Mar Galtés: Origins of the most startup-oriented Barcelona
In recent years, Barcelona has established itself as a leading ecosystem for digital entrepreneurs from around the world. The Catalan City has managed to reach the top positions in international technology and entrepreneurship rankings, and is currently considered the largest hub for digital and technological development in Southern Europe. But one thing is clear, this recognition is not by chance. And to fully understand the current moment the city is experiencing, it is necessary to first understand where it comes from.
Specifically, the journalist and communication consultant Mar Galtés discusses at length the origins of entrepreneurial activity in Barcelona in her latest book Barcelona startup. A journalistic chronicle that compiles 150 stories of which she has been a privileged observer, reviewing the success stories and role models that have put the Catalan capital on the European map. Stories that tell, from her personal perspective, the History of this digital and technological ecosystem, with its successes and failures, from its beginnings long before there was an awareness of an ecosystem.
When thinking about the startup ecosystem in Barcelona, we surely think of the big current companies that are part of it. However, very few know those early stories, which date back to the late 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, and which have led us to where we are today. Stories that journalist Mar Galtés has been able to follow very closely for 25 years, through her chronicles in La Vanguardia. Narratives that have explained and given visibility to the birth of the entire digital and technological entrepreneurship culture and that, now, she presents to the world through her book: “I realized that most people, even those who were part of the ecosystem, and especially those who had joined in the last 5-7 years, were not clear about the history behind it. A history that has allowed us to get to where we are. Above all, because a few years ago it was not so evident that Barcelona could become a digital and technological hub. That's when I considered the idea of writing this book, precisely to be able to value all these stories that I had been able to know so closely and that allow us to understand where we are and give credibility to where we want to go”.
How Barcelona would end up becoming a leading entrepreneurial ecosystem on a global scale was not detailed in any roadmap, yet there were many people, institutions, and entities with ideas, actions, and policies that converged and looked in the same direction. But as Mar Galtés states, "here, in the city itself, it was hard to see and demonstrate that the sector was globally relevant. However, outside of Barcelona, they saw it very soon. A clear example is found in the founders of eDreams, two Americans from Stanford, who already in '99, in the midst of the dot-com bubble, wanted to set up an online travel company and, as there were already large companies in the sector in the U.S. market, they decided to come to Europe. When choosing the location for their business, out of all the cities, they chose Barcelona. All of this was not so obvious.
Tal como refleja en su libro, para la autora hay cuatro fechas clave que ilustran ese reconocimiento exterior: “La primera se da en octubre de 1999, durante una conferencia ante empresarios catalanes en la que Pep Vallés, por entonces fundador del portal ¡Olé!, auguró que Barcelona reunía las condiciones para ser el Silicon Valley europeo”. Sin embargo, Galtés afirma que esa declaración no se entendió en aquel momento, en una Barcelona en la que apenas se hablaba de emprendedores ni de startups. “En mayo del año 2000, el magazine de San Francisco, The Industry Standard, considerado la biblia de los negocios de internet, convocó en el Hotel Arts su primera conferencia mundial. Barcelona acogió el primer Congreso Mundial de Negocios de Internet, cuando aquí todavía no entendíamos nada sobre el tema. Ni siquiera hubo empresas locales participantes. Pero se estaban dando ya las condiciones para que estas cosas pasaran y era más que evidente que nos reconocían desde fuera, por lo tanto, solo era cuestión de tiempo”.
Las otras dos fechas apuntan a dos hechos relevantes que, como explica Mar, hacen que todo el mundo tome conciencia del ecosistema de Barcelona como tal. El primero, en verano de 2016, con la inauguración de la sede del Barcelona Tech City en el Pier01, la asociación privada sin ánimo de lucro, abierta al conjunto del ecosistema tecnológico local e internacional, impulsada por emprendedores locales, que actualmente representa a más de 1000 empresas. “En ese momento Barcelona descubre que esto va de verdad, que las startups no son una moda y esta nueva realidad se hace tangible en la ciudad. A este hecho, se suma que, en otoño de 2017, el fondo de inversión europeo Atomico, publicó un informe que apuntaba a Barcelona como la tercera ciudad preferida de Europa por los emprendedores para montar su startup. Quedaba claro que desde fuera nos estaban reconociendo un posicionamiento que aquí nadie se había creído”.
And the fact is that Barcelona, as a city, offers multiple charms related to its quality and lifestyle which, combined with its business traditionbusiness, have contributed to laying the foundations of the ecosystem: “In Barcelona, there is a geographical base, a great appeal for living in terms of quality of life, which is evident, and this has always been here. And then there is a business and commercial tradition of open-mindedness, which we often underestimate, that makes people want to come to live in Barcelona. That is, there is a certain commercial and business tradition, but also one of welcoming, of being a very open city that everyone can come to and where many things can happen. In addition, apart from the business character, the administrations have also contributed to enhancing the ecosystem, although not in a coordinated way. Barcelona Activa on its own, the Generalitat, through CIDEM first and then ACCIÓ, and also through the Universities, being reference entities that have attracted people. Each in their own way, they have met and everything has been built up”.
The Catalan capital has an undeniable track record of creativity, artistic and cultural, Mediterranean, which has traditionally positioned it as the city of design, and has also marked the differential values of its entrepreneurial fabric. As the author tells us: “While Berlin is a very strong city in operations and its startups are very powerful in logistics and systems; in Tel-Aviv, they are important in science, cybersecurity, and the entire military sector; London stands out in fintech and in Barcelona the whole product side shines: user experience, focus, processes, etc. Design ability and creativity are our differential values. And this must be linked to the sectors in which Barcelona is strong: tourism, health, food. We must continue to look for the strong points of the industry that give meaning to innovation via startups, since the result can have a significant social impact in terms of job places, changes in habits, and applications for people”.
When asked about the future of the digital and technological ecosystem in Barcelona, Mar tells us that: “From the city's point of view, now that we have managed to make the narrative of innovation and startups take hold, to be understood, the future challenge, which is already being worked on, is to make the definitive 'click' in the traditional economy. It's no longer enough to believe in the world of startups; now it's time to practice it, to take action. And this involves ensuring that traditional companies and the administration itself become consumers of the quality products generated by the ecosystem. It must be understood that they truly add value, that they are an important avenue for innovation, and that they can have a decisive pulling effect to get out of the crisis. It's not enough to believe in and support startups; we must consume our technology, commit to it, before that of others from abroad”
Without a doubt, a must-read book for anyone who wants to know how Barcelona, the city of the Olympics, design, Gaudí, Barça, has also become the most important digital and technological hub in Southern Europe.
