"Sometimes you have to kind of die inside in order to rise from your own ashes and believe in yourself and love yourself to become a new person."

Gerard Way

THE REVENANT

To Ángela, Marta, Clara, Marta JR and Berta.

THE REVENANT

1

THE REVENANT

IntroductionDestroy to Create

This story begins at the end of 2002. It is the story of my professional life over the last 14 years, closely linked to the company named Raccoon, a leading consultancy firm in the elearning industry in Spain, Mexico, and Colombia, which I founded on that date, and of everything about how I have arrived at the creation of JVSP, the company that we officially launched in June of 2017.

“We bought this picture in an exposition right when

we began the JVSP proyect”

To Ángela, Marta, Clara, Marta JR and Berta.

THE REVENANT

The beginningIn the months immediately following the bursting of the dot.com bubble, a friend from the university got in touch with me to commission the development of the corporate webpage of his company, a project that gave birth to Raccoon. Immediately after carrying out a couple more projects, we started to have opportunities to develop web based projects for the Human Resources areas of big companies.

I remember many anecdotes from those early daysThere’s one that I’m especially fond of: we were about to sell our first “big” software project, an intranet, to a client with a lot of potential. The client wanted to see our offices to proceed with the signing. In those days, that office was a house I shared with my girlfriend, a house with two bedrooms and a living room in downtown Madrid. We were working at Raccoon, my close friend and consummate professional, Jacobo Guillén, and I. (Jacobo is now Utilities and Industry Sales Manager at VASS) ..

We went to IKEA, and bought 6 work tables—the famous GLASHOLM/FINNVARD model. We got back to my house and emptied everything out and stuffed all the furniture in the master bedroom. ALL OF IT.

Then, we put the 6 work stations together, made a sign for the door (which we stuck on with scotch tape) with the first Raccoon logo (it was horrible �) and six friends came with their computers to work that afternoon.

The client arrived and we showed him the office. We met in the room where Jacobo and I had our work spaces (we shared a desk), and the next day, the client confirmed the project. At night, the entire house was put together again and my girlfriend—who is now my wife—had no idea. Only one leg of one couch suffered a small mishap. Of course, Jacobo and I were exhausted by the end of the day.

From the beginning of this adventure, we worked with a Uruguayan engineer and the time came to go and visit the man who would later be one of the partners of the company, Martín Furno. If I remember correctly, this was at the end of 2003. I will never forget sleeping on an inflatable mattress surrounded by the noise of our project servers (we already had several portals and intranets in place) while plugging a hole in the mattress with my butt to keep it from deflating.

By this time, we were working for some important companies like Bupa (NOTE: Never hire a client’s relative, no matter how close you are; you will end up short a friendship and short a client) Saint Gobain, Direct Line, Voith. I remember those days with mixed feelings; on the one hand, there was the satisfaction of making our own project grow, the trips, the freedom, and on the other, I remember the never-ending software projects, the fear of server crashes, or the meetings where I had to explain the inexplicable.

The learning began. To compete in software development, we needed project heads with experience, but at the same time, we couldn’t hire them; we didn’t have enough money.

2

THE REVENANT

“Server room where I sleep in Montevideo”

Growth and expansionIn 2005, we began carrying out elearning content development projects. We already had previous experience developing these kind of projects, from my time with Arthur Andersen, as well as with Overlap Consulting.

THE REVENANT

1 More attractive projects. We were always excellent with the user interface design.

More controlled projects.

Happier clients, who also commissioned more projects from us.

Prices similar to those of the taylor made software.

Positioning in the market.

2

3

4

5

became a world power in software development and this edge faded over the years. It definitely wasn’t a sustainable advantage.

Raccoon was growing and there was a turning point, when in 2008, we sold a large elearning content project (more than 700.000 euros) to a multinational company. That not only gave us peace of mind, but also great experience in the development of multi-language projects and the ability to invest. This wasn’t easy in the least, I can assure you.LMS

We developed a LMS we named Invenioo, based on an open source platform called ATUTOR LMS. I remember designing the webpage myself in my room at the Montgomery Hotel on my weekends in Brussels. My wife Marta was there for three months participating in a company merger (Procter and Gamble was buying Gillette) and I was going to see her every Friday, but in the end, I only saw her at dinner, since she also worked Saturdays and Sundays.

We began selling Invenioo to clients like Nh Hotels, Aviva, Niscayah, Direct Line, and others. The platform worked, although I also remember one tragic day when an insurance sector client’s users accessed the system and got the look and feel of a competitor.

FACTORY

Our eLearning Factory was located in Uruguay. We manufactured everything from there. This meant a competitive advantage due to the costs, but Uruguay

THE RESULTS WERE:

The creation of the Betrained system. Our vision was to create an attractive LMS tool with a collaborative 2.0 approach, more similar to YouTube than to business software. My dream was to be able to sell it globally as a SaaS product with a freemium model.

The opening of our Mexico office with a partner, for which we hired a salesman from the company Meta 4.

The hiring of a sales manager in Madrid, also from Meta 4, who besides brought his team of collaborators.

A 500.000 euro investment round with the goal of going global and growing Betrained.

THE NEXT BIG STEPS WE TOOK AND WHICH WERE KEY TO THE FUTURE OF THE COMPANY WERE:

In 2008, we sold a large

elearning content project

(more than 700.000 euros)

to a multinational company

4

THE REVENANT

“Raccoon Learning Afterwork Gathering in the Ramses Room in Madrid”

The perfect storm 2013

Betrained reached its limit of 30 big clients (Nissan, IKEA, NH Hotels, Philip Morris, Colpatria, Nestle, etc.) and based on this began to drop. We weren’t capable of stabilizing the software to achieve increasing the number of clients and making the product sustainable in the face of our competitors’ progress locally as well as internationally. Those competitors passed us on all sides.

In the Latin American offices, everything that could happen, did: at Mexico, the director left the office owing Social Security more than 100,000 euros. We managed the situation, but our investment capacity was totally limited and we never recovered the initiative there. In Colombia, the director, also an ex Meta 4, doesn’t sell projects but at the same time, was setting up two personal companies—pure science fiction. The Barcelona office depends on a sole person with the risk that carries. After the consecutive exit of two managers, we don’t have the resources to start from zero again.

The Madrid sales team left the company for an offer from SAP that was too good to pass up. They have been replaced, but the momentum is

5

THE REVENANT

The money is dwindling and not only do the new partners not help generate sales, but they are also pushing for a suicide merger with another company. At the beginning of all this I didn’t understand how people at such high levels could be so blind as to promote that merger, but Madrid is very small and I eventually found out about the true interest behind the intentions of that merger.

When it rains, it pours; 2013 is the year the global crisis arrives to the learning industry. The drop in opportunities was radical, and our main client went bankrupt as well, leaving us with a debt of more than 100,000 euros.

In those months, I felt truly alone, sad, and exhausted. But as I said two years ago during my mother’s funeral, in tragic moments there are always flashes of comedy or joy. In those months, I created the apps for children from the Clara and Her Sisters series. We made 3 games: Clara City, Clara Supermarket, and Clara Animals and reached more than 1,000,000 downloads in 194 countries and more than 11 million game sessions. Apple featured the game in the Apple store, including in the US.

But the seeds of our failure were planted before 2010. What happened to the initiatives we mentioned above?

Clara and her Sisters featured in te Apple Store

for the USA

My breakdown

6

THE REVENANT

Raccoon never made me very happy. I never enjoyed the journey, except for certain moments working with some clients who valued the work and the results. But my professional life during those months was a horror. The stress destroyed me, made me into a bitter and dark person, and that had repercussions in my personal life, of course.

There were two events that pushed me to make the decision: One ordinary day, I left our accountant’s offices. I know the zone perfectly—in downtown Madrid, next to my house. I went out to the street so overwhelmed and worried and I ended up sitting on a terrace disoriented, not knowing where my car was, despite knowing perfectly well which street I had left it on.

The other decisive event was when one day, on my way to a meeting at the Be up offices to visit Marta Romo, I had a problem in traffic. A car driven by a criminal cut me off in the street like in the movies. I had my daughters in the car and the act struck me as so barbaric and unfair that I hit the other car with mine. I didn’t hit it just once, but 3 times. I destroyed it and left, nearly running the driver over. I arrived at the Be up offices and I cried for 10 minutes before I was able to go up to the meeting.

In May of 2013, I went to therapy for the first time in my life. By that time,

I was devastated.

One more try before the endThe therapy gave me enough self-control and peace of mind to face my partners and lay down the conditions to take another shot at moving the company forward. We changed offices, decreased the costs enormously and pushed on.

There was no longer a sales team. It was like starting over, but with an enormous burden in the form of debts, and our strength—physical as well as mental—diminished. I barely had any hope left.

Starting in 2013, idea of the enormous difference between the effort and the reward was constantly on my mind. I was at my professional best —very prepared— with the great experience that Raccoon had provided me, but I couldn’t see a future that inspired me.

2014 was a year of transition, but as I said before, Raccoon was already dead. I have to say that my treatment finished in mid-2014.

Over the past year, we had been studying the sales transaction of a competing company. It was a process that I had started with the director of that company. Raccoon, as much because of its brand as because of its clients, played an interesting part and had constantly brought us to the attention of possible buyers who could merge us into their organizations.

I laid out only two conditions to begin the process; the first was to monetize at least a year’s salary to be able to reinvent myself, since I already had the seed of a new project in mind. The second condition was that I didn’t want to be part of the new merged company. I wanted to start fresh.

Assuming the debt of the partnership.

Making a non-separation agreement for at least 3 years. I didn’t understand this point, since one of my previous conditions was not to remain linked to the project. But this competitor didn’t stop suggesting that I be disloyal to the partners of Raccoon and go to their companies, taking the clients and projects. This in the middle of the Due Diligence.

There would be no monetization. I didn’t understand this, either, as it was the first condition on my part for the success of the process.

I had to reduce my salary in spite of becoming leader of the entire worldwide business activity of the merged company in its corporate sphere. The explanation was that their directors were not charging what I was being paid, to which I responded that they should therefore assess the viability of the company if, after 20 years of operations, they couldn’t adequately compensate their directors.

THE REVENANT

After a year of Due Diligence, discussions with my partners, discussions with the possible buyers —an authentic waste of time— an offer came, consisting of:

I didn’t want to be part of

the new merged company.

I wanted to start fresh.

1

2

3

4

I said NO to this o�er at the end of 2014, to my partners as well as to the

oering company. After three months, this company hired the sales

manager I had just hired, as a last ditch eort to pull

Raccoon out of the hole.

The decision was made: I didn’t want to stay with Raccoon

Before the summer of 2015, I had a serious relapse, falling into what I call a period of total darkness, where all my thoughts were extremely negative. I went back to “Paco,”my therapist, but this time, I had enough strength to make decisions and say NO. I wasn’t going to continue with my professional life like this anymore. I felt terror, fear of the creditors (some of them friends), fear of the employees, fear of the clients’ reactions, fear of the banks and fear of not having work offers. At 45 years old, I decided not to continue. I still didn’t see a change in my life, since I couldn’t be free from the main source of my unhappiness, which was the work and the project.

I had a lunch where my supposed mentor and partner put enormous pressure on me to keep trying—a couple of years, according to him—and in this way be able to liquidate the project in an orderly manner. I told him no, and it wasn’t easy. On the one hand, receiving another capital increase would mean more breathing room, and on the other, we are talking about one of the toughest negotiators in the Spanish business world. Going to personal therapy with “Paco” as well as to group therapy—again, one of the best things I have done in my life—gave me enough strength to say NO.

8

THE REVENANT

In July of 2015, I stopped charging Raccoon a salary.

At that time, I was about to finalize the repayment of a 30,000.00 euro loan that I’d taken out years before to be able to launch Clara and her Sisters. I went to the bank to again take out a loan in that amount in order to have economic breathing room to be able to keep supporting my family without needing to make drastic changes (changing house, school, and other) while at the same time being able to implement a new project that had been taking shape in my head for months.

Closing Raccoon was not easy.

For months, I had to deal with daily calls from creditors, banks demanding payment and worried clients. I had the skill and the fortitude to be able to reach agreements with nearly all of them. To date, we are still managing a project that helps to decrease the debt of the Partnership, a large part of same personally underwritten by me. A proper closure means at least the collaborators most committed to Raccoon over the years and the banks that supported us charged the maximum possible.

Main source of my unhappiness, which was the work and the project.

Lessons learned

9

THE REVENANT

I have learned that what may seem to be a failure is a great investment.

These 13 years have been incredibly intense. I don’t consider them 13 years lost, but rather that I have attended 13 years MBA—13 years in which I have learned countless things and I have built an incredible network of contacts and friends throughout the world.

I have learned that success in only possible by surrounding yourself with the best professionals and good people.

In fact, I’m still collaborating with some professionals who were Raccoon employees around the world.

I have learned to know in which ways I am a good professional and in which environments or which I do not like.

I believe that one of the mistakes I committed at Raccoon was not knowing how to create a commercial structure. And I wasn’t capable because I don’t like it; I don’t enjoy pursuing collaborators and that is something that is intrinsic to commercial management: the near daily follow-up of the goings on.

I have learned to value every dollar invested.

Let me give you an example: In 2010, in light of the good situation at Raccoon, we moved in Madrid to an office costing 6,000.00 euros a month. The idea was to receive the clients. Don’t fool yourself—unless you’re a great firm of lawyers, the clients won’t go to your facilities. We could have saved 240,000.00 euros from 2010 to 2015 with a less ambitious change.

I have learned to say what I think and stick to my ideas

in spite of the pressure (although it’s still a lot of work for me to do that).

I have learned to follow my instinct:

The day of the 2010 capital increase, I felt no joy; every fiber of my being told me it wasn’t good idea, but was rather the most comfortable. I didn’t follow my intuition. The same happened to me when I moved forward with the Mexico project, when I met the man who was going to be our manager we had no chemistry, but neither did I object. I have countless examples of the cost of not sticking to your guns, but it is something I am working hard on.

I have learned to prioritize investments.

If I could turn back time, I never would have opted for open offices in Latin America—we were too short on resources for that. I would have reinforced Spain with a powerful general management or sales management. Nor would I have opted to create Betrained, or perhaps I would have partnered with an existing and consolidated platform or created simpler and more agile products.

I have learned to keep a cool head and control my anxiety,

And this I owe to my therapist, to the colleagues in my Group, and my wife, all of them outstanding professionals, and to Dale Carnegie and his exceptional book, “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” My personal motto is “Everything works out”

Thanks to Raccoon, I got to know Mexico, Colombia, and Uruguay very well

(Three countries I love) and I also knew Puerto Rico, Peru and Argentina, which are also wonderful.

I learned that sales are not what matters; what matters are the benefits.

Sales enslave and profits fulfill. “The Little Black Book of Entrepreneurship”.

10

THE REVENANT

I learned to learn from books.

Everything that happened to us was written in the book “Competitive Advantage” by Michael Porter. But it’s one thing to read and another to have the courage to put what you’ve read/learned into practice. Another book that I strongly recommend to is “Positioning: The battle for your mind” by Al Ries and Jack Trout.

I learned that in a sector where the prices have plummeted, business cannot be based on bringing value, since that is not sustainable.

There are currently new high-quality elearning factory projects, but can they be maintained? I believe that there is an enormous opportunity for a type of work in factory mode—not to the Spanish market but rather with a global approach.

I have learned of the importance of a brand and of its positioning.

You have to invest not only in the design and the protection of a brand but also in its care and respect.

One of my favorite phrases is “The key to success is not to be the best, but to be different” from Michael Porter. Regarding brands and positioning, I carried out two of the most interesting projects of my career from Raccoon: the development of the Learning Quarterly and the organization of the Afterwork of learning.

I have learned to launch projects, and this is no small feat.

In these 13 years I must have participated in more than 150 learning projects, and in fact I think that one of the things I like most in this life is creating ideas and kicking them off like I did with the Clara and her Sisters series. And I can also say that this has become a vice, since at this very moment, I have at least two very powerful ideas on deck.

I have created an online community.

With more than 19,000 contacts in the worlds of HR, education, innovation, and startups. This is something very fun and enriching.

Several Issues of the Learning Quarterly.

Reborn: JVSP in the Techhub on the Google Madrid Campus

THE REVENANT

TIn the summer of 2015, I read in the paper that Google was going to open a Campus in Madrid with the goal of creating a startup ecosystem. I had a feeling that was my place, the place to develop my vision and my next professional stage.

In October 2015, I began to climb out of my hole, and it’s curious, but I know exactly the moment my mind turned from the darkness to the light. This happened on a trip to Chamonix (France). A friend was celebrating his 40th birthday there and invited us. I remember perfectly that I didn’t want to go. I didn’t feel like it; it felt like an enormous effort to go with the entire family to France for a weekend. Once there, we began on a trekking route but neither the girls nor I were in any condition for that adventure. So I went down with them on a tram and there, right there, we began singing and having fun until we arrived at the chalet.

I want to share that I have written many days since June of 2013 using the fantastic Day One app, In Day One, I publish not only my personal and non-transferable posts and my photos but I also add tags to locate subjects like how many times I have run in the last year, how many coincidences I’ve experienced, or how many days I have felt unhappy. Since October 30th, 2015, I haven’t felt unhappy, or dark, or demotivated, but quite the opposite.

In February of 2016, I formed with my brother Nacho JVSP, my new project whose home is on the Madrid Campus of Google.

Every day, I enthusiastically come to work, to this center of Innovation and of camaraderie. We are more than 300 people here, developing our projects and sharing experiences and knowledge.

Here you will find me surrounded by Brave People working intensely on the development of their projects, listening to the experiences of the best professionals one could dream of being able to see firsthand. You can find me in the gymnasium we have set up between colleagues on the basement or participating in the weekly entrepreneurs’ breakfast.

Slide of JVSP on the Madrid Campus.

Here I am with one of my older brothers, Nacho, developing a new product vision, a new dream. Here I have known the best software engineers of my entire professional Career, Devialab and the best sales & elevator Pitch Coach Matt.

11

THE REVENANT

Over the past few days, we have officially launched JVSP, but we have been working already with excellent clients and partners on valuable and impactful projects. Clients who respect and value what we do and how we do it as well as excellent professionals and people.

I have documented each step since we arrived here, of this new life. In a few months, we will launch a paper documenting all the steps taken and lessons

learned in the creation of this new startup.

Our main goal is to enjoy the journey, something I had never done before in my professional career. The past year has surpassed everything I could have imagined. I have had periods of stress, of course, but I have known exceptional people, I have learned with the best, and I have developed a new project with an enormous, valuable, and global potential, together with my brother.

Colleagues of the Techhub Madrid

P.S. I am just finishing the review of this article when I received the call of another big potential international client confirming us that they are going to use JVSP for their Onboarding Learning Program and yesterday another client has summoned us at their Campus in Paris to comment another project. Very very excited.

Pablo NavarroCEO JVSP