Alberto opened his butcher shop to the public, in the Madrid neighborhood of Retiro, in the midst of a pandemic. As soon as he came out of confinement, in August 2020, after many years in the sector as a salaried worker, he decided to wear the world as a hat and move forward as a self-employed entrepreneureither. Almost two years later, he is still there, in his business, fighting “against all odds.” He now looks back and acknowledges that “those times”, in the summer of 2020, “were hard”, but “I think the situation now is more complicated than two years ago” and launches his sentence: “the current pandemic, that of the price crisis and inflation, is harder and more damaging than that of the coronavirus. Against this, so it seems, there is no valid vaccine. It is a ‘disease’ that affects us all”.
It is an economic axiom that ensures that every time of crisis is, in turn, a time of opportunity. To speak only of Spain, the pandemic destroyed hundreds of businesses and thousands of jobs, but during it many companies were also created. In the first half of 2021, for example, 43,124 companies were incorporated, 57.6% more than in the same period of 2020, but also a growth 8.6% higher than that registered in 2019. “As soon as you leave the confinement, companies were created at a higher rate than before the pandemic”, explains David Casas, director of the master’s degree in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at EAE Business School. In a way because, as I said then, in mid-2021, Carlos Guallarte, professor at the Business Department of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and researcher specializing in entrepreneurship, “the increase in business creation could also be result of the shortage of job offersor, which forced many to resort to self-employment to earn a living.”
Alberto Pavón, the butcher on Calle Antonio Arias in Madrid, was one of them. I remember when I opened it was a very tough situation. We were coming out of more than three months of confinement, many people had died, we were facing something unknown… But I noticed here in the butcher shop, that there was joy to spend and buy food. Now, however, the crisis is noticeable. Prices have gone up a lot. Gasoline, raw materials… And salaries have not grown as much and the clients who come spend less. If before they bought me meat worth 100 euros a week, now it’s 50 or 60. But it’s normal. I understand it”.
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Alberto tells that “in origin”, the prices have gone up a lot where I buy”, in Mercamadrid. One of the largest wholesale markets in Europe and the true economic lung of central Spain. And where, he warns: “many wholesalers are closing”, but that is another matter. “The issue of prices is a shame. This week the chicken has risen 25 cents per kilo; the pig has also risen; the veal has become more expensive 2.5 euros per kilo and the lamb… The lamb is, well, shot. There is no lamb. I have bought this week at more than 16 euros per kilo of suckling pig. More expensive than at Christmas So, how do I have to sell the chops? At 30 euros per kilo? People “come and say, how expensive is it? But what am I going to do to him, lose money?”
And also electricity, “before I paid a hundred and something and the last bill was 229 euros. And gasoline, gas, taxes…” Because, explains Alberto, “this month I have paid rent, social security, VAT before the 20th… In total, more than 2,000 euros for the Treasury and the Social Security. And don’t miss a month to pay! they’re drowning us”. And “in my sector they talk that between now and September 30%-40% of butcher shops will disappear. And that in September we prepare ourselves because the prices are going to continue rising”.
Raúl Rocha Madureira is a Portuguese, from Chaves, who has been in Madrid “27 years”. Not as many as La Taberna de María-La Cruzada, on Amnesty Street in Madrid, right next to the Palace and the Royal Theater, which is considered, “the oldest tavern of Madrid, since 1827”. In the midst of a pandemic, when things were going the worst, due to the restrictions and closures, the hospitality sector, Raúl took the reins of ‘la tasca’ and here he continues “happy for having been able to overcome the pandemic and working hard to get the business going.”
In this restaurant, where one can taste one of the best and most awarded stews in Madrid, good meat, a great cod (as it cannot be less in a place run by a native of the neighboring country), a good menu of the day at 12 euros during the week and 18 on weekends or, in short, having a perfectly drafted beer, in addition to Raúl, the owner of the business, three other people work (two cooks and a waitress). “Everything is very expensive, almost every day the prices of raw materials rise and I cannot raise what I charge my clients for a beer every week because I would stay without them. In other words, the margins go down because I have three employees, pay social security, rent, electricity, gas…” Raúl also agrees with our butcher Alberto: “these times are almost more complicated for business than when we were in the midst of a pandemic. Although in my case, being so central, in historic Madrid, it shows for the better, compared to the previous two years, that tourists have already returned, both nationals and foreigners, and that for us hoteliers is a relief.
But Raúl complains about another complication that many entrepreneurs in general and hoteliers in particular are encountering: “it is very difficult to hire trained waiters and cooks. In addition to prices, the other big problem that those of us who run a bar or restaurant are encountering is workforce. Scarce and a lot”. And there is nothing more than to walk around the center of Madrid, near María la Cruzada, to see various posters pasted on the windows of bars, cafes and restaurants: ‘Experienced waiter/waitress needed’; ‘Experienced cook needed’. But in the end he returns to the big problem: prices. “I pay more than 1,000 euros for gas, I just did, 400 euros in barrels of beer every four days… As long as prices are not contained…”
And since life experiences intermingle in reality, Raúl’s business is also being affected by the war in Ukraine. Natalia works as a waitress in María La Cruzada’s tavern. She is Ukrainian, although she came “a few years ago” to work in Spain. When the conflict broke out, her son, barely fulfilled the 18 years old, “it’s a boy”, he went to the front as a volunteer to defend the Ukrainian territory to the hot zone of the Dombas. “Now he is in danger, fighting with a rifle against Russian tanks and missiles, in the midst of fire from Russian troops and from the Ukrainian mafias that control the defense of that region. I am very afraid for him”, says Natalia, while she serves a couple of wines to two Englishmen who are visiting Madrid.
Nerea Mendinueta, designer of digital products and user experience, Nadia de la Fuente, industrial designer and Nicole Flamarique, Leadership, Entrepreneurship and International Innovation, one in Pamplona, another in Madrid and the third in Barcelona, are the creators of The Good Goal app, which was born during the pandemic, in March 2020, when ‘UXER School’ launched the international challenge #COVID-19 CHALLENGE, and that is where the co-founders “met each other and began to lay the foundations for the idea”. The challenge: ‘How to return to normality in a more sustainable way'”. From then on, the entire project and the constitution of the Startup has been carried out electronically “since each of us lives in different cities”, but this has not been a barrier and “it has helped us to strengthen ties as a team”. The official launch of ‘The Good Goal App’ took place in June 2021. In one year they have achieved more than 60,000 downloads with more than 18,000 active users.
Their project was born virtually and it continues that way because the three co-founders of the company work and live in different cities. In their case, the pandemic has brought with it a “virtuality” that they take advantage of and that gives the impression that telecommuting has come to stay. “telecommuting has helped us shape our business in a agile and much faster way than if we were working in person”, they agree. And despite their success, they affect an issue that they have come to solve, at least in part, but about which they consider that society is not fully aware. “Although there is a growing environmental awareness, especially among the younger population, there are some barriers when it comes to initiating change and adopting sustainable habits: difficulty in seeing the environmental impact of our actions, lack of information on sustainable practices, little motivation and a lot of effort”.
‘The Good Goal’ has come this far “with hardly any financial resources. But it is true that we need a push to continue growing. That is why we are articulating our first capital increase through an investment round that allows us to expand our team and implement a marketing strategy to reach our objectives.” Thus, “we publicly announce the launch of our first round of investment that will allow us to continue growing and evolving. The objective of the round is to raise 250,000 euros and we are very happy to already have 60% of the capital closed”, they insist.
Juan Fernández launched SOLME (Metallic Solutions) in October 2020, with a patented system of electrification and mechanized and automatic door opening and closing, useful above all for urban estates, associations, companies, etc. But in these months of pandemic, with neighborhood communities unable to meet, empty offices and companies with everyone ‘teleworking’, he has done everything and has ‘reinvented’: boilermaking, welding, Covid terrace closures… He has had a hard time, “without help”, but now he sees that it is time to expand. “I do not regret having given the step of undertaking. Dreams are there to be fulfilled, but you have to fight for them”. Even in the midst of a pandemic.
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