IE Business School’s Venture Day examines challenges faced by entrepreneurs

So far this year these events have been held in 16 countries in an effort to strengthen participants’ entrepreneurial management skills, connect entrepreneurs with investors, and gauge key entrepreneurial practices in countries around the world. Venture Day Madrid served as a platform for successful entrepreneurs, investors and experts in entrepreneurial management to examine the challenges involved in launching a startup, including what entrepreneurs need to learn from failure, the key factors in the relation between entrepreneurs and investors, and the potential of crowdfunding.

Paul Singh, founder of Results Junkies, entrepreneur and investor, delivered the keynote address. Singh, who was a partner of international startup accelerator 500 Startups – a venture capital platform with over 200 million dollars in assets, and founder of Disruptive Corporation underscored the fact that there are too many startups and not enough businesses, saying that the important thing is to have an entrepreneurial mindset. He feels that many firms fail for the same reason – namely that they do not meet the demands of their clients, or they come up against financial problems as they try to develop the business. Singh also warned that many companies focus on how to grow their firm, instead of confirming whether their business will work or not.

The workshop gave IE Business School students and alumni the opportunity to present their best startups to an international judges’ panel. The panel selected Touchvie, an app which transforms the way films and series are viewed, as the winner of this edition. Touchvie converts the screen in an e-commerce platform and offers additional content which is displayed on the screen.  The finalist startups in the event were, in addition to Touchvie, Boozoo, Chronobsession, Dooctu, Patravalli, Edbroad, Bon App, Ikara, Mintyhost and Habitise.

Participating guests included Vicente J. Montes, Director of the Rafael del Pino Foundation, and Paris de l’Etraz, Director of IE’s Venture Lab, who took part in the opening session. Participating experts included Gadi Mazor, co-founder and CTO of OurCrowd, Allison Rohe, associate director of the IE Business School Venture Lab, Rachida Justo, professor of entrepreneurial management at IE Business School, Erik Schlie, vice dean of the IE Business School International MBA, Joe Haslam, president of Hot Hotels, Mari Cruz Taboada, founder of Iberian Lawyer and adjunct professor of IE Business School, José Cabiedes, partner and director of Cabiedes & Partners, and Pablo Rabanal, founder and CEO of El Reclamador.