Setting sails for a new startup journey
I’ve always loved reading other startup’s stories and their founders confessions. Now it’s my turn to feed the curious people out there with my experience from starting something on my own.
My plan is to every week give you some behind-the-scenes insight from starting a tech company in Spain — going international from day one, and working to change the way small and medium businesses do HR.
But first some background: I spent the last seven years at Redbooth, a project management SaaS startup founded in Barcelona by Pablo Villalba, an aerospace engineer that had a vision around how project management should be done. Before that, I was running my tiny software development company, building and selling software to architecture and construction firms in the city.
When I met Pablo and decided to join him at Teambox (we became Redbooth in 2014), I knew some things about building software and selling it to small companies in a clearly defined niche. But I didn’t really know what a startup was.
Getting my startup MBA
Schools don’t teach you much about business today. Everything is changing so fast, the only way to truly learn is to be where it’s all happening.
I had no clue about growing an organization, marketing, scaling sales, business development or fundraising. I didn’t even know that I had been “bootstrapping” my previous company by reinvesting profits instead of taking outside investment.
Joining a startup at a very early stage was like an “MBA” with no theory and all practice.
To tell you the truth — I joined for all the “wrong” reasons: technical challenges yes, but mostly an opportunity to emigrate to the U.S. and learn from a very talented developer we had at the time (hello Mislav), but it turned out to be a great decision.
I spent the most amazing 7 years of my life working next to a terrific team and building a leading product in a very competitive environment. We always fought above our weight class, and took the company from an idea to a successful venture with over 60 employees, thousands of customers and a strong team of investors that backed us with more than $20,000,000.
We even got to the point where a multi billion dollar company such as Cisco proudly announced a partnership with Redbooth. You can read that story here.
I felt like I was hitting the limit of what you can learn from the passenger seat. Having had great mentors and bosses was an inspiration, but also a motivation to move forward.
Let’s go to Mexico
I remember very clearly when I decided to shake life up a bit, and start on my own venture. About one year ago I was enjoying time off in Mexico with my girlfriend, and for the first time in a long time, was able to completely disconnect from the office and think clearly.
Without any influence of tequila, and in spite of my current job being a dream by most standards, it was time I decided that within one year it would be time to grab the helm.
My friend Pau and I spent a lot of time together (seriously, a lot) talking about life, business, and dreaming about the future. We climbed together, we traveled places, we even shared flat for a while. We also worked together at Redbooth for many years: him as CTO and me as VP of Business Development & Platform. We knew we were meant to lead our next adventure side by side.
We shared our excitement with my friend Bernat, president at itnig, and a genius entrepreneur, and started discussing an idea that we were all crazy about. We put our heads together and we didn’t stop until we had a plan, a first round of capital, and of course, a team.
What started as a daydream, over a beer in beautiful Oaxaca, Mexico, suddenly became a company.
Keeping the captain identity
After so many years of selling the product and the idea of Redbooth to both employees, investors, partners and customers, it was very tough to think of moving on.
I’ve always had a strong emotional connection to Redbooth, especially its team, and I’m very greatful for their support once Pau and I announced that we were starting a new chapter in our lives.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t consider all the financial implications of leaving Redbooth behind. If the company becomes a huge success globally, I’ll have to live with the idea of leaving cash on the table, given how startup stock-option vesting works.
I’ve taken a ton of knowledge with me from Redbooth. Everything from the importance of hiring the right people, knowing when to listen to your customers, picking the right investors, the list goes on, and each lesson, could be a post by itself.
The most important lesson though, is only getting started. Being at the helm, surrounded by the best people and professionals I ever met, that’s what I’m excited about.
The next weeks I'll tell you all about how to choose a co-founder, build a team and how to start raising money.
