I am currently working on two big projects in the internet sphere.
The first one is quite advanced in its implementation. I am partnering with two other companies from UK and Italy and with complementary skills. It's cruising well and so far a nice experience. It addresses the Earth Observation market, so a real B2B business.
The second one is consumer market and I'm on it with a couple of local Spanish friends. It's originally my idea so I had to explain and convince in Spanish which is definitely good exercise for me. I think everybody is on board now. We're targeting a simple prototype and Business Plan out for September with the intention of looking for private seed funding in Madrid. In a nutshell we are talking about a web + mobile application for doing and planning tourism another way. I believe there is a huge market, in particular with families - I'd be the first user ;-), and it's currently untouched.
Now I have lived for more than two years in Madrid but never really paid any attention to what's available locally. Of course it's no Silicon Valley, but given the general state of the economy here, I'd say it's quite upbeat. There is a lot of passion and creativity and hopefully some investors.
First of all Madrid has this natural connection to Latin American countries. So when it comes to organise events they tend to widen the scope well beyond Madrid and Spain. I have been following La Red Innova for a while now and they do host quality events, that are talked about worldwide. And yes they do include a lot of Latin American guests.
Ready4ventures is another good one to follow. Though not as big, they do come up with nice blog posts and yearly reports. This one is a must read for me and a great source of information.
When browsing, you generally start with a Google, and then it's a tale of link hoping. I came across this event in Madrid The App Date. It shows there is a passionate community. I need to go soon! Then this post, a fascinating story that lead to this collaboratively built map of the Latin America start-up scene. I checked, I even have a neighbor, might go and have a chat with them!
Hasta pronto!
