Today, in out Talent Pictures section, we will talk about Gloria Lozano, founder of BCNTouch.

Gloria Lozano studied Telecomm Engineering for UPC (Catalonia Polytechnic University), MBA for ESADE and PDD for IESE. She has developed most of her carrier working for multinational companies: Philips Semiconductors (currently NXP) and Meggitt Electronics in marketing, sales and sales operations first at local level, then at European and globally.

She is passionate about learning and easy use of technology. She loves to travel and to spend time with her  family and friends, “all of them sources of infinite learning too” to use her own words.  Thanks to the great support from her friends and family, Gloria launched her startup in 2010 and since then  she has strengthen her motivation and enthusiasm that impulse the development of her startup.

Barnatalent: Gloria, could you please explain the business concept that you developed through  BCNTouch ?

BCNTouch is a startup founded in Barcelona in 2010, with an international outlook, like its founders (Andrew Mackenzie, CTO and myself). We provide mobile web services to companies to increase business visibility and ease consumer interactions. Our service, TouchActive, is a mobile web platform to ease consumers shopping and make it social by allowing them to share products with other users and interact with brands through their products. Brands use TouchActive to understand what their customers want from them and modify their proposals to feet their demand. 

Our customers are brands or retailers selling added value products (for which consumers think it’s worth to establish a dialog with the brand) that want to interact with their consumers and learn from these interactions.In parallel, we target consumers that make use of our platform from 2 main groups: “shoppers” that enjoy shopping and are ready to spend time making their shopping social and “always connected” digital consumers that want always easy access to the relevant information.

Barnatalent: Spanish governement is investing in NFC and your business is based on this technology. For whose who have not yet heard about it, could you please explain what NFC is?

NFC, Near Field Communication is a short range contactless technology standard (0-5cm) designed to communicate electronic devices easily and securily.

Last year 1 in 10 smartphones sold brought NFC technology. The forecast for this year is 200 million NFC phones. It will become mainstream for payments, transports access etc. We think that there are huge opportunities in mobile marketing, commerce and supply chain management too.

If you touch a tagged poster or product with your phone you can get information on the brand or the particular product. You capture information just touching, you don’t need to search, either write on your keyboard, either see the tag, so the user experience is far better than with other available methods.

We offer the non intrusive platform and users and brands will find the ways to connect.

Barcelona is a privileged city with great opportunities to attract talent and great professionals. The entrepreneur ecosystem is putting a lot of effort in attracting them since talent is the key driver for a tech startup.

As per my experience, we have the best in class business schools in Barcelona (IESE, Esade) and Barcelona Activa, all of them provide excellent resources and programs for entrepreneurs. I don’t know if this answers the question, hope so.

Passion to make it happen, resilience and an excellent team are the key ingredients.

Our long term plan is to have our platform full of brands and users interacting through their products wherever they are. Brands becoming relevant for consumers and selling with TouchActive and consumers managing their interactions with their favorite brands.

We realize that it will take some time to have the products tagged, but using smart-posters to establish consumer brands communications is a reality. To make sure that our customers can use our platform today, we have enabled barcode and QR reading so that the interaction is available today.

Doing what we love is a luxury that everyone should afford: “we only have one life”.

For more information about BCNtouch you can have a look at some of the several articles about this startup or at their news page:

• NFC WORLD.COM
• SMART PLANET.COM
• TODO STARTUPS.COM (in Spanish only)

Today, in out Talent Picture section, we will talk about Isabel Pérez Ruíz founder of Meet BCN, provider of coworking spaces, virtual office services and office support.

Graduated from Universidad Politécnica de Catalonia and from La Salle International Graduate School, she worked as technical engineer and project manager in environmental industry and then, in April 2011, she made up her mind to start her own business up. But not any business: as her job was very demanding, she understood how important it was to improve people’s working conditions for human well-being. So she created a business providing with flexible work-life balance solutions to small-sized companies and freelancers that so many times are misunderstood or forgotten by big companies.

Photo by Carolina Sainz http://www.mini-estudio.com/

 Barnatalent: Could you explain what coworking is and its advantages?

Isabel Pérez: Coworking is a working philosophy coming from the United States aimed to freelancers or small businesses. It consists of sharing physical working space not only to develop your business at an affordable price, but also to make the most of sharing your working space with other multidisciplinary profiles.  Coworking promotes the exchange of ideas, professional collaborations, or simply helps you to share contacts, experiences and resources to avoid the inconvenience and the feeling of isolation when you work alone from home.

Barnatalent: Could you say in a few words what makes “Meet BCN” special?

Isabel Pérez: Meet BCN  offers well designed coworking spaces and virtual office services in downtown Barcelona at an affordable price. Entrepreneurs, freelancers can work and meet their customers and providers offering a consolidated corporate brand. 

Meet BCN is located in an old, completely renovated apartment in the Eixample. The majesty of the roofs, large porches and light flooding the rooms make this place a very special one, where the routine of work becomes a pleasure.
Being aware of how a good design of space affects people’s creativity, work spaces are decorated in a very neutral character printing.

Another distinguishing feature on Meet BCN, besides its design, is its location. Located on Balmes Street (at the corner with Paris Street) is in a strategic position for business, transport and communication Meet up offers also rent meeting and training rooms, provide with office assistance services and organizes training and networking events.

Photo by Carolina Sainz http://www.mini-estudio.com/

Barnatalent: Do you think that Barcelona is a good destination for entrepreneurs to start/run a business?

 Isabel Pérez: The number of coworking spaces in the last year has increased dramatically in Spain and more and more entrepreneurs are encouraged to work in this way.  Also, Barcelona has increased the development of entrepreneurship across platforms designed to support and to give some advice to the entrepreneur. So we think that is working style with a great future in our city, because, as the expectations of finding a job in private enterprise are scarce, more and more people have made up their mind to start a business up, becoming  potential users of this service.

Barnatalent: What are your best wishes for entrepreneurs in Barcelona in 2012?

Isabel Pérez: Our wishes for 2012 are that government and local town council associations and organizations in Barcelona continue to work on the development of entrepreneurial culture. We hope that they impulse entrepreneurial attitudes and skills from primary school, and increase support and funds to entrepreneurs. Also, banks should offer better conditions on loans and focus on need to support good business projects in such hard time of worldwide crisis. We believe that this will help long-term economic growth and job creation.

Isabel Pérez  Meet BCN  C/ Balmes nº 167 3º 2ª (esquina C/ París) 08008 Barcelona  Phone: 931763076 Mobile : 656288248 e-mail: isabel@meetbcn.com Website http://www.meetbcn.es.  For more information about Meet BCN you can have a look at their Website  (in Spanish) or to their catalogue of services.

If you would like more information about coworking philosophy, you can have a look to our post “Coworking: How to In Barcelona”