Last November 18, on the occasion of my participation in the Cádiz.Red event (If you haven’t done so, stop by the ecosystem that has been created around the University of Cádiz and its UCAEmprende chair one day), I had the opportunity to give a talk on business growth.
The first thing I thought when they proposed it to me was: what do you know about this? Not much, I answered myself, driven by my hyperdeveloped imposter syndrome, but then I told myself: reflect and share your ideas and doubts, as you always do. And so, as I read and reflected on the subject in question, my usual brain short circuits began every time I read about the mythical platitudes about growth and scalability who inhabit this country called the innovative entrepreneurship ecosystem.
The thing is this: there is a consensus in the entrepreneurship ecosystem, and in general in all economic spheres, that says something like thatn Spain companies do not grow and do not reach a significant sizewith which we cannot pay good salaries, nor do we contribute enough to the creation of wealth, nor do we have competitive companies.
There is much data that corroborates this: practically all of the more than three million companies are microSMEsthe productivity of the country and therefore of the companies has been stagnant for decades, and the feeling of inability to reach a significant size, with exceptions that are always given as examples, grips the entire business population of our country.
But when the time comes to come up with solutions, then things get stuck. In the world of entrepreneurship before and after the startup law of 2022, the voices that are heard are growing (few, but they monopolize the public and private debate) and that proclaim that We must lay out red carpets for capital and talent to achieve the much desired scalability.
And the recipes are those that are exported from other latitudes: lower taxes and eliminate regulation, in essence. Within the framework of the conference I expressed my doubts about the real impact of these supposed magical measures, because I believe that they do not take into consideration the sociology and socioeconomic conditions of this social body that we continue to call Spain.
And I think this is so, not because I say so, but because there is a thing called incentives that many people always forget, even those who studied the concept in their microeconomics classes in college, because they consider that they were mere rhetorical floral exercises of economists and theoretical manuals, when the truth is that they should always keep in mind that mythical phrase with which one of the greatest books ever written on economics ends, “The General Theory…”, where Keynes, as an epilogue to his reflections, left this phrase for posterity: “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. In fact, the world is governed by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves exempt from any intellectual influence, are often the slaves of some dead economist.”
This phrase should be tattooed on everyone, especially that new generation that believes that the past does not matter and considers, from an unredeemed Adamism, that technology and new business models are the only relevant issues for success.
I am one of those convinced that the supposed benefits of these commonplaces such as “lower taxes”, “eliminate regulation”, “attract and retain talent”, do not end up having the desired impact, and that is due to the iron law forgetting of human incentives.
In a country with extreme risk aversion, Even venture capitalists go through life with the handbrake lying. In a country where there is a lot of talk about talent, but which is committed to “the attraction and retention of talent”, one of the greatest perversions of the very spirit of human and professional development, nothing good can happen. In other words, we should move from those commonplaces to phrases more aligned with who we are and what is in our power: “stop investing in apartments and bet on entrepreneurs” or “stop talking about attracting and retaining talent and instead, dedicate yourself to creating it once and for all.”
In this context, talking about scalability means stopping talking so much about the quantitative and more about the qualitative. In political and institutional spheres, everyone would like a factory to come to their municipality and suddenly hired five thousand workers as happened at the end of the 20th century. But that’s not going to happen again.
Only those who bet on real innovation, on strong and cohesive teams and with a different perspective on business development and scalability, will achieve what the entire social corpus wants: powerful companies, well-paid jobs and wealth creation in your environment.
And that is where new and refreshing paradigms appear to create what I am already beginning to call a Iberian Way of Making Startups ( Let’s see if we can make the IWMS rival MAGA and other acronyms of our era). I’m talking about betting on solving complex problems, I’m talking about abandoning the model of management anglo-saxon, I’m talking about using the assets of our culture and our way of living as the great levers of competitiveness and improvement of our companies and organizations.
Read David Criado and his ideas on creativity and aesthetics; to Javier G. Recuenco, about the enormous importance of Factor X (people) that conditions everything that happens in an organization; to José Antonio de Miguel, who talks about business models that incorporate real value in the current context dominated by complexity and where we must avoid determinism. And to others more. Then, synthesize your ideas and you will find that new model. Which will be yours, there are no templates for success that can be purchased in e-commerce.
Starting from the theses of David Criado, who tells us about what he calls “mass lobotomization that cultural Protestantism has achieved”we could conclude that There is a paradox in innovation in Latin countries. Thus, the Iberian and Latin American entrepreneurial ecosystem would face a fundamental contradiction, since it adopts Anglo-Saxon innovation models that presuppose Protestant cultural values—extreme individualism, productivist asceticism, distrust of beauty and the relational—when its real competitive strength lies precisely in Mediterranean and Latin cultural values that the dominant model undervalues.
Research on ecosystems from Portugal and Spain shows that When these countries try to “copy” Silicon Valley, they lose their differential advantage. However, when they build from their Mediterranean cultural identity—emphasis on the relational, the beauty of design, aesthetic creativity, work-life balance, the community over the individual—more sustainable and human models emerge, and why not say it, stronger and more resistant to the current uncertainty that devours everything.
So yes, gentlemen, we must reclaim what is Latin (and I am not referring to becoming a replica of Julio Iglesias). I dare to suggest a few keys for this new business model, or startup or entrepreneurship.
First, prioritize the relational over the transactional, and recover beauty as a competitive advantage. While cultural Protestantism distrusts aesthetics, considering it superficial or “sinful”, Mediterranean cultures have historically valued beauty as an expression of excellence. In sectors such as design, fashion, gastronomy, architecture and user experience, this aesthetic sensitivity represents an undeniable competitive advantage that Latin companies must claim without complexes.
David Criado insists that organizations must “bring life back” to their operations, rejecting the mechanistic vision that artificially separates the professional from the human. This philosophy connects directly with the Mediterranean relational culture, where personal ties, trust built over time and community networks are fundamental.
In front of networking Anglo-Saxon—frequently transactional and oriented toward immediate benefit—the Latin-Mediterranean model privileges authentic, long-term relationships. This cultural difference, far from being a weakness, allows us to build more resilient, collaborative entrepreneurial ecosystems based on mutual trust.
This ability to create economic value through creativity and aesthetics should be the core—not the periphery—of the Latino innovation strategy.
Secondly, place scalability in managing complexity. José Antonio de Miguel, in his book Business Models, starts from this premise and doing a synthesis exercise comes to say that ““Scaling is orchestrating a living system of people that detects and exploits value mismatches, manages a complex and multidimensional business model, validates rapidly with agile experimentation, aligns incentives and talent, adapts logistics, costs and production, and designs a strategy that learns, evolves and pivots beyond traditional planning to create sustainable value and differentiation in uncertainty.”. I have never said it to José Antonio, but I think it is the best description of how we Latinos and Iberians live.
As a third point, say that the true strategic bet to scale is to solve complex problemsnot just adopt disruptive technology.
Innovation is much more than technology: it requires a radical transformation of processes and culture. As? With what Javier Recuenco calls Factor X. The management of the main value of an organization: people. The human factor is more decisive in scalability than all the metrics that have been taught in the Business School Masters. Climbing implies build systems where all actors (workers, partners, clients) share risks and responsibility in solving all the problems faced. Again: more “lordship latino”.
And fourth and last, we must defend ecollaborative cosystems versus hypercompetitiveness.
While the Protestant work ethic emphasizes individual competence and accumulation as signs of divine grace, Mediterranean cultures have historically developed more cooperative models based on mutual support networks, social economy and community vision.
Collaboration initiatives between Spanish and Portuguese startups, such as the alliance between Startup Valencia y Unicorn Factory Lisboaexemplify how Iberian ecosystems can create competitive advantages by operating as collaborative networks rather than arenas of hypercompetition. This model could be replicated throughout the Mediterranean area and extended to Latin America.
If you think that all this is too illusory, I tell you that if you follow the Anglo-Saxon manual that is taught in business schools we will never arrive at that Ithaca dreamed of by so many and called Valley. It just doesn’t fit. Human rhythms matter more than many think. Let’s stop talking about so much XXX Valley and start talking about Dehesas, Altiplanos, Pampas, Ribeiras.