Startups have everyday questions that need to be answered. Continuously challenge your model. The ability to pivot when required is a must to succeed, since nothing is perfect.
Name: ennomotive
Location: Madrid, Spain; Santiago, Chile
Website: www.ennomotive.com
Product / Service Offering: Engineering Crowdsourcing
Co-founder Interviewed: Enrique Ramirez (CEO)
Other Key Management Team Members: Ramon Ruiz (COO), Fernando Alvarez Uría-Torres (CIO)
This article is part of our Business Startup Spotlight series featuring entrepreneurs and their companies. We hope that these founders’ interviews will inspire and motivate you as you undertake your own entrepreneurial journey.
Tell us a little about yourself with a focus on what motivates you.
I am a 47-year-old engineer from ICAI – Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Spain, and a proud spouse and father of three children.
My passion for challenges and creativity has helped me to initiate this venture, and I truly believe that everyone can do his/her best when given the right motivation.
I enjoy connecting and working with people a lot; I love learning, growing together and celebrating success.
When did you establish your company and where did the idea originate?
After 20+ years in Operations Consulting, I realized companies have complex challenges that required a different problem solving approach. Considering that technology is changing at an incredible speed, I thought it was a good idea to connect companies and worldwide engineers with a win-win approach.
What need or needs does your company seek to fill for its customers?
After globalization, companies need to be faster, more productive, more sustainable, etc., to stay competitive. ennomotive helps those companies turn innovation into tangible results using our online platform to conduct challenges. ennomotive is a global and cross-industry engineering community.
What was the biggest challenge you faced while getting your company up and running, and how did you overcome it?
The biggest challenge I have had is finding the right partners. I started with a couple of friends that were very enthusiastic about the project, but they had to give up for different reasons. Later, my actual co-founders approached me and joined our venture; they are committed to dedicate tones of energy and invest a bit of money.
< see related: 4 Steps to Change Failure into Success >
Are there resources you have utilized that other founders might find compelling or useful?
I have been extremely lucky to be part of the Venture Lab program at IE (Instituto de Empresa) in Spain. This was very helpful, enabling us to rethink our first steps and to get a branding envelope to go to market, while we were building our own.
What steps have you taken to secure funding for your company and what, if anything, would you do differently if you had to start over?
In addition to our founders funding, we got funding from 3 FFF’s. This has been sufficient to initiate activities. However, we are now planning to seek VC funding to grow our team, push our technology forward and continue our international expansion.
Looking back, the item we would have approached differently would be the location; where we started our business. It’s possible we should have started it in another country such the United States, where the startup market is more mature.
Have there been any questions you have had as an entrepreneur of a fledgling startup that you had a particularly hard time finding the answers to?
Startups have everyday questions that need to be answered. Continuously challenge your model. The ability to pivot when required is a must to succeed, since nothing is perfect.
What challenges, if any, are you grappling with?
The challenge now is scaling the business at the rate we expect. Setting up a business and starting to sell is a good achievement, but keeping it growing is a different question. One of the reasons why we landed in Start-Up Chile was to expand in Latin America.
Looking for an accelerator that matches your needs? Check out our Startup Accelerator Spotlight.
What is the most helpful tip or “hack” you’ve ever learned, stumbled across, or been given?
Finding the right co-founders is hard. Not everyone is made to create and set up a business.
Is there anything else you would like to share about your company?
In addition to the financial objectives and how much we enjoy solving engineering challenges, I am proud to be part of a company which is socially responsible since we bring opportunities to unknown talent and create viable technical startups.
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Sandra Sloan
Sandra has previous supply chain and business operations experience which she is leveraging as an author with FundingSage focused on spotlighting entrepreneurs and their startup efforts.
