Thank you, Startup Grind
Time to close one chapter of my life. Thank you, Startup Grind.
Last week, I resigned from my position as Chapter Director of Startup Grind in Barcelona. No clickbait here.
It's been ten fantastic years, watching the community ebb and flow over time, meeting new friends in every event and visiting other chapters as a must-do thing when I travelled abroad. I attended Startup Grind in 15 different cities, while the directors of 60 chapters visited ours.
In Barcelona alone, we hosted 153 monthly events without ever skipping a single month, from March 2014 until August 2024. In 2017, 2018 and 2019 we hosted an international conference for 1000 people apiece called Startup Grind Tech with founders and C-levels of companies like Shazam, Revolut, Atomico, Couchsurfing, Stripe and more.
Throughout the years, we've built a newsletter of 9000 people - with incredible open and click-through rates - and partnerships with companies like Amazon, Revolut and other leading brands.
With all the events and conferences factored in, we have hosted over 500 speakers, most of whom we consider friends. Some have come back multiple times to speak again, and some others come regularly to the event as attendees.
There are several driving forces behind my motivation during ten years.
Number one, first and foremost, our team of volunteers. We have had almost the same team from 2017. This pack of truly devoted friends have given it their all for the cause during 7 years. Prior to them, we had other amazing individuals that contributed to our success, too, including my co-founders Carlos Cruz and Alex González. Thank you Stela, Nasia, Marc, Victor, Ferran and Francesca, and of course, Leire and Eli from MarsBased.
Second, going on stage month after month and seeing 100+ people in the audience, most of whom have attended several events, has filled me with excitement event after event. Some folks have attended 50+ events. I wouldn't have done that myself, being completely honest.
Third, the impact. I want to stop here for a second.
I can't compile a list of all the things we've done over the years because the post would be endless, but here are some:
- I introduced one member of our community to one of our speakers. They co-founded a company within a month. I introduced them to their first angel investor and so I decided to invest in them too. This company, almost ten years later, still exists and it's called Consentio.
- We have hired for our projects or helped someone else to hire directly more than 100 individuals (that we have knowledge of).
- We have been giving talks to business schools and universities 5-10x a year, inspiring people beyond our events.
- I have personally invested in 40+ companies at this point. Not all from Startup Grind, but a few ones came from there in one way or another.
- We have helped over 25 companies from our community to raise funds from our speakers (that we have knowledge of).
- We have counseled a few companies to open an office in Barcelona. Two of them did it because of our advice: Haufe-Umantis and LoveToKnow.
- We have managed to channel investment directly from Silicon Valley to 10+ companies from Barcelona thanks to our events.
- We've done 25 open calls for the VC funds of our speakers, where we've screened hundreds of decks at a time.
- We have raised funds for charity over the years on multiple occasions.
- We have helped dozens of entrepreneurs to go visit Silicon Valley, opening doors to companies and individuals there.
- From Barcelona, we have inspired and mentored about 25 different Startup Grind chapters over the years, in places like Gibraltar, Mataró, Veneto, Rome, Madrid and more.
- We have given voice to hundreds - if not thousands - of entrepreneurs selflessly over the years at our open mics and our newsletters so they could find the help they needed.
- I've spent over 800 office hours meeting entrepreneurs from Barcelona and beyond just to see how could I help them.
I'm sure I'm forgetting many other cool things, but ten years is a hell of a long time.
On the not-so-great list of events, we've had:
- That time where our main venue was taken over by squatters twice in a year so we were forced to host 6-7 events in different venues across the city.
- That time I accidentally blasted "fuck off" to a room full of VIPs during our conference because that was my screensaver.
- That time when one of our speakers had to cancel his attendance because he was involved in a sexual harassment scandal. No, it's not who you're thinking of, unfortunately.
- Having to cancel our 2020 & 2021 conferences because of COVID. We then decided to stop doing them.
- That time where I lost a few thousand euros because I fucked up sending an email with the wrong amount to the conference sponsors.
- That time when a very drunk guy came to the event, slept through the fireside chat, drank 2-3 beers during the networking and fucked off without bothering anyone.
- That time where people left our conference en masse because it was October 2017 and Puigdemont was - allegedly - announcing the Catalan independence, leaving our top-notch speakers, who had come all the way from San Francisco, without an audience for almost two hours.
In our ten years anniversary event, we hosted 300+ people, including former speakers, journalists, investors and other VIPs in Barcelona. We had one of our best events ever. I was so excited, I gave a 90-minute keynote going over the ten years and all we've ever learnt, but then I realised one thing: a lot of companies I had interviewed at Startup Grind don't exist anymore. Some of them will shut down in the next weeks or months. The startup scene is short-sighted and short-lived, too.
The last few years, I haven't learnt on stage as much as, say, in the first 100 events. I realised I have outgrown this role, and someone else will benefit from it more than me.
Over the years, I haven't made a lot of money from Startup Grind. On the contrary, I've lost more than I have won, but that was the price of focusing on my own business instead. In the last 12 months, I haven't given it my all, and that's where I draw the line.
I always said I'd be doing this until I found someone that can do it better.
Unfortunately, I haven't found that person yet. Maybe this job was tailored for me, who knows. I will help Startup Grind to find a replacement in the next months, so let me know if you're interested.
And now, what?
Well, I have other interests. Startup Grind and I haven't seen eye to eye for a few years, so it's time to part ways. Also, my company MarsBased and my podcast Foc a Terra are growing and demanding more time and focus.
I want to do less startup stuff and concentrate more on healthy businesses. No more VC, no more high-growth bullshit, no more "go big or go home" nonsense. No more capitalising gains while socialising losses. No more "we need less taxes" while demanding more help from governments and using ENISA and other taxpayer money to gamble building yet another delivery app or another social network no one asked for.
If you want to stay tuned on my next adventures, subscribe to my newsletter. I will keep helping entrepreneurs, living the Startup Grind values, from a different place.
For too many years, I have been listening.
Now, it's time to speak.
Thanks for all your support throughout the years, from the bottom of my black heart.