We offer half a dozen examples featuring entrepreneurial people who have either devised a new business model, or have redesigned and promoted an existing one: Verbio, specialized in conversational artificial intelligence; Herencia Altés, an organic family winery; Jordi, a digitalized driving school; Freshly, local cosmetics; Dinat, sustainable and socially responsible and Factorial, a star-up specialized in management. Each one exemplifies success stories of innovators and entrepreneurs published in this newspaper.
Founded in Barcelona, it has a hundred employees, offices in Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, Mexico and Brazil, and clients around the world. It offers solutions to companies to be able to serve their customers in an automated manner by telephone and analyze the quality of the service they offer. “We have clients who answer more than a million calls a day with our technology,” explains Carlos Puigjaner, CEO and partner of Verbio Technologies, who adds: “Our value proposition is based on very cutting-edge technology – capable of transcribing and understanding very accurately what users say – combined with the experience of putting these solutions into production in very high demand environments.” The company provides communication channels where people can request what they need without long waiting times and with a very high quality of service.
Puigjaner considers this a historic moment for AI. “With the appearance of GPT-3 and later Chat GPT and GPT4, we see the incredible opportunities that exist and that allow us to think about a future in which automated attention can reach higher levels of personalization of communication with each user.”
Founded in 1981 by Jordi Llorens and Carmen Minguella in Conca de Barberà under the name Autoescola Jordi, their sons – Lluís and Ramon – have taken over the family business, redesigning the project, updating it and betting on sustainability. “With the motto ‘Driving people
The Llorens brothers have completely redesigned the business model and have launched an unprecedented project in the sector: they teach how to drive sustainably using all the technological advances. They introduce big data and artificial intelligence from hardware installed in their vehicles. “This informs us about how each student drives – steering style, fuel consumption patterns, types of braking, etc. – and with this data the teacher can help them correct and show them the evolution. Furthermore, by having data on how each person drives, we know their consumption and other indicators, and by applying gamification techniques we generate a small “competition”, rewarding those who drive in a more efficient and sustainable way,” explains Llorens.
Founded in 2016, today the company has its offices in Reus and a 14,000 m2 warehouse in Gandesa. It started with five references, but today it already has eighty. It has a turnover of 45 million euros annually, employs 280 people and will close in 2023 with twenty stores. “Our success is the fusion of science and love. We are romantic chemists who support values such as nature, sustainability, love for people, for animals… and this is what Freshly is today,” says Miquel Antolín, CEO and co-founder of Freshly Cosmetics.
At Freshly they strive to make products and formulations that really work, that solve people’s problems or needs. “The proof that they work is that customers repeat.” In 2022, 75% of turnover was from repeat customers and 25% from new customers. In addition to being local products – they are manufactured in Terra Alta – and natural, Freshly cosmetics are sustainable. “We launched the world’s first cardboard refill on the market. It cost us a lot, and now we have shampoos and gels to refill, but also serums, because we want to provide real solutions for the good of the planet and people.”
Herència Altés produces wine in an ecological way and fights against climate change with initiatives that protect the flora and fauna of the territory.
To minimize the environmental impact they generate and support the flora, they planted 14,000 native plants. “We also support fauna and, for example, we have made a water reserve, a small pond at the edge of the farm, and when there is drought the animals have a place to water, and with a webcamp we document the animals that visit us” .
Despite being a small winery, they managed to become members of the International Wineries for Climate Action (IWCA) association, which integrates 40 wineries from around the world and grants a very rigorous seal with scientific criteria. “At Herència Altés we are committed to reducing, year after year, the carbon footprint by making challenges such as energy self-sufficiency, the transition to electric machinery in the field or reducing the weight of bottles to achieve zero emissions in 2050. Our project must be 100% sustainable and coherent.”
Dinat is a Special Work Center that is committed to sustainability and promotes the incorporation of people with disabilities into the ordinary labor market. It has 170 workers – 85% of the workforce is made up of people with some type of disability – who are responsible for the manufacturing and handling of corrugated cardboard items and the handling of products for third parties.
Although finding a job for people with functional diversity is not easy, the manager of Dinat, Borja González, highlights the extent to which having a job helps them. “It allows them to have greater economic and personal autonomy, key aspects in their development. Likewise, it makes them more motivated, they learn and they feel more valued.”
In addition to promoting labor inclusion, Dinat is committed to sustainability. They work with large companies to replace the use of plastic with cardboard. Borja González explains the recent example of a well-known appliance brand that used porexpan to protect the extractor hoods.
“We worked together with the client to manufacture a cardboard protection alternative that was a complete success: we eliminated the Styrofoam, we managed to reduce assembly time by 70% and storage space by 50%, which generated significant savings customer and a very great differential value in their product.”
Created by three entrepreneurs with business experience – Jordi Romero, Bernat Farrero and Pau Ramon –, Factorial is considered one of the Spanish “unicorns”. It has its headquarters in Barcelona, and already has branches in Mexico City, Sâo Paulo and Miami.
Jordi Romero, CEO and co-founder of Factorial, explains what they bring to the market. “We have created software that helps SMEs around the world automate all their human resources and people management processes. We automate administrative tasks and, in turn, offer them data and intelligence about their company.” With their software, they try to help companies, especially SMEs, get more out of the people who are in charge of human resources management.
“The software performs those management jobs that do not add value, such as contract paperwork, payroll, time control monitoring, vacation management, expenses, etc.,” says Romero. “In this way, we free workers from the most burdensome and low-value jobs so that they can focus their activity on what is really important: people and the development of talent in the company.”