Gerard Pujol

Right after I decided to cease my pursuit of a MSc in Astrophysics and Astronomy at UvA, I moved back to Spain looking for a job that would help me transition from my research and academia career to the business world. Back then, in pre-pandemic (early 2020), I was facing a major change in the direction I wanted to take careerwise. Unfortunately, the timing was awful and COVID hit hard in the economy and job opportunities. It was then when I met with an old friend and we decided to take off on an entrepreneurship adventure; however, none of us had experience nor knowledge on this matter.

We did some initial research, thinking and market analysis, and finally found a great opportunity in the Wellness and Fitness industry. We started with an idea, later on we pivoted, and so on and on. The entrepreneurship experience was way harder than expected and eventually we got demotivated to continue. In February 2021 I started working at a startup company, and 6 months later I decided to quit and try again founding a company. Now with more knowledge about inner company processes and experience in a fast growing startup I felt more ready, energetic and resourceful than before. My friend and I decided to catch up and get back to the project we had started working on.

It was then when I started looking for external help and guidance, and got in touch with Autoocupació. Initially I opted for an individual mentorship service, and started to get helped a lot by them. Later, they introduced the “Posa en marxa el teu negoci” programme to me, and without hesitation I decided to join. Probably, one of the best decisions I made because even though I had been already working on many things taught in the programme, it really helped me a lot to strengthen my knowledge, and gave me a lot of vision and encouragement to go for effective action.

During the programme I applied many things they covered, and after it, the founding-a-company goal started to become a rewarding reality. Now, with the help of this programme, we managed to properly study the market, analyze it, design a better solution for our identified problem, set a roadmap, realistic goals, create a strategy for our business launch, gathered ideas for effective marketing, etc.

Happily, I can say that now we are working hard while leaving the dream, and have over 100 interested potential customers to our product (B2B Saas); we have grown our team, and are doing really well on our short term goals and looking optimistic for our long term ones. Joining this programme has been probably the best and most deterministic decision to head towards the right direction and follow the right path towards a successful company foundation.