14
d'Octubre
de
2015 - 09:00
Ferran Martínez was 33 when a knee injury picked up during training forced him to abandon what had been until then a brilliant career as a professional basketball player. After playing for FC Barcelona, Joventut Badalona and Panathinaikos, Martínez opted to 'pivot' his life formula towards another of his interests –the business world– and after completing his studies in Finances and an MBA, today he manages the assets of elite sports people in the Andorran bank, AndBank, in its Sports & New Business unit.
Martínez is also member and president of Lánzame Capital, a private investment platform devoted to joint investing in start-ups and new business projects in the field of technology. Extremely tall but moving with confidence, as you would expect in a basketball player, Ferran Martínez answered the doubts and questions of a group of entrepreneurs meeting in the latest session of StartupGrind Barcelona.
Entrepreneur, investor, consultant, journalist... How do you do so many things at the same time?
It is not about doing lots of things, but rather interconnecting some of them so that you get something productive out of it. That is what networking is! I was lucky enough to learn that when I was very young, when I began playing professional basketball at 16. I saw that I was meeting lots of people, and if I could keep hold of these contacts over time and make connections between them, then I could benefit. I also learned to listen. Entrepreneurs are obsessed with explaining their ideas and projects, but the most important thing is listening and surrounding yourself with the best so as to learn from them. In this country, you often see that when it comes to making a team, many 'bosses' or leaders tend to surround themselves with mediocre people, out of fear that they will be overshadowed. That is a mistake. If you surround yourself with good people, it is much more difficult to fail.
'Pivot' (the Catalan term for Martínez's position as a basketball player) in business slang means to change the business model of your start-up. How did you end up 'pivoting' from basketball to business?
Everything changed during a warm-up for a match. I remember falling and from the pain in my knee I knew straight away that it would be a serious injury. I was 33. My idea was to continue playing for another four years as a professional in Italy, but I had to retire. It was tough, I had to change my mindset... Then I decided to dedicate myself to finance. I was always a saver, but between 1998 and 2001, I lost 40% of my savings. I had to go to see my analyst at the bank and I could see that he did not know how to help me. As it coincided with my injury, I decided to start studying finance and learning how variable income worked to try to and recover what I had lost. In two years I knew more than the bank! The truth is that since I was little I have liked programming and planning things out... When I began playing professional matches, at 16, I made a spreadsheet with the Lotus 123 program to plan out my income and investments, as if I were a company. In the dressing room my team mates would ask me for advice about investing. My system was very simple and based on common sense, not on speculating. If I have something worth five and someone will pay ten for it, then I sell, I do not wait for the value to go up even more. I worked for a while in marketing and public relations for sports people, but one day a bank (UBS) came to me and asked me if I could help with managing the assets of other elite sports people, as I had done for myself. Then I worked on projects for Banc Sabadell, until an opportunity with the Andorran bank appeared.
Do you remember any failures?
If what you mean by failure is trying something and have not work out, then yes, a great many. That is what business is about! Perhaps my greatest mistake was signing a professional contract with Barça too early, at 16, because it prevented me going to an American university, and what I dreamt about at heart was playing in the NBA... I learnt that when it comes to making decisions, you have to follow your intuition, what you feel at that moment. However, once you have made the decision, you have to stick to it, "all the way". Without regrets. You have to trust in your project, if not, you won't be able to sell it.
Is good networking a key to success?
I detest the people who before anything else hand out their business cards and hammer you with what it is they do. I think networking should come in a natural way. If you give off confidence and a positive attitude from the first moment, you will always get something out of it later on. It is the same thing when you finish a match and you have the patience to stay behind to sign autographs with a smile... I remember when I was playing for Panathinaikos, a Catalan gentleman approached me and said: "I have your Barça shirt at home". It seems that his son had asked me for the shirt after a match, years before, and I had taken it off and given it to him. I ended up becoming friends with that man and we worked together on different projects.
What makes you invest in entrepreneurs?
A friend of a friend told me about the Lánzame project, and it seemed very good to me. It is a pledge fund, a form of risk capital in which the key is joint investment. Everyone commits to making a contribution when it comes to investing. It provides a lot of credibility knowing that someone else is taking a risk on a project. I enjoy it a lot, I like learning from people, helping them to grow. The Kantox start-up is our best-known case, but we have others. We focus on start-ups in the ICT sector that fulfil three conditions: that they are already doing business, that they are scalable, and that their idea fits with our philosophy. In private banking many of my clients want to invest in start-ups, which makes them possible Lánzame investors. And if we invest in some entrepreneur who becomes a millionaire, then we also have a potential client for the bank! The key is in detecting the talent and training it. The same with sport.
Any advice for local entrepreneurs?
Listen a lot, and do what they tell you. And organise yourself well! You need to archive, to follow-up what you do every day. I spend 20 minutes every day recording what I have done on an Excel spreadsheet. I make a note of what I have done, who I have met, who I have spoken to and the benefit I got out of it, and I make models of where I am and where I want to get to. To be motivated, you have to be competitive, set yourself challenges, to become 'a good assassin'. When I was training, before getting out of bed, I set myself objectives, such as "today I will score more
Martínez is also member and president of Lánzame Capital, a private investment platform devoted to joint investing in start-ups and new business projects in the field of technology. Extremely tall but moving with confidence, as you would expect in a basketball player, Ferran Martínez answered the doubts and questions of a group of entrepreneurs meeting in the latest session of StartupGrind Barcelona.
Entrepreneur, investor, consultant, journalist... How do you do so many things at the same time?
It is not about doing lots of things, but rather interconnecting some of them so that you get something productive out of it. That is what networking is! I was lucky enough to learn that when I was very young, when I began playing professional basketball at 16. I saw that I was meeting lots of people, and if I could keep hold of these contacts over time and make connections between them, then I could benefit. I also learned to listen. Entrepreneurs are obsessed with explaining their ideas and projects, but the most important thing is listening and surrounding yourself with the best so as to learn from them. In this country, you often see that when it comes to making a team, many 'bosses' or leaders tend to surround themselves with mediocre people, out of fear that they will be overshadowed. That is a mistake. If you surround yourself with good people, it is much more difficult to fail.
'Pivot' (the Catalan term for Martínez's position as a basketball player) in business slang means to change the business model of your start-up. How did you end up 'pivoting' from basketball to business?
Everything changed during a warm-up for a match. I remember falling and from the pain in my knee I knew straight away that it would be a serious injury. I was 33. My idea was to continue playing for another four years as a professional in Italy, but I had to retire. It was tough, I had to change my mindset... Then I decided to dedicate myself to finance. I was always a saver, but between 1998 and 2001, I lost 40% of my savings. I had to go to see my analyst at the bank and I could see that he did not know how to help me. As it coincided with my injury, I decided to start studying finance and learning how variable income worked to try to and recover what I had lost. In two years I knew more than the bank! The truth is that since I was little I have liked programming and planning things out... When I began playing professional matches, at 16, I made a spreadsheet with the Lotus 123 program to plan out my income and investments, as if I were a company. In the dressing room my team mates would ask me for advice about investing. My system was very simple and based on common sense, not on speculating. If I have something worth five and someone will pay ten for it, then I sell, I do not wait for the value to go up even more. I worked for a while in marketing and public relations for sports people, but one day a bank (UBS) came to me and asked me if I could help with managing the assets of other elite sports people, as I had done for myself. Then I worked on projects for Banc Sabadell, until an opportunity with the Andorran bank appeared.
Do you remember any failures?
If what you mean by failure is trying something and have not work out, then yes, a great many. That is what business is about! Perhaps my greatest mistake was signing a professional contract with Barça too early, at 16, because it prevented me going to an American university, and what I dreamt about at heart was playing in the NBA... I learnt that when it comes to making decisions, you have to follow your intuition, what you feel at that moment. However, once you have made the decision, you have to stick to it, "all the way". Without regrets. You have to trust in your project, if not, you won't be able to sell it.
Is good networking a key to success?
I detest the people who before anything else hand out their business cards and hammer you with what it is they do. I think networking should come in a natural way. If you give off confidence and a positive attitude from the first moment, you will always get something out of it later on. It is the same thing when you finish a match and you have the patience to stay behind to sign autographs with a smile... I remember when I was playing for Panathinaikos, a Catalan gentleman approached me and said: "I have your Barça shirt at home". It seems that his son had asked me for the shirt after a match, years before, and I had taken it off and given it to him. I ended up becoming friends with that man and we worked together on different projects.
What makes you invest in entrepreneurs?
A friend of a friend told me about the Lánzame project, and it seemed very good to me. It is a pledge fund, a form of risk capital in which the key is joint investment. Everyone commits to making a contribution when it comes to investing. It provides a lot of credibility knowing that someone else is taking a risk on a project. I enjoy it a lot, I like learning from people, helping them to grow. The Kantox start-up is our best-known case, but we have others. We focus on start-ups in the ICT sector that fulfil three conditions: that they are already doing business, that they are scalable, and that their idea fits with our philosophy. In private banking many of my clients want to invest in start-ups, which makes them possible Lánzame investors. And if we invest in some entrepreneur who becomes a millionaire, then we also have a potential client for the bank! The key is in detecting the talent and training it. The same with sport.
Any advice for local entrepreneurs?
Listen a lot, and do what they tell you. And organise yourself well! You need to archive, to follow-up what you do every day. I spend 20 minutes every day recording what I have done on an Excel spreadsheet. I make a note of what I have done, who I have met, who I have spoken to and the benefit I got out of it, and I make models of where I am and where I want to get to. To be motivated, you have to be competitive, set yourself challenges, to become 'a good assassin'. When I was training, before getting out of bed, I set myself objectives, such as "today I will score more