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Spanish entrepreneurs need to build more start-ups
David Fogel (@fogeldavid) is an Israeli national and a Venture Lab Fellow with the accelerator program at Instituto de Empresa Business School. After working with startups here in Spain over the last year, he provides some perspective and advice on how to improve entrepreneurship in Spain, while making the contrast with Israel.
If you could build your startup anywhere in the world, where would the best place be to increase the likelihood of success?
Common answers include Silicon Valley, New York and London. However, not far from the Iberian Peninsula, there is a place that leads in entrepreneurship, innovation and venture capital. A place that is a leading example of a successful entrepreneur ecosystem. Few people in Spain know that Israel is a leader in the startup scene. Many great products used every day including the USB flash drive, ICQ Messenger and the technology behind Microsoft Kinect were born in Israel. As an Israeli living in Spain and working with startups for the past 16 months, I was asked to provide some input on what Spanish entrepreneurs can learn from their Israelis counterparts.
Over the past year we have been hearing about entrepreneurship as one of the best ways to help the economy recover. Spanish entrepreneurs such as Miguel Arias, Alex Barrera and Iñaki Arrola have suggested ways for the government to help foster the ecosystem. The government providing support infrastructure is necessary but it is not sufficient.
Entrepreneurs need to do their part. They need to build a lot of startups. Successful start-ups, will come, but first you need to have a lot of entrepreneurs that feel comfortable with failure.
Failing means learning -
In Israel, during a good year, only 50 startups get seed funding. After another 18 months, approximately 80% of these startups are closed. Within two years, 99% of the startups fail. Yet every year 800 new startups are created.
Failing is the best opportunity to analyze yourself, your decisions and to make sure you understand what went wrong, so not to repeat it the next time. Was your team the right one? Was your market big enough? Was your product the best solution for the problem? Make sure you understand why you failed, and you will have a better chance to be the next big Spanish startup.
To be the next great success, you need to dream big and think global -
Israel only has 7.5 million citizens, for an Israeli startup to succeed; Israelis are not the target market. Israeli entrepreneurs have to think global from day one. In Spain an entrepreneur usually looks at his region. Unfortunately very few startups in Spain are planning to target the US or European markets. Let me be clear; you do not have to launch your initial version in the US. However, when you set your vision, think of your global users not just your Spanish ones. If you found a good solution for a big problem then people in the U.K and U.S and even China will use your product.
Make sure you do it in English -
Spain and Israel are very similar; both countries have an amazing heritage that they want to preserve and language is a very important part of it, but when you are in startup universe you need to speak their language, and no matter if you launch your product in Hebrew or Spanish the official language in the startup universe is English. In Israel there are more than 25 early stage VCs and all of them have Israelis partners that speak Hebrew fluently, yet you will never see a presentation or hear a pitch in Hebrew. If you think global from day one, you understand that after raising funds in Israel you will need to go and raise funds in other countries and find strategic partners all over the globe, so you have to build everything in English from the start.
So in Summary
- Fail and learn from it
- Think global from day one
- Do it in English
I hope I managed to give you some insights about Israel. If you are interested in better understanding the Israeli startup ecosystem I recommend reading a book called “startup Nation”. Feel free to reach out to me at @fogeldavid
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