Barcelona, here we go!

Dear Friends,

It’s been two months since we started TheFamily’s internationalization.That weird cat, staring at you with ocean eyes, announced it: Barcelona, here we go! I wanted to share a glimpse of our trip with you.

6 months ago, the focus on internationalization appeared to be clear in our minds.
There is a story behind Barcelona and surprisingly, it started in Bulgaria. Ouss and I traveled to Sofia. We had been invited to a cool event for entrepreneurs there. I gave a talk on “How can entrepreneurs make it in a toxic ecosystem”. I tried to explain how entrepreneurs can overcome the many barriers that exist in France. You know them: #Catholic-Background #Culture-Of-Elitism #Economic-Crisis #Government-Involvement #Paperwork #Legal-Infrastructure #Distrust-in-Youth…At the end of the talk, I was surrounded by tons of young entrepreneurs, all sending the same kind of strong signal:

• “How the hell are you not here yet?”
• “We need more independent actors like your group.”
• “We have exactly the problems you described, just multiplied by 1,000.”
• “Why don’t you provide your content in English, seriously?”

Damn. We always thought it would be inappropriate to speak in English, as no US or UK entrepreneurs would need as much of our entrepreneurial education. OMG. We were super fools. English is also the language for every other country. This was the ‘hahaha moment’ — we laughed at ourselves, feeling so stupid.

It was obvious, TheFamily could bring value in places other than France. The infrastructure we’ve developed in France might be scalable… in many other toxic environments. So let’s start with the ones we feel close to, and the ones that are easy to get to.
We’ll never go for a franchise style of internationalization.
What we try to build is too complex to simply be taught, and we still need to learn. What’s more, it’s too precious to be given to external service providers. We’ll have to develop it on our own. Let’s go there, try to understand the specificities. Let’s work with local startups and discover how to scale TheFamily while tailoring it for a new context.

Barcelona became the one, the first, our everything ;)
2 hours by plane, a culture we feel close to.
It’s the simple things that can make big differences.
In Barcelona, you’ll find the best lifestyle ever: sun, beach, tapas, wine and real reggaeton clubs.

Barcelona is a fertile ground for innovation.
A lot of unemployed and highly educated people are wondering how to make a positive impact. The cost of living is super low compared with London, Paris or Stockholm. The city is open to foreigners. Most of the people we met were immigrants. The reason why they come is a no brainer: “See this lifestyle? Easy!” — while pointing at this crazy sunny seashore surrounded by restaurants and skateboards. And most importantly, the startup scene is asking for contextualized content, no bullshit conferences, just pragmatic advice and useful guidance.

Meeting with the local people involved in tech.
Getting appointments and meetings went flawlessly. I felt a sincere and warm welcome from entrepreneurs, VCs, incubators and journalists. From the board member of FC Barcelona to the most active Business Angel in Spain, they all showed up and displayed an open friendliness. All of the startup and digital infrastructures, incubators and coworking spaces opened their doors easily.

To start, we’ve organised conferences and dinners, as we do in Paris. Will they go to English speaking conferences? Well, between 50 and 120 people attended each of our English speaking speeches. The problem was more on our side actually: we are clearly not fluent yet. But that’s ok. Accents are cute, and if we suck, we rehearse, c’est la vie!
So we did conferences, to validate the interest.
Now there’s at least one meetup every week. 350 committed people are part of the community on our Barcelona meetup page.
We also decided to do one-on-one meetings with entrepreneurs. Our goal is to start working with the most promising and ambitious ones.

We definitely see a lack of education in Barcelona, as we saw in Paris. The difference is that the need is larger there. Less money, fewer role models. But the opportunity might be bigger, as the frustration due to the economic context is huge.

Taking the cities, one by one, for a European synergy.
We won’t copy-paste the model we’ve created in Paris in each city.
That would be stupid and inefficient.
Some parts of our infrastructure are scalable, some are not.
What we need to discover is what is scalable, what isn’t, and focus on this last one. The first good thing with this new move is that it forced us to go for English content only. In Paris, we’ve shifted radically. All conferences are in English now!
If Barcelona goes well, imagine how the other cities will be easier and the synergies this network could create.

Entonces, estoy muy entusiasmada de confirmarlo, TheFamily está instalada en Barcelona ;)
Tenemos un lugar para vivir, tomar citas y cenar con startups y una red de lugares para organizar conferencias y empezar con lo mas importante, educación.

Check out this page to follow our events in Barcelona.
Watch this video by Ouss on the founding team.

BESOS