Antonio Huertas y Eduardo Delgado hablan sobre talento e innovación en la empresa | Iberaval

Antonio, we are at the headquarters of Mapfre on Bajada Onda, you have several impressive buildings, right? Spectacular facilities. And we see here behind, I'm going to take the opportunity to ask you something about Mapfre, we see here behind the new Mapfre logo that you launched a few months ago and that I, for example, saw the explanation of everything that was the composition and so on. In recent times there have been cases of corporate identity changes, as it's called, right? More positive, more negative, more pleasant, with better results, let's say. I understand you are happy. You see a lot of the, I'll say 'you' because I'll say it wrong, the clover, and I think it has been, or at least when you hear the explanation and understand where things are going, a change, apart from the justification of why it was done, the integration of concepts and so on, a positive change.

Congratulations to the company and to all of you who make it up, because as I say, it's a small company and I know what it entails, so congratulations. The effort is proportionally the same, so I also congratulate you for having done it in your time, because surely you also had anxiety to transform it, and success in execution is ultimately the greatest satisfaction that remains in such an intense process.

Let's start winding down, Antonio, two last questions. At the beginning of the interview I mentioned that Mapfre has grown remarkably and is in a good moment, we could say so, in financial terms. In fact, last year was a magnificent year, but looking to the future, I don't know if you detect fragilities beyond the global context we are in, the famous uncertainty, but I don't know if there are fragilities that you have your eye on at this moment beyond the obvious ones.

There is an issue that has been bombarding us, it has existed for a long time, but it has been bombarding us for three or four years, which is the topic of artificial intelligence, which obviously not only large companies, but small ones are also implementing it. It is a help, especially for mechanical processes, but I understand that obviously apart from the fact that it has come to stay, it is a tool that is also helping large companies. I don't know if you can briefly summarize, yes, how Mapfre benefits from artificial intelligence, we all always talk about the issue of biases, you have to be careful with certain things, right? But it is true that it is a useful tool, right?

This would be another interview, just this topic alone would be another interview. Antonio Huertas, president of Mapfre, president of the alumni association of the University of Salamanca. Surely we could have touched on many more topics, but as I started this interview, I want to thank you very much for your time. I hope you enjoyed it, and why not, later on we can talk about that centenary of Mapfre, which you are surely already thinking about something. And I've said it, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Commitment and Iberaval. Eduardo Delgado is the founder and CEO of RAMS, a technology company from Palencia born in 2013 that has evolved from the classic comparator to a broader model of managing essential services with a focus on telecommunications, energy, insurance, alarms, and finance. Trained in law at the University of Valladolid and with previous experience in a major brand between 2008 and 2012, Delgado has built a very recognizable business discourse: putting order in complex markets and conveying a clearer, more subtle, and above all more human proposition to the consumer, much more human. That idea appears explicitly in his professional profile, where he defends a Human First model supported later by technology and artificial intelligence, and where he places among the milestones of Rams, the company we are going to talk about today, which already has a team of 80 people, offices in Madrid and Palencia, and more than 10 million euros raised between investment, debt, and public aid. But beyond the company, Eduardo has also developed an academic and informative facet that we can place in the academic field and as a speaker at business schools and universities, which makes him a especially relevant and interesting profile for this interview on Commitment Iberaval, in which we will surely talk about entrepreneurship, scalability, leadership, practical use of artificial intelligence, and why not, also the transformation of traditional sectors from a customer service logic. How are you, Eduardo?

What a beautiful welcome. I'm great here with you with a radio voice narrating my career. Thank you very much, I really loved it.

Let's get down to business, which is an expression I use a lot. I'm going to address you as 'tú', which is another warning I always give on this podcast, if you don't mind. Of course. And well, as I say, to break the ice, right? Rams was born from a very specific consumer problem that almost all our listeners will feel very identified with, let's say, and that speaks to the user's helplessness regarding certain services. Today your model earns revenue when a company pays to acquire a customer. But at what exact moment did Roams stop being a consumer defense company and also become a commercial intermediary? And what did you lose along the way?

Well, we started with this model where we try to be a company, a service that accompanies you from start to finish, that doesn't abandon you when you need it most, right? When you have a problem, when you need help filing a claim, a loss. And obviously also with each of those procedures and transactions, which is where revenue is obtained, as you rightly indicated. This started in January 2024 and what was left behind, well, on one hand, a business that was profitable, not recurring, it was a business where we put the client in contact with the final company, which required very little effort on our part. We employed few people, the margin was large, as I'm saying, with a gross revenue of 2 million euros we had an EBITDA of more than half a million. There was free cash flow in our company, it was a healthy company, but the reality is that the relationship with the client belonged to the company itself and, as I said, there was no recurrence of any kind. So, beyond the fact that, well, we could compare between brands and all of them could be prescribed, when it came down to it, you didn't participate at all in that relationship with the client and you were transparent. So it has its good parts, as I mentioned before, but in the long term it was a business that had already hit a ceiling, and I personally try to build a company that generates value for all parties, but that has no growth limit. I imagine a RAMS leader in the national market in this segment. It is a very broad market, a market that moves 188 billion euros each year. It is a huge market in which intermediaries obtain around 20% of what the client pays, approximately 36 billion euros that intermediaries receive. And well, as there is no clear leader among those intermediaries, and let's think of comparators, as you mentioned before, Rastreator, Cierto.com, let's also think of other distributors, stores, and even contact centers, all of them are intermediaries, each with a value proposition very focused on digitizing acquisition and conversion. And we, as you rightly said, go against the current. We believe that the shield should not be technological, it has to be human. We have to build generalist people and provide them with specialization through all the knowledge we have and that tool we have built with artificial intelligence that helps these people to respond and attend to any need a client has, any, whether residential or companies. So it is an ambitious, beautiful project that for me has gained more than it has lost. The only thing it has lost is that profitability that accompanied us, that positive EBITDA, but it is a transformation process in which we are immersed with the intention of having an EBITDA that multiplies many times the one we obtained in the past.

Eduardo, maybe I should have started at the beginning, which is what you are saying. A few months ago I was at a talk by the founder of Rastreator, and she spoke about a complex sector, with its peculiarities. After all this background, you are able to make a fairly accurate analysis with a lot of experience, which is what the CEO of the company has, about the evolution of Rams. Tell us briefly, what would you highlight as the main lesson you have learned in this long period? Because it is a period that allows you to see the valley from the mountain top, right? 13 years at the helm of this company is a lot, as you say.

The first lesson was that we tried to revolutionize and completely transform a sector like telecommunications by digitizing it from start to finish. We wanted to destroy contact centers, we thought they didn't add value, and I say it as it was. Now our growth is thanks to an internal contact center that we have, so that we all know we were wrong and it's okay to admit it. That attempt to revolutionize was an absolute failure. It is true that from the perspective of user interest we were very successful. Technologically we were highly valued, but the business, which is what ultimately marks the destiny of the company, was absolutely close to zero. It was terrible because those who paid for the party, the telephone companies, were not interested in our purpose, they didn't see the value we could bring. So, first important lesson: revolutions are left behind. He also failed. We learned to evolve, we learned to ask, and the first thing we asked the companies was what do you need, and they said potential clients, leads, which is what those calls or data that you transfer to a brand are called. And we were very good at capturing leads. We captured millions of leads each year, that's why we billed so much. It is a business where the funnel is about putting many clients into a line as direct as possible to the company, and success depends on that capture capacity. It's that simple or that complex, but it's true that COVID brought me another important lesson, which is dependence on a single sector. And look, we were operating internationally in Mexico, Colombia, and the United Kingdom. We earned a part, like 25 or 30% of our revenue came from those markets, but when COVID arrived, portabilities were suspended for several months, not only in Spain, in all countries, and you realize that if you are already insignificant in Spain, you have no strength, imagine abroad. So the next important lesson we could have is diversify. You have to diversify risk. Think that Rams has never stood still. I'm talking about already being in four markets by 2020. We have always tried to grow, that's in our DNA. But it's true that we had tried it from the perspective of telephony, looking at other countries, and from COVID onwards we said, seeing the brand positioning we have in this country, the capacity and personal connections we have with multiple companies, why not try to capitalize on it by creating a platform that also compares services in insurance, telephony, energy, alarms, mortgages, and other financial services, and it was a true success. That allowed us to grow even more than we already had. We had a positive EBITDA period 2018-2023. In fact, no matter how strange it may seem, with four participating loans from ISA and Sodical, all of them were repaid on time and with the highest interest rate because of the positive EBITDA we had. So, I think that is a successful company from the perspective of the startup world, but it's true that, as I said before, we had no relationship with the client and it was a frugal, ephemeral business, and as I said, I had seen that the enormous dependence we had on the companies being a business of faith, you had to trust what the brand indicated as closure. You had no real information, so it exposed you a lot. And when artificial intelligence came into my life, I had done a master's between 2021 and 2022. I had ChatGPT before it was publicly released, and it blew my mind, and I thought, if I limit myself to only offering information and comparing services, I will be a speck of dust in a few months or years. And I think a good entrepreneur has to always seek survival. Often the entrepreneur is judged, because it seems he has ambition to grow, and I think most of the time the entrepreneur grows out of necessity, out of need for survival. And in my case, it's true that an important part of ambition, of wanting to create a legacy, of wanting to have the purpose of improving the lives of many people from an economic and labor perspective. And that led me to decide to transform the company even though I assumed that all the money I had saved in those years, that million and a half euros I had saved in the bank, I had to put it back into circulation, I had to go into debt once more, I had to ask for capital from Iberaval, in this case to accompany me in a financing process with different entities. And well, that adventure began by hiring people for my contact center, something I had tried to destroy back in 2016. It also began by renouncing a part of the income we had until that moment due to a regulatory issue. In our case, the Directorate General of Insurance prohibits acting as a collaborating agent and as an insurance broker at the same time. So that reduced our billing by 40%. And without giving up the cost of central services, because the technology and marketing team was essential to develop that tool we had in our heads and to maintain customer acquisition. We started an adventure with negative EBITDA and fundraising where the creation of a recurring business could not be delayed too long because there was not much margin. So, in a project that we planned for three years and with all the lessons we had, which as you correctly indicated, not to revolutionize, diversify your risk, and have long-term value, with those three cornerstone stones we clung to, we began a project almost from scratch. Well, from scratch, because we had bought an insurance brokerage that billed less than 30,000 euros a year. Literally, we are starting. A company that spends 3 million euros a year is literally starting from zero. But well, we are happy, we are having a demanding evolution. We are growing at a voracious rate of about 10% monthly for many, many months. And we are getting closer and closer to reaching the break-even point again, which is where we all entrepreneurs truly want to be.

Hmm. Eduardo, you recently spoke in an interview about artificial intelligence, we are going to talk about it, as it couldn't be otherwise, right? Since you brought up the topic that while the manager speaks, artificial intelligence executes. But there are tasks, we talk about everything that is always said about bias, ethics in working with artificial intelligence. What specific tasks would you never delegate to artificial intelligence, even if they were cheaper or more scalable, because that's where that human part is, of having the most human part of the interaction with the client at the center?

And really it's not at the center, it's on the external part of the company.

And why do I say this? Because the traditional customer service model, the historical one, the one we all know, places a technological shield between the customer and the company. And the technological shield asks what you need, filters you based on your request, and sends you to a specialist. And although the listeners cannot see me, the specialist, in quotes, because we all know that when you reach that person, many times they cannot help you, they do not know, they do not have the tools, and they end up bouncing you to another person. They usually tell you that signing up takes three clicks and filing a claim or resolving a procedure takes 40 hours. And that is no coincidence. It is an industrial model designed so that you give up and stay with the company for another month, without being able to get anything out of them. But note what I was saying: most companies put their workers at the center of the equation, but they place them very distant from the customer, and what we have understood is that we do not want to give up the close contact between one person and another. Because in many cases, when you call that company, you think the problem is called canceling the electricity, but really you do not want to lose the electricity in your home; you want to switch companies or adjust the rate. You do not know another way to say it because you lack the training, the professional experience to say exactly what the need is. And it is in human treatment, in a light conversation, where you can truly empathize and connect more genuinely and deeply with the customer. What we do is put artificial intelligence at the service of the basket to answer complex questions, and there is always a person, a human in the loop, reviewing the contracts and all the information that AI uses to prepare this response. It is important that the data is official, verified. But once that is done, I think it is fine for AI to help you answer what the difference is between flood coverage offered by a company like Mapfre, Allianz, or Zurich and another like Ocaso. I gave four names so you understand that none is better or worse, but different ways of understanding a home insurance policy. In addition, this AI that we have designed also accompanies the manager in what we understand they are more, I will say clumsy, though I do not like that word, but rather lazier. We are all lazier. For example, being extremely orderly with what a client has asked, with the date you have to talk to them. How many people do we know in the commercial field who are truly extremely organized? I know none. I would say that I come from a large company like Telefónica in the commercial field, and I can describe myself as someone who knows how to sell, but I would not describe myself as an extremely organized and methodical person. If I start something, I want to take it to 100%. But if you ask me to do something a hundred times, there will come a time when I get bored. So, knowing that the human way of being ends up taking routine as something that has more negative and destructive components for employment than good things, what we intend is for the manager to truly focus on what is important: that conversation, that relationship, that possibility of generating additional opportunities with that client or the client's environment, and to be attentive to accompanying them in the process, truly understanding where the specific need is. There I believe the human being, due to our natural capacity, is irreplaceable. In everything else, in that written communication you send to the company, in that reminder to know if the procedure has been completed or not, machines, sorry, will always be much better than us. If you ask your mobile phone to remind you of something every day, it will do it. If you ask your wife, or if my wife asks me and she listens, I do not want her to kill me, obviously, I will forget one day. That is why I say machines are quite better than us at some things; we have to accept it.

There is a part of growth, of your growth, that I understand comes from the organic positioning you have achieved, that is, the hard work for people to find you on the internet. I do not know if this is, I tell you from experience, a structural advantage or a dangerous dependence on the shifts. I was going to make a comparison with a political leader, but I will not do it, okay? The shifts that Google makes, it makes many shifts and its algorithm changes. It is true that Google, especially in recent months, is adapting, it is costing it, but it is adapting to everything that is changing, precisely because of the AI we were talking about. In your case, that positioning you have achieved is, I understand, key to your business. It is key and we do not want it to be dependent. Let me explain: when we transferred calls to large companies, it was key. If Google falls, if Google brings you down, your business falls. There is a direct correlation and it is your only way to generate revenue. When we talk to investors and they mention SEO dependence, obviously at that time I defended it tooth and nail, but there was a huge SEO dependence. We did not bet on other acquisition models because they were much more expensive, and in a model where you only transfer calls for about 2 euros per net call, there is not enough margin to consider making your brand recognized, investing in advertising, acquiring customers through ads or social media. Those are things where you have to invest large sums of money, and with the dogma of faith that existed and the shifts that companies also made in conversion ratios each month, you could get a very unpleasant surprise. A company like Rastreator invested about 15 to 18 million euros a year in advertising for many years, and each and every one of those years they lost money. Their strategy was different, and that is why the founder, as we were saying before, was happy. She had sold her company for 560 million euros, but during all those years she supported a gigantic advertising investment thanks to investors who filled her case each year; it was not a profitable business. We had approached it from another perspective; we wanted to be cash positive, so we understood that organic positioning was our best opportunity, but almost our only viable channel. Today it is different. Today you can acquire, for each household you serve, an approximate value of about 200 euros per year. That allows you to invest in advertising, allows you to acquire customers in other ways, and above all, you no longer want to be transparent; you want people to recognize your brand, you want people to know what Rans does, and that is why I was excited. When I heard you talk about what we are, before it was quite difficult to describe, even to understand. It happened to me, and I practiced a lot, and still I saw the face of the person I was telling it to and said, 'They are not understanding it fully.' And it is not their fault, it is my fault or the model's fault. Now it does not matter; even my grandmother or my grandfather, may he rest in peace, would have understood it. My uncles understand it, people like my mother, who are older than me, have different consumption habits, and they use the service and are happy. So I think this allows us, even though it is still a structural advantage to be very well positioned on the internet and acquire customers so cheaply, to have other acquisition channels to leverage.

I will give you two data points so you can see. Wherever we go, especially from a communication perspective, I think we have something magical. We communicate from purpose and connect with customers. We have 7 million records of people who have voluntarily asked us to help them. 7 million records. If tomorrow Google sends us to the street, as the Catalans say, nothing would happen because we have a huge volume of customers we have not yet called due to lack of commercial capacity, but it is a matter of time, a matter of time to grow, a matter of time to use that database that is kept properly updated and in compliance with GDPR regulations. But beyond that, I was going to talk about the other project we launched a year ago, which is a social media channel called Rans VIP, positioned on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook. In one year, we have gotten more than 15 million people to see us. That is spectacular. Searches for our brand have grown by 500 or 600% this year. So you realize that now more than ever, with a model that goes very much against what the market dictates, which is that you have to digitize and fire people. We talk about humanizing and generating trust relationships with customers, because that in the long term will create a much more solid and profitable capital structure than any other. We often talk about creating an Amazon of services, and I believe the first step, understanding that the bulk of consumers are currently senior people who have a consumption habit like we said, they will consult digitally but want to talk on the phone with another person, I think we are hitting the nail on the head of the equation and have a future that I find exciting.

Close to what the depopulated Spain is looking for, right? Also creating companies that can offer well-paid jobs, with extraordinary training in digital matters, etc. And sorry, I cut you off.

No, no, it is a pleasure to listen to you, Eduardo. I have many questions prepared here. I think we will have to cut some, but well, I really love how you speak, with such enthusiasm, and it is a result of that evolution we talked about, right? To focus the aim. Apart from these data you mentioned, which seem very interesting to me, the Rans website says that you analyze more than 300 brands and offer results without asking for personal data, although you also mentioned that you have a very powerful registry. In that, I will call it a bottleneck, which you might not agree with, that you still could exploit more, that is, you could be much bigger, right? Obviously a good businessman knows how to measure what he has, the steps he must take, and the dimensions his company should have. There we go. Bravo. I really think it is a great strategy. Tell me about those 300 brands, what percentage is really integrated into your transactional business, let's call it that? And what percentage, I will also call it like that or say it like this, only improves the photo of the comparator's neutrality.

That is a great question. 40% are companies with commercial agreements, 60% are companies without commercial agreements. It improves the impartiality of our brand because we do not want to hide that there may be companies with better prices, but that we even discard for service. And of course, in this channel perhaps I should not say it, but since the one who says it is me and not you, companies like DIG or Linea Directa are not in our portfolio of companies we want to sell because they do not guarantee quality service, either from a customer service perspective when there is a problem or later handling a claim in the way we consider an insurer should commit to doing. We do a demanding scrutiny, an audit of companies' processes, and although we have no difficulty opening commercial doors, it is easy to reach a commercial agreement today with our positioning. We prefer to be neutral when showing you this information and then explain the reason why we will not be able to help you contract that company. But we are not too proud to say that what you have is better than what we can offer, and we will tell you to keep it. And this, although you may not believe it, generates a lot of value and a lot of trust, because when someone who sells tells you that what they offer is not good, it only ends up creating superlative trust from the customer, and then they have no problem giving you other contracts for you to tell them if they are good or bad. And since we want to be honest because relationships are built for the long term, we understand that we will always win more in the long run if we tell you the truth. And in any case, I completely agree with you that we have a bottleneck that I am trying to solve. I am filling the tank of gasoline, understanding that in my case, it is not 10, my gasoline 95, it is euros. I need financing to maintain the growth rate until I reach my breakeven point. I have about a year left to reach that breakeven point. And well, I have obtained significant financing from an insurance company, business angels, and family offices that have been putting in capital. I have several million euros of financing raised throughout my history, and in this process, about 2 million euros, a bit more, from private investors. I still have a little bit ahead, about 1.5 million to obtain the capital I need until I reach that breakeven point. What is the challenge of my operations? That OTEX, where do I have to put the capital? In sustaining the central services team, which is commercially unproductive but obviously improves the sales team's efficiency, and at the same time, supporting the investment you have to make in the sales team until you accumulate the minimum number of customers needed to be profitable. My commercial structure is already profitable by itself, but it does not generate enough profitability to cover the cost of all central services. So it is that gap that I have to close. I might be asked if it could be closed by cutting the number of central services people. And it is something that, although the company has undergone a transformation and approximately half of the members that were in the company in 2023 are no longer there, the number of central services people has not been reduced that much, because a social media channel with four members was created, which has incorporated AI profiles and Ox for the development of that tool used by managers and for all interactions with brands. So I do not see cutting central services as truly the need. I have to make the effort to support that structure because they are the ones that allow the sales team to be more and more efficient and continue to receive quality potential customers, which is the work that must be done together.

Of course, the mechanism is clear, Eduardo. Hey, let's talk about financing, you have already brought it up, but let's talk specifically about Iberaval, that is why we are both here. You are partners of this guarantee society for quite a while now, and Ran Tick specifically. We could talk about the different brands within the ecosystem, but let's focus on Ran Sticks, if you don't mind. It appears as a very clear success story, which you actually starred in last year, if I remember correctly, but you already talked about Iberaval in 2019, pointing to its ease and good conditions. What real role has it played in your growth and Iberaval? I don't know if you understand it clearly, but to bring it closer to our listeners.

Of course I understand it clearly, and I don't want to suck up to you. It has been a differential role because at a time when the company presented, and I am not even talking about 2019, up to 2019 it was somewhat easy to lend us capital, right? Positive EBITDA, a growing company backed by multiple private capital companies. So to a certain extent, I will say it is simple, but when we presented the transformation of our model and shouted to the four winds that this would cause a drastic reduction in our revenue, we would incur losses, we would show negative EBITDA, and it was a demanding process over time that would take 3 years, at that moment Iberaval decided to support us in such a determined way as it did. They were always concerned about giving us a hand, putting us in contact with a financial institution that always shows willingness to help and that truly does not just do it theoretically but rolls up their sleeves. Like with Pedro, and I am grateful. I have a fantastic relationship with Almudena, who is the director of the Palencia branch, a fantastic person, her human treatment is unbeatable, and the entire team behind it, including you, Chamas, you have always treated me great, but above all, you have clearly understood that there was an opportunity to support me, and that speaks well of a guarantee society like Iberaval. So, I only hope that it goes well for us, that Roundre goes wonderfully well, that we repay the capital with the highest possible interest rate, because in many cases it seems like it hurts to be repaying a loan, and in this case the interest rate is much lower, but I will give the example of Nisa, it hurts to repay a loan at 8% interest, and I instead feel satisfied, grateful, because without that initial help it would have been impossible, or much more difficult to achieve. So, all those who hear me and take advantage of Iberaval as much as possible, I know the active or outstanding loan limit is 1 million euros. Go for that million euros because they will give you fantastic conditions. Supported by Iberaval, you can always double or even, I am sure other companies have achieved it beyond my capacity, but financial institutions double their investment. So I think all those entrepreneurs who have the slightest intention of growing, the slightest ambition to build a company less dependent on external factors, what we have to do is take advantage of this type of financial solutions that we have so much at hand.

It is a pleasure to listen to you. You told me from the beginning, thank you for your words because in the end it is the ordinary daily work, right? that every company has, and Iberaval obviously also carries it out. You were talking before about the depopulated Spain, I always say the misnamed depopulated Spain, but in your case you can also say you have put on the suit of having retained talent in Palencia. You were talking that there has been rotation in the company, but retaining talent in Palencia or in any capital, let's say, of Castile and Leon, is praiseworthy, also implementing well-being measures and a very marked culture, as you said within the company, but at the same time planning that scale of operations that you put at 10% monthly, no less, not bad at all in that story of, as I say, the misnamed Spain. Is it giving you or is it giving a real competitive advantage to be precisely in Palencia, or does it also complicate bringing in more powerful or senior profiles who perhaps do not want to go where it is not a focus of attraction for this type of jobs? I don't know if I make myself clear, Eduardo.

Yes, you make yourself perfectly clear. Let's not fool ourselves. Palencia is not the epicenter of digital entrepreneurship in Spain; it is not. Perhaps it is one of the worst autonomous communities, sorry, provincial capitals for this, but that does not mean there are no opportunities. So what you have to do is be honest with yourself. You look in the mirror and say, 'What is the opportunity? The opportunity is not to bring in a senior who is a mega star. That is hiring talent. The opportunity you have is to build talent, because although we may not believe it, there are people who want to stay in this type of cities, want to be close to their family, their friends, who do not need to go to a big city to feel fulfilled. And I am not criticizing those who go to Madrid, far from it, or Barcelona or London. Each one has their existential needs and looks for ways to satisfy them. There are people who, with the tranquility and proximity that a place like Palencia offers, with quite a few services and with always, for me, my beloved Valladolid, maybe my neighbors will criticize me, but my very dear Valladolid complements and completes all those services you do not have at home. We are super well connected. So, we must focus on what the value points of our city are, knowing this and knowing that there are people who want to stay here or who are even willing to come because they are tired of the frenetic pace that Madrid offers. I go there a lot and end up exhausted, and I understand that people want to leave there. What you have to have is the predisposition to understand that you have to hire people who have the spirit, curiosity, and desire to learn, whom you see have that instinct. And from there, the next step is to surround them with super talented people. How? By outsourcing. Those talented people you have talked about, maybe for 200 euros an hour they will teach you in 10 hours what you would never learn otherwise. You spend 2,000 euros on an expert, put people who want to listen, learn, who have an interest in continuing to pull that thread, and suddenly you are building a team of specialists, and we cannot forget that. Talent does not always have to come to live here; it can also be built. And I am convinced that my travel companions, both the management team and the seniors I already have in my organization, are perceived from outside as talented and expert people, and many other companies would want to hire them. In fact, they receive offers from Rastreator, because what we do is differential. So you say, wow, it turns out they want to hire talent from Palencia, and they think it is easy to bring talent from Palencia, because everyone wants to come to Madrid. But let's go back, it turns out there are people who want to live here and do not mind earning, let's say, 3,000 euros gross more per year, they are not interested because if you give me 3,000 euros gross more per year, but I will spend 7,000 euros net more on rent. So it is not an option for them. It is not just a matter of gross salary; it is also a matter of the place, the environment in which you move. And yes, obviously you would earn more at Rastreator than at Rans. There is no need to fool ourselves, but it is also true that is today. If my company ends up growing at the rate I aspire to grow, accumulate the customers I believe we could organically accumulate, and I am talking about a projected revenue at maturity that will exceed 100 million euros. That is what I aspire to. At that moment, those people will surely earn more than at Rastreator. Rastreator bills 36 million euros and its team has sometimes been quite worse than Rans. So do not fool ourselves; in Palencia you can live great, in Valladolid too, in Salamanca, Segovia, Soria, Avila, in any place in Castile and Leon, I do not want to forget any, in Burgos, Leon, Zamora. I do not know if I have said it and if I repeated myself, well good for them. I think in our land you can live great, and even in other places where I know you also are, like La Rioja, they are places that are not usually looked at, but really a service like ours, even they are considering opening physical stores in those places because the target audience living there is people slightly older than the national average, who have that traditional consumption habit, where you want to know there is a person behind, and where the cost of living and rent of those establishments is much lower. It is all advantages, and on top of that you have less competition because multinationals have closed to focus on being all in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, and Malaga. So great. We take advantage of this opportunity. That is what I can tell you.

Well, yes, nothing less. Hey, the last question and we will close, because it is evident and that is why, in fact, well, for many other reasons, but this is another of the reasons why you are in this episode, Eduardo. You have not stopped receiving recognitions. I, who already know you, understand that it is important, but it is not the final goal. Rans still has to receive more awards. Tell us what this implies, but beyond the obvious, right? That we are very happy to have received this award and so on. It is clear that great work has been done over these years, it is clear, but tell us what it means to receive these recognitions, which I say, are quite a few in recent times, Eduardo.

They are quite a few, yes. And it is emotional salary; you do not live off them, but if you know how to take advantage, what you have to try is to get more diffusion than the medium itself can achieve. Recently we attended the Mobile Congress as one of the 50 most disruptive companies in Spain according to Red.es, and being chosen as the most representative of the pavilion, the most disruptive in a specific area, but the most relevant this year of the Mobile World Congress in the Spanish pavilion, the award was given by the Minister of Digital Transformation. I think it is great to appear on the cover of Forbes and that many other media outlets echo this news. It is essential so that external people who are not subject to anything in return, it is not like an award that an insurance company can give you for your good commercial work, obviously they do it for a specific interest, but in this case, being public institutions, they truly do it because they consider it relevant and that's it. So what you have to try to do is if 300,000 people found out through those media, then 3 million find out. So I think it is always a great opportunity to receive this type of recognition. I have even received a recognition that I call the Oscar of entrepreneurs, which is being in the top 10 of the magazine Emprendedores this year as one of the 100 most relevant entrepreneurs in Spain. Believe me, it has been one of the most important recognitions I have received in my entire life, because even though it does not translate into any economic milestone, it does value the trajectory I have taken, even though I am not a millionaire entrepreneur, I have not sold my company yet, I have not had the typical success we might expect, but perhaps I have been a resilient and flexible entrepreneur who has known how to understand at each moment how the market was going to evolve and anticipate that evolution. If I had not caught this wave of setting up an insurance brokerage, setting up virtual mobile operators, becoming an energy broker, if I had not done this, we would now be six people in the company instead of 23, and we would be billing 50% of what we were billing. However, we will close this year with a historic billing record, I am sure of it, and it will have been a transformation of only 2 years. So I don't know how far it will take me, but I think the work and the vision we have as a company are being valued, and it is important. Of course it is. As I say, it moves me, and I tell you from the heart.

Eduardo, it has been a pleasure, a huge pleasure, as the Argentines say, to chat with you. As I told you before starting this interview, these types of talks serve to learn, and it has become clear to me that human first is a key not only of the company but of Eduardo Delgado. I thank you very much for this time.

Thank you. Thank you Iberaval for inviting me to this very interesting space you have. So many thanks and we will see each other very soon.

Commitment and Iberaval. Today we have heard two ideas of enormous depth. Antonio Huertas leaves us a clear warning: without a much closer alliance between university and business, it will be very difficult to fix talent, modernize the productive fabric, and leverage all the potential of territories like Castile and Leon or his own Extremadura. It is not enough to train well; we must better connect that knowledge with employment, innovation, and roots. And Eduardo Delgado raises another equally current debate. In the midst of the fever to automate everything, technology only makes sense if it improves the relationship with people and if growth ends up being sustained by a solid business model. Between the two, a common thread appears. Competing today requires long-term vision, real collaboration, and courageous decisions. Also when they imply giving up immediate profitability to build lasting value. Thank you for joining us in this ninth episode of the fifth season already of Compromiso Iberaval. Subscribe to this podcast, share it, and continue with us in the next conversation. You have listened to the podcast of Iberaval, your guarantee society.