I like this personal and professional interview
Article posted on March 1st 2016. Original article written by Marta Mouliaá on blogempleo.com.
beBee is a social and professional network based on affinity networking that is having a spectacular growth since it first took off in February 2015. After a year there are over 10 million registered people and almost 4.5 million are from Spain. There are about 762,061 job offers on the site and around 9 thousand groups or ‘Hives’ as they are called on this site.
These are the reasons that have lead me to interview one of its founders, Javier Cámara, to know a bit more about his life and career, about beBee and his thoughts about the current situation and new trends in the job market, as well as his goals for the future.
JAVIER CÁMARA
The first part of your life you lived between the Spanish provinces of Burgos and the Basque Country. What do you remember about your childhood and adolescence?
I was born in Miranda de Ebro (Burgos) and I feel proud of it. I remember my childhood in the Sagrados Corazones school with great tenderness and I still keep all my friends from that time, which seems incredible to me. This proves that even though our paths split up when we started College, friendship can still be kept in the distance.
All the people from my home town end up studying in different places, mostly in northern Spain. I went to Bilbao (Basque Country) to study Computer Engineering in the University of Deusto. I live in Bilbao throughout my college years and the first years of my career. It’s a city I love a lot and where I have close family. In BIlbao I also grew as a person, I made great friends that I still have and I learned very much.
You studied Computer Engineering in the University of Deusto. What drew you towards this degree?
The truth is I knew I was more of a science person and, without knowing exactly what I was getting into, I doubted among Industrial Engineering, Telecommunications and Computer Science, and finally decided to go for the last one. I think I made the right choice if we consider the professional options, as I started working before I even finished my degree.
I started working at ITP (a company of turbojet engines) in fields related to Oracle technologies, at Zamudio’s Technological Park and, after that I went to work as a technological consultant for Mondragon Group. In one of these jobs I met someone that worked at Oracle and I decided to go to Madrid. Bilbao had become too small for my aspirations.
How is the personal and professional process one goes through to quit being a consultant and project manager at Oracle and goes on to found Canalmail? What obstacles did you have to overcome?
The truth is that the period when I worked at Oracle taught me a lot. Working as a consultant helps you learn how to relate to all different kinds of profiles. I had an ascending career, being promoted several times in a short time, until I ran into a boss that told me: “This is it, you can get promoted any more”.
There are very well structured companies, but in which it’s difficult to overcome their internal timings. I realized I needed something else, I needed risk, entrepreneurship, and in summer of 1999 I had the pleasure of meeting Juan Imaz -co founder of beBee- that was a looking for a partner with a technological profile. Let’s say we both met our match and we complemented each other perfectly. He’s more of a frontend guy -good negotiator and seller, and also visionary -, and I am more about the product, marketing and technology.
After looking for financing from various places (3i and Talde), we started Canalmail, that was a page with a business plan and nothing more. We studied the model of a US company that was a pioneer in email marketing, called Netcreations (Postmasterdirect) and decided to import their model in Spanish and Portuguese.
After the first three years -2000 to 2003-, that were very challenging, we were able to grow and create a great business in Spain, Mexico and Portugal. We sold it in 2008 for 60 million euros to an American private equity found in the US called VSS.
In that moment Juan Imaz stayed as the CEO of the new group and I decided to step away to start a new project of Professional Communities, until Juan and I have crossed paths again for beBee, and this is without a doubt the most ambitious project we’ve ever been in. I think it comes in a good time, when we are mature and have professional experience.
Who has influenced your life the most and in what way? What principles rule your life?
In my student days my parents, without a doubt. They’ve always fought for me to have a good future. I don’t hesitate in saying a good part of what I’ve become.
In my professional life it’s been Juan Imaz, no doubt. My partner and battle companion. With him I’ve enjoyed, learned and gone through rough times. When people see success, there’s failure behind too, from which you learn a lot. I think if you’d ask him he would answer the same thing.
beBee
How was the startup born? Why did you choose that name?
The idea of beBee came to us in summer of 2014, during a lunch with Juan. We realized that the big social networks had an enormous problem with the relevance of the content, there is too much information and too much noise. We also saw the defects that LinkedIn had. It’s an elitist social network with a lot of pose, and in which people don’t find find utility. Proof of that is that after 12 years they have 400 million registered users and 100 million are active (which is only 25%), 7 million of them in Spain. We’ve only existed for a year and we have 10 million users, and 5.3 of them are active. Nevertheless beBee is a very different social network that doesn’t look to substitute any of the existing ones.
The truth is that although we had the idea we didn’t have the brand and we decided to an internal contest for our team. That’s where the brand name came from. We are very proud that the name came from our own team. Bees are very hard working animals and they do teamwork to build their hives. I think the brand name speaks perfectly for what beBee is.
What does beBee consist in and why does it define itself as an affinity networking social network?
beBee is an affinity social network because its goal is to allow users to connect with other people and with the content itself, both in the personal and the professional fields. This means that if, in example, you’re interested in fashion and marketing, you can find only people and content regarding those interests. Affinity networking allows you to connect with people that you don’t know but that have that have the same interests than you, and many times professional opportunities come from these connections.
What’s the difference with other professional networks as LinkedIn or Xing?
beBee is very different because it unites personal and professional life, and doesn’t concentrate only in employment and sales. To set another example, if you’re interested in architecture and scuba diving, your wall will only show content relevant to these interests.
What is the reason for beBee to have had such success in such a short time?
I think we’ve created a very friendly product. People are bees, groups are hives -than can be either professional or personal- and posts are buzzes. Also the product is 100% mobile first. This doesn’t happen with LinkedIn, on which there are many things you can only do from a desktop. Also we have invested a lot in the product.
What kind of user profiles are on beBee and what countries are they from?
As opposed to other social networks like LinkedIn -in which there are only high profile people like executives, marketers or headhunters and human resources experts- on beBee you can find all types of profiles, from doctors or architects to chauffeurs, executives, etc. We say that beBee is networking for everybody.
Right here we have 10 million users, 4 of which are from Spain. We have over 1 million in countries like Mexico, Brazil and India.
In the next two years our main goal is to enter the US market and reach 40 million users, 10 of which would be from the USA.
What are your thoughts about beBee’s first year of life?
The truth is we never thought beBee would reach this growth and success, so our conclusions can only be positive. We have barely started but we, as founders, have no doubt that we are going to reach an enormous users volume. We are currently in negotiations with american investment funds that are interested in beBee.
beBee has an open-profile model in which you can view other people’s information without having to send an invitation. It’s also free to post ads and access certain services as a user.Why did you choose this model?
This is how beBee is and will continue to be. It’s a model that has no barriers to engage users, and we don’t look to compete with LinkedIn or Infojobs. beBee’s monetization will be exclusively based on advertising.
What is beBee’s company culture? How does the team get the work done? What are the principles that connect them to each other?
The truth is it isn’t easy to handle the growth. We started out as 2 and now we are 55. I think we’ve reached an incredible harmony, a young team that’s very united, in which there are little hierarchies and relationships are very horizontal. We have a lot of fun working together. At beBee attitude is more important than aptitude.
EMPLOYMENT WORLD
In your career you have founded various startups. What do you think are the main skills needed to be an entrepreneur? What advice would you give?
The aptitudes of any entrepreneur are the same: enthusiasm, persistence, being able to adapt, risk taking, and to be successful, fill in a gap that isn’t completely filled in the market yet. But persistence is fundamental. I think any entrepreneur would tell you that to reach personal satisfaction you have to start something and risk is part of that. You have to know that if it goes wrong you have the capacity to reinvent yourself. For me stability doesn’t come from working in a huge company, for an entrepreneur stability is constant learning and building the ability to go through any situation, to know how to get up and keep going.
They say you learn more from mistakes than success. What mistakes have you committed as an entrepreneur?
A bunch of them. Almost all of them have come from relationships with negative people. Enthusiasm sometimes doesn’t let you see the weaknesses. I learn something every day, and the day that I don’t I go home worried.
Currently, technological profiles are highly demanded by companies. You’ve been an IT consultant and a CTO. What skills do you think they should have?
The truth is that IT profiles still have an incredible future ahead. To get far you need to teach yourself constantly and not wait until the company does it. Creativity and knowing how to be around people who know more than you and can teach you are very important keys. If you want to reach responsability places such as being a CTO, you should also have a great understanding of the business.
What fields, profiles and abilities are demanded by companies right now and which do you think will be demanded in the immediate future?
Languages are not an added value any more, they are a basic skill you have to have, and three better than two.
Internet and social media knowledge are also basics. Let’s say that languages and using the internet are today as knowing how to read and write were before.
Professions with the best future continue to be engineering degrees, economics and digital marketing. There are many jobs that will be done by machines and will disappear like for example cashiers.
And last but not least, what’s in the future for beBee?
beBee has a set a goal to be a global network.
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Comentarios
Bill Stankiewicz
hace 7 años #14
CityVP Manjit
hace 7 años #13
Yes Father 😊
Javier Cámara-Rica 🐝🇪🇸
hace 7 años #12
beBee is what you want to be. So simple than that ! Have a great weekend ! Enjoy it !
CityVP Manjit
hace 7 años #11
Mamen 🐝 Delgado
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Julio Angel 🐝Lopez Lopez
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Gert Scholtz
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Javier Cámara-Rica 🐝🇪🇸
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Javier Cámara-Rica 🐝🇪🇸
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thanks Franci Eugenia Hoffman
Javier Cámara-Rica 🐝🇪🇸
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RENATO DELA NINA
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Qamar Ali Khan
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Javier Cámara-Rica 🐝🇪🇸
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Javier Cámara-Rica 🐝🇪🇸
hace 7 años #1