«The advantages of failure«, 24 de febrero 2010, Madrid

La animadversión al riesgo y el miedo al fracaso, son dos de los mayores obstáculos para emprender en España, tal y como  se desprende del informe GEM 2009. Más del 50% de los españoles encuestados, declara que el miedo fracaso supondría un impedimento para emprender, porcentaje que aumenta respecto a 2008 y que se sitúa en uno de los tres más altos entre los países desarrollados.

Hace unos meses, Martin Varsavsy se hacía eco de esta realidad en su columna semanal en el artículo «Creación de empresas: Lo que debemos cambiar en Europa«.

«La visión del fracaso es menos severa en USA. En USA el fracaso no es percibido como una enfermedad crónica que dura toda la vida, sino más bien como una prueba de carácter y de temple. Los VCs (capitalistas de riesgo) en Estados Unidos intentan invertir en los proyectos de aquellos emprendedores que tienen en su haber una combinación de éxitos y fracasos, ya que consideran que están más preparados para enfrentarse a las realidades de la vida empresarial. Pero en Europa, el fracaso es visto como un mal que te persigue por el resto de tus días. Además, el fracaso en Europa no es sólo un problema de imagen, es un serio problema crónico legal.» Leer artículo completo.

Así, mientras los fondos americanos valoran los fracasos previos de los emprendedores a la hora de invertir, en España el 64,2% de los emprendedores que fracasaron en su primera startup, declaran que no volverán a intentarlo. En definitiva, una combinación de factores que supuso en 2009 una caída de la actividad emprendedora en España del 27,1%, de acuerdo con el mismo informe. Es cierto que hay muchos otros factores que influyen en este descenso, y en general en la baja tasa emprendedora de nuestro país, como el acceso a la financiación o el obstáculo que supone el entramado burocrático necesario para constituir una empresa.

Aunque queda mucho camino por recorrer, los emprendedores han cerrado el año con buenas noticias en este sentido: el decreto ley del 3 de diciembre acorta los tiempos para constituir una empresa, reduce los trámites, y rebaja considerablemente el precio, pudiendo constituir una empresa en 48 horas por 100€ utilizando los estatutos tipo proporcionados por el ministerio de justicia. En cuánto a la financiación, si bien las subvenciones han desaparecido casi por completo, los emprendedores cuentan con alternativas como ENISA, que ha concedido hasta la fecha un total de 845 préstamos participativos, por un importe de 280,13 millones de euros, y cuenta con dos nuevas líneas de financiación para jóvenes emprendedores y para mujeres emprendedoras.

El miedo al fracaso, sin embargo, parece ser un mal endémico de la sociedad española, algo que no se cambia legislando sino reeducando a la población, mostrando que el fracaso no es un estigma, sino que que como dijo Dickens, «Cada fracaso enseña al hombre algo que necesitaba aprender». Afortunadamente, algunos emprendedores son lo bastante valientes como para no sólo fracasar y seguir intentándolo, sino que además se atreven a contar su experiencia y lo que han aprendido de ella.

SeedRocket colabora con Venture Lab del Instituto de Empresa en la organización del evento «The advantages of failure» que tendrá lugar el 24 de febrero en Madrid, de 09:30 a 14:00. La inscripción es gratuita pero las plazas son limitadas.

Programa:

Introductions

9:30 to 10:00AM: – Cristina Cruz, Gary Stewart and Juan José Güemes

Learn From Our Mistakes

10:00 to 10:45AM – Jose María Castillejo: José Maria serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of ZinkiaEntertainment SA, a listed company whose principal product is the animated figure Pocoyo. He has held this post since 2002. He is Founder and has acted as Board Member of JOMACA 98 S.L. since 1998. In addition, he is Founder and Chairman of Origo Biotech and since 2005 as Chairman of the Board of Cementerios de Tenerife. From 2001 till 2007, he served as Founder and Board Member of Techrules, and from 1993 till 2000, he held the same posts in Vivavoce. He holds Bachelors degrees in Humanities from Universidad de Salamanca and in Philosophy from Pontificia Universidad Gregoriana de Roma. He also holds an MBA from IE Business School.

• 10:00 to 10:20 – Lecture by José Maria Castillejo
• 10:20 to 10:35 – Jesús Encinar interviews José María Castillejo
• 10:35 to 10:45 – Audience Q&A

10:45 to 11:30AM – Jesús Encinar: Jesús is the Founder and CEO of Idealista (Spain’s top real estate website), founder and president at 11870.com, partner and board member at Rentalia.com and Toprural.com, and a business angel (and mentor in SeedRocket). The World Economic Forum named Jesús a Young Global Leader in 2008. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1997.

• 10:45 to 11:05 – Lecture by Jesús Encinar
• 11:05 to 11:20 – Alberto Knapp interviews Jesús Encinar
• 11:20 to 11:30 – Audience Q&A

11:30 to 12:15PM – Alberto Knapp: Alberto is the CEO of The Cocktail, Spain’s leading Experience Design firm, whose clients include MTV, BBVA, Telefónica, Nokia and Diageo. He is also CEO of The Shaker (www.the-shaker.com), a community and blogging platform used by all industry-leading media organizations in Spain. He teaches at the IE Business School. Alberto carries more than 15 years of experience developing businesses and products for television, mobile and the Internet. Most recently, Alberto has conceived and funded industry-leading ventures including UnVlog (www.unvlog.com), a video blog service, and Iwannagothere.net, a collaborative travel guide in its early business stages. Alberto is also a business angel and mentor in SeedRocket.

• 11:30 to 11:50 – Lecture by Alberto Knapp
• 11:50 to 12:05 – Gustavo Garcia Brusilovksy interviews Alberto Knapp
• 12:05 to 12:15 – Audience Q&A

12:15 to 1:00PM – Gustavo Garcia Brusilovksy: Gustavo (Buenos Aires-Argentina-1966) is an entrepreneur who has invested heavily in the Internet world. He has a degree in Biochemistry from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and a diploma in Computer Science from the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca. Gustavo received his MBA from the University of Houston, after which he specialized in Marketing at the Chartered Institute of Marketing of London. At the age of 39, Gustavo decided to take the leap and start an Internet project while in the General Management Program at IESE. In early October 2010, Gustavo sold BuyVip to Amazon for approximately €80 million. He is also involved in other projects such as Doctortrade.com and Oportunista.com.

• 12:15 to 12:35 – Lecture by Gustavo Garcia Brusilovksy
• 12:35 to 12:50 – José María Castillejo interviews Gustavo Garcia Brusilovksy
• 12:50 to 1:00PM – Audience Q&A

Start-up Nation: What European Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Israel About The Advantages of Failure (Panel Discussion, moderated by Hana Milanov (pending confirmation))

1:00PM to 2:00PM

Professor Nir N. Brueller, Ph.D.: Nir joined the Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration, Tel Aviv University, after serving as Affiliated Senior Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor of Strategy at INSEAD, Fontainebleau and Singapore. He holds a Ph.D. in Management (Strategy) from Tel Aviv University, an MBA with Distinction from INSEAD, and both a M.Sc. and a B.Sc. (Cum Laude) in Electrical Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. Nir’s research interests revolve around corporate strategy, with a special focus on high-tech industries, mergers and acquisitions, and technology entrepreneurship and strategy. His PhD dissertation on value creation and capture in technology-grafting acquisitions won the Yoram Rosenfeld Best Doctoral Dissertation Prize (2006) and one of his studies was honored with Strategic Management Society Best Paper Prize (Winner, 2007). In addition to his academic research and teaching, Dr. Brueller has worked with top management teams of international high-tech firms on corporate development, M&A strategy and implementation. Before joining academia Nir held several management positions including Partner at a boutique strategy consulting firm, VP of Investment and Business Development of an Israeli venture capital firm, and Marketing Product Manager in an international, publicly traded (NASDAQ), telecommunications equipment company. Prior to that, he worked for seven years as an engineer in R&D and project management positions.

Adam Fisher: Adam is a partner of Bessemer Venture Partners, a venture capital firm that manages more than $2 billion in more than 130 companies around the world. Based in Herzliya, Israel, Adam joined the firm in 2007. He founded Bessemer’s Israel office, where the firm has been investing since. Adam is focused primarily on investments in Internet companies, with an emphasis on firms that sell services directly to consumers and small businesses. He also dabbles in wireless and semiconductor investments and pursues deals mainly in Israel and Europe. Adam holds a B.S.F.S. degree in international economics and Middle East studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Born in South Africa, he has lived in a number of U.S. cities as well as China and Israel.

Professor Dan Galai, Ph.D. (pending confirmation): Dan is the Abe Gray Professor of Finance and Business Administration at the School of Business Administration, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was a visiting Professor of Finance at INSEAD and at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2006 he served as a Visiting Professor at the Stern School of Business, NYU. He has also taught at the University of Chicago and at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Galai holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Hebrew University. He has served as a consultant for the Chicago Board Options Exchange and the American Stock Exchange as well as for major banks. He had co-invented the volatility index based on the prices of traded index options. He has published numerous articles in leading business and finance journals, on options, financial assets, and corporate finance, and serves on the Boards of a few academic journals. He is a co-author of Risk Management, McGraw-Hill (2000) and of The Essentials of Risk Management, McGraw-Hill (2005). He was a winner of the First Annual Pomeranze Prize for excellence in options research presented by the CBOE. Dr. Galai is a Principal in Sigma P.C.M. Ltd., which is engaged in portfolio management and corporate finance. In the company he is responsible for risk management consulting to financial institutions as well as non-bank corporations. He is a co-Founder of MutualArt Inc., a financial services company, which provides pension-like benefits to selected artists worldwide.

Yaron Samid: Yaron is the founder and CEO of BillGuard, a personal finance security start-up harnessing the “collective vigilance” of consumers to protect everyone from unwanted and unauthorized charges on their bills. He previously co-founded Pando, the web’s leading P2P CDN with over 40 million users, and led product management and marketing teams at Zend, BackWeb and Register.com. Yaron is also the founder and chairman of TechAviv (www.techaviv.com), the global Israeli startup founders club and NYVideo.org. Current board seats include Aprigo and Pond5.