Alex Dantart, co-founder of Moonback, addresses the keys for success in early-stage start-ups

Alex Dantart, investor and co-founder of companies like Moonback, gives us the keys to entrepreneurship. He explains its role in early-stage start-ups and advises new creators to seek investment.

Alex Dantart assures that university incubation has undergone a radical growth in recent years, since universities are turning not only to create entrepreneurship programs but also in incubation programs. Although he believes that great entrepreneurial figures are still missing within said institution. “I see that there is still work to be done so that the ecosystem becomes much more enriched. In other words, they should be supported by real figures and not just dedicate themselves to building incubation programs”, assures the investor.

For those university students who want to create their own startup, Dantart advises them to start a business directly. They believe that the best way to learn is to put into practice the knowledge they have acquired, but they have to be sure that it is what they want in their life. He assures that the life of the entrepreneur is hard and they must have a mental capacity and an optimal economic situation to be able to undertake. He clarifies that it should never be done out of necessity, the year 2010 can be used as an example when the economic crisis created a need for work and where people launched themselves into entrepreneurship, however, 98% of the companies failed. “Entrepreneurship must be vocational, it has to come from within and it has to be something that you want to do per se,” says Dantart.

Once the decision to set up a startup is made and it is clear that it is for vocations, a good idea must be thought of. For him this is the key to success. From his position, Dantart helps new entrepreneurs face the challenge, teaches them how to improve along the way so that they themselves know what they need to adjust in their idea or in the project to make it work.

Now there are many incubation projects that are dedicated to generating entrepreneurs and not to generating ideas, so he advises first to validate, fine-tune and brush up the idea so that the project that is in the mind of the entrepreneur is perfect.

Regarding mixed work teams, Alex Dantart assures that they can work very well as long as they are not excessively heterogeneous. Globalization and technology allow companies of this type to be created, but he points out that when the partners come from very different cultures, the task of creation can be very difficult. In addition, one must take into account how the economy of each country works, for example, in Latin America the economy works very differently from Spain, which has led to a tendency for Spaniards to want to work with personnel from there since they leave cheaper. In conclusion, “it is always good to create mixed teams, but keeping in mind how and what ingredients have to be mixed”.

Alex Dantart also encourages entrepreneurship locally, a good place is the Canary Islands where he sees a great opportunity after the volcano catastrophe. As a result of this, very good ideas can arise, projects can be created that cover needs that have recently arisen.

Lastly, the first thing a startup has to get to seek investors and financing are clients, because no matter how much you have a great team, no matter how many months you have worked on the MVP, working directly on the final product instead of testing something first to work is a bug. Dantart comments that the money from the external investor in the initial phases has to be used to grow that idea that has been put into practice, but the money to create a startup must come from the entrepreneur himself.