We had the opportunity to share a few minutes with the Spanish network tycoon to talk about entrepreneurialism in our country.
Rodolfo Carpintier is, without doubt, one of the great Internet investors in Spain. For those who don’t know the founder of Digital Assets Deployment (DAD), incubator for network related businesses, betted on little known companies in our country such as BuyVip and Tuenti.
You could say that Carpintier is a businessman with a good eye, opting for what looked like a Facebook imitation in Spanish actually currently has 15 million users registered. He has succeeded entering that difficult niche of mobile telephones, partnering with Telefónica, his main stockholder.
We now know the reason as to why youngsters approach him as the end of his talks to present their Start Up ideas. He answers with a smile and gives them card with his email address on assuring them that they can send him their ideas as long as “they are shorter page in length”, but extensive enough for DAD to realize if the business is of interest or not.
According to Rodolfo Carpintier, there are certain parameters that each business should follow. In DAD’s case, they look for entrepreneurs who are convinced that what they imagine is possible to make a reality.
But, is this not the whole point of a business? The network tycoon says it isn’t. Actually, he said that “very few” businessmen are able to accomplish this and that there are many others “who when you talk to them they put on this massive show, but when you dig deeper you see that not even they believe in it”.
That’s why “one sheet of paper” is enough. After, he admits, “there are further talks”, although the most important thing is that the young entrepreneurs are able to explain clearly why their business is different to all the others.
The reason behind this requirement is obvious. The Internet is a sector in constant movement where there is “fierce competition of people that want to copy you”, because of this you have to be quick to modify your business model when and if necessary.
“Just because you succeeding today doesn’t mean you will be tomorrow. You have to wake up every day worried that someone out there is creating something that will make your product obsolete”, he assures.
In Spain’s case it’s not enough just to be alert, as in our country, according to Rodolfo Carpintier, you have to do double the work to break into the sector. We wasted a lot of time at the start during the 90’s, when countries like the USA were already developing and growing online.
Afterwards, when the bubble burst in 2000 with puntocom many businesses lost money: “this made the rich in Spain not invest in the sector”, a fact that has put the country back “five or six years” in relation to Europe “and ten” in relation to the USA.
However, currently he is feeling optimistic about the business reality, as it has grown greatly over the past couple of years. But, are we able to overcome the late emergence of Spanish businesses online? Carpintier knows the answer “yes, with the proper technology and with things that don’t exist in the USA”.
You have the keys, now all you need is the product, what are you waiting for?!
