The success of being accompanied by people and institutions that drive the development of our project.
By Emilio Galán, CTO at Beonprice
Click here for the original version in Spanish.
If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.
African poverb
In the many forums where we participate, the question Why did you create Beonprice? always comes up. Our answer is always the same: In mid-2012, in the worst moment of the crisis, we wanted to change the way things were done, create real value and have a positive impact on society. It was also clear to us that we wanted to do this by relying on what we were experts at managing: data, technology and people.
Normally the next question that always comes up is: Did you have previous experience in the hotel industry? People are usually surprised when we tell them that our background prior to Beonprice was purely technological. We had experience in developing technology projects based on big data for different industries, especially telcos. The hotel sector was a big unknown for us but we felt that we could bring a new point of view and fresh air. We always add to our answer that Beonprice’s success is due to having understood the data well and having chosen the right technologies, but above all, it is due to having been accompanied on this path by the best people and having received the support of the best institutions.
We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank the support we have received from the different professionals and organisations we have worked with to get this far, as this journey would not have been possible without them.
Startup training and networking
Firstly, given that the startup world was alien to us when we started Beonprice, the mental shock we suffered in the incubation process at the Founder Institute (Miguel Galera, Eduardo Vilar, Gonzalo Ortíz) was crucial. That process shaped our purpose and vision as a company, which we have since refined with other programmes such as Ade2020 (Montserrat Torices, Javier García, Javier Cid and the rest of the team), the Ignite Program at Cambridge University, the Startup School at Mind the Bridge (Marco Marinucci, Charles Versaggi, Samuele Poletto), the immersion programme at the Spain Tech Center (David Santana, Rafael Salazar) and the Scaling Entrepreneurial Ventures programme at Harvard Business School (Lynda M. Applegate). All these programmes have not only helped us to build our identity as a company but have also allowed us to meet the people behind the great mentors and peers.
Likewise, in our trajectory as a startup we have seen first-hand the growth of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Spain as a result of the efforts and good work of entities such as the Endeavor network (Adrian Garcia-Aranyos, María González, Antonio Iglesias, Lucía Hojman and the rest of the team), the European Commission for Research and Innovation (Isidro Laso), the SeedRocket accelerator (Paloma Barreiro, Jesús Monleón, Iñaki Arrola), Campus Madrid (Sofía Benjumea and the rest of the team), the South Summit events (María Benjumea, Laura Centellas) and Startup Ole (Emilio Corchado, Ricardo Silva, Matevz Gantar and the rest of the team)
Events and recognition
We cannot forget the encouragement we have received on occasions in the form of awards from entities such as IBM (Marco Laucelli), who chose us to participate in their Smart Camp; Castilla y León económica (Alberto Cagigas), who recognised us as the Best Young Company in CyL; La Caixa, awarding us the Emprendedor XXI prize; or Slush, being selected as one of the best 20 startups. Fitur, ITH (Ramón Estalella, Álvaro Carrillo, Jesús Gatel and the rest of the team) and TEDx (Ivan García, Diego Cuadrado) deserve special mention for the opportunity they have given us to spread the importance of our work.
Research and development
On a more technical level, we would also like to acknowledge the invaluable contribution made by the University of Salamanca (Mili Pizarro, Carmen Lozano, Mabel Santa Daría and the rest of the team), by the Pontifical University of Salamanca (Alfonso López, Vidal Alonso, Montserrat Mateos, Manuel Martin-Merino and the rest of the team), by the Bisite research group (Fernando de la Prieta), the AirInstitute Foundation (Juan Manuel Corchado) and by the USAL Science Park (Javier González, Teresa Jiménez, Marcos Mateos). Continuing in this technical field, we would also like to highlight the invaluable support we have received from partners such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, GCP, Oracle and OVH.
Funding
Our special recognition goes to all those who have trusted us and believed in our vision of leading Revenue Management technologies and without whose support in the form of funding and grants Beonprice would not be the same: Segittur (Antonio López de Ávila, Carlos Romero, Luis Javier Gadea and the rest of the team), Enisa (Ángel Palazuelos, Fernando Revuelta and the rest of the team), The IBH (Luis Menéndez, Juan Font, Álvaro González, Pablo Rodríguez Córcoles, Paz Ambrosi), ICE (Beatriz Casado, José Francisco Diego, Raquel Rodríguez and the rest of the team), Ade Sodical (Carmen Sanz, Marian Carro, Domingo López and the rest of the team), Diputación de Salamanca, SEPE, ICEX, Kfund (Carina Szpilka, Marc Clemente and the rest of the team), Adara (Nico Goulet, Ross Strachan and the rest of the team), Travel tech 1 (Javier González-Soria, Ignacio Macías), CDTI (Susana Rodriguez), La Caixa, Banco Sabadell and Banco Santander.
Finally, although we will address it more specifically in future articles, we could not fail to acknowledge and thank the unconditional support of our Customers, Industry Partners and our dear team at Beonprice.
Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. Together we have made Beonprice a leading company in the Revenue Management sector worldwide. We have an exciting future ahead of us.
