Technology today offers a number of advantages, although the most important are surely competitiveness and scalability. Both of these are key in the post-crisis environment we currently face, which requires increased innovation and internationalization of companies. The last 22@Update Breakfast of this season took place at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia’s Tech Talent Centre. Antoni Giró, rector of the
UPC, welcomed participants to the event, expressing his satisfaction in collaborating on activities in the 22@ district. He also reminded those present that, in addition to the building where the breakfast took place, the UPC will soon inaugurate their new Diagonal Besós Campus, which will house around 5,000 students and become a benchmark in Southern Europe in the field of industrial engineering.
Carlos Guzmán, producer at
Wake Studios, was the first speaker of the event. Guzmán founded Wake Solutions, a company that creates video games for the Xbox Live Arcade system, in 2004 with four partners. The company currently has a team of 10 people. In his presentation, Guzmán offered some advice on starting up a company based on his own experience. He believes that the three main points to create a company are liking what you do, knowing your team from previous experience, and winning awards that can help open doors to funding that will help the company move forward. It is also important to have good contacts, study the market and find your place in it, and draw up a realistic business plan. Specialized courses like those at
Barcelona Activa or events like
Day of the Entrepreneur held recently in Barcelona can help startups achieve their goals.
“In order to be successful in starting up a new company you need to like what you do, know your team and win prizes that will open doors for you.”
It is clear, as Carlos Guzmán explained in his presentation, that starting up a company isn't easy and sometimes leads to problems. These are often economic in nature, but they can also be due to a lack of contacts if the founders are very young. In the case of Wake Solutions, they also ran into technological problems, although they were able to solve them successfully.
The next speaker was Carlos Hernández, managing director and founder of
www.icontainers.com, a website that allows companies to get a price quote and reserve international transport quickly and at affordable prices. It is a kind of online travel agency but for goods instead of people. The company was founded in 2007 as a spin-off of a transit and customs company with more than 35 years of experience that was looking to make their services more efficient and agile, which they saw was possible online. In April 2008, business angels Octapris and Compas Private Equity invested in the company to reinforce technology and develop a national growth plan.
“The company was founded in 2007 as a spin-off of a traditional company that was looking to improve the efficiency and agility of their services and found the solution online. ”
Currently icontainers has more than 150 active clients and organizes on average 100 deliveries per month to a variety of destinations. The company is currently expanding, with the launch of a new online import system and an aggressive strategic plan to internationalize the company by launching an American version of the platform.
22@ Innovator of the month was Carles Puente, professor specializing in technology at the UPC, researcher and co-founder of
Fractus, a pioneering company in the design of fractal antennas, where he is currently Head of Technology and Patents. Puente agreed with the other two speakers in that prizes are key to obtaining both funding and recognition.
“Fractus has always been a company that is constantly changing.”
Fractus has always been a company that is constantly changing. The company was founded in 1999 and has always focused on the global market. For six years, however, they devoted their efforts to research and had no real business objectives. Later, their activity would focus on developing base-station antennas, then the automotive sector, and finally antennas for mobile devices, which is currently their main line of business. In 2005, they decided to make a change, because the telecommunication market was oversaturated, and began to license technology as well. For the past year this has been their only activity, through which they have also been quite successful. Currently Fractus holds more than 150 patents around the world, has an annual turnover of more than 30 million euros, and serves more than 1,000 clients in the wireless industry.
As always, Josep Maria Piqué, managing director of 22@Barcelona, closed the event and expressed his pleasure at the large number of participants and the collaboration from the UPC in organizing this breakfast.
Key ideas
According to Carlos Guzmán, the three main points to create a company are liking what you do, knowing your team from previous experience, and winning awards that can help open doors to funding that will help the company move forward.
www.icontainers.com found the efficiency and agility they needed to develop their business project online.
Winning prizes is key to obtaining both funding and recognition.
Companies must be aware of market trends and know how to adapt to them at all times.
Participant speaks
“I liked today’s breakfast a lot. Both the catering and the speakers. I like to know that there are people with good ideas and the drive to carry them out.”
“Finding funding is always a challenge. You need extra talent to achieve this.”
“Talent is necessary to innovate but funding is almost equally important. It’s a vicious circle.”
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