Startups now have their roadmap, a living document that sets out the main problems they face and, above all, how to overcome them.
There have been some earlier attempts and, fortunately, everything done before has served as a basis for working on the new Spain Startup Manifesto. It grows out of the movement that has already started at European level, and it had become necessary to take the pulse of the Spanish ecosystem so that we could have our own manifesto.
The people in charge of shaping it were:
- Alex Barrera, Tech.eu, Press42, Tetuan Valley
- Carmen Bermejo, Tetuan Valley
- David Bonilla. Otogami and Runnics
- Iñaki Arrola. Coches.com, Vitamina K, Chamberí Valley
- Javier Megías. Startupxplore
- Juan Cartagena. Traity
- Justo Hidalgo. 24symbols
- Liz Fleming. IE Business School, Venture Network
- Luis Martín Cabiedes. Cabiedes & Partners
- Marcos Eguillor. IdeaFoster
- María Fanjul. Entradas.com, Chamberí Valley
- Mario López de Ávila. Agile Entrepreneurship Spain, UEIA, NODOS en la red
- Miguel Arias. CartoDB, Chamberí Valley
They are all key people in the Spanish entrepreneurial ecosystem, and they have identified 5 major areas where action is needed.
Government (the legal and regulatory environment)
Spain, the country where there are no second chances; barriers to entry when setting up a company (ranked 142nd out of 189 in the Doing Business report); a lack of legal certainty for some activities; and, above all, the latest changes such as the Cookie Law or the AEDE levy.
Ecosystem (being an entrepreneur is not a fad)
Society still doesn’t know what a startup is or its potential for creating jobs; politicians and big companies abuse the photo opportunity of being seen to support entrepreneurs, only up to a point; and the ecosystem is fragmented, as is the available support.
Investment
Until recently, foreign investors paid hardly any attention to our country, but there is also our own mental barrier, and sometimes a language barrier, to seeking investment abroad, as well as the taxation of capital gains and stock options.
Labour market
Little flexibility in hiring, heavy social security costs, brain drain, training that doesn’t match the reality of the profiles companies need, new ways of selecting talent, etc.
Education
Academic programmes designed to train employees, not business owners; good education professionals but few entrepreneurial ones; unsuitable and outdated teaching methods; and little contact with the real world on the part of educational institutions.
We will shortly show you the final version of the Spain Startup Manifesto. Its forerunner was the European Startup Manifesto, led by 9 founders of successful startups, which has so far gathered nearly 8,000 signatures and is also focused on 5 areas for action. Take a look here.
Things are moving, and in parallel we have the people at UP Global, the organisers of Startup Weekend, who have produced a 53-page white paper with an in-depth study of the ecosystem worldwide, highlighting the aspects that give startups the prominence they deserve as agents that transform society and make countries more innovative.
To 
share all this we organised an event, the “Spanish Startups Meeting” in Madrid, to talk about these 3 documents already drawn up, lay the foundations for startups’ needs but, above all, to “get down to work”. The ones in charge of presenting it were Carmen Bermejo, CEO of Tetuan Valley, and yours truly. It was an interesting first event, with around 30 participants and the collaboration of Google and IAB Spain.
We connected with the UK through Guy Levin, executive director of COADEC, the policy voice of startups in the United Kingdom, who told us how this movement emerged 3 years ago and ended up forming a coalition to take its proposals to the political level. The main aim is to turn the country into a benchmark for innovation.
We will probably look to them to create something similar in Spain, so we’ll keep you posted.
Here is the #StartupManifiesto Twitter account, and we will also publish the upcoming events on Startup Xplore, where I encourage you to register if you are part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Spain.
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