Comments on: Why are there not more Spanish startups? OkuriSpaces aim to change that

By: Που είναι οι Ινδιάνοι? | Sbyrakis

Που είναι οι Ινδιάνοι? | Sbyrakis — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 11:02:17 +0000

[...] μετά από το Ισπανικό Step Trend, καποιοι αναρωτήθηκαν “why there are not more Spanish Startups?” …και γνώριμες αιτίες δόθηκαν σαν [...]

By: portuguese in spain

portuguese in spain — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 00:08:00 +0000

“…A lot of people prefers to remain in the university with a bad income but nothing to do, but with nice space, sport courts very close, becoming useful slaves of teachers, preparing their papers and the bureaucracy to steal more and more funds for nothing.”

They are not “potential entrepeneurs”, as you (heartfealtly) say, they have a passive actitude and would not make it as entrepeneurs…

You can read the essays of Paul Graham about startups and entrepeneurs, and after some hours you will see what I’m saying – you cannot convert entrepeneurs into uni-”slaves”, nor the reverse

By: Portuguese in spain

Portuguese in spain — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:49:00 +0000

I’m not spanish and I feel I must stand up to defend spain from such a narrow critic.

Everyday I see many people live the situation Spain is passing, and unfortunately the young generations are living a crude reality: university, unemployment, living with parents, unemployment, no family plans, unemployment, no social security contribution (meaning no social security retirement), … and time continues to pass without big hopes…

Juan, now is not the best time to critic the spanish young generations – they have done nothing and are paying a bill for other’s mistakes…

By: portuguese in spain

portuguese in spain — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:35:00 +0000

“…A lot of people prefers to remain in the university with a bad income ”

Well, the ones that get to work in the university are lucky for having the oportunity to aim for a future.
You almost make it look like it’s people fault that they don’t find a job because of comodity… your comment is arrogant to insult people without knowing the existing reality…

Please, shut up and leave people try to solve their own problems

By: CLR XX : La Cofa – Observatorio Tecnológico

CLR XX : La Cofa – Observatorio Tecnológico — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 12:02:39 +0000

[...] “Why are there not more Spanish startups? OkuriSpaces aim to change that” [...]

By: Soraya Paniagua » Un pequeño post para un gran proyecto, Tetuan Valley School

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:42:53 +0000

[...] una entrevista a TechCrunch (Why are there not more Spanish startups? OkuriSpaces aim to change that) Alex Barrera [...]

By: Spelling Games

Spelling Games — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:04:37 +0000

A lot of people prefers to remain in the university with a bad income but nothing to do, but with nice space, sport courts very close, becoming useful slaves of teachers, preparing their papers and the bureaucracy to steal more and more funds for nothing.

By: Juan Carlos

Juan Carlos — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 09:23:50 +0000

What Spain needs is to forget about all this stupid nonsense and get all those kids working as waiters so they can buy houses with 40 year mortgages.

Once the cement and bricks are back spain will be back to normal.

By: Soluciones a la crisis « Enjoy capitalism

Soluciones a la crisis « Enjoy capitalism — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:31:31 +0000

[...] Noticia Cinco Días Tech Crunch [...]

By: Juanma

Juanma — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:31:57 +0000

In this case I would say as Marc Vidal said at http://bit.ly/4vjcjL

“El PlanE tenía que haber dado 100.000 euros a 80.000 emprendedores”

We are still thinking in “bricked” economy

By: juan

juan — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:43:00 +0000

A really good Plan E for Entrpreneurs should ban to have public workers in universities (teachers, researchers, etc) as investors, if not they will try to get the money for the university and their careers weakening the real start-up.

By: Enrique

Enrique — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:10:07 +0000

I agree with you all. Nevertheless I think in Spain there’s money looking for investment opportunities, but we need a good regulation – e.g. clear and good fiscal exemptions to B. Angels – to boost the entrepreneuship. We deserve a Plan E(ntrepreneur), a really good one.

By: Jose

Jose — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:27:07 +0000

I agree with Juan, I am sure that most f the investment accounted as R+D is invested in university… but seems that this is to build bigger and bigger campus and buildings, but the real “talent” inside stays the same over the years… or decreases, because the number of students attending to the university is not growing last years (mainly due to birthrate)… and considering how is the technology in Spain, who is going to leave a secure position with a good salary on the public sector to take the risk of entrepreneuring?. Is much better to advice to the others from a safe position, but if you fail, this is not going to punish you…

By: Alex Barrera

Alex Barrera — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:14:06 +0000

Very true Juan. I would even argue that even NEOTEC and all the other copycats should go away. We could talk for a long time about gov. funded initiatives, and personally I’m not against them. Problem from my point of view is that although they have the money, they have no view/knowledge/know how whatsoever to decide where those funds are better invested. Until we can fix that, there is no use in funding things with gov. money because it will always end up with the “usual suspects”

Nevertheless, we, at Tetuan Valley try to fix that “risk-taking” component that you talk about. Or at least we try, I guess time will say

By: juan

juan — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:02:22 +0000

Alex,

A plan for entreprenuring could be keep the NEOTEC soft loans for entrepreneurs and eliminiting at all the funds wasted in R+D in universities and big companies subsidiaries to “look alike” they invest in R+D.

It is clear that Spain is not US, there people leave PhD or teaching positions to take the risk of entrepreneuring, in Spain, no university professor leave, they only want to participate as advisor, etc, taking stake for nothing and trying to sign agreements to get the money for them.

I have a very bad experience with URJC, the word in spanish for them is “sanguijuela”.

By: juan

juan — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:55:10 +0000

Monica,

we could discuss if the plan E is useful or not, but it is not a problem for entrepreneuring.

The real problem for entrepreneuring is the state spending in R+D in big companies and universities, basically for nothing but unfair competetition.

By: Alex Barrera

Alex Barrera — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:09:02 +0000

Hey Monica, thanks a lot! Yeah deserve something better than Plan E, maybe a Plan Entrepreneur!

Thanks again!

By: Conor Neill

Conor Neill — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:46:56 +0000

I am also a keen member of the Linqia CEO Maria’s fanclub

By: Monica Perez

Monica Perez — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:34:35 +0000

Good initiative Alex! What Spain needs to recover from this crisis is more entrepreneurs and less Plan E!

Congratulations to you and Okuri Ventures!

By: Enrique

Enrique — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:56:27 +0000

Do not miss fiabee.com (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/fiabee), one of the hottest startups from Barcelona.

By: Alex Barrera

Alex Barrera — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:19:18 +0000

@LondonVC we do know Linqia and they’re a startup to watch indeed.

I personally adore their CEO María Sipka

By: Ramón Suárez

Ramón Suárez — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:11:53 +0000

You have a great opportunity to see Spanish webtrepreneurs at EBE09, the second largest participative web event in Europe. It will take place in Seville (Spain), from the 13 to the 15 of November. Robin Wauters (TC) will address the audience on Saturday. Plus, you will have a chance to see a group of Belgian webtrepreneurs presenting their companies also.

By: LondonVC

LondonVC — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:04:44 +0000

Barcelona-based Linqia http://www.crunchbase.com/company/linqia is a Spanish startup to watch