at a time that has a
limit that, but at the same time, looking at the taxes they pay.
It is impressive how much taxes are stopping in Europe in general, which
many countries are changing. For example, France, as I repeat again,
is looking at this policy so that more new ventures will come to France.
And that moves the economy a little bit, because in general, what you
see in Europe is a more employee mentality. That is, people like to
be either a state employee or an employee of a private company. As you
say, they' ve got everything figured out, even my husband. I
am married to a Frenchman who comes to me from an entrepreneurial family and yet
he went to the other side, as I say, to the employee,
who has everything comfortable to pay for everything that travels everywhere. He was a
consultant like you, and when I' m working here he kind of doesn
' t understand, as you say, that an entrepreneur has to work much
more than forty hours. It' s not like that. From now on
I see that it is still in Europe that that was forgotten. I remember.
My grandparents who came from Spain to Argentina, both my Croatian grandparents and
my Spanish grandparents worked, but in a way that I never saw a person
working so hard, and that is the culture that is forgotten in Europe that
today needs to be recovered and for that to make it easier. Like you,
you say why so much tax if I get taxed, because I'
m going to have more money in the bank, as you say, and
I' m going to be able to throw more stuff into the company and
I' m going to be able to grow more. I don' t
know what you think of that vision, that I see it here in France,
too. Well, the tax issue in Europe, I say, is
terrible in many countries in Europe and I think it has a very strong impact
on the rate of entrepreneurship and wealth creation at the continent level. And well,
so I think that in the next few years we are going to stay
behind, both with respect to the United States and China, and we are
going to be going further and further behind, because there are more and more
regulations at European level that are becoming more and more involved in working and in
being able to create businesses and do them yourself is regulatory. It' s
all regulation and that at last has very strong things for the company to comply
with that regulation. It' s not obvious. I know companies from various
sectors that tell me it is that for the first company it cannot even start,
they cannot start working because it needs to comply with such a level of
regulation. That on the food issue, when you think you tell me look
at my sector, all the companies are being comforted because they can' t
survive small businesses. It' s an example. So I think there'
s a chip change and fast or we' re going to have a medium
- term problem, not short- term, but medium- term. I
think so. There you commented on the issue of society, which I think
is good in Spain, as reference There are three million companies. Practically two
thousand nine hundred and half are autonomous. There' s a million zero-
fifths that are autonomous. Well, it' s a phase there are those
who want to be autonomous and stay at that point there are those who stop
it. It' s a phase towards building a project in cheese. It
' s a very complicated fagia, because at that stage the autonomous, because
he' s usually seeing 27 things at once. Then it' s very
difficult to do 27 things. Well one, usually does one or two tests.
Well, when you have to make the commercial leg on the operating part,
the financial part, it' s very complicated. Then no. It
is not obvious that they can move towards consolidating stronger projects. Yes, I
know many cases of self- employed people who are growing up and remain autonomous,
because they sometimes fail to understand the advantages of having a society well,
even from a risk point of view. So, fiscally, it doesn'
t change much between those social upheavals. They don' t change the taxes
you pay or don' t really change us. In reality, when you
are going to build in a society you have more flexibility to pay yourself,
not even if you continue to grow, because you can set up a corporate
structure that allows you to make investments efficiently. Physically, then the issue of
society when you start to grow is a good idea. The costs of maintaining
society are also not great and it is not a positive issue. It'
s a maintenance issue of creating society, which good is a one- time
thing and it' s also not an expensive issue and then maintenance that so
you have to keep it and that can cost you at best a thousand euros
baths. But I think that there I do encourage that self- employed entrepreneur
who is growing and who has already put in employees, to think or to
review without setting up a society or not, and I know of cases of
people who the gestorial tells him no yes, it is like autonomous who is
more efficient. Again, the gesturing. You have to be very careful about
the type of advice you receive from a gestoreria can already be very good,
accountingly, not necessarily legally and often because you have a close deal with the
entrepreneur, they are encouraged to give a number of opinions. Many occasions are
not prepared for various opinions. We had a talk doing a lot a month
ago where some lawyers came in and it was precisely an autonomous woman who had
four employees who already billed money. I was telling him I don' t
know whether to make a society or not. I' ve been told no
gesturery and the lawyer said look. I am very cautious when it comes to
giving opinions, but in your situation I have no doubt about creating a society
because you protect yourself you are a legal point of view and, besides,
you will not stop more taxes, it will cost a thousand years to maintain
it and when you grow up, it will allow you to do so well,
you are much more efficient, even fiscal. So that' s where
a lot of things cross in quays. Turning to the general issue, I
think we need, I think I can reduce taxes so that that money can
be reinvested in the economy. In the end, what we find is a
very strong tax cup, especially from the world is hiring. It' s
just that often one says and here' s another challenge, that the employee
doesn' t even finish seeing everything one is paying in taxes for him.
I have my NPR, I mean, the taxes I pay for my payroll.
And if you see the part or you' re seeing every day what
you pay for when you make your sales statement, you' re not necessarily
seeing everything that the company paid for by you isn' t aware, but
most of it I' m not, and many times you get on with
a ratio almost one to one, with seven. Then why can' t
you pay better salaries in Spain, which is one of the most common complaints,
because in part because it costs much more than the salary that appears in
the contract. So we are in a dynamic, a little more dangerous and
that does not facilitate anything the development of new companies, the contracting and,
in the end, the growth of the economy. I have just seen an
income chart, the product of internal utrol per inhabitant of the United States versus
that of Europe, taking off like a Boing 7 and 4 7 aircraft and
Europe flattening. And this has to do with taxes and it has to do
with the great state structure that Europe has in general, because both all countries,
almost all countries, have to maintain schools, hospitals, all health care.
I mean, it' s a very important cultural change of mindset that
Europe needs, which I don' t know if it' s going to
make it. It' s very difficult to compete against America, that everything,
almost everything would tell you that in ninety- nine plus nine is private.
I think the mail is just not private. So well nothing to add
last sentence to that is really hard, that is, creating more work in
Europe and raising salaries, as you just said, when the biggest component is
the tax part. That happened for a long time in Argentina. Also now
we' re on our way to lower taxes. I think that' s
going to be an explosion of work, an explosion of production, because what
we need worldwide, I' m not just saying for Europe or Latin America,
is that the product of internal use per person grows, because if not
people earn less and less, they eat worse and worse. I mean,
it' s all a chain that, especially in Latin America that we'
re seeing, that' s not usual to listen to certain policies that say
these impulsions are necessary to have this protection for the weak citizen, and I
think that' s not necessarily the case. I believe that lower taxes can
continue to protect the weak citizen who needs it. And that' s the
key, because, well, everyone has their opinion. I do not think
it is necessarily positive that in a developed country it can hardly be in a
hospital. I don' t see it right, but that doesn' t
mean that in a developed country you can practically not work and collect and that
nothing happens. And this situation is tremendously common in a country like Spain,
which there are twenty zero reasons why it cannot collect money being able to work,
how it can be that there is an unemployment with which we in Spain
have the most cars in the European Union and I know dozens and dozens of
employers who do not find workers. I myself, how can it be that
people complain because they don' t find work and I don' t have
construction workers. It' s just that we' re in a childish society.
You need work. Go work on a carpenter and this is where you
need labor. Not everyone here finds their back, their corner so they can
' t want to work. There are a thousand reasons why you have employees
and suddenly you don' t have them. I shared the case. Paternity
leave. The ternity in Europe can go every year. In my spañas are
an hour of six weeks, four months and I am a father three times
and I honestly four months a couple both around a newborn child. I'
m sorry, but I think it' s time to go to work,
because besides, when you' re home, he' s working on your
partner for you, because a person can' t hire someone in three months
and when I' ve learned he tells him to leave. There are a
thousand situations that are absurd. Paternity is now. You can take two weeks
today and two weeks next month from two weeks to the next. All the
regulations are being developed to create a level of comfort that we will not be
able to afford. But well, we already take into account with the time
in Argentina, now that the new chamos that are passing this on a political
level, how it has also affected the issue of entrepreneurship on this side,
because comparing it with what Alejandro tells us in Spain or in the case that
the meetically carina in France, in Mexico, I see it similar. The
problem with hiring staff is a headache. There' s, there' s
not a design software company there or a builder. The truth is, it
' s very complicated. In Argentina the same thing happens to us a little
bit from Argentina as well. At ease, yes, a little when we
talk to European, especially in Spain. It' s like I feel like
I come from the future and I' m weapons. Swarzeneger' s going
to tell him that all this is going to happen because he' s talking
to me about things that we live and well, he was talking about one
to seven. I' ll explain that quickly. It means that when the
employee receives a thousand, he gets a thousand seven hundred more, which the
employee also gets. So in all the parts that you can draw regulations so
that that person in earning a thousand wins a thousand seven hundred and I don
' t know Alexander pays just two hundred of that. For example, a
numerical example. In Argentina it' s only about six, which is a
bit. I think the average, but Upper Brazil has a lot more.
When I was doing numbers for regionals, it is also expensive to hire,
although it has a lot of hiring modality, that are good, that in
Argentina we do not have them. It looks like they' re coming,
it' s really good. Then we had a bit of a poltio,
but for years we had a de facto change in the labor market, which
was that they all ended up hired without the benefits of an economy that looks
like Swedish, with the problems they have in Latin America. Then he expelled
a lot of people. I think he had found a balance between that,
because endo finds it the right way or the wrong way. He ends up
working it out. But, yes, there are many similarities, but to
change a little bit and get out of politics and undertake durism. I wanted
to ask him why always when I taught startups and so on. I see
a lot of difference between SMEs and startup. There' s nothing that people
get confused about. I wanted to see how I' m going to Alejandro,
if there' s also a change of mindset, if the two entrepreneurs
are similar and one just want faster and the other I don' t know.
It' s in a traditional model that I do. One wants to
change the world, the other doesn' t want to see. In the
world of startup, they are a woman so much different. I was talking
before the temporal orizon. No, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no. I think they usually set up a startup. I,
too, create a difference, probably in entrepreneurship age. I think it
' s very common for the entrepreneur to be very young. I think there
is an ambition perhaps also linked to the issue of the less realistic, less
realistic age, which is more ambitious. Let' s just say that he
wants to change the world that sets up a first, usually, that will
change the world, although then, the biggest companies in Spain, for example,
were SMEs, that is, you take the ibex. I don'
t mean the United States, which there is, which is true, which
is a model where the largest companies are technological in Spain. There are many
other countries that are not and you have in the rades of Spain, France,
etc, because you have builders, you have car companies, you have
INDITEXA companies. In Spain they are companies that were born Mercadona, for example,
or a cane markets. They are companies that are na inan like a
first. They were not born in the spirit of changing the world. But
hey they had a company there, an entrepreneur with a lot of strength that
they hit with the key in their space and see where they arrived later the
model, the model extremely different, because good in one, basically because you
fight to get some funds and with those funds because you have to go as
fast as possible. Of course, there, for example, we return to
the subject we were talking about earlier, those exceles that are so unrealistic of
the startup. There' s one thing going on, and if you don
' t do that extel that shows you that in four years it has 10
million turnover, nobody invests you. Then you need esextel to get the investments
and then you' re in one in a very very complicated loop. Not
because now you have to say it' s in a tremendously uncertain environment.
You have to be able to deliver a result. They are really ambitious,
to say the least. No. So you get into one on a tremendously
challenging circuit, having to run, showing quickly that that works to grow,
so you can raise money the next round and that do it four or five
times. Not if you do with the key of the market, you are
with the key of the product and there is mark fil, because it will
be able to fly the thing ninety percent, because it does not fly.
And so, in general, because it ends half- starred, but without
waiting for all the SMEs, because I am a much less risky environment,
where you do not intend to prove that you are going to solve a problem
that is not solved. Usually, they may be exceptions, but if I
come in tomaña in a fruit shop. I' m not going to prove
that people buy fruit that and it' s already proven. That' s
a big advantage. I don' t have to prove it. It'
s already proven. The prod MARKETFIPT has already been demonstrated. And what can
I do if I can get in to improve it, if I can bring
something from another sector to combine it with this and be able to go further,
I can say that I' m going to set up a fruit chain.
Well, listen, maybe. You' re doing really well and then,
thirty years later you' ve set up a great chain of tuterian but
they' re usually rusty, you call the term rego and that at least
maybe ambitious, at least from an origin, although then they can actually go
away financially, because they usually go much more to lung supported by bank debt,
much more common to dilute. It' s also a market, it
' s a company that' s not liquid. So it doesn' t
make any sense that the investor vetoes a series that is his cousin and a
millionaire out there, but you don' t usually go looking either and the
valuation of those companies. So, well, I' m two tremendously different
models. I am, I am very much pushing him that he who is
an entrepreneur or wants to be. Consider the chemical model with its advantages and
disadvantages. But when you look at a time horizon of twenty thirty years seen,
if you want to have a company of thirty years old, a pyribe
is a fantastic model, it will be slower at first, certainly, no
doubt, but in twenty thirty years, the Persian will be yours. That
doesn' t usually happen with the starter knot. It does not mean that
this has gone well, because it will have many millions of euros in the
bank. That' s not the shot either. But if you set up
a company and get it you are like saying you are ambitious and want to
grow continuously, I augure you a great future because, because it is not
the usual thing for SMEs and MEDIA, because listen, because it is on
the market, but they do not usually have an ambition to do one by
ten to ten years of sight. It' s not usually you have ambition
and you' re growing up, continually reinvesting. You can be really far
away. In addition, circumstance that you can go on the way buying other
companies, because those previous ones are taking care of themselves. Many of the
children are not on the sides so I' m a story at twenty,
thirty years. Since that' s not very fashionable, I think it can
be very pretty for whoever wants to start. Yeah, no doubt, it
' s time for us to be topisting everything. We don' t want
everything to be exponential at ten x raise capital with rounds every year. The
reality is that there is still a great opportunity for the pines. As you
say. This is where he is born first that he prays. I would
like you to really give us what is the reflection you have learned with first,
because I do believe that innovation does not always have to be disruptive.
It is also a gradual innovation where you hear. If he does it right,
I can do it better, without becoming a complete disruption in not breaking
markets. Then there is always an opportunity for an SME that can improve things
as they are today. How has it worked for you to share best practice
experiences with the other companies that ask for your support first and he starts because
I found, as I think, as a company that I consider the plans
an SME. It was not easy to find training and support focused on SMEs.
When a moment in a startup is quite simple. I think there is
an ecosystem around the startup that can accompany you if that' s what you
' re looking for in the first place. It' s not like that.
I did not find a major lack of training in management issues adapted to
small business or an example, very silly of who can teach you how to
recruit, because when you are a multinational, recruiting is one thing. When
you have five employees, no brand, you' re absolutely no one else.
Where we talk about recruitment for an SME. I haven' t seen
a lot of people talking about these issues. So first you try to attack
that space, look for SMEs that have ambition to grow that there are and
that their founders have certain shortcomings. In what is management. It is the
logical and normal thing that is very good at making wooden tables, because usually
it does not know much about management, because it has dedicated its time to
learning carpentry, just as it is about managing companies. He can' t
make wooden tables. Both things happen then, because we look for those small
companies, because we work with emplesas between five and thirty employees, usually with
ambition to grow, with a certain good, since potential to learn management tools
of the big company applied or adapted to the small one. Talking, for
example, about an organizational chart or organizational structure is a tremendously trivial concept in
big business not only that, but you have a human resources department. Small
business. When you have ten, fifteen, twenty employees, you don'
t have a human resource person, you can' t pay for it practically
ever, and I' m not saying it' s the function of that
human resource person to design a constructive one. But the founder also doesn'
t know what a design of an eye- catcher is either. So give
those tools, teach what it means in your company, how could you design
it, how can you think about your company? Three years of sight are
silly examples, but really necessary to be able to share such tools with small
business. And that' s where we are, with our first focus.
Like that, I' m talking about the financiers we talked about earlier.
How to make a budget, how to think about how to have a cost
reduction mentality is that you can do every three months to just your costs,
or how can you think about when to discount bank funding when you don'
t? Why are these questions for us, because they are very basic,
but for that he has a small business and it has not been financial,
because they probably are not so. Before querina asks you the last question,
alex I' d like to ask you for recommendations. We are being seen
in this program by entrepreneurs from Mexico, Spain, France, Argentina and other
countries that dominate such as Chile, Peru, among others. But I would
like you to be heard watching us give an important recommendation that both startup emperor
who is beginning as that SME that occupies support. What you can tell her
as a recommendation to what she focuses on these days. In the end,
when you have undertaken it or you are in understanding, you can usually learn
the ways or crash over and over again, or you can try to look
for ways and not crash. And one of the best ways and I think
to avoid when I' m going to you, I mean basically to make
mistakes and learn from tropics. One of the best ways to avoid those or
to reduce the number of mistakes is to find someone who passed by three four
years ago, I don' t say twenty years ago, because there they
have already been able to forget what that situation was like. But the one
who was like you three years ago, try to find someone who made you
a cable, the one where you want to be in four or five years,
come closer, try to get me to make you a fit, because
it can avoid huge mistakes and I see him every day in the first few
years. This is about the imposter syndrome that comes a time when you in
your head have a series of things in your head that you consider so obvious
that not so they have value. And I, when I talk to entrepreneurs
who are starting out, I say things for a couple of years and tell
you what a good idea. The truth. I don' t think so.
I don' t think so because I' ve already given myself three
heads against that problem. The third one has already been well recorded and it
is no longer obvious to me then to try to reduce, not eliminate,
but to reduce the number of times we are wrong and to have someone.
That, then, the word of my environment important mentors to me because it
has passed by. I think it' s something I was wrong there.
In my case, don' t look for that figure. He said figures
and I think he could have helped me a lot now. Now look at
what he did much more in different ways, formal and formal, but something
I use much better where this one is than I' m going to hear
from as much as I can And sometimes, when we get very small,
he goes with so many problems that doesn' t give him much life to
take the water upside down. But I think it' s probably one of
the biggest levers to grow in shape a. The reality is that I think
that, as it has always added quite a lot of value to this podcast
or this episode of startup Poby Tolls, when we no longer only talk about
startups either, we also talk about Pymex, SMEs, forgiveness, corporates,
advantages, disadvantages. I think both roads have the good to do. However,
I have nothing left but to thank you. Alex, if you have
any more comments, please also tell us where you can be contacted. If
you want to talk to you directly, learn more about the first, two
plans, or just say hello or ask, as we have as entrepreneur entrepreneurs,
where they can contact you. Al Lix is a hundred to meet me
at Linkedin dejandro peñas There, as Karina said, I write to myself frequently
of good Alians, but they can write me direct messages. Sometimes they fuck
up for them to answer, but I usually answer all the messages. If
someone wants to do a construction theme in Madrid or Malaga, there are plans,
two plans, com but can also write via linka if they prefer.
And the money thing does bring me back. First, because first with Iria
a primer com and our is our page where you can see the programs that
we have and we are continuously looking for SMEs that want to incorporate to our
comfort, which is first club. So they have multiple ways to find us.
Well, Alex, thank you so much for all this time you'
ve given us. As always, I am sure that I added a lot
of value to the community that is listening to us or is currently seeing us
in Nesta Btolks and I have nothing left but to thank you for your time,
your support and your desire to share all your experience with this great audience
that we now have in startups and Flow. And, well, emperor friends,
thank you for following us this program of Star buc ofy Tolks with support
from Mak Bnness Flow. Thanks Carina, thanks to Gusto. Thank you,
Alejandro. Thank you very much, Alejandro Peñas for this great interview you just
gave us and, above all, add value to this community. Thank you
very much and we will see you in the next session that you have an
excellent afternoon. Thank you for joining us on one more episode of Starkcoups,
SCOFF and Tolks TE. We look forward to our next chapter sign up for
free on our Stark Cups Com online platform, where you can incubate and accelerate
your startup with the best training courses for entrepreneurs, live mentoring and even develop
your beach to raise capital in our network of star Corps investors. Inmavation starts
wither cap of caty