Negonation Update – 16 July 2006

It’s been an intense week in which I’ve met a lot of interesting people.

On Tuesday, I was with Jesús Encinar, founder of Idealista.com. I met Jesús at a wonderful presentation (Video|pdf) he gave recently as part of the events organized by Suscipe. I told him what we wanted to do in detail. He gave me some advice and told me some home truths: Tractis is an all or nothing bet. If we’re successful, we become the standard Internet contract; if we’re unsuccessful… he gave us a 3%-4% success rate. Personally I believe that this is a lot, considering that we want to compete internationally. From the little I know of him, Jesús seems like a person with a lot of common sense and a top-notch entrepreneur. I wish him all the best in his latest adventure: 11870.

On Wednesday, I met David Calavera and Juanjo Bazán in a bar; they are two new developers who have joined Negonation as collaborators. David will work (after sweating to get access to Trac ) on tractis-mobile with 411 and the people from WidSets. Juanjo is already working on tractis-library, a system that will enable people to share contracts and licenses with Creative Commons licenses or charge for them and provide advice. We are very happy with the amount of people who want to collaborate in the development. In the last few days, 7 collaborators with various levels of Rails have joined us. I encourage everyone who is considering the idea of joining to do so. This is not an average company. There’s a lot of work, projects, ideas, etc. You decide what you want to work in. It’s a unique opportunity to learn and meet interesting people.

On Thursday, it was our monthly employee meeting. Once a month, Diego, Manuel and I meet to talk and organize the work for the coming weeks. This month it was in Madrid. Manuel couldn’t come. The integration of the digital signature is giving us some headaches. Manuel is working hard on the 31 July Beta launch and decided he would not attend so that he could advance with the work (we missed you). Diego is spitting out wireframes like Jesse Ventura spat out bullets in Predator. (Mental note: what is more frightening: minid with impatience or Jesse Ventura with an iMac?). We visited the people from The-Cocktail. They showed us their offices, we told them of our project and we proposed a collaboration (I hope they take up the challenge ). Diego became friendly with The User. There are more people than he thought (around 20?) and Maggie is beautiful. Luis and Alvaro told us about dalachapa.com but I can’t say any more. Wise investors should call them now before it becomes too expensive.

On Friday, I had breakfast with Mario from Casabuscador, Currobuscador and other deep-linking sites. We talked about seeking financing in Spain and coming out (no, it’s not what you’re thinking). Who said there were no entrepreneurs in Spain? Oh, it was me! But not this week. Wherever I look, I see entrepreneurial spirit, projects that start, interesting ideas and people with balls who don’t resign themselves to working for companies that pay only by way of a brand.

I think that the team is highly motivated. Or better still: THE TEAM IS HIGHLY MOTIVATED. I talked to Diego about this the other day. The energy shown by all our team (José Gordo, Ernesto Jímenez, Vidal Carro, Juanse Pérez, etc.) is fantastic and it even frightens me a little. I don’t think that this will continue ad-infinitum without people collapsing but, on the other hand, it’s contagious. The high is incredible. I swear I’m not on drugs but I am happy. I’m living one of the best times of my life (oops! I’ve said it!! ). Yes, it can’t last but right now I’m on the crest of the fucking wave… and it feels gooooood.

By David Blanco
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