TerraceLab

Can you give us a brief introduction to who you are?

My name is Guillermo Molano. I did the January IMBA 2021. I am from Puerto Rico. There, I became an engineer. I worked as an engineer for 10 years in Washington, DC. I decided to change my professional career and come here, to IE to do an IMBA to go from a more business corporate background to an entrepreneur. mindset. That's why I decided to come here and adventure.

Did you participate in any venture-oriented extracurriculars during your time at IE, for instance like the Venture Lab?

In term 2 we had a class with Paris, the director of the Venture Lab, but I would say even before that I started to get in contact with them because since day one I knew what I wanted to do from the IMBA which was to gain as much experience in the entrepreneurial area as possible. I proposed a project in the first term but I did not pitch that idea very well. I fixed the idea for the second term and since that term I've been working in the startup that I work in right now.

Tell us about your startup - When it was founded and what it does?

The startup is about vertical farming. We are doing it differently because we are not selling the produce. Traditionally, vertical farming will grow, let's say lettuce and you will buy the lettuce from the vertical farm. We are not doing that , we are selling an experience by doing farming as a service through a subscription program. We provide the entire service from seed to harvest and you don't need to worry about anything. We will take care of that part. In addition to the different niche, we are not impacting restaurants or housing. Instead,we are focusing on working environments. These are spaces like offices that corporations are using. They sometimes don't know that today, they can create a farm indoors and start producing for their own workers or their clients.

We spent probably a year analyzing this sector which has a lot of challenges. For instance, operational costs are super high, and require a lot of investment to start. We tried to navigate different ideas to see the best way to get in the sector without as much capital expenditure and to do it with the lowest operational expenditure as possible. We believe that with this concept we are proposing, we will make it profitable, because that's one of the big weaknesses of vertical farming today. None of the big companies that have been doing this for years are profitable. We're trying to forget about revenues, high numbers, and make it profitable as soon as possible.

Did you start working in this same start up as soon as you finished your journey at IE?

I presented the idea in the core classes then, I went to start Start Up Lab. There, I found three colleagues and we ran the startup and we got into the top six. We did pretty good even when the project was not the fanciest in terms of tech. We did pretty well and one of them is still one of my co-founders. Then we did the Venture Lab and then the Venture Lab extension. In the extension we met our third co-founder that is also from our same intake. Now the three of us have been working on the project since a year ago.

You were talking about how in a way IE fostered all of that. Can you share with me how the skills you've learned with IE helped you in your career and with the startup?

Yeah, personally, I am an engineer so I don't come from an entrepreneurial background. I don't come from finance, or even business. I didn't even have a business degree before coming here. My family are all entrepreneurs so entrepreneurship has always been very close to me but I didn't have any of the skills. Coming to IE, gave me not only the tools but also the network, the exposure, and the experience. It was like an opportunity to have a real life experience in a protected environment. You can see how painful entrepreneurship can be in a safe zone. You have the opportunity to see what you really want and decide if it's a good direction.

What are the next steps for you?

We just received our entrepreneurship visa here in Spain. We were able to identify funds to run for almost two years. We are using these two years to see how much we can scale it. Now we are in active conversation with possible clients. Our startup is a B2B model which usually takes longer than a B2C. We are also applying for different competitions and different program accelerators in Europe. We have our fingers crossed that we can get accepted to these programs and see if we can win any of these competitions to give us more exposure. Moving forward, we’re trying to make this business successful. And if not, we can start exploring other ideas for other startups. But I want to stay in the entrepreneurship area for sure.

Any message you would like to share with students/alumni that want to be entrepreneurs like you?

I think if you have that curiosity, you should do it. You don't want to be in a few years saying, “I wish I had followed through with this idea”. Entrepreneurship isn't easy for everybody but everyone can try it. And if you are interested, IE is a perfect place to explore. If you really want to become an entrepreneur, it's a safe zone to explore before you go out and cross paths with people that maybe don't want to protect you. I recommend that you don't waste the opportunity of Venture Lab or any of these programs.

Interview by: Giovanna Rojas, MIM 2022