Running companies.

I build companies from the ground up, and the ground is the team. Hire the right people, give them the tools and the budget to do the job, and hand them the accountability that comes with it, so decisions get made where the information is. I don't micromanage. I set direction, check in weekly, and get out of the way.

At The Q-Studio that meant a core team and a strategy inside the first three months, then hiring at pace while delivering for a client at the same time, across Barcelona, Mexico City and San Francisco: 22 people and seven shipped products in under a year. At QS Ventures it meant one shared structure of strategy, design and builders that five companies could run on, with legal and accounting kept outside it.

0→22

people in the first year at The Q-Studio

0→9

core team at QS Ventures, serving five companies

3

countries operated from in year one

Most of running a company is deciding what happens on a Tuesday. This is my Tuesday.

1. 01

   Daily

   Inbox to zero before the first meeting. Mornings are for strategy and one-on-ones; midday for working the problems the morning surfaced; afternoons for a second pass on email and for the people outside the company: clients, candidates, partners.

2. 02

   Weekly

   A one-on-one with every direct report, and one structured strategy meeting, the L10, that shows how the business is actually running. Anything that needs my sign-off hangs off that meeting instead of interrupting the week.

3. 03

   Monthly

   Legal and accounting close, so the finances are never more than a few weeks old. Sales and client meetings happen as the pipeline demands, not on a calendar slot.

4. 04

   Quarterly

   The whole team goes away together. Part of it is the quarterly review: how the quarter went, what we expect from the next one, which objectives move. The rest is time together, on purpose. It is the cheapest culture investment I know.

“News is news. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad. Say it, and say it early.”

I have told investors to their face that I lost their money. I have shared the wins with everyone the same day.

Revenue, margin, runway: on display for the whole company, including the student with us on a summer placement. When everyone can see the numbers, everyone knows where we are rowing to, nobody has to be told twice why a decision was made, and bad news arrives while it is still cheap to fix.

Reporting runs through the board: the statutory quarterly updates in Spain, annual accounts at year end, and monthly or quarterly management reports depending on the company and its investors.

I don't manage information. The one exception is a strategic matter on which an investor or advisor has a conflict of interest; that stays out of the room until it can be handled properly.

The test came early. A venture I was building lost the third-party APIs it depended on, and a pivot didn't hold up. I told the investor exactly where we stood, returned what was left of the capital, and explained why. He hired me next, as a senior consultant in his own firm. That is what a reporting relationship is for.

Hiring is a cultural-fit decision before it is a CV decision. The team leads who will work with someone every day run the process and make the call. I take the last conversation: not to test them, but to understand who is joining and how they work.

Direct reports I hire on track record and on recommendations from people I trust. A CV never tells the whole story. Then six months of close review, and an honest conversation at the end of it, whichever way it goes.

Letting people go depends entirely on why. If it's disciplinary, I lead the conversation myself, keep it short and factual, and have a replacement lined up so the company doesn't feel it. If it's the strategy that changed, not the person, I open my network for interviews and give them a paid month to search full time. People who did nothing wrong should not pay for a decision that wasn't theirs.

1. 01

   A company whose only client stopped paying

   The Q-Studio: 22 people on payroll, six figures a month of revenue gone in weeks, a seven-floor hub under way. I wound it down fast and openly, with introductions and time to search for everyone who left, kept the ten best people, and started QS Ventures the same month. Four of the ten became partners and forwent salary in the first month, because there were no clients yet. Nothing we had built was wasted: the team, the method, the clients' trust all moved to the new company.

2. 02

   A portfolio company whose founder over-committed

   Beatgolf: a founder made decisions that were not his to make. We are restructuring while keeping the project alive: a debt restructuring, an interim CEO, and a first-year plan with quarterly milestones and KPIs. The lesson is already written into how QS Ventures works: choose founders like direct reports, and put the controls in the shareholders' agreement before the capital, not after.

Neither story is on this page to look good. They are here because they are the two situations a company hires a COO for, and I have been through both.

• QS Ventures: five companies launched on one structure in year one, €800k combined revenue, three running with revenue today, and a portfolio restructuring handled end to end.
• The Q-Studio: €0 to €500k in eight months, 0 to 22 people, four complete products to market in six months. No outside funding.
• Enso Spaces: founding pair, €1M raised at a €10M valuation, €0 to €150k in monthly recurring revenue. The company operates 770 rooms today.
• Dreams & Adventures: seven years, from setting up stages to running logistics, sales and accounting; two promotions, teams of up to 40 with budget, safety and insurance responsibility. Where I learned to build teams.