2023-10-17 14:58:40
Tuesday, October 17, 2023, 11:27 | Updated 2:58 p.m.
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Perhaps keeping a clean sheet against an all-powerful Barça may seem complicated, but listening to María Luke it does not seem more difficult than managing digital payment systems in several countries, with different banks and in real time. This is what the company that she runs together with her partner, MAIL. In addition, it is sponsored by the Department of Economic Development, Sustainability and Environment of the Basque Government, the development agency SPRI, the Provincial Council of Bizkaia and the Bilbao City Council, as well as the collaboration of BStartup of Banco Sabadell, BBVA Spark , BBK, Laboral Kutxa, CaixaBank and the University of Deusto.
Luke has told a story of rapid growth, although he never tires of warning that “it only turns out that way 1% of the time.” He also recalled that the best recipe to accelerate projects “is work, listening to the client, having a team with people better than you and choosing partners well.”
It all started in 2018, then Luke, who has not abandoned daily sports, was in Madrid and noticed the problems of accessing a physiotherapist to treat injuries. On a weekend he and his partner got to work, “to test hypotheses and see people’s willingness to receive a stranger at home for a massage.” The success of the web platform to manage these services was enormous. Just before the pandemic they managed 22,000 massages a month in four different countries.
But the different digital payment tools, as well as the incompatibilities between banking systems and the international nature of some operations, focused the attention of these entrepreneurs. They were facing an unknown problem. And what was a challenge for his business took on a life of its own to start a different business project. María Luke explained it graphically: “When we were looking for answers, we saw that large companies were approaching the problem with the vision of 15 years ago.” Young people, new means of payment beyond ‘bizum’ and consumer culture had moved faster.
Luke and Etxabe decided to start from scratch and in 2021 created Uelz, a platform that manages digital payments from different banking systems, countries and applications. The objective is to solve the problem that blocked the activity of your first company: maintain the cash flow that any company needs to develop its production of services or products, pay workers and suppliers, as well as to face investments.
Uelz was recognized with the South Summit 2023 award, presented by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, as one of the firms with the most advanced solutions in its sector. As Luke explained, on this path of entrepreneurship there are five most important lessons that he has learned and that should not be forgotten to start an idea: ask for help; take care of yourself, “because entrepreneurship is a long-distance race”; look for suitable partners, “not everyone who writes a check is a good partner”; hire people better than you at what you do; and listen to the client.
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