The Rafael del Pino Foundation organised the meeting "Global Entrepreneurship Week: from start-ups to scale ups", on Monday 16 November 2015, on the occasion of the launch of the Global Entrepreneurship Week in Spain.
In Europe, the importance of the growth and development of entrepreneurship is shared by most of the actors involved in entrepreneurial activity (entrepreneurs, investors, companies, educational institutions, administration).
While we are experiencing a strong activity in the creation of new initiatives through the multiplication of accelerators, incubators, soft loans, crowdfunding, etc...) we are not seeing a large number of companies growing globally, and therefore creating as much value as we would expect (jobs...).
What are the main reasons for these circumstances?
What can we learn from our environment?
What should we implement to change the situation?
Summary Global Entrepreneurship Week
From Start-Ups to Scale-Ups
16 November 2015
The Rafael del Pino Foundation hosted on Monday the launch in Spain of the Global Entrepreneurship Week, a week to promote entrepreneurship that takes place in 125 countries where a total of 35,000 events are held.
The event was opened by Mathieu Carenzo, president of Global Entrepreneurship Week Spain, who stressed the importance of having entrepreneurs who know how to make companies grow, because they create jobs between their third and eighth year of life. He also stressed that there is a direct relationship between immigration and entrepreneurship.
He was followed by Marcos Alves, co-founder and CEO of El Tenedor, who pointed out that entrepreneurship is an attitude towards life that requires effort, leadership and enthusiasm. In his opinion, all entrepreneurs should ask themselves four basic questions: what value their idea brings, what sector they want to target (one that they are passionate about or in which they have experience), what their business model is and whether or not they need financing. This last aspect is important, in his opinion, because giving third parties a stake in the capital could make them lose control of the company, so he advised them to try to move forward with their own resources.
Alvess analysed the case of El Tenedor, the online restaurant reservation company, and indicated that its success was based on the fact that it detected a sector that needed to go digital and be on the internet. From there, a business model was created based on an online reservation management software that is offered free of charge to restaurants and revenues based on a commission per diner.
The keys to success, Alves said, were believing in themselves, prioritising long-term goals, offering the best service for users, bringing visibility and business to the restaurants and knowing how to adapt to the market, for example, by developing mobile applications.
The next speaker was Pedro Nueno, president of China Europe International Business School, who explained that when a start-up does not grow it is because people feel comfortable doing so, as growth requires a change in the way of working (selling, negotiating, etc.) and this change is very hard.
Growth, said Nueno, implies starting to offer this service, which may be technological, for which you need people who need to be motivated and retained, and money that is sometimes not easy to get. According to Nueno, a company needs more money before reaching the growth phase, so it is necessary to know how to make the leap from hard finance (business angels, venture capital) to traditional finance (banking).
For Nueno, a good business model is a global business, but you have to bear in mind that an opportunity is an opportunity until everyone sees it and starts doing the same thing. Therefore, you have to be quick in the growth process, he said.
Verne Harnish, founder of the Entrepreneurs' Organisation, said that many companies are born but do not grow. To grow you need to go after a big market at the right time, have a big solution and have the right team of people. Then you have to change the role of entrepreneur to that of leader, develop an infrastructure and carry out marketing actions.
This last element, according to Harnish, is necessary for the company to make a name for itself, attract attention and attract talent.
Ana Segura, director of Telefónica Open Future, indicated that this is an instrument for boosting ecosystems for creating companies and identifying talent, accelerating start-ups, creating crowdworking spaces and investing in more mature start-ups.
For an entrepreneur to succeed, he or she needs the right team of people, personal ambition in relation to the business, resilience and the ability to make sacrifices.
