BUSINESS

Remade in Spain

The latest clutch of Spanish internet start-ups are adept at taking existing ideas and reinventing them for new markets. click tracks down three of these companies to discover the story behind their success

TEXTO: BARRY MANSFIELD
ILUSTRACIONES: VANESSA TEODORO

PLANETAKI (www.planetaki.com) IS AN RSS READER AND WEB bookmark service that allows you to create your own version of the web and share this with others. It’s essentially a simplified, well-ordered catalogue of your most visited or desired pages. According to founder Javier Cañada: “I’ve always been frustrated with the complexity and anxiety-inducing nature of newsreaders. Years ago, I knew it would be easy to improve some things about them, but I didn’t have the time or the freedom to do so. Planetaki isn’t a novel idea; I just improved something that already existed.”

In 2006, the same week Cañada’s son was born, he quit his day job and started designing the site. He had to do some side work “to pay for the nappies”, but the money from investor Bernardo Hernández enabled him to hire Sam Lown, an elite programmer. One year later, he launched Planetaki.

The start-up hasn’t been affected by the economic downturn, because in Cañada’s own words, it “has always been a low-budget project. It’s not about how much money, engineers or marketing guys you can afford. An advanced programmer with a good designer can beat armies of the average guys you find in well-funded start-ups.”

Cañada recalls his working life at a previous start-up, before he created Planetaki. “They burned millions on superfluous things: unnecessary hirings, luxurious offices in the best location, expensive hardware and heavy programming environments.”

Planetaki, by contrast, has been careful with expenses from the very beginning. The office is above a hair salon in a working-class neighbourhood, costing only €300 per month.

On WOLPY (www.wolpy.com) you can share feedback on places or venues you have visited on your travels, explore new hotspots and find out where your pals have been. The service, launched in April 2008, was developed by two friends who met in a LAN (local area network) party. Wolpy’s users have so far shared more than 75,000 trips to nearly 12,700 destinations.

The design duo Miguel Abad and Ana Belén Ramón were busy working on big web projects at the time, but were keen on creating and raising their own web application. ”When the idea came to us, we didn’t know of any similar web projects,” says Belén Ramón. “Later we discovered a few related applications, including one for creating a blog of your trips, one for uploading your travel photos, and one to share reviews of hotels and restaurants. But we felt there was a niche to be filled.”

Belén Ramón believes travel companies are not yet fully exploiting the potential of the internet. “Instead of seeking inspiration on travel websites, we found it on other community websites.” She thinks Spain, and Europe as a whole, have a lot of work to do to rival the USA’s success in running technology companies. “We have to learn how to move faster, to adapt better to users’ needs, and have the ambition to grow internationally.”

Any Spanish speaker who has the ambition to become a writer can make his or her dream a reality on BUBOK (www.bubok.com). They can upload their book, give it a professional image and make it available for sale. If you don’t feel the urge to pick up a pen, you can always check out the work of other aspiring authors. Bubok launched in September 2007, but the beta version was available from April that year. Angel María Herrera, current CEO of the company, says the inspiration came to him when he worked for a small publishing company called Grupo Buho. This firm received so many unsolicited books that at least 300 every month would remain “in the drawer” because Herrera and his colleagues simply didn’t have time to read them. “Those books could contain great stories, but they will never be published,” he says. “So we wanted to allow everyone to self-publish.”

Bubok did not copy an idea but did borrow “some lines from a US company that specialised in print-on-demand. When someone wants a book we print it, but we do not have stocks or storage.”

Despite the recession, Bubok’s sales figures continue increasing at a rate of 15% every month. “These days, people stay more at home, they read more and they use the internet more, so we provide the perfect combination of ideas.” From April, Bubok has achieved over 10,000 users, more than 13,000 ebooks downloaded, over 3,000 published titles on file, and more than 7,000 printed books.

Federico Aparici, owner of Naranjas Lola

Fresh, Fast and Juicy

SOME SLOGANS ARE DIFFERENT, SUGGESTIVE, CONVINCING. Others are resourceful, ingenious, shrewd or simply over the top. And just a few are for companies that do exactly as they say. Naranjas Lola is a family business from Cullera in Valencia, whose motto, “From the tree to your table in 24 hours”, has proved a powerful driver on the company’s road to success. Well, that and its internet sales system.

TEXTO: LUIS DAMIÁN MARTÍNEZ

How did Naranjas Lola come about?

It arose out of being sick of losing money in farming.

Eleven years ago we were tired of not making any profit selling oranges through conventional sales channels. At that point it occurred to us to try selling over the internet. Back then it seemed like lunacy.

Is it really possible for a person living in Finland, Greece or Germany to eat an orange that was picked in Cullera just 24 hours earlier?

From Monday to Thursday, yes. If the order is made on a Friday, we wait until Monday before picking the orange, which ensures it doesn’t spend the weekend in a box inside some lorry. We pick the oranges between seven in the morning and two in the afternoon, and from the tree they are taken to wooden boxes that go directly to the delivery lorries or vans. To be honest, transport is a daily struggle.

How many customers does your company have?

About 400 restaurants, hotels, specialist grocers and delis, plus around 1,500 individual customers.

The best Spanish restaurants serve your produce…

Yes, you can find our oranges at Viridiana, El Chaflán, Nodo, Racó de Can Fabes, at Berasategui’s restaurant and even at Ferran Adrià’s famous El Bulli.

And a single family runs a business like this?

One of my sons deals with the computing side and the other one handles the agriculture along with my father-in-law. My wife and my father also help out. It’s a very family atmosphere.

www.naranjaslola.com

Small-scale production

Some years ago, Naranjas Lola registered the domain name www.naranjaslola.com and set up an internet site to sell its orange crop. Although it took some time to get the site up and running, it now enjoys considerable success.

The company not only pioneered selling farm produce over the internet in Spain, it’s also remarkable for using non-industrial methods. The farm produces 150,000 kilos of fully ripe, carefully nurtured citrus fruit from November to April each year.