Carlos Blanco, investor, gives recommendations on start-ups in the Canary Islands

Carlos Blanco positions himself as an entrepreneur of technology start-ups and brings together more than twenty-five years of experience in the field. Throughout his career, he has founded more than twenty start-ups and has also acted as an investor in around 140 companies and five Business Angels.

According to Blanco, despite not having had direct experience with start-ups that emerged from the university environment, when observing them he is clear that it is difficult to turn a project like this into something profitable. “It very rarely happens, we have few success stories” he says, something he attributes to the lack of experience and knowledge of the market, the commercial and marketing part, among others. Knowing the business environment is key to success. For this reason, he advises “first to learn and then to undertake” and considers that the best way to achieve this is to participate in other start-ups already created, mainly those dedicated to the sector that motivates the person. Once that start-up has already been consolidated and the entrepreneur has acquired enough experience, he will be able to carry out his own project.

Following these premises, he does not see as something positive to undertake out of necessity. He explains that it is more difficult to make a start-up successful than to get a job, even though it is not currently something easy in Spain. He repeats his previous words indicating that first you must learn, then work and finally undertake.

Carlos Blanco also has a series of observations that he applies when investing in a company or start-up. One of them is to analyze the founding team, specifically the leader. The team must be multidisciplinary and with different profiles that fit each project. Each type of start-up requires different co-founding partners, to which Blanco explains “most entrepreneurs, especially young ones, forget to choose the right people in the initial team.”

In this aspect of varied teams, he also sees the collaboration between people of Latin American and Spanish origin as something positive. However, he believes that both teams should work in different departments and as long as there are members of the founding team in both locations. In addition, he describes the Latin American market as a sector in which, knowing it less, it is necessary to be more careful with geopolitical elements, political issues and currency. In his own words: “it generates much greater complexities given the higher level of political uncertainty and the high fluctuations that exist in some countries”.

Returning to Spain, specifically to the Canary Islands, Blanco has met some start-ups from the archipelago, although he assures that few are successful. “It's a statistical issue,” he says, “there are some investors like Accelerator and the Archipelago fund, but successful start-ups from the Canary Islands are not coming out.” In cases like that of the island of La Palma, he does not see any potential when creating a start-up and in the Canary Islands that expectation is not greater. He explains that right now this type of business is more concentrated in big cities like Madrid, Barcelona, or Valencia.

This concentration in large cities is currently accompanied by a greater availability of money when investing in increasingly initial phases. In addition, the offer of good ideas or projects is not scarce in the opinion of Carlos Blanco. He does not believe that there is a “greater” tendency to invest in these early stages, “we have had the same tendency for many years”. On the other hand, these start-ups need to muster a certain appeal to entrepreneurs. A team that has a good track record is important and highly valued by investors. Failing that, if you don't have this experience, he recommends that you at least have some interesting starting techniques.

Regarding the tokenization of start-ups, he comments that he is a partner in several blockchain companies. He assures that “it is something that is here and will come immediately”, which will generate an increase in businesses dedicated to the blockchain.

As an investor he is aware of the difficulties that exist in his profession. For this reason, he recommends that anyone who wants to dedicate himself to investing, especially in early-stage start-ups, has to do so with “money that he needs in 8 years”, he even recommends that he do so if he has “interesting” assets. He highlights the importance of not doing it with the intention of living off the investment as a work model.