The Exchanges

Q How did you get the idea for Glovo? What was that origin aha?

A So the origins weren't, weren't huge. There wasn't a huge ambition at the beginning. Um, I was in school. I was in aerospace. I was studying for aerospace engineering and I graduated, uh, immediately I went to my, my dream company, which was Airbus, uh, in, uh, in France. And there I realized really fast that that was a very big corporate company that I didn't want to be in. And that's when I started basically building a deck. Um, I got some inspiration cause I finished my studies in Atlanta. And I saw how Uber launched in Atlanta and how big and how big it scaled, like it was, and the impact it had on, on all the students in the, in the campus. It was, it was massive. So I said, why don't we build the Uber for errands? That was the first original idea. I was thinking about my mom. My mom was always very busy, uh, you know, doing errands for, for, for my father, for my, for my brothers, for me, like. I was like, why don't we digitize this now? And why don't we just build a, uh, an, an app where anyone can just ask for any error. No, just go to this store, pick up this, buy this and bring it to me. And that was the first idea. Of course it was a very niche and very like a high-end service. Um, and then when we launched it, the first aha moment now that really, you know, made our ambitions a lot bigger was that we started seeing people. Ordering McDonald's. They order Big Macs. A…

AI assessment note: “And that was the big aha moment, no? And that's when I understood”

Q I do want to kind of go to that because you have so many lessons in terms of marketplace dynamics that you said about network effects and kind of the maturation of markets and what it does to the efficiency of the model. What have been your biggest lessons when it comes to marketplace dynamics?

A I mean, it's all about scale. So in our industry, marketplace dynamics are work on a, on a city or on a national level, right? So we invest a lot in, in building the brand and the business on a national level. Um, and why the country is important is because most of the big partnerships are also countrywide, no? So you negotiate with, with McDonald's, with, uh, I don't know, with Walmart, with big brands that operate on our country. Uh, in all the country. Um, and then you also build a brand. No, we use a lot of, uh, channels that are, that are, uh, that apply to all the country. Like for example, we have invested a lot in TV. So you have to win in every country, right? And, and, and the network effects happen inside the country. When you cross the border, it doesn't matter how big and how well-known, uh, your brand is in Spain. You go to Portugal and you start from zero. And that's another battle that you have to win. And I think what we learned really fast, because as a, As an entrepreneur from, from Barcelona, our natural expansion was, you know, first we launched in Barcelona, then in Madrid, then Valencia, then we said, okay, let's try, let's go international, no? And we picked, uh, Paris and Milan. Um, Milan worked really well. Paris didn't work well. And the main reason was because in Paris we were late. No, we were launching maybe like two or three years after Deliveroo …

AI assessment note: “network effects happen inside the country.”

Q Okay, so that was the first, and then tell me about the Delivery Hero one. How does that come to be?

A First of all, Delivery Hero invested in Global in Series B. It was part of You know, those rounds that nobody wanted to invest, so we ended up taking the competitor's money. We were competing against Delivery Hero in some markets. Uh, and, and Delivery Hero also did some investments and, and we, we, we agreed to take their money. Why did we decide to sell? Well, after the series, I think it was the Series F, you know, that moment when you close the round, you go to the notary, you're so happy, but you know, you go back to the office, you look at the business plan. And you're with your CFO, uh, with Edu. And I was like, Edu, we, we need to start fundraising for the next one. We cannot wait much. And we looked at each other and we were like, I can do another one. Like emotionally I can't because every single round was so stressful and, and it was rational also not to do it because in every single round there were high chances of failing. And, and, and, and having to shut down the company. So that's when we decided, hey, either we IPO or, or we sell. And we started looking at both options, um, IPO-ing with, uh, we were still burning almost a million a year, a day, a million a day.

AI assessment note: “that's when we decided, hey, either we IPO or, or we sell.”

Q I do want to kind of go to that because you have so many lessons in terms of marketplace dynamics that you said about network effects and kind of the maturation of markets and what it does to the efficiency of the model. What have been your biggest lessons when it comes to marketplace dynamics?

A I mean, it's all about scale. So in our industry, marketplace dynamics are work on a, on a city or on a national level, right? So we invest a lot in, in building the brand and the business on a national level. Um, and why the country is important is because most of the big partnerships are also countrywide, no? So you negotiate with, with McDonald's, with, uh, I don't know, with Walmart, with big brands that operate on our country. Uh, in all the country. Um, and then you also build a brand. No, we use a lot of, uh, channels that are, that are, uh, that apply to all the country. Like for example, we have invested a lot in TV. So you have to win in every country, right? And, and, and the network effects happen inside the country. When you cross the border, it doesn't matter how big and how well-known, uh, your brand is in Spain. You go to Portugal and you start from zero. And that's another battle that you have to win. And I think what we learned really fast, because as a, As an entrepreneur from, from Barcelona, our natural expansion was, you know, first we launched in Barcelona, then in Madrid, then Valencia, then we said, okay, let's try, let's go international, no? And we picked, uh, Paris and Milan. Um, Milan worked really well. Paris didn't work well. And the main reason was because in Paris we were late. No, we were launching maybe like two or three years after Deliveroo …

AI assessment note: “I mean, it's all about scale. So in our industry, marketplace dynamics”

Q So a lot of founders are told early on when they meet a big customer like a McDonald's say, Actually, like, don't let it influence your product strategy. Don't be too, uh, concentrated in your customer, uh, dominance, whatever you want to call it. Would you say that's wrong advice?

A I guess like all advices, it depends on the context. So, uh, in our case scale is, is fundamental, right? You have to win in every market to make it a sustainable business. And this mega large brands like McDonald's is what is, what brings it was. It's what brings all the new customers, right? At some point it was very scary because 70% of our volume in Spain was McDonald's, but I was okay because I knew this was just, it was just part of the customer flow. No, so customers. When there, they ordered McDonald's, but then you could see in the cohorts how they started ordering more and more things. So it was just a matter of time that that 70% decreased to, to what is some, to, I don't know, the today levels, which is between 10 and 20 in most countries.

AI assessment note: “I guess like all advices, it depends on the context.”

Q Okay. So we have Peru and we're like, wow, this works so well, miles, miles away. What happens then? We're like, where else do we go?

A So look, I sent, uh, Arnau, Arnau was kind of our co-founder. He was our COO. And, and we sent him there to, to lead all Latin for the, for the first two years. And we expanded to, I think, 10 or 12 countries. Meanwhile, I hired, um, I hired someone that came from Uber that had been doing expansion there. Uh, and we looked at the rest of the world and where we, places that we liked a lot, um, where Where countries that the investors, you know, I, I, I, I had to really convince them or even launch without their approval in countries like Kenya or, um, I don't know, or Kazakhstan, because from the European point of view was like, who's going to order food delivery in Kenya? I was like, well, there's a lot of people with, with cell phones and, you know, people like food and they like to, and they like convenience.

AI assessment note: “we sent him there to, to lead all Latin... expanded to, I think, 10 or 12 countries”

Q Why, why did you ruin it and what did you do?

A When you are, when you're hyperscaling, uh, it's really easy to have a very aligned culture and everyone working super hard, right? Because it's, everybody's so stretched. You're always behind the business, right? You, like, it's everyone's responsibility is huge, no? And that, and that, that challenge and that, that, you know, that it just pushes everyone to work really hard. But it's inevitable, but that one day your business starts growing at, At 30% year on year. And that coincided when we got to around a thousand people. And I think I ruined it because I started getting scared of some part of our team reacting to how I said certain things. No, and I started being a bit of a politician. So what do politicians do? They, they say things in a way that a very large percentage of the population will like it. It always gets to, uh, that first All hands or zoom call where you say something, uh, you're talking about values. You're talking about work ethics. You're talking about the importance of working really hard and long hours. And when you finish the call, like you're going to get a message from someone like, Hey, what you said, maybe it was a bit too aggressive. Uh, certain people in my team, uh, you know, didn't like it. And as a young founder, you know, when I started getting those messages, I, I, I was like, oh yeah, it's true. Maybe I was too aggressive. Maybe I should say…

AI assessment note: “I think I ruined it because I started getting scared of some part of our team”

Q You said about like scale being so important there. Can you just help me understand specifically how scale impacts unit economics most significantly?

A I mean, it helps everywhere in the marketplace, right? On one end. Um, on one end it's logistics, right? Like the, like we very fast, we become the, the largest logistics fleet in any city where we operate. Um, that means that we have the, the cheapest cost to, to serve, uh, to move something from point A to point B. It's, it's like Uber, right? You generate an order now in Glovo, in Barcelona, you will probably find a courier available, um, a few meters away from the pickup point. Then there's all the data, right? So all the data you generate With, uh, with the restaurants, right? Delivering food is so complex, right? Because you can, it's, it's, it's a business where, where every single second matters a lot, right? You cannot send the courier late to pick up the order because the food is going to get cold. You cannot send it very early because that's seconds that you're going to have to be paying the courier, right? So it's a, it's a, it's a business about seconds and the more data you have about, okay, how long is this restaurant going to take, um, to prepare a pizza? Or how long is it going to take that same restaurant if instead of preparing a pizza, it's preparing a paella, right? Which it's going to take. So this is all data that you keep training the models. And then I would say that the last one is.

AI assessment note: “that means that we have the, the cheapest cost to, to serve”

Q How do you instill that velocity, that unwillingness to Relent and just say, Hey, we are a different organization now. Like we operate at the highest level and we don't accept anything that's not that. How, how do you do that?

A I wouldn't point to a single thing, but it's just everywhere is when you recruit people in that interview, you have to be super transparent about what you expect in terms of, uh, of working hard. And if you feel that he or she doesn't understand what working hard is, you explain it. It's like, Hey, look, most of the days I'm here in the office until eight. And I hope you're, you know, you, you might have to do the same. And on weekends, I connect. The people you fire is another mega signal. Uh, and then in every single meeting, like I, I try, when I walk into a meeting, I try to remind myself, okay, my mission here is just to add more velocity and to raise the standards. No, nothing that they will present is going to be fine. No, this is the mentality that any leader has to go into, because if you go to the report and you see the manager, your leader is fine with everything you're presenting. I think it's just human nature that the next time you have to, to, to report, it's going to be a little less quality.

AI assessment note: “when you recruit people in that interview, you have to be super transparent”

Q I mean it in the nicest way. You're like an amazing entrepreneur, and you've been through this incredible journey. You've redefined a category. Like, why do a VC?

A I mean, in some way I was already investing a lot as a business angel. I had done like four investments and I loved spending time with, uh, with, uh, with entrepreneurs. And I just, it got too messy. Like as a business angel, it's really hard to keep things under control. So I just teamed up with, uh, with, uh, with, uh, with Adam, which was, came from Atomico and, and, uh, and, and gave them all my money that I wanted to invest in, in, in, in pre-seed. And I, for me, it's like a, it's like an important hobby. I spent a few hours with them every week and I like it a lot. I'm learning. But I also, back to your question, I realized that I don't want to be an investor full time. I really like operating businesses.

AI assessment note: “I was already investing a lot as a business angel... it got too messy”

Q Why, why did you ruin it and what did you do?

A When you are, when you're hyperscaling, uh, it's really easy to have a very aligned culture and everyone working super hard, right? Because it's, everybody's so stretched. You're always behind the business, right? You, like, it's everyone's responsibility is huge, no? And that, and that, that challenge and that, that, you know, that it just pushes everyone to work really hard. But it's inevitable, but that one day your business starts growing at, At 30% year on year. And that coincided when we got to around a thousand people. And I think I ruined it because I started getting scared of some part of our team reacting to how I said certain things. No, and I started being a bit of a politician. So what do politicians do? They, they say things in a way that a very large percentage of the population will like it. It always gets to, uh, that first All hands or zoom call where you say something, uh, you're talking about values. You're talking about work ethics. You're talking about the importance of working really hard and long hours. And when you finish the call, like you're going to get a message from someone like, Hey, what you said, maybe it was a bit too aggressive. Uh, certain people in my team, uh, you know, didn't like it. And as a young founder, you know, when I started getting those messages, I, I, I was like, oh yeah, it's true. Maybe I was too aggressive. Maybe I should say…

AI assessment note: “I ruined it because I started getting scared of some part of our team”

Q You said about like scale being so important there. Can you just help me understand specifically how scale impacts unit economics most significantly?

A I mean, it helps everywhere in the marketplace, right? On one end. Um, on one end it's logistics, right? Like the, like we very fast, we become the, the largest logistics fleet in any city where we operate. Um, that means that we have the, the cheapest cost to, to serve, uh, to move something from point A to point B. It's, it's like Uber, right? You generate an order now in Glovo, in Barcelona, you will probably find a courier available, um, a few meters away from the pickup point. Then there's all the data, right? So all the data you generate With, uh, with the restaurants, right? Delivering food is so complex, right? Because you can, it's, it's, it's a business where, where every single second matters a lot, right? You cannot send the courier late to pick up the order because the food is going to get cold. You cannot send it very early because that's seconds that you're going to have to be paying the courier, right? So it's a, it's a, it's a business about seconds and the more data you have about, okay, how long is this restaurant going to take, um, to prepare a pizza? Or how long is it going to take that same restaurant if instead of preparing a pizza, it's preparing a paella, right? Which it's going to take. So this is all data that you keep training the models. And then I would say that the last one is.

AI assessment note: “we have the, the cheapest cost to, to serve”

Q Is that just because you couldn't raise a round that would give you 18 months? Why did you raise for nine months? That feels far too fast.

A Because the stakes kept getting higher. So the industry kept getting more and more irrational. More and more growth. Um, we were still at negative unit economics. So things were, were going really well, but the burn kept scaling. So when we, when we finally closed the round, um, every single time we were like, fuck, like we, we either over invest and we shorten our, you know, uh, our runway or Uber Eats and Deliveroo will kill us in all of our markets. So it was a life or death decision all the time. And we had to overspend every single time. And in one of those, again, we had, it was December. We had to sign the round by, I think the first week of January, end of January, we, we, we were running out of money. And, uh, and December, the third, I get a call from the lead investor saying that they're passing two days before Christmas. And yeah, uh, that was a really bad Christmas.

AI assessment note: “we either over invest and we shorten our runway or Uber Eats and Deliveroo will kill us”

Q How do you instill that velocity, that unwillingness to Relent and just say, Hey, we are a different organization now. Like we operate at the highest level and we don't accept anything that's not that. How, how do you do that?

A I wouldn't point to a single thing, but it's just everywhere is when you recruit people in that interview, you have to be super transparent about what you expect in terms of, uh, of working hard. And if you feel that he or she doesn't understand what working hard is, you explain it. It's like, Hey, look, most of the days I'm here in the office until eight. And I hope you're, you know, you, you might have to do the same. And on weekends, I connect. The people you fire is another mega signal. Uh, and then in every single meeting, like I, I try, when I walk into a meeting, I try to remind myself, okay, my mission here is just to add more velocity and to raise the standards. No, nothing that they will present is going to be fine. No, this is the mentality that any leader has to go into, because if you go to the report and you see the manager, your leader is fine with everything you're presenting. I think it's just human nature that the next time you have to, to, to report, it's going to be a little less quality.

AI assessment note: “when you recruit people in that interview, you have to be super transparent”

Q Okay, so that was the first, and then tell me about the Delivery Hero one. How does that come to be?

A First of all, Delivery Hero invested in Global in Series B. It was part of You know, those rounds that nobody wanted to invest, so we ended up taking the competitor's money. We were competing against Delivery Hero in some markets. Uh, and, and Delivery Hero also did some investments and, and we, we, we agreed to take their money. Why did we decide to sell? Well, after the series, I think it was the Series F, you know, that moment when you close the round, you go to the notary, you're so happy, but you know, you go back to the office, you look at the business plan. And you're with your CFO, uh, with Edu. And I was like, Edu, we, we need to start fundraising for the next one. We cannot wait much. And we looked at each other and we were like, I can do another one. Like emotionally I can't because every single round was so stressful and, and it was rational also not to do it because in every single round there were high chances of failing. And, and, and, and having to shut down the company. So that's when we decided, hey, either we IPO or, or we sell. And we started looking at both options, um, IPO-ing with, uh, we were still burning almost a million a year, a day, a million a day.

AI assessment note: “So that's when we decided, hey, either we IPO or, or we sell.”

Q I mean it in the nicest way. You're like an amazing entrepreneur, and you've been through this incredible journey. You've redefined a category. Like, why do a VC?

A I mean, in some way I was already investing a lot as a business angel. I had done like four investments and I loved spending time with, uh, with, uh, with entrepreneurs. And I just, it got too messy. Like as a business angel, it's really hard to keep things under control. So I just teamed up with, uh, with, uh, with, uh, with Adam, which was, came from Atomico and, and, uh, and, and gave them all my money that I wanted to invest in, in, in, in pre-seed. And I, for me, it's like a, it's like an important hobby. I spent a few hours with them every week and I like it a lot. I'm learning. But I also, back to your question, I realized that I don't want to be an investor full time. I really like operating businesses.

AI assessment note: “as a business angel, it's really hard to keep things under control.”

Q So a lot of founders are told early on when they meet a big customer like a McDonald's say, Actually, like, don't let it influence your product strategy. Don't be too, uh, concentrated in your customer, uh, dominance, whatever you want to call it. Would you say that's wrong advice?

A I guess like all advices, it depends on the context. So, uh, in our case scale is, is fundamental, right? You have to win in every market to make it a sustainable business. And this mega large brands like McDonald's is what is, what brings it was. It's what brings all the new customers, right? At some point it was very scary because 70% of our volume in Spain was McDonald's, but I was okay because I knew this was just, it was just part of the customer flow. No, so customers. When there, they ordered McDonald's, but then you could see in the cohorts how they started ordering more and more things. So it was just a matter of time that that 70% decreased to, to what is some, to, I don't know, the today levels, which is between 10 and 20 in most countries.

AI assessment note: “I guess like all advices, it depends on the context.”

Q to cook a pizza at pronto pizza, but they've got a new person this week and they're 10 minutes late because they're new. That's the, that's the challenge of real world, right? Or it's raining. And so it takes longer for the driver to get there because it's raining. And so they're going to be five minutes late to pick up. Does data actually help in a highly ambiguous world?

A I mean, on the rain, yes, you can train on weather and we have a lot of, uh, data, uh, live data on, on, you know, the weather of every single city where we operate. Um, we, you also build a lot of products so that the restaurant can tell you if there's any externality, right? Hey, uh, my store is busy. I, I need some rest, right? I need, uh, 20 minutes off, or this order is really big, uh, I need to edit. And also all of those inputs, you have to build a lot of product that is very easy to use for the restaurant, um, in, in saturation times, right? It's very high tension moments for the restaurant usually, uh, because they have people to serve in the restaurant and also the couriers to serve.

AI assessment note: “on the rain, yes, you can train on weather”

Q Totally agree with you. Uh, I think you always fundraise as a CEO, so don't worry about that. Um, how would the layoffs? Layoffs suck. If you were to advise founders on giving layoffs, I think that has more coming. What would you advise a founder who is about to give layoffs?

A So we, unfortunately we've done a few layoffs. Um, what I found is that people are, uh, Are a lot more mature than what you expect when you're planning the comms and all that. I know we've, we've always put a lot of budget into it to treat people well. It's not only about the people that will be, will be leaving, which, uh, they deserve it. It's not their fault that you have to lay off or do a big layoff, but it's, it's even more important for the people that stay because those people that you lay off are their friends and the way they exit the company is super important in the post layoff era. No, so we've. I always pushed now that we always got the, the layoff proposal from the HR department. I always push for more. Let's give them more. Cause it's, it's, it's for sure. It's a good investment.

AI assessment note: “I know we've, we've always put a lot of budget into it to treat people well.”

Q Final one before we do a quick fire. When you think about being a young European entrepreneur, and for the thousands that will listen to this show, what would you say to them when they're often told, hmm, you, you really need to move to the Valley if you want to build a tech company?

A No, I strongly disagree. Um, Look, I think from Barcelona where there was very, a very small ecosystem of, uh, of tech and tech talent, we were able to build top notch technology. I don't think our technology had anything to envy our American competitors. So I fully disagree. I hope, I wish somebody had told me now that, uh, to, to have more ambition when I started. Um, cause I was. For at least for the first three, four years, I didn't fully believe I could do it. No, there were no big examples in Europe or at least in Spain. Um, so I wish somebody had told me, but, but at the end we are as a smart and we can work harder or as hard as, as in any other place.

AI assessment note: “No, I strongly disagree. Um, Look, I think from Barcelona”

Q Why? It was just so many. It was so fragmented. What was it?

A It was so many, and there were so many names that you would not know. So all the, all the typical VCs, or I would say All the European VCs or most of them passed on us. Nobody believed in our story, you know, a bunch of kids from Barcelona beating the Deliveros and the Uber Eats of the world who were always like one step ahead in fundraising, right? So, um, I remember the series B, which was the first large run. It was like, twenty-five million. We were gonna die because we had like, um, I don't know, we had, I had visited, uh, I still have the list, a 120 VCs. And that passed, um, not, not, not an email, but an, an actual call or, or, or a meeting. And I just had no more, uh, VCs to pitch. Like I, I Googled and there were no more in Europe, right? And that round, it was, uh.

AI assessment note: “European VCs or most of them passed on us. Nobody believed in our story”

Q Okay. So we have Peru and we're like, wow, this works so well, miles, miles away. What happens then? We're like, where else do we go?

A So look, I sent, uh, Arnau, Arnau was kind of our co-founder. He was our COO. And, and we sent him there to, to lead all Latin for the, for the first two years. And we expanded to, I think, 10 or 12 countries. Meanwhile, I hired, um, I hired someone that came from Uber that had been doing expansion there. Uh, and we looked at the rest of the world and where we, places that we liked a lot, um, where Where countries that the investors, you know, I, I, I, I had to really convince them or even launch without their approval in countries like Kenya or, um, I don't know, or Kazakhstan, because from the European point of view was like, who's going to order food delivery in Kenya? I was like, well, there's a lot of people with, with cell phones and, you know, people like food and they like to, and they like convenience.

AI assessment note: “we expanded to, I think, 10 or 12 countries”

Q You mentioned layoffs in Brazil. Super hard thing to do. I do want to talk about talent. Um, building a business is merely a collection of people. Uh, you said some great things before about talent. You said to me before about rewriting values. Everyone might, you know, I speak to mostly Americans, and they love mission and values. Um, what are your biggest lessons on rewriting values?

A It's something that I've pushed, uh, In, in my, in my, in the executive team every single year, right? So we block a few hours, we look at the values, and even though 12 months ago we all agreed on every single word on how to define each one of the six values that we have, every time we sit down and we look at them, we're like, ah, this doesn't feel right anymore. We should, we can improve it with this word or changing this or maybe adding a new value, right? We haven't changed the values so much. But we have proactively worked on them on a yearly basis. I think the problem was when we got to like a thousand employees, uh, that's when we messed up the culture. That's when we, and it, it was all my fault because.

AI assessment note: “we have proactively worked on them on a yearly basis”

Q Is that just because you couldn't raise a round that would give you 18 months? Why did you raise for nine months? That feels far too fast.

A Because the stakes kept getting higher. So the industry kept getting more and more irrational. More and more growth. Um, we were still at negative unit economics. So things were, were going really well, but the burn kept scaling. So when we, when we finally closed the round, um, every single time we were like, fuck, like we, we either over invest and we shorten our, you know, uh, our runway or Uber Eats and Deliveroo will kill us in all of our markets. So it was a life or death decision all the time. And we had to overspend every single time. And in one of those, again, we had, it was December. We had to sign the round by, I think the first week of January, end of January, we, we, we were running out of money. And, uh, and December, the third, I get a call from the lead investor saying that they're passing two days before Christmas. And yeah, uh, that was a really bad Christmas.

AI assessment note: “we either over invest and we shorten our runway or Uber Eats and Deliveroo”

Q When do you think you have product market fit? You said a year there. When do you think you have product market fit?

A For a very long time, I could see we were delivering a service that, uh, that people liked, but we had very negative unit economics. And there was a, there was a very, most of the investor community didn't believe that this new industry would turn into profitability, right? So that's not really product market fit because you're delivering a service that people like, but, uh, but at the price that people don't want to pay. So it took a while until you started seeing the power of network effects, you know, the fleet of couriers. Growing, getting, gaining all the efficiencies. And then at some point, which is the key of this business, of course, is you start moving the revenue stream to the, what we call the, the merchant, not the partner, not the, the restaurants, the stores, the groceries. So you, you can start making the service cheaper and cheaper for the customer.

AI assessment note: “took a while until you started seeing the power of network effects”

Q to cook a pizza at pronto pizza, but they've got a new person this week and they're 10 minutes late because they're new. That's the, that's the challenge of real world, right? Or it's raining. And so it takes longer for the driver to get there because it's raining. And so they're going to be five minutes late to pick up. Does data actually help in a highly ambiguous world?

A I mean, on the rain, yes, you can train on weather and we have a lot of, uh, data, uh, live data on, on, you know, the weather of every single city where we operate. Um, we, you also build a lot of products so that the restaurant can tell you if there's any externality, right? Hey, uh, my store is busy. I, I need some rest, right? I need, uh, 20 minutes off, or this order is really big, uh, I need to edit. And also all of those inputs, you have to build a lot of product that is very easy to use for the restaurant, um, in, in saturation times, right? It's very high tension moments for the restaurant usually, uh, because they have people to serve in the restaurant and also the couriers to serve.

AI assessment note: “on the rain, yes, you can train on weather and we have a lot of”

Q Totally agree with you. Uh, I think you always fundraise as a CEO, so don't worry about that. Um, how would the layoffs? Layoffs suck. If you were to advise founders on giving layoffs, I think that has more coming. What would you advise a founder who is about to give layoffs?

A So we, unfortunately we've done a few layoffs. Um, what I found is that people are, uh, Are a lot more mature than what you expect when you're planning the comms and all that. I know we've, we've always put a lot of budget into it to treat people well. It's not only about the people that will be, will be leaving, which, uh, they deserve it. It's not their fault that you have to lay off or do a big layoff, but it's, it's even more important for the people that stay because those people that you lay off are their friends and the way they exit the company is super important in the post layoff era. No, so we've. I always pushed now that we always got the, the layoff proposal from the HR department. I always push for more. Let's give them more. Cause it's, it's, it's for sure. It's a good investment.

AI assessment note: “we've always put a lot of budget into it to treat people well.”

Q Final one before we do a quick fire. When you think about being a young European entrepreneur, and for the thousands that will listen to this show, what would you say to them when they're often told, hmm, you, you really need to move to the Valley if you want to build a tech company?

A No, I strongly disagree. Um, Look, I think from Barcelona where there was very, a very small ecosystem of, uh, of tech and tech talent, we were able to build top notch technology. I don't think our technology had anything to envy our American competitors. So I fully disagree. I hope, I wish somebody had told me now that, uh, to, to have more ambition when I started. Um, cause I was. For at least for the first three, four years, I didn't fully believe I could do it. No, there were no big examples in Europe or at least in Spain. Um, so I wish somebody had told me, but, but at the end we are as a smart and we can work harder or as hard as, as in any other place.

AI assessment note: “No, I strongly disagree. Um, Look, I think from Barcelona”

Q Why? It was just so many. It was so fragmented. What was it?

A It was so many, and there were so many names that you would not know. So all the, all the typical VCs, or I would say All the European VCs or most of them passed on us. Nobody believed in our story, you know, a bunch of kids from Barcelona beating the Deliveros and the Uber Eats of the world who were always like one step ahead in fundraising, right? So, um, I remember the series B, which was the first large run. It was like, twenty-five million. We were gonna die because we had like, um, I don't know, we had, I had visited, uh, I still have the list, a 120 VCs. And that passed, um, not, not, not an email, but an, an actual call or, or, or a meeting. And I just had no more, uh, VCs to pitch. Like I, I Googled and there were no more in Europe, right? And that round, it was, uh.

AI assessment note: “Nobody believed in our story, you know, a bunch of kids from Barcelona”

Q Do you have any other big management lessons? You've managed now thousands of people for years. Any other big ones?

A Look, I've had two, two stages at Glovo. One was hyperscaling. And, and as I said before, I think in hyperscaling, things can work with the CEO being away fundraising, because there's just so much energy. Into the business that, that is transmitted. Um, and it, you know, and actually that's what I had to do. I was all day fundraising. No, I was almost until six hours a day fundraising. And then I, I worked in the business. Um, and then my new stage was when, you know, after acquisition of the labor hero, which coincided when we started growing at, I know, 30% year on year. And, and when you're at this growth rates, which, which are good. It's not hyper scale or hyper growth. Um, that's when you need, you cannot sit back. No, you need to be injecting velocity and energy into what I said before, not into any single meeting where you go.

AI assessment note: “Look, I've had two, two stages at Glovo. One was hyperscaling.”