074 - The unfiltered reality of serial entrepreneurship, with Francesc Font Cot (Co-founder of Incapto)

Brace yourselves for a riveting dialogue with Francesc Font Cot, the dynamic serial entrepreneur who co-founded Incapto Coffee, Nubelo, and Bandit. We uncover the raw truth behind the glitz and glamour of startup life and explore the harsh reality that only two out of 10 startups survive. Francesc, with his decades of experience, offers a rare perspective on the elusive success of serial entrepreneurship.

We explore the metamorphosis of business models, emphasizing the criticality of revenue, profits, and cash flow. Francesc shares candid anecdotes from his venture with Bandit, shedding light on the triumphs and tribulations of his business journey. We also delve into the intriguing world of digital native vertical brands, crowdfunding, and venture capital funding for growth. Francesc and his co-founder Joaquim’s innovative ideas turned opportunities into thriving businesses, breaking new grounds in the coffee industry.

Lastly, we navigate through the challenging terrains of startup life, exploring the art of brand building under capital constraints. Francesc shares his superpower – the ability to stay calm and make the best decisions in the face of adversity. We explore his journey of creating and implementing a successful business model, highlighting the importance of understanding the value chain in the coffee industry. This is a truly enlightening conversation, highlighting Francesc's approach to marketing and selling her product, which sets her apart in the industry. A must-listen for anyone who's looking to make waves in the startup world.

The AI-generated captions for this podcast episode labeled Francesc as "Francesca Von Gott". What a truly epic name.

Transcript

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 0:00

Hello everybody and welcome to Life of Mars. My name is Alex and I'm the CEO and founder of Mars Space, and I will be your host today and in this episode we're bringing you a star grind interview. As a matter of fact, this is the event we had last month Francesc Front Cot , the co-founder and co CEO of in Capto Coffee, but famously he had co-founded also other companies like Nubelo and Bandit in the past. Francesc is a very, very respectable entrepreneur and I really admire him because he's not in the spotlight, he's always behind the scenes. He's much more of an operational person and not the kind of person that spends a lot of time just going to events and speaking and being on podcasts. So he's much more of a maker, if you will, and I really like that. I like that kind of people. Just keeps creating businesses, adding value, selling businesses, and maybe some once work, some others don't, but he's always there, doesn't really like to give advice, although he's very opinionated on certain things. You can tell that he was very comfortable in the interview and the reason I wanted to share this interview it's because I think it's less of a startup grind interview where we usually have people that are have got larger companies with bigger headcount have raised hundreds of millions in venture capital and whatnot and not so much close to being bootstrap companies. These kind of quasi bootstrap companies are not our typical guest, but I really, really, really wanted to do a couple of events where we had like no bullshit and had people with straight up answers about creating businesses with a proven serial entrepreneurship, not a one hit wonder, because one of the things I realized in the last few years and I've been doing startup grind for almost 10 years now is that a lot of the companies interviewed in the past, the, don't exist anymore and maybe that's the fate of most startups. Maybe that's the reality of two out of 10, are the ones to survive and made. Just one out of 10 is the one that makes it past 10 years.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 2:07

So this is something that I really wanted to bring up to the to the conversation, and I think that the reality is that, looking back to the 170 plus events we have hosted at Mars based, I see that at least 30, 40, 50 companies don't exist anymore and they have some of them. The raised 30 40 million in venture capital. They've had more than 100 people and these two are mainly our criteria for selecting speakers is at least 10 million in animal revenue or 100 people in headcount and, like it or not, they help me to filter out some people who might not be relevant. But the reality is we don't have those many companies like that and we have hosted pretty much every company in the scene that come that complies with these criteria. But the thing is most of them just make it once but they don't make it twice, which is really rare, really more than rare. It's strange, and maybe in the US, because it's a bigger market, they they create second companies and third companies and they make it to this numbers as well, but in Spanish, pretty unfrequent. So I don't know. My feeling is that here we are. People just create one company once and if they, if it goes well, they kind of like retire right, like some famous people who have sold the company and fucked off forever. Maybe they just do some Intel investing, some mentoring, but they don't create a second company or they never make it. They never make it, or maybe they don't. They don't make it on the first company, they try to get on the second company. Doesn't work, or they just make it. Pick once, but subsequent companies aren't great and therefore I couldn't host them at startup, right. So I hope you like this episode about.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 4:03

Before jumping into the episode, I'd like to ask the question of the date, which is something that we have incorporated in the in the last two episodes because we want to get to know you better. I've got the feeling that after 100 plus episodes, both in the Spanish and English versions of this podcast, you get to know me pretty well and our company, because not only we interview people here, but we also discuss amongst the members and with my co founders sometimes, or lady our head of operations occasionally and you hear me talk a lot and also in between questions. Sometimes I share stories, anecdotes and other other funny stuff. The company so you get to know me very well, but I don't know. You would like to know our audience a little bit better. So, please, we would like to know something about your company.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 4:50

In the last episode we asked about the tech stack and this one would like to know who you want to see and why. Right, who you want to see and why in this podcast. Right, it's easy to ask for a list of names and some people already have requested Scott Galloway and some like really unreachable people, way out of my reach on LinkedIn and whatnot. But I really want to know the why, like, if you select and you name a person, why do you want to have these people speak on this podcast? So right now, without further ado, let's jump right into the episode. Thank you for listening. Okay, it's the. Yeah, we like to welcome people like rock stars, and, and my first question is actually how many times have you been welcome on stage as an entrepreneur? I'm sorry. Now, how many times have you been welcome on stage as a rock star?

Francesc Font Cot: 5:46

I don't know, I don't like we considered as rock star. I tried one and I don't like at all this rock star wall in the startup ecosystem. But anyway, I'm here to, to share my small know how to the community and you can ask me whatever you want. Well, anyway, great entrance with Iofit Tiger. I really like this song and all the Rocky saga.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 6:11

So feels good because it pumps you up, right. It's like, oh wow, you know I come on stage Nobody, but it's like you drop something. Interesting right now is like you don't like the rock star attitude in the startup scene. Can you explain a little bit that? Because it's interesting.

Francesc Font Cot: 6:28

Well, I mean, I think, first of all, if I could and I guess that you want to talk about last funding round and all of these for sure but I always say the same I prefer I didn't need funding rounds, I prefer need to expose myself to the media. I prefer healthy company, because I always say revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, cash is power. This is something that there is huge scarcity in the startup ecosystem. But when people read the media newspaper, social media I think that we are like I don't know superheroes. And when you think about yourself and you say, okay, but maybe I have six months of life and to pay salaries and I don't know how I will do this and if I lose the money of my investors, I think that there is like a kind of bullshit in this sector are quite interesting, but we can talk about this anyway if you want.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 7:23

Funnily enough, our last event was no bullshit. We didn't record it. How many people from here were at the last event? Was it good? I mean, if you came back I guess it was not terrible, but it's a good point. So I haven't asked any question and we have already discussing something. We're going off a tangent, but it's very good because you're right. I think most events or most media try to focus on the fundraising and we have glorified fundraising and entrepreneurs are focusing on fundraising, not on doing sales. Can you repeat the thing about, like revenues, vanity here?

Francesc Font Cot: 7:59

This is. I remember clearly that day when I learned this about. It was in a session presentation of Bern Harnisch, you know, the author of a scaling up and 10 Rockefeller habits, I think, and eight in the morning, american style, he didn't. He just didn't say good day and he started with revenue is vanity and 30 seconds, all the founders looking at this. Then he said profiting is sanity. I think that all the startups that were there, no one was profitable. And then he said cash is power and he put it all together and he didn't talk for a minute and he said just think about it. And I said, yes, you're right.

Francesc Font Cot: 8:42

And when you read about companies, I mean, and they talk about the revenue, they talk about how much they raise, but they don't. They don't talk about, if they are positive, a piece, that if they had great unit economics, if they had even value to the society. And that's something that really annoys me because, well, I think that some things has to change in the startup ecosystem, because I think that we try to put in the skies and in the clouds some companies that won't never be profitable then doesn't add any value in the ecosystem and we have to start talking about what we do and how we want to change society and how we want to add value to the people at least, and that's something that needs to be discussed.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 9:31

Really seems that you want to talk about quick commerce like Gorillaz or something like that.

Francesc Font Cot: 9:36

No no no, I know you like quick commerce too.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 9:41

No, just kidding. I'm going to give you a little bit of context. I met this gentleman in 2014 at an event in Barcelona, Texas City if I remember correctly, we're sitting next to each other and he was running a company called Nubello right, it was like a company where you could hire freelancers to work. You eventually sold that to Freelancercom, if I remember correctly.

Francesc Font Cot: 10:00

Yeah, Well, I mean interesting because we had invested some million euros to develop these marketplace for the Spanish speaking countries. In terms of figures, if I started telling you KPIs, I mean you'd say, well, great, with what number of projects and professionals in the platform, but revenue, but in terms of revenue, I mean we'll talk about GMV, but I don't know, at least which is your margin. I mean it was a marketplace, 10% commission. We lost money and we sold it. Yeah, we sold it to Freelancer, but it was not enough to do everything in comparison to what we have invested, I think it was. It made sense that project, because at least working with all the Spanish speaking countries and generating freelance community work online was good, but it was not okay for timing. I mean timing in projects is crucial. And then with the COVID and all these remote, and then we see maybe it would have been a great project but maybe it was too soon.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 11:01

I mean yeah, Probably was too soon. But after that you launched Bandit, which was an agency for, like, headhunting for super qualified professionals, and I remember I said like, wow, this is smart. He kind of like sold the part that was not profitable and turned that into really profitable business and now you're doing coffee. But the reason why I wanted you to be here is in 2014,. I was like, wow, this guy builds healthy businesses. I'm going to have him.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 11:25

But then you mentioned you're not on social media, is almost not in social media. It's, you know, not on the spotlight. And we get all of these other entrepreneurs who raise millions and create much more unhealthy businesses. And when it comes when I, when I have people coming to mind to interview with events, I always think of those people because they are always in the media. You're not. And so the other day, just walking out of travel perk, so in captos, like God damn it. You know it's time that I bring Francesc here, because I really appreciate the way he thinks. He's also a business angel, by the way, so we can talk about that. So, before going into in captos so this transition of Nubilo into Bandit can you talk a little bit about Bandit to give more context and then we'll move to in capital.

Francesc Font Cot: 12:09

Yeah, I mean, I think it was actually realized that in our marketplace, many, many companies were publishing fake projects. We read it and they said, no, I really want to hire a developer full time. But I try here and every morning we quit, quit, quit and out of projects and convert. Because they were actually looking for a professional database which was quite curated. But we realized that there was, that the market wasn't really prepared to hire freelancers in a remote way, but they were looking desperately for full time professionals working physically in their offices. I didn't know. Everything has changed, as we know, but yeah, we made this transition. We sold the freelance marketplace and with the money that we recovered, then we created Bandit. It was like an spin off, but actually it was the same company and it was like a tinder. I mean, well, the scarcity was in the professionals and in this case it started doing really great. But the thing and learning from them is that it was actually the same company the Nouvelleau with the same investors, the same founders, everything.

Francesc Font Cot: 13:20

But we were really tired of last six years and we had a lot of legacy of employees, of debt, public funds that we have raised and I think that maybe we should have stopped and create a new company, because there were debt, there were a lot of legacy with investors, we were diluted and, despite the business was doing really great, we are really diluted. And one time we talked with our investors and we said, okay, we need new energy, we need to recover from the last five years and we think there is a great opportunity. We want you to get your money back that you invested. But I mean, we need to find solutions. And it was really a mess because we had like 13 investors on VCs and some of these VCs were a nightmare for their investors because they were losing money in all their companies and they couldn't invest anymore. And well, the learning there was if it's another business, start from zero. You close the business and start the game. You can start a new business with a lot of legacy.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 14:34

The learning. It's also funny because normally people fail in their companies. You manage to sell it Right, so you had a nice problem. There is like, well, I sold the company, I am reusing these, so it's, you know, it's, maybe it was a blessing in disguise, but normally people wouldn't have reduced the company because you're, if you sell a company, then you're not allowed to be in the same market again doing maybe something that is competing against your former company. So I don't know, in that sense I guess it's the learning of. Maybe I should have started from scratch to avoid having that. Why didn't you consider creating something else, like in a completely different sector?

Francesc Font Cot: 15:12

Yeah, no, because we really saw an opportunity and it was like an, a spin off of Nouvelle and we detected there an opportunity and we had a huge database of professionals.

Francesc Font Cot: 15:22

We already know a lot of companies and we said, okay, no, finally you can hire full-time employees, digital employees, in our, with our company. But the thing is that not all of the investors were prepared to understand this, this pivot, and when this pivot was that new, with a new brand, with a new approach, more of it to be not that tech in this case, it was complicated, and when we tried to incorporate new investors, it was a mess because, I mean, they didn't accept that the old model didn't go well and that sometimes big valuations are a problem if they are not. And I remember one VC that said I prefer to lose all the money than accepting a lower valuation than the last one when I put money Because if not, all my portfolio companies will be the same and say, okay, well, I give me your opportunity to get your money back and win some. The business is doing well. But he said, wait, I can accept this.

Francesc Font Cot: 16:22

It was the VC. I think that most invested in companies by then cash capital risk and I think that he's not investing anymore now and I have not the problem to say this. And they learned a lot about this because they didn't allow us to incorporate new investors to develop franchises and it was a mess. It was a mess at the end and entrepreneurs said enough.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 16:45

Okay, so it comes with a lot of problems for using stuff from your earlier company, like you mentioned, the. Probably you reduce the database. You reduce I don't know even like the entity, but in what ways did it help you?

Francesc Font Cot: 17:01

What things did you go faster with because you were used like database or like some people from the, some people, some technology, because at one moment we started doing both full time positions on freelance projects, because when they stood, that professional career could be all things during the professional career of everybody. I mean you can be a freelancer, sometimes you can do mix full time job plus plus brilliant jobs, and we understood that we could do this hybrid platform. But well, we understood that it was very to keep open all the freelance market place. It was hard and we decided to sell it and focus on where we saw great unit economics.

Francesc Font Cot: 17:54

Because at the end of this I mean you talk about the quick commerce industry there is a problem there of. There is just one problem the unit economics. They doesn't work. So that makes any sense that there is money. Or I mean if people is eager to pay 15 euros to bring you I don't know your meal, okay, but I mean everything has a cost and if not, it's doping. I mean you can win, you can win the Tour of France with doping. I mean this is cheating, no, but I think it's the same. Now we said, okay, in the part of full time jobs, really profitable, really great unit economics.

Francesc Font Cot: 18:31

So let's focus on this result the freelance market base, but with all the legacy of debt and because that's something that it's curious about startups that when we raise debt, we think that we don't have to pay it back to the banks or to any side Spoiler, you do yeah yeah, and it's curious because now I see many companies that are doing press releases saying, okay, we have raised 4 million, 6 million, and actually these are venture depths and they have to repay this and they give shares, they pay crazy interest and they say, like we have done, funding round, no, this is not funding. Funding is money in the company to invest, to develop the. But if you raise debt, this is debt. And many of them are telling to the press new funding round. No, this is not a funding round, this is debt and you have to pay back the debt and this is something that in the next years well, actually, it's starting to happen Many companies won't be able to pay back their venture depths and they will suffer a lot.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 19:40

We're going to go into that a little bit later because it's really interesting. Just one part I'm really interested is how did you manage the conversation with the acquiring companies of freelancer to say this part you keep, this part I can keep, we will be in the same market, but we do these parts. So how were you able to keep the expectations aligned?

Francesc Font Cot: 20:01

Well, it was a technical nightmare to do all the integration of all the professionals, of all the database of all the companies and it was a nightmare. It was really difficult, even because they were from Australia and it was like I felt that I was working 24 hours a day just because we wanted to keep the project continuing, going on. And many users use the word platform or marketplace companies, both companies and freelancers and we said, okay, it makes sense. And they were the only one to be honest that wanted to acquire us when we took the decision to focus on the full-time projects and I mean I don't have problems to say that it was totally fake by then. I mean they were a terrible company that they live just of buying new companies and saying to the press, okay, and then they share this increase, but they are not a great company freelancer and we don't feel proud on how they treat freelancers and all this. But it was our only option. All the other platforms all over the world, top to all the app world they were in troubles also.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 21:14

So yeah, just last question about this topic. We'll move on to the next company, but so how long was the process of the M&A?

Francesc Font Cot: 21:23

I think it took like three months. Yeah, I mean, you realize with the time that there are some companies that their business model is acquiring other companies, that they don't add value to the market Like job and talent. Yeah, probably also. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and actually it was the date that they announced that they acquire us in the press. In the stock market. They increased 30 million of capitalization of US dollars and it was like 30 times what they pay for us.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 21:57

So you're not going to share how much, but you're going to give this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Francesc Font Cot: 22:03

Well, but anyway, these allow us to start bandit the new business with a new brand. It was really great for six months, but it is always a boomerang and when you have debt from an old business, then we tried to regenerate our cap table but it was too complicated.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 22:20

Let's move into in-capto. Like we probably get a little bit like bandit. Probably you can ask in the Q&A, but I want to focus right in what you're working right now. So in-capto has been around for some years and you walked in here. There's an in-capto machine here. So I'm sorry you will not be making a new client because they're already a client of yours and some people probably in the audience they already have got your coffee machines right. So you pivoted 100% from going the freelancers and the feature of work to coffee. And it's a company that does, it's a brand and it's got hardware and it's got software. Why so complicated? How did you have the idea?

Francesc Font Cot: 23:00

I mean I don't know. I think that entrepreneurs, when we see that there are opportunities, we say, ok, I can do this, I want to do this. I didn't know anything about coffee, to be honest, but my co-founder, bea, she's a QGrader and she always told me that there was a problem in the coffee industry. And after Bandita I was the interim CEO of VKCommerce and I learned all the operations and all the issues around the pure players. And actually I said I mean it doesn't make any sense that, for instance, here in Spain, we have like 300 pure players of commerce, 300 pharmacies and nursing and ecomercies. And what is the difference there? I mean they all work to make Google and Facebook richer than they are. Because what is the difference? If we think strategically, like Porter, I mean, as you can do two things, you can have competitive advantage in price. They don't have, because who is the one that sells this product at a lower price? And everybody competing in Google shopping. I mean it doesn't make sense. And we all buy in different marketplaces, apart from Amazon. We all buy in these verticals. The one that offers better price. Well, this is human to think like this. So they don't have any advantage. And, on the other hand, I mean, if they sell products from other players, what is the advantage here?

Francesc Font Cot: 24:26

I mean, and at the same time, we saw the rise of digital native vertical brands and I said, ok, I would like to help entrepreneurs that are launching good projects, good digital native vertical brands, but they don't know how to do these technological approaches, operational approach, how to fund their projects. They were like more artisans. So, with my co-founder, joaquin Mac, who was in one startup, brian Mataró, we started looking for people that had brands and wanted to this direct to consumer approach, this digital approach, and we focus on brands that had two main characteristics One, recurrence, because we think recurrence is important, so in terms of coffee, for instance, we always drink coffee every day, something we do every day and another, that they had a sustainable approach. Me, we were 40, with kids, quite concerned about the climate change, and we said OK, and we wanted to create a company builder for digital native vertical brands. And one thing that was interesting for us is I remember, you know, hawkers, the glasses, glasses.

Francesc Font Cot: 25:37

And I said that's a crazy story. That's actually a stupid story because I remember reading once in the newspaper one of the co-founders saying no, we are actually, we are a digital marketing agency. I mean, we sell glasses and we could sell I don't know anything.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 25:54

They had a brand, a lifestyle right. Yeah, yeah yeah.

Francesc Font Cot: 25:56

And I said, OK, stupid, I do know that you buy the glasses for half an euro and you sell it to me for 50. But don't tell it to me, Please tell me that you do design that the optic is great, that the product. I mean you're selling products.

Francesc Font Cot: 26:12

No, bullshit yeah yeah yeah, and we said OK, and at every one of our projects, there has to be a product company and we have to emphasize that this is a product company and we don't have to create good projects because we are good at marketing online. We have to create good projects because they are really good brands. That's something that, for us, was really clear and the thing is we created a portfolio of five, six projects, some of them in the 80 or created by us, and some others projects that had already started, and one at the beginning of 2020, one to the investors. We said we want to create this company builder. We see a lot of synergies, operational synergies, technological synergies, marketing synergies and economies of scale in all these projects. And they said can I just invest in the coffee one? And when it happened to us like four times, we said, OK, let's just focus on the coffee one and after some months, we will start with yours and the coffee industry.

Francesc Font Cot: 27:14

Well, we discovered that there were a lot of opportunities there and that we could create a big company in the coffee industry and change an industry that needed to be changed because it's terrible in terms of what we demand on the coffee experience, everything related also with the sustainability, and we said, OK, we think we can. We can do a great job in this industry. And after three years we're here. Yeah, I mean the express of hate us. It's something that they tell us every day. Actually, in capital in Latin means non-capsulated. I mean we like to say that we think out of the capsule, and we think out of the capsule not only in the coffee industry but in the way we think. I mean we try to pay more to coffee farmers, we try to intermediate everything, we try to generate a digital, a direct to consumer approach and we try to change the rules in the industry.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 28:10

We could talk about greenwashing for hours, but I think that's not the main purpose. Happy to answer questions in the Q&A, well, let's focus on, like the product validation. Right, you said you found validation by the investors because they all wanted to invest in the company. So I want to invest in the coffee one. Great, that is validation that somebody wants to invest in the company. But that doesn't mean that it validates the actual you know the actual intention of buying from customers. How did you validate the customer's intention of?

Francesc Font Cot: 28:38

Yeah, it's curious because we talk with a lot of customers, I mean the specialty coffee industry by then, with new coffee shops to a raising. But no one was crazy enough to compete against capsule, to compete against Nespresso, to say, ok, I can offer this coffee to the mass market. And we understood that there was a problem, that because people said, ok, I know that is better coffee, I know that it can be even cheaper than coffee pots and I know that coffee beans are sustainable. And well, it's curious because with the greenwashing, people thought that coffee pots could be recycled. Now I think that they understand that they are not recycled because you can throw them to the plastic container, despite Nespresso is telling all the days that their aluminum is recyclable. I mean, all the aluminum is recyclable, but you need systems to recycle it. So we talk with a lot of them and said, ok, if you, if you have a machine where I can push a button and have coffee in 20 seconds, then I will move to coffee beans and that's we started looking for manufacturers all over the world. And it's curious because all the super automatic coffee machines, these ones that grind the coffee at the moment they were really expensive, really big, with a lot of buttons and a stupid functionalities that you don't need. And we look exactly the opposite machine the smallest one, very compact, just two buttons, the most similar machine in terms of functionality to the Nespresso ones, but with a hopper and coffee beans.

Francesc Font Cot: 30:14

I doing this 360 model. We said OK, we are, we are ready. Actually, many of them say I don't want to spend 500 euros in a machine and I said OK, let's come back to the old model of mobile phones where I say, ok, if you stay one year with me, I can sell you the machine at a very competitive price with no margin for me, and I have one year to make you fall in love with my coffee. So this is the game of the lifetime value and low customer acquisition costs. And that's what we started doing with the business to consumer brand.

Francesc Font Cot: 30:44

At the beginning we couldn't sell to companies because because of the COVID, and after one year we started selling to companies too. I mean always the same approach and we detected that that where there was an Nespresso machine, we felt winners. I mean because we said you can enjoy a coffee, it's better, coffee recently grinded, it's more sustainable, it's even cheaper. So I mean we felt that we had a valid proposition that was not readable for them. So we started competing everywhere against Nespresso, in the companies and at home.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 31:18

But it must have been very hard because, even though you know, we all know Nespresso is evil, it just works and you got it there. You have already bought it, your machine was expensive until you found out this plan Right. And there's always this huge distance between somebody who says like, yeah, when you launch it, I'm totally going to buy your product or your service, and when they actually do it right, everybody says yes, two percent of these people will actually buy it. Right, who are the first ones? You remember and you know?

Francesc Font Cot: 31:51

you know what? It's curious because people think that we, we were an e-commerce brand and we're really good at pitching. I remember that summer, working from home with my kids, and we made some change and we said there was a lot of traffic in the website when we started in July that July, but nobody bought our machine or our coffee. But we said it's strange, because there is a lot of traffic but there is no conversion. So we used V1 to call and every day 10 calls and we started pitching. Everybody. You know the coffee is better like this. This is our business model. You can enjoy the payback of the machine in comparison with people. To be like this and all the day talking with customers and what's great and what's I mean you said you come from the software industry. I mean nobody said how great is what you do, it's really good for me. But now every day many people say I love your coffee. I mean it's the best purchase of my life.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 32:57

It's toward a mouth.

Francesc Font Cot: 32:58

I mean, and I feel good because I don't generate waste. I might kitchen and smells again coffee and all like this, and this is really great. I was not used to it and it's quite interesting.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 33:10

Yeah, especially not. I mean because you were not part of Freelancer, but Freelancer definitely didn't teach you anything about brand. But the funny thing this is one thing I wanted to understand here. So coffee is technically something everyone consumes. You could be selling to everybody. However, when you're starting out, it's easier to go after a niche, find the tribe right, a group of people, a segment, understand their needs. You know parents they spend a lot of money with their children. Video gamers and YouTubers spend a lot of hardware, led lights and cool cameras and stuff. Coffee lovers spend a lot of coffee. Or hipsters, you know, techno lovers spend a lot of cocaine, right. So how did you find the right kind of people, this segment, and then narrowed down and understand their needs, or did you just go generic?

Francesc Font Cot: 34:00

No talking. By talking with many coffee consumers and by receiving their insights, I mean and also it was. I think that there are some industries that you understand that it's time to change. I mean it's like electrical cars with traditional cars. I mean everything is changing. The energy industry I mean everything is changing now and we felt that we had.

Francesc Font Cot: 34:23

I mean, actually at the beginning, we said, ok, if you use a fully automatic machine, that is not that expensive. At the end, coffee being is better. Coffee doesn't get oxidated, you don't generate waste, you enjoy the coffee much more because it's like an orange juice recently squeezed, I mean doesn't have anything to do with the one that you combine the supermarket in a tetra brick. So we said, ok, who is it possible that in the industry no one is doing this? Where is the elephant in the room? I mean and I think that no one was it's complicated business. You need a lot of capital because you need to start manufacturing machines, you need to buy coffee from the coffee farmers and there is one window per year. So you need to invest a lot at the beginning in terms of working capital. That's why we do funding rounds, because I mean we could be profitable because we have 15,000 subscribers more than in the B2C, more than 3,000 companies in the B2B. I mean and this is a recurring revenue, but I mean we're going and growing and we are investing in new machines, in new tooling, in new ring coffee, in facilities and everything.

Francesc Font Cot: 35:32

You need a lot of manpower, you need a lot of financing to put all these business models in the market. You need to generate a brand. We have done TV campaigns on TV. I mean you compete against traditional brands that everybody knows and you are there to say, okay, my coffee experience is better, it's cheaper, it's more sustainable, you will enjoy it. But I mean you don't just have to be, or you don't just have to have a good product and they have to get to know you. And if they don't know you by doing this, you need money. I mean we have to compete against George Clooney? No, no, it's like this.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 36:11

I mean you can all look like George Clooney. Thank you, matt. Yeah, from this distance, not from there, everybody looks like George Clooney, even Victor, you know. But just kidding Victor, I'm still good, nobody like. Let's talk about how you finance this, because you said that you know you started selling from very early on, but you gave it away. And you gave the machines away discounted, right. So you didn't capitalize on 100% of the value you could sell. So how many different discounted, but we don't lose money? No, of course, but diluted in time, right. So it's like, okay, you pay less, but you're paying in installments, right?

Francesc Font Cot: 36:49

Yeah, I mean it's been our nightmare since we started, because I mean we also see that there is an opportunity to change the industry and we have to keep growing, growing, growing and growing and investing in new machine models and everything. I mean even when we have this year, for instance, we just in Spain will do more than eight million revenue with great margins, great recurrence. I mean we don't have to invest that much in marketing. And now we are expanding into new countries Italy, france, portugal but I mean worlds have to invest to grow Because, for instance, now in Christmas, we do 40% of our revenue in the B2C business unit and we have to pay in advance two million to our manufacturers and it's complicated.

Francesc Font Cot: 37:35

To this I mean, on the other hand, for instance, the commerce industry, the ones that sell products from other brands. I mean they sell to their customers, they pay at 60 days to Google, they receive the money instantly and then they pay at 60 days to the industry. I mean they get fund by the working capital of their providers and customers. Here is totally the other way. So that's why we started with the growth with Business Angels, that's why we started with Rodefunding.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 38:07

I was going to say how many different options of funding have you explored?

Francesc Font Cot: 38:11

We started with Founders some Founders savings and some Business Angels.

Speaker 3: 38:16

How funding?

Francesc Font Cot: 38:17

And then, after three months in September 2020, we started with ETA growth funding, which was quite great because in seven hours we had half a million euros Was it worth it. Yeah, because I know….

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 38:33

Most people say no it's too much work.

Francesc Font Cot: 38:35

No, no, I know that when I see some campaigns, especially in CrowdCube platform, I say okay, these are investors.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 38:42

They're not our sponsors, it's okay.

Francesc Font Cot: 38:44

Yeah, I know. I mean you have to show them the P&L and the projects and everything. They don't show anything. They just buy because, oh, this brand is cool, I invest. Okay, no, we use in this case the Growth Angel, no name. Those are investments. I think that they are more professional and that the investors that are there know about investing and know it's different. The ticket is higher, but our thesis was that we could have near 200 or 300 investors that, at the same time, could be our ambassadors. That could be…. We thought they will consume coffee at home. They work at some companies so they can open us or generate leads into companies, and that's something that…. Yeah, it was totally like that. So it was great, and VCs came to us and said if you are invested by Crowdfunding, we want to invest you in the future. Then they continue coming. I mean I think that for B2C brands, it's a great mechanism, crowdfunding.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 39:43

For B2C? Yeah, because there's some sort of validation as well, right, so you do pre-sales? Yeah, and if you don't reach it, you can always give it back, and it's a good way of already showing the prototype iterate. And I think back in the day when I was involved in a couple of projects of Crowdfunding, I think that to set it up, you have to already have the 30% of the capital already committed, otherwise you don't get into the platform, which is something that is not shared publicly. But I don't know if that was your case. I think it's not like that, not anymore.

Francesc Font Cot: 40:09

I think it's an excuse If they are not totally convinced and say if you come back with me with 30% or 40% of the money you plan to raise, then I will do the other part, because then it's easier for them.

Francesc Font Cot: 40:21

But in this case they did everything 100% of the funding round and we were just three months. But we had a great summer, we were increasing the number of subscribers and I think, to be honest, I have created some companies, some of them great, some of them not great and Nouvelle, for instance, was not the good in terms of traction, in terms of how we monetize the company. I mean, it was really hard for us to imagine that this company would never be profitable. But I think that there are some companies that at the beginning you feel like there is something. I mean there is traction. I don't know what's happening, and sometimes it's luck, and sometimes it's that you are in the right moment in the right time, the right industry with the right team, and when everything aligns, then you have to run and you feel it. I mean it's something you can explain, but you feel it.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 41:18

I mean, I don't like crowdfunding, but one thing that's really good for if you're going to use crowdfunding, is if they are really interested in your project. It's because they know more than you do. Right, they have probably seen these other platforms. They have already replicated something and they have seen you know if you're going to do whatever a new phone or a new toy and they have done several campaigns on this market and they've been super successful. They want another one, so they have the playbook. So if they're really interested, I think it's some sort of a big thing. I think it's some sort of investment validation as well, so it really helps. But then, so after crowdfunding between crowdfunding and the VCs now, have you explored any other kind of financing alternatives?

Francesc Font Cot: 42:00

Yeah, we started with Ensure that because they were the only ones. I mean there are some things that in the industry. It's incredible because when we did the first crowdfunding, I mean we were just three months and I remember the investment manager of the Crota Angel saying I will introduce you to some banks. And I said I don't think that the banks will finance that with credit lines and everything to buy a coffee and machines. And I said, oh yeah, you just have raised half a million. You will receive, I don't know, 50k. I said, ok, ok, I will introduce you to Cacha, to Day One for startups Remember the name Day One? They said, no, really I'm sorry, but we can give loans to companies after the first year. I said, ok, then why is your name Day One? They were our sponsors back in the day.

Francesc Font Cot: 42:56

They're not anymore, yeah we created it and we used Ensure that it was the best of the not that good solutions. But with this we could continue improving in terms of stock and acquiring new machines. And with the time banks started knowing more about our business, we could explain them our unit economies. I mean we said, ok, look at the cohort analysis, how they repeat the subscribers, the profitability there, how I acquire. I mean I still lose money because I'm growing and I'm creating all these new machines, the new roasting center, I'm hiring people and I'm growing, but the unit economies are good. It makes totally sense. So some of them started giving us loans.

Francesc Font Cot: 43:47

But at the same time we felt that we need to invest in TV campaigns, in like the society, get to know us. We have opened a flagship store in La Hilla. I mean this is KappX, kappx, kappx, kappx. Also our business modeling companies. It's a pay-per-cut model. I mean we invest in the coffee machines and, for instance, there are 20 coffee machines here. I think 20 coffee machines is a lot of money for us. I mean they consume thousands of coffees every day. It's a great customer, it works a lot.

Francesc Font Cot: 44:19

I mean, there is a minimum of from doing six and one year of payback in each B2B customer. So this was another added problem to our working capital problems when we started with companies. So then we did a serious A with some venture capital. We had to remind that we were maybe too Catalan. So we contacted the investors from Madrid and we started with Entrecanales, with Atres Media, and once we said, ok, we are done, we are profitable in Spain, now we have to export this model, our technology, our IoT system, our coffee and service platform and everything to other countries. And then we moved to this last funding round with international business, and it was curious that the ones that invested to us, and the most interested, were the Italian investors, the Agostinian, in this case, p101. Because we felt like going to sell coffee to Italy or to Italians. They said no, no, we have the same problem here. It's full of grab coffee and espresso and come here and bring us your solution here. So that's where we are right now.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 45:32

Wow, I didn't know about that. That's actually amazing. We're going to be learning. So there's a couple of quick questions before we open up the floor for questions People's Q&A. So the first one is like what didn't you know about venture capital that you know now? And the second is how did you manage to raise funds nowadays where everybody else is fucking laying off people?

Francesc Font Cot: 45:55

Yeah, I think that there are some investors that are really stupid and that have done really stupid things in the past, Because I mean, how can you invest in such advanced phases with very big funding rounds when there is not a proven market fit? But this has happened. I mean 15 million for you, 20 million for you.

Francesc Font Cot: 46:22

And, for instance, I mean at the end, it's very simple. I mean, when you are two years in the market, you have a lot of customers. You can prove that they are satisfied, that they repeat and you say, ok, these are my unit economics, this is my product roadmap, this is my market expansion plan. I mean this is what we do. I mean it's not you that you are saying, it's the company that is selling itself, because these are numbers.

Francesc Font Cot: 46:50

And I think that the problem during the last years is that many entrepreneurs sold visions and they were invested in numbers that were very incredible, that someone could invest in that where there is not a proven market fit, even in companies that didn't have a business model, and that was crazy and that's why many people thought that there was a bubble. But it's incredible because after it happened, I think in between three and six months, all these that were doing these crazy investments in companies that didn't have product market fit, then they came to all the other companies in the portfolio. You have to start firing people. It's going to be very bad. I mean it's OK. I mean I believe in what I do, I believe in my figures, I believe in my KPIs and in my expansion plan. I had this problem at the beginning of this year with one investor. He said cat, 20 people out. He said this is what you say to all the old company. I mean, they were sorry, did you do it?

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 47:53

No, no, no, no, no, because I'm 40.

Francesc Font Cot: 47:56

This is my third company, but if I were 25, he said, ok, here are 20 names. No, I mean, if you are the owner of your company and you feel sure on what you have, I mean People say, ok, there is no money now, they are not investing. I don't believe that. I mean, I think that if companies have great unit economics, they can find money, because there are a lot of fans with firepower, with fans, and they need to invest it. But the thing is that they are still understanding and they are still learning from their mistakes, and that's the problem.

Francesc Font Cot: 48:34

And there is another problem that the show must go on. So they need to get more funds from their investors to create new funds, and the problem is that they have to keep alive the companies that they invested in the past. So they are now doing everything to help them by new funding rounds that doesn't appear in press and they save this company. It's quite a crazy situation, because the ones that created this situation are the ones that are now saying, ok, don't do anything, don't move. Ok, life goes on. If you have a great company and you feel sure that you are doing good, go. There are lots of fans with money.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 49:23

Well, thank you for not treating people like numbers and keeping them in your company, because I think it was very easy to lay off people when everybody else was laying off. And it happened. I've heard it from several people that they said, like, look, the investors, the board, are forcing me to lay off people because everybody else is doing. Everybody else is laying off 15, 20 percent. I have to do it as well. You didn't do it, so you show that it can be done, so thank you for that. Before opening, now we're going to open the floor for questions. One last question for you. This is a signature question of startup grindies. Everybody else everybody has got a useless superpower, something you do exceptionally well, but it's fucking useless. What is yours?

Francesc Font Cot: 50:07

I don't know. I think something seems silly.

Francesc Font Cot: 50:09

I don't think it's a superpower, but I think that there is, for instance, related to what I was explaining. I mean, it's my third company and I have experience and if I have been, it has been my first startup, which was one really bootstrap with no investors. But anyway, if I were young and an investor came to me and said, fire people, I would have done it because I mean, but now, with experience and with time, I have learned to manage. I mean, there is a sentence where I would say that when you don't have more in the pocket, your head doesn't work well because you don't take good decisions. I think that this is my superpower, that with time, I have learned how to manage this situation, and that's something that in startups, we are continually always in capital problems, but if your business is healthy, I can keep calm. Now, and this is very difficult, but that's a useful superpower.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 51:04

I want something useless. Like I always manage to lose my keys like every day religiously or I sing terribly.

Francesc Font Cot: 51:12

I think I'm a totally seller. I mean, what are you good at? I say I'm good at selling because I sell at banks give me loans. I sell at investors invest to me. I sell to employees. Come here, we are a coffee company. We want to compete against an expression and say, okay, what? And that's what I do every day. I mean I'm like a cheerleader and selling to everybody. So I think that entrepreneurs need to be good sellers. Yeah, and this is maybe. I mean, we have a co-founder that is really great. She's the forerunner of the coffee industry. We have another one that is really good at operations, technology and everything. And I connect the dots and I look for people, I look for investors, I look for providers. I look for and I connect these dots.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 52:02

Perfect, that's awesome. Well, let's give it up for Frances. Who's got questions? Raise your hands if you have questions. We're going to throw these things around. Last time I fucked it up very badly. Up there you go. Say your name one, keep it close to you. Yeah, it's Mike. No, okay.

Speaker 5: 52:21

Well, my name is Estelle. Thank you very much for your story. I think that the story in the brand is very inspiring. I have a question. Alex said, and very rightly, that the coffee market is very competitive. You have already in Espresso Starbucks. You said that first you started like pitting in capital to customers and then you did a successful crowdfunding campaign. So how did you like create the marketing around in capital? How did you like yeah, made it a brand in this very competitive market? And what marketing strategies or channels that you use to scale up, because calling each customer is not very scalable at first.

Francesc Font Cot: 53:01

Yeah, I mean I think that there are great companies, I think that there are bad companies, and bad companies can learn how to be good companies. But what makes you different is your business model. And we decided to. I mean, fully automatic machines already existed, especially coffee already existed, and we said we want to bring the specialty coffee not to the barista ones a snob, a snob about coffee but to a new market, the mass market. And by doing this we put it all the pieces of the puzzle together, which was the difficult thing to do.

Francesc Font Cot: 53:34

We were a team of three founders with a lot of experience, a lot of connections. We need hope to raise money, we need hope to acquire these first customers in companies and particulars, because we were free with, I mean, 40 years, I mean it was not like we just left the university, and I think that this intermediating all the coffee industry was really important. I mean we go to the coffee farmers, we buy coffee directly from them, we pay even more, we teach them how to improve the coffee farms and sell specialty coffee, we buy it, we import, we roast ourselves and we deliver it to ourselves. By doing this, it's 60% of the final price of a cup. In the end, we also develop and design. We have 15 engineers designing machines and IoT systems and everything with the time, and I mean we're applying technology in operations, although our machines are connected. So we are good at operations. I would say we're good at controlling all the value chain of the coffee industry and by doing this, people say you can sell coffee specialty coffee at 25 or 30 euros a kilo. It's impossible. We have healthy margins, not the high margins of the industry and like this, intermediating everything. But doing this is complicated.

Francesc Font Cot: 54:57

I mean my co-founder. She had been traveling during the 10 years to coffee farmers all over the world. She knew all them and we knew how to do marketing campaigns and we had lead it e-commerce brands before. So we had all the skills, all the connections, all the knowledge on the industry, in this case with my co-founder, and we put all these pieces together and then, if the product is good, then you realize that you don't have to spend 30% or 40% of your revenues in Facebook and Google. I mean because with many brands I say you work for Google and Facebook.

Francesc Font Cot: 55:40

There is a metric that normally are not in the KPIs that I always control, which is effective revenue share. Ers is which part of your revenues dedicate to Google and Facebook. And when I see brands that dedicate 40% and 50% of what they are of their revenues, I say you are crazy. And when we see the approach of very bad coffee in the supermarkets, totally intermediated, for 15 euros per kilo, it's awful, it's bar needs. I mean really hard, it just took you away. You don't enjoy this coffee, but if you want to go to artisans, they sell you coffee at 60 euros per kilo. I mean we're in just a blue ocean in terms of pricing and approach. And this is by changing and the way we approach the customer.

Speaker 4: 56:33

I have a first story to share with your company. I'm not buying your coffee yet because you have no translation to the English, unfortunately, but this year at Mabawold Congress, you were the star of the show for me, because maybe a few may be there, but the lines at the last hall where all the startups were the thousands of people every day, the hugest lines were where To coffee. Everyone wants their coffee at morning, every startup, every investor, everybody. So you have contacts of everybody who traveled to Barcelona in March. That's like I have seen this and like they're hacking the market in this way. And this is a great example how you can fit into audience that like potentially you're not, should be not there because you're coffee making. You're not the startup as like technological startup, but you're so perfectly fit by need, not by because everyone should be there. That was huge.

Speaker 4: 57:41

My question is not about coffee, unfortunately. My question is about I found on LinkedIn that you have a PhD in startup building. That could be a little more because, like it sounds on LinkedIn like the craziest thing I could imagine, like you are hacking the system from the like. You know how to build startups because you have PhD.

Francesc Font Cot: 58:06

Yeah, no, no. This is very interesting. I can talk 24 hours about this, but I will tell you why I'm doing a PhD. Actually, I have always combined starting up companies with teaching students. In the university. I was the typical student that never went to school, to the class, and I mean, if I had the six, I said, okay, there is one point that I don't need here. I mean, I didn't enjoy business administration, but with my first startup, we were students of autonomous university and said, okay, I mean you are the only ones that all of them went to work in bank and rice, water house, all these and said you are the only ones entrepreneurs, why don't you come here and teach? I said I mean, I was a mess when I stayed here, but I said you can teach entrepreneur, entrepreneur. And say, okay, okay, let's do this. And it's something I have done for 15 years.

Francesc Font Cot: 58:59

And with my first company day, I started helping others not to do the same mistakes that I did. And when you have raised money, when you have understood how to go to market approach, when you know how to internationalize company, I mean that's something that I'm not more intelligent than others, but I have done a lot of mistakes and I have a lot of experience. So there was one one professor in open University of Catalonia that said I want to create a framework on how to move from and started to scale up and you have the knowledge. And I said, okay, let's do this and it's. It's a different approach in terms of PhD, because it's an industrial PhD and do is this PhD in my company. So my company is the case and they even paid to me for this and I have just need to publish three papers and then do like this framework, the simulator, that I'm still working on it. I hope that next year I have more time. I just have just published one paper and I hope in the future not to continue working on this crazy sector which is startups.

Francesc Font Cot: 1:00:04

I mean, I'm a father of two. It's really hard for them, I mean for my family, for my kids. Having an entrepreneur as father is really complicated, really, really complicated for them, and I think that maybe when I'm 50, I'm 42, maybe I will dedicate a bigger part of my time to teach students and help other entrepreneurs than to run my own companies. That's something that I would like to do. This like this change in my career and something which is interesting.

Francesc Font Cot: 1:00:36

I mean, I don't even know if we like us to be considered as an startup, Because I mean, yes, we digitalize a lot of processes in the industry, we invest in hardware and software, but at the end, we are a coffee company and every day, thousands and thousands of coffee are being consumed and that's what we do. I mean, you can use technology, you can say, you can raise money, but it's a company that needs to be profitable. And I want to quit of this definition. And I think that there are some companies that have used the concept of a startup when they thought that they were cool. Because we are a startup. You're selling electricity Okay, it's a normal company, it's good, and companies I don't know why you love that, and companies need to be profitable at the end. So, yes, that's the thing and an important thing, you said you were the start of the show. Yes, because everybody loves coffee. And that's really interesting. Because when I went to see investors, I don't know if this investor will invest me, but at the end they will buy a coffee machine and they will, and in all the VCs and investors in the spend, they do have our machines. Because, yes, I mean, and I said I prefer to sell the machine than to be invested by them because, at the end, I need this, I need customers and that's something that we have explained to everybody that works for us. I mean you have to love our company, you have to love what we do, you have to love company. If not, there are plenty of companies and that's important. If you are convinced, you can convince your ones and then they can convince their families, their friends, everybody. That's something that is like a virus and an important thing and related to a Nobel history.

Francesc Font Cot: 1:02:32

When we went to London to raise capital, I mean and we're explaining the great KPIs of what, at the end, become bandit we said, okay, look, with full time Time employees, the white collar, the digital employees. I mean there is a huge problem there because the industry is paying really high fees to the recruiters. It's a nightmare for them. So there is a problem. And when there is a problem, when there is a big problem, people are willing to pay. They say no, no, no, no job and talent corner job, job. Today, 15 million, 20 million, 30 million, the blue collar employees. I said no one is paying to recruit the blue collar employees. Why are you investing there Because companies won and at the end, I think that we were right. But well, this is you don't have always to listen and this is they don't know everything and sometimes you have to say no, I will continue with what I think, with what I know of the market and move on.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 1:03:33

And one last question, because I'm hungry, basically, but thank you.

Speaker 3: 1:03:37

I'm Ali. I'm entrepreneur as well, but in the software space, and I really want to talk about products, about hardware. I think a lot of people want to build great hardware. You say hardware.

Francesc Font Cot: 1:03:47

Nightmare.

Speaker 3: 1:03:48

Yeah, maybe, maybe, and that's what I wanted to talk to you about. I dream of being able to one day build hardware, but it scares the shit out of me because you have like manufacturing, reliability, R&D, you have customers. Things might break. I'm keen to understand as much as you can share. What are your challenges in terms of product Like. What is it that you want to overcome? What are the things that maybe you want to Solve for the customer that issues that you might have today, because it's a new bit like three years old? There are iPhones that have you know if you know how long 2007, 16 years they're just about getting stuff right. You know they still overheat, so and oh, it cut me off. I'm cute. Understand what your challenges are and what keeps you up at night and what you're trying to solve for.

Francesc Font Cot: 1:04:40

Yeah, well, working with hand hardware, it's been a challenge. I mean because I Think that the ones that come from software don't know that to just create One more piece, you need to invest in tooling in hundreds of kilos of. I mean it's very complicated. For instance, creating one, one new machine, it can take two years of your time, some engineers, designers of product, of usability, ui, ux, and you have to invest more than two million, more than two million in tooling cost to create a machine, then the IOT and how to control the Coffee consumption and everything.

Francesc Font Cot: 1:05:21

This has been a challenge and I mean it can sound incredible, but no one in the world has a platform like ours where we can control what machines do. And then you keep a you, we talk a lot with our customers and say, okay, I would like the coffee to be not that hot or stronger or with or larger. Okay, it's easy. I mean you just need one machine that adapts the quantity of coffee, the temperature and quantity of water, so you can do it from mobile phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can do it with a machine and we are Every day is any new machines and and it's it's hard because, no, I want a more compact machine, smaller, smaller, smaller, and it has to do this and it has to mean there are people that ask you for I want to wake up and push a button in my mobile and then I have the.

Francesc Font Cot: 1:06:17

It is stupid. I mean this doesn't need any value, but the personalization, the receipts, having an extraction of the coffee. You need to work a lot on on on hardware, on software and and then how to Do a business model where you serve fresh coffee, just just roast it, because you know that they are running out of coffee at home or at each office and do it. This is an operational way. It's really complicated, but I mean it's really challenging. I enjoy a lot working in this industry. I mean, because this mix of hardware, iot, software, physical product, that that is sensitive, I mean it's really great, yeah, but it's complicated, yeah, some technical issues always, delays always.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 1:07:08

Well, we know your company is gonna be here in 20 years time. One of the most I don't know awkward things about star brand is we've been Interruing people for nine years and a lot of the companies we hosted in the first years don't exist anymore, because that's a star game. But I've got the feeling that you guys are gonna be around for ten more years at least. So we'll talk in a few years and explain us about you know the hundred million rays, or how did you acquire an espresso? Thank you very much.

Francesc Font Cot: 1:07:36

I know that you're hungry, but just one comment I Hope that the one beer, I hope that the company will continue, but I don't think that it will with me. No, no, because I mean, come on, it can be the chair I think I like. Yeah you asked me for what are you good at? I mean, after all these years, starting how to start companies, yeah, but I mean being always tiny or limit.

Francesc Font Cot: 1:07:59

Yeah, yeah, and maybe I would say to some other one Okay, now it's time to develop this company in other countries, or profit, or more Whatever, and that's something that I don't know if I would like to, because I think that there is a good manager for every face of the company. I don't know if I will share holder, but for sure I won't be CEO of this company for many years.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit: 1:08:22

That's very honest and humbling for you to share. So please, big applause for Francesc.