Meet the student on EAE’s Bachelor Degree in Business Administration and Management who, at just 21 years old, has already headed 3 business ventures
24 de April de 2020
24 de April de 2020
An entrepreneur since he was 15, as well as being a student on EAE’s Bachelor Degree in Business Administration and Management, Roger Gibert Piqué is now the Director of Operations at Clean Tracker Box, a technological innovation startup in the cleaning company sector. The startup required an initial investment of 100,000 euros, and they are currently preparing a second round for 200,000 euros. They expect to end the year with a turnover of 45,000 euros. Based on Big Data and effective data analysis, the company offers users the chance to rate the service provided by their cleaning company, providing really useful feedback for the manager. Their portfolio of clients currently includes Sodexo, the multinational service company.
As well as his professional career, Roger has gained experience as an entrepreneur on various projects. The three most notable ventures have been Sportsimport (selling sportswear), Acanvi (currency exchange in the Fintech sector) and Planomi (leisure marketplace). “I began at 15 years old (Roger is now 21), without really knowing what it meant to be an entrepreneur. You just need to have the desire to carry out your project”.
In terms of his academic background, he is currently a third-year student on the Bachelor Degree in Business Administration and Management at EAE Business School. In his opinion, as a student on the program, he has been surprised by the classes at the School, with “subjects that are more applicable to business”. “It is not a matter of turning us into human encyclopaedia, but rather teaching us to use the resources that we have and making the most of them”, he explained.
First of all, Roger, tell us about Clean Tracker Box and what you do
CTB is a technological/industrial innovation startup in the cleaning company sector. At CTB, we have created a device that combines gathering customer feedback from the end user of the bathroom, with an NFC system for tracking employees.
In other words, this device is placed in a public bathroom and gives users the option to rate the service provided by the cleaning company, while at the same time our Big Data services classify these evaluations for each of the cleaning employees depending on the time they signed in, which is essential for a company manager, who currently has no information on their employees’ performance.
How did you join the company as the COO? What phase was the company at when you joined? In professional terms, what challenges and objectives did you have at the start?
I joined Clean Tracker Box as the Director of Operations when it was at the standby stage, at the initial phase when it did not yet have a product on the market. I took charge of establishing a plan and a system of selling to companies, as well as developing of the product, which was in the beta phase.
From that point, we launched the product in the FM sector and with all kinds of cleaning companies. The product caters for a need in the sector and it is adapting well to their problems in terms of the lack of information.
What is the added value that Clean Tracker Box offers its customers?
Our main contribution is the Big Data service and reports for managers generated by our computer logarithms, which give the company manager access to performance data on their employees and enable them to optimize their resources in a much more reliable way that with the current system of cleaning log sheets.
Giving us a subjective answer based on your opinion, why is data the future (or present) of companies?
In the cleaning sector, there is a lot of progress to be made in terms of the information available to the manager in relation to productivity, and we give them access to the end customers’ feedback and opinion. Nowadays, with the variety of communication channels that exist, it is not just a matter of the customer always being right, but rather that they have the power to decide because their opinion en masse on social media can make or break a company. Business that deal directly with the public depend on this, which can be seen by the boom in customer information and feedback that are observing in all kinds of B2C companies.
Looking to the future of Clean Tracker Box, what are your expectations for 2018 and how do you plan to achieve them?
Right now, our product is fully developed, but we are always adapting the needs of each company in terms of changing functionalities. It is already up and running in cleaning companies.
We have high expectations with respect to our partnership with a multinational in the sector, currently at the trial phase. We also hope to make progress in Spain and other countries if we manage to make CTB scalable.
Also looking to the future, but this time at a personal level, where do you see yourself five years from now? What are your objectives in the short and long term?
I like being an entrepreneur, the freedom to make decisions about the business and the fact that you only have to depend on yourself to grow professionally, but I wouldn’t be against the idea of working in a large company some day if there is a job that enables me to contribute, grow and feel fulfilled as a professional. I wouldn’t rule out that option when I finish my Bachelor Degree at EAE.
You are now 21 years old, but you have been an entrepreneur since you were 15, with projects like Sportsimport, Acanvi and Planomi. Tell us briefly about the sector/industry that each of them focused on.
These three ventures were the most important to me. With varying degrees of expansion, they are the three projects from which I have learned most.
The first was Sportsimport, which was my first business adventure when I was 15. It was a simple business model for selling sportswear, which I imported from abroad. It enabled me to start with very little money and progressively increase our turnover relatively quickly. That was how I started out and I learned a lot from the experience, as well as earning enough to cover various expenses, such as university and the costs involved in setting up later companies.
A canvi was a startup that we founded with two computer engineers, based on currency exchange for the Fintech sector. In the end, the business model didn’t stand up due to financial difficulties and publicization issues.
Lastly, Planomi, a company that I left at the end of this year, was the project that gained the greatest publicity and visibility, primarily thanks to taking part in the Conector accelerator. It is a leisure marketplace operating in the tourism sector, with a really innovative business model that benefits both the user and the company.
I have also worked on various smaller projects that did not work out in the end or which I plan to resume in the future.
How did your vocation for entrepreneurship come about? In your opinion, is an entrepreneur born or made?
I started a business at 15 years old when I really didn’t know what it meant to be an entrepreneur or being aware of what a serious company entailed. You just have to have the desire to carry out your own project without paying attention to any labels.
In my opinion, there is lots of movement in this respect at the moment. Entrepreneurship has become fashionable, in a manner of speaking, and lots of people find the idea attractive and want to jump on board. This is great for generating movement in terms of investment in startups, but being an entrepreneur with few resources is hard and it requires a lot of work with long hours, for which you will obviously only see the reward if your business is a success.