October 21, 2025 • 25 mins
Starting a business begins with one powerful idea, but how do you come up with your first one? In this episode of Building MarsBased, we share the real story behind our company’s early days and how a simple concept evolved into a long-lasting, profitable business.
You’ll learn how to identify opportunities, validate ideas, and turn side projects into sustainable ventures, all based on real-world experience from a fully bootstrapped tech company.
If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, freelancer, or agency owner, this video will help you find direction and clarity for your next move.
💡 Want to build your next digital product with a trusted partner? Let’s talk: https://marsbased.com/
Contact: hola@marsbased.com
🎬 You can watch the video of this episode on the Life on Mars podcast website: https://podcast.marsbased.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:07):
Welcome to Life on Mars.
I'm Alex, CEO and founder ofMarspace, and in this episode,
we start a new podcast series,Building Mars Based.
This is the first episode ofthis new series aimed to
encourage other people to createtheir own companies, and we will
share our story, our learningsthroughout all of these years.
(00:28):
We'll help you to pick up someinteresting ideas, to try new
business models, what worked forus, what didn't work.
We're going to be sharing a lotof anecdotes, projects, failed
experiments, fuck-ups, and muchmore.
As I mentioned in theintroduction video, this is a
podcast series that is largelyinspired by Building Infinite
(00:49):
Red, a podcast from theCUBEcreators of Infinite Red, a
Rails Development Cultancy thatturned into React Native
specialized boutiqueconsultancy.
They're very friends of ours.
As a matter of fact, Iinterviewed the CTO Jamon
Holgrim in the and this verypodcast a few months ago.
Check out this episode becauseit's uh it's equal parts,
(01:13):
interesting, educational, andfun.
So in this first episode, I'mgoing to be talking about how we
came up with the idea ofMars-based and uh a few other
sections that might help you toget a business off the ground.
So picking up the idea, findingthe inspiration, rolling out
stupid ideas, and much more.
(01:33):
So if you want to have somecontext as to how and when Mars
based started, I cannot startthis episode without mentioning
that I co-founded Marspace withuh Xavi and Jordi, two of my
best friends since earlychildhood.
So with this, I am saying thatwe are breaking one of the first
(01:54):
rules of entrepreneurship, whichis don't go into business with
your friends and or family.
In this case, they are friendsor more than that, they're
actually closer to family thanto friends.
But probably these consolidatedand really stable relationship
of friendship that has lastedfor over so many years, that's
(02:14):
actually what brought us so farinto the company.
Actually, are turning 12 yearsold as a company in just a
matter of months.
And I think we cannot explainthe company without the
friendship that unites the threeof us.
So we actually have got abackground in consultancy, the
(02:36):
three of us.
Um I don't want to go into toomuch detail, but we were working
for several companies for a fewyears.
We endured uh old schoolconsulting, in some cases, uh
larger companies, corporations,and some others.
And we were, to put it mildly,slightly dissatisfied with our
(02:56):
professional activities andcareers.
And over the course of many,many, many months in which Jordi
was trying to convince Xavi andI to pursue some entrepreneurial
adventure, yet to be named,because he had more the virus of
being an entrepreneur than wewere, and he wanted to create a
(03:18):
company or just, you know, maybemake it in such a way that we
would be three freelancers andworking together.
Because even though our threecareers had intertwined
throughout the years, the threeof us never worked in the same
project.
So Chavi and Jordi worked asfreelancers for some projects.
(03:39):
Jordi hired Chavi to be the leaddeveloper in the company that he
was working for.
Chavi and I co-founded anassociation.
Jordi and I had been designingand building websites since uh
middle school and stuff likethat.
I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting afew other entrepreneurial
activities that uh that we haddone in the past.
(03:59):
The three of us actually hadnever worked in the same
project.
So over the course of many, manydinners, we just meet every week
or two to have dinner anddiscuss life on like the
mid-20s.
Jordi is always insisting thatwe should do something together.
We should do something together.
Like, I'm really tired of myboss, I really don't like my
(04:20):
company.
And the three of us were sharingour frustrations.
And that's actually a very goodlesson that a lot of people tell
you in business books orbusiness schools that, hey, try
to find something that doesn'twork in your field and just fix
it, right?
And unbeknownst to us, we wereactually doing that.
(04:41):
We were complaining about howold school consulting sucked at
treating employees unfairly,working with really old laptops,
tried to this presentialism inthe office or just being super
servicial to the clients and notbeing opinionated and many,
many, many things that we werenot satisfied with.
(05:02):
And so, inspired by the books ofBasecamp, so we work and remote,
no office required, we werelike, hey, how about we create a
small design development shop,something that we can actually
(05:23):
use as a platform for us tofreelance for other people,
right?
We just quit our jobs, we dowhat we know best, which is
actually developing anddesigning applications, and sell
them to other people, right?
And so that was the genesis ofMarspace, the origins.
(05:43):
And but it actually took almosta good couple years since we
actually got to work onsomething, because you know,
Xavi and I were pursuing otherinteresting activities.
We're another moment of life,which is also another
interesting lesson, is that youhave to be in the right moment
of life to become anentrepreneur, right?
Um and so we got to a pointwhere we said, fuck it, let's
(06:08):
start.
Let's let's do it.
Um, George, we're gonna takeyour initiative and we're gonna
convert it into something.
So we actually got ourselves towork.
And the first iteration of theof the project was, hey, why
don't we build an app that weneed?
And you will some might thinkthat Marspace is was an
(06:29):
overnight success or has been anovernight success, which is very
far from the truth becauseactually what people don't know
is that before Marspace, wetried three projects that
luckily didn't see the light ofday of these, so it's very
briefly.
Uh one of them was not evenbuilt.
Um the second one, I've let'stry to see if I can if I can get
(06:52):
the order correctly.
It was a social network forproducers and consumers of
biofood and ecological products.
And so if that applicationdoesn't exist today, I think
it's fair to say that it waswell ahead of its time in 2012
or early 13 probably.
(07:13):
That application was calledWolliva, so you can say
something here.
Uh it was designed, it wasbuilt.
I think we never got around tolaunch it.
Because again, like in the firstproject, we spent too much time
in the analysis paralysis,right?
The first project was killedbecause of analysis paralysis.
We spent too much time uhworking on something that, you
(07:34):
know, analyzing, talking topotential stakeholders,
potential customers, trying tosee there was financing for
that.
But it actually we just grewtired of the project before we
were launched.
The second one, Wolliva, webuilt it, we talked to potential
people who'd be interested inthat, potential customers,
potential partners, but wedidn't see a way to monetize it.
(07:56):
When we actually soft launch it,people are like, yeah, that's
cool, that's nice, but how arewe like, how are you gonna
monetize it, right?
And we we didn't think that wasthe model.
Um and actually, I it's alsofair to think that perhaps we in
retrospect we didn't have thecontext.
(08:17):
No, we didn't have the context,and we didn't have the business
knowledge to see, like, probablywe should have tested this with
an MVP, sending some emails tothe right people with some forms
and whatnot, before actuallycommitting to such a large um
idea.
The third one was cooking.me,which is also a project you can
(08:40):
cite uh you can see over here.
Um, because we thought, youknow, the first two projects
were killed because they weretoo ambitious, and we thought we
wouldn't be able to findsomebody who would use them.
And for the third one, we said,how about we build something
that we actually can use, andpeople and our immediate
(09:01):
surroundings can use, likefriends and family, and perhaps
one or two fools as well.
Um and hence cooking.me was bornthat was designed and built to
be the cookbook, a digitalcookbook for iPad.
Because at the time, most ofthese applications either sucked
(09:22):
or they were just like toooverloaded with stuff, they
looked like really old, theywere not correctly adapted to
iPad, which is the sort ofdevice you bring into your
kitchen and have it as areference for helping you to
cook, right?
That happened more or lessaround the time when a company
from Barcelona got very popularand was selected as one of the
(09:45):
Apple's highlighted apps forthat year.
And that company actually didexactly and precisely that.
So our app was killed before weeven started.
We could have launched anyways.
We could have launched anywaysbecause uh it's never too late
to be number two in the marketand whatnot.
But like it happened with thefirst two projects, we didn't
(10:09):
have the right connections, wedidn't have the right contacts,
we didn't we didn't know what todo with that app.
And that was our problem.
Because we did these threefailed projects, we found out
that actually we were good atdesigning and building
applications, not the rest ofthings that come with it.
We were not good at selling it,marketing it, raising funds for
(10:34):
it, trying to s strike somepartnerships with people,
thinking about the potentialproduct roadmap, building
community and stuff like that,right?
So after these three failedexperiments, we discovered our
forte.
And hence we said, what if wejust forget about all of the
(10:59):
surrounding stuff, about all thestuff that comes with launching
digital products and we haveother people launch them?
How about instead of uscommitting a lot of money and
time and effort into buildingsomething that we don't know if
we can launch it correctly, ifwe are the right people to do
that and market it properly, andjust like trying to
(11:22):
commercialize this around theglobe, how about we help other
people to do that?
People with ideas, businesspeople that come to us, they
need an IT partner to help themto design and develop
applications.
We built the right solution forthem, and they figure out the
rest.
(11:42):
And moreover, we can actuallycash on that, right?
So we get paid to do what wewant.
And so we came up with the ideaof establishing as a group of
freelancers.
And the first idea ofMars-based, which was yet to be
named Mars-based, to be honest.
(12:03):
Uh, but there will be a separateepisode for that.
We'll talk about naming inanother episode.
So we decided to become a smalldesign and development studio.
But again, we got it wrong, orat least not exactly right,
because some people might think,oh, you guys created your you
(12:26):
knew you were gonna be anagency.
No, we didn't.
We didn't.
As a matter of fact, I have avery good anecdote for you.
And I think that is a the sortof stuff that will help you to
see if you're really alignedwith your co-founders, right?
I remember that at the verybeginning of Marspace when we
were conceptualizing, oh, so weare coming up with the idea of
(12:46):
creating the company.
Uh, let's think about names,let's think about like the
services we can offer, whattechnologies we're gonna work
with, what we will do, what wewill not do, what will be a
value proposition, all of theseyou'll find in the next
episodes, most likely.
But there's one thing that I Ithink I came up with this idea.
I don't know if I borrowed itfrom somebody else, but I asked
(13:06):
Xavi and Jordi and my twoco-founders to send me an email
saying where did they see theywere going on a personal level,
and where would Marsbase be inone month time, three months,
and six months, in one year,three years, five years, and ten
(13:29):
years.
And so it was fun to read all ofthis, but we actually got it all
together, and I scheduled someemails into the future, so that
in a month's time we'd bereceiving the three answers,
that of Jordi, that of mine, andthat of Xavi, to where did they
(13:50):
see themselves professionallyand personally and the company
in one month, and successivelythree months, six months, one
year, etc.
etc.
And that goes to show that weare very good at overestimating
what we can achieve in the shortterm and underestimating what we
can do in the long term.
So it was fun after all thesemonths and years past to receive
(14:13):
this email because the firstones we did expect them.
The last ones we had completelyforgotten about them.
And what's more, as I mentioned,like they go to show that we are
not really good at planning.
We as species, not as a company,not as Marspace.
Um because the predictions forthe next month, of course, we
(14:37):
nailed it.
For three months, we actuallyunderestimated what we could do.
And we surpassed ourexpectations and the goals we
had set.
Six months, we completelysurpassed.
And then that dynamic changed.
Like in the in year three, Ithink it was year three, it's
(14:57):
like we thought we were gonna bebigger than we actually were,
but at least the exercise wasreally good because it helped us
to see whether we're thinkingabout the same things or not.
Like, did we actually have uhwant to have a team?
Did we actually want to grow thecompany to be part of a bigger
project someday or just run itas a lifestyle business, like
(15:18):
we've done?
Do we actually want to bootstrapor we want to raise funds?
Uh, do we want to keep being asmall and specialist boutique
agency, or do we want to grow tobecome like a large, big
generalist consultancy and stufflike that?
That exercise was really, reallyuseful.
The other thing that was reallyuseful, and I think that also is
(15:39):
a great exercise for first-timefounders or also for you know
serial founders, but uh I thinkit's most likely first-time
founders don't know about this,the rest have got it figured out
is how and when will you commitfull-time to the project?
And that's something that wedefined early on in the in the
(15:59):
conversations because at thetime Xavi and Jordi were keeping
their jobs, and I just I had toquit my job because I I was
taking a giant leap of faith,and uh my I really hated my own
job, my my previous job, and Iwanted to start something new
and I wanted to be, you know,unshackled and try to be more
(16:21):
focused on what I was doingbecause I thought like if I if I
commit 100% on this, even thoughI'm burning my savings, this is
gonna fly sooner, right?
And uh they've got families,they needed more cash, they
needed the cash more than I didback in the day.
So I think it was uh reasonablethat I took this leap of faith
and they didn't.
So the other thing with it ishey, um the company, you know,
(16:46):
when we found the firstprojects, and that will come in
another in a separate episode,but uh what is the right moment
when we will start payingourselves a salary?
How do we know that is the righttime to commit full-time to
this?
So we established a couple ofrules.
One of them was recurringrevenue.
(17:06):
So we have to have this minimumof recurring revenue per month.
And the second is a minimumamount of cash and the bank.
Whenever these two goals weremet, we would start going
full-time for the project.
At least me get paid, then theywould join later on and uh start
working on the company full-timewith exclusivity as well, right?
(17:30):
These two things help to getMars based off the crown, and I
think there's uh there's acouple of really interesting
experiments that you might wantto bounce off your co-founders
and might help you get yourcompany off the crown.
What else?
Another thing that I wanted tocomment in this episode was uh
naming and branding, right?
(17:50):
Because even though we can havea separate episode about this,
there's something really, reallyshort I want to say here, which
is don't wait till you have theperfect logo, don't wait till
you have perfect name, right?
Because we committed thesemistakes and the first three
projects um that we never reallylaunched before Mars based, we
(18:13):
knew we Marspace couldn't sufferthe same fate.
And so we decided to go forsomething quicker.
We decided to, hey, let's dolike I I think even the first
logo was done with MicrosoftPain uh by Jordi.
And great.
I mean, you can say it here.
It's not not not terrible.
You can see it.
It I think it remained with usfor at least one year or two.
(18:37):
And with the naming, it wassomething great.
We just did a naming experimentof hey, we gotta we gotta come
up with something quick.
Like uh let's set some ideas.
And at the time it was uh twosyllables, um uh this vowels,
and it's got to be like, youknow, easy on the tongue and
stuff like that.
(18:57):
Our reference was like pocketbuffer, companies like that.
Um and so I think it was Jordiwho just got a like a bag and
threw in some small papers withuh two collections of words that
we could mix, right?
And so the first name we came upwith that we actually liked, so
(19:21):
by mixing them, I think it wasmoon-based.
Or like, there's something herewe like this name.
And I don't think we everdesigned a logo for that one.
But the next day, Jordy came andsaid, I've got something better.
And he comes with a logo on thename.
(19:41):
It's like Marspace soundsbetter.
Now, a lot of people have askedwhen I asked people on social
media and our you knowsurroundings to to send
questions for for the podcast.
And one of the most popularquestions is like, why did you
choose the name of Marspace?
Well, that we'll have to waitfor the episode that we actually
(20:03):
dedicate fully to naming, butno, it has nothing to do with
David Bowie, even though we haveused David Bowie as a reference
for a lot of things.
You can say it here, whenever welaunch our first website,
there's a reference to SpaceOddity that I had uh or that we
had built onto the deploymentprocess of our website on
(20:25):
Jekyll, if I remember correctly.
And um and there were more.
We would use David Poe in thehiring process.
There was, I think there was anEaster egg on the website, um,
there was a reference on thefirst blog posts and stuff like
that.
But we never got to theconclusion that we got the
(20:47):
reference or the inspirationfrom David Poe.
It's like we liked how itsounded.
Marspace definitely like struckon us and we're like, yeah,
sounds great, looks cool.
It's got this alien idea that wereally like.
Like we, you know, we want tomake things differently and uh
also related to innovation andtechnology somehow.
(21:09):
Um, and so it was cool, anddefinitely that's why we've
always weaved space explorationand you know astronauts and
aliens and Martians onto ourwebsite, our documents and
stuff, right?
And I think that's pretty mucheverything there is to say about
the how to find idea.
As a recap, we tried many, manythings over the course of a
(21:35):
couple years.
And so we started building stuffaround 2011, experiments in
2012, even 2013.
We actually built the Mars-basedwebsite and we sent the first
email.
One year we incorporated thecompany, one year before we
(21:55):
actually incorporated thecompany.
So that was in March 2013.
The company was incorporated inMarch 2014.
And so for that year, wesilently kept working on the
background as a side thing.
That's also another learning.
Like you don't have to commitfull-time freight.
Like you can do it if you reallycan afford it.
(22:16):
We could not afford it.
Um, we thought it would be moresustainable if we just did it on
the side until we were safe.
Um, another learning is I know,you never get it right on the
first try.
And in our case, like thatsearch spent over the course of
many, many years.
And also, most of these thingswere not planned, they were not
(22:38):
analyzed, they were notstrategized, they were not
architectured, like we didn'tknow what the hell we were
doing.
This is the first company,hopefully it will be our last
company.
And I just want to share this,you know, as open-heartedly as
possible, that we didn't knowwhy we do certain things.
(22:59):
We still don't know why we didthem.
In hindsight, they look likereasonable decisions and very
sound decisions made by us.
But at the time, we're justfiguring things out.
And some things work out great,some things didn't fly.
And some of the things thatdidn't fly never saw the light
of day, like these projects orsome other marketing initiatives
and stuff.
Some you saw over the course ofthe years, like some events,
(23:23):
like the Martian tech eventsthat we Martian talks that we
that we did in 2016 or so, theydidn't fly.
The first iteration of thenewsletter didn't fly either,
and stuff like that.
But some others, they workedsince the very beginning, right?
And even though they look like areally, really, really good set
of decisions, there's a part ofluck that you cannot really
(23:46):
count on it if you want to builda company, right?
So we just want to be astransparent as possible.
That's the one of the reasonsbehind this podcast series.
And we just want to encourageother people that if you want to
build a company, you can do it.
Send us more questions.
I'll be happy to answer all ofthese questions coming in.
We've got some episodes whereI'm just talking, like in this
(24:08):
one.
We've got some other episodes inwhich I will be going over one
question only because it's verybroad and very, you know, it
provides for a lot of um a lotof explanation and and
storytelling.
And some episodes will be like,you know, so technology, for
instance, like A, B, C, likegoing over a set of questions,
and and so feel free to sendthem at Ola at marspace.com or
(24:32):
tweet at me directly, uh sendthem through our social media.
And so, until the next episode,subscribe and like this video,
subscribe to the channel andshare with other people.
If you got ideas for companiesand you want more guidance,
happy, happy to schedule a callwith you or send the questions
to to the to the podcast so wecan answer them here.
(24:54):
And um, feel free to share yourjourney with ours because uh we
have been inspired by otherpeople.
We just want to inspire the nextgeneration of Mars based and
entrepreneurs.
So I'll see you in the nextepisode.
Thanks.
Welcome to Life on Mars.
I'm Alex, CEO and founder ofMarspace, and in this episode,
we start a new podcast series,Building Mars Based.
This is the first episode ofthis new series aimed to
encourage other people to createtheir own companies, and we will
share our story, our learningsthroughout all of these years.
(00:28):
We'll help you to pick up someinteresting ideas, to try new
business models, what worked forus, what didn't work.
We're going to be sharing a lotof anecdotes, projects, failed
experiments, fuck-ups, and muchmore.
As I mentioned in theintroduction video, this is a
podcast series that is largelyinspired by Building Infinite
(00:49):
Red, a podcast from theCUBEcreators of Infinite Red, a
Rails Development Cultancy thatturned into React Native
specialized boutiqueconsultancy.
They're very friends of ours.
As a matter of fact, Iinterviewed the CTO Jamon
Holgrim in the and this verypodcast a few months ago.
Check out this episode becauseit's uh it's equal parts,
(01:13):
interesting, educational, andfun.
So in this first episode, I'mgoing to be talking about how we
came up with the idea ofMars-based and uh a few other
sections that might help you toget a business off the ground.
So picking up the idea, findingthe inspiration, rolling out
stupid ideas, and much more.
(01:33):
So if you want to have somecontext as to how and when Mars
based started, I cannot startthis episode without mentioning
that I co-founded Marspace withuh Xavi and Jordi, two of my
best friends since earlychildhood.
So with this, I am saying thatwe are breaking one of the first
(01:54):
rules of entrepreneurship, whichis don't go into business with
your friends and or family.
In this case, they are friendsor more than that, they're
actually closer to family thanto friends.
But probably these consolidatedand really stable relationship
of friendship that has lastedfor over so many years, that's
(02:14):
actually what brought us so farinto the company.
Actually, are turning 12 yearsold as a company in just a
matter of months.
And I think we cannot explainthe company without the
friendship that unites the threeof us.
So we actually have got abackground in consultancy, the
(02:36):
three of us.
Um I don't want to go into toomuch detail, but we were working
for several companies for a fewyears.
We endured uh old schoolconsulting, in some cases, uh
larger companies, corporations,and some others.
And we were, to put it mildly,slightly dissatisfied with our
(02:56):
professional activities andcareers.
And over the course of many,many, many months in which Jordi
was trying to convince Xavi andI to pursue some entrepreneurial
adventure, yet to be named,because he had more the virus of
being an entrepreneur than wewere, and he wanted to create a
(03:18):
company or just, you know, maybemake it in such a way that we
would be three freelancers andworking together.
Because even though our threecareers had intertwined
throughout the years, the threeof us never worked in the same
project.
So Chavi and Jordi worked asfreelancers for some projects.
(03:39):
Jordi hired Chavi to be the leaddeveloper in the company that he
was working for.
Chavi and I co-founded anassociation.
Jordi and I had been designingand building websites since uh
middle school and stuff likethat.
I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting afew other entrepreneurial
activities that uh that we haddone in the past.
(03:59):
The three of us actually hadnever worked in the same
project.
So over the course of many, manydinners, we just meet every week
or two to have dinner anddiscuss life on like the
mid-20s.
Jordi is always insisting thatwe should do something together.
We should do something together.
Like, I'm really tired of myboss, I really don't like my
(04:20):
company.
And the three of us were sharingour frustrations.
And that's actually a very goodlesson that a lot of people tell
you in business books orbusiness schools that, hey, try
to find something that doesn'twork in your field and just fix
it, right?
And unbeknownst to us, we wereactually doing that.
(04:41):
We were complaining about howold school consulting sucked at
treating employees unfairly,working with really old laptops,
tried to this presentialism inthe office or just being super
servicial to the clients and notbeing opinionated and many,
many, many things that we werenot satisfied with.
(05:02):
And so, inspired by the books ofBasecamp, so we work and remote,
no office required, we werelike, hey, how about we create a
small design development shop,something that we can actually
(05:23):
use as a platform for us tofreelance for other people,
right?
We just quit our jobs, we dowhat we know best, which is
actually developing anddesigning applications, and sell
them to other people, right?
And so that was the genesis ofMarspace, the origins.
(05:43):
And but it actually took almosta good couple years since we
actually got to work onsomething, because you know,
Xavi and I were pursuing otherinteresting activities.
We're another moment of life,which is also another
interesting lesson, is that youhave to be in the right moment
of life to become anentrepreneur, right?
Um and so we got to a pointwhere we said, fuck it, let's
(06:08):
start.
Let's let's do it.
Um, George, we're gonna takeyour initiative and we're gonna
convert it into something.
So we actually got ourselves towork.
And the first iteration of theof the project was, hey, why
don't we build an app that weneed?
And you will some might thinkthat Marspace is was an
(06:29):
overnight success or has been anovernight success, which is very
far from the truth becauseactually what people don't know
is that before Marspace, wetried three projects that
luckily didn't see the light ofday of these, so it's very
briefly.
Uh one of them was not evenbuilt.
Um the second one, I've let'stry to see if I can if I can get
(06:52):
the order correctly.
It was a social network forproducers and consumers of
biofood and ecological products.
And so if that applicationdoesn't exist today, I think
it's fair to say that it waswell ahead of its time in 2012
or early 13 probably.
(07:13):
That application was calledWolliva, so you can say
something here.
Uh it was designed, it wasbuilt.
I think we never got around tolaunch it.
Because again, like in the firstproject, we spent too much time
in the analysis paralysis,right?
The first project was killedbecause of analysis paralysis.
We spent too much time uhworking on something that, you
(07:34):
know, analyzing, talking topotential stakeholders,
potential customers, trying tosee there was financing for
that.
But it actually we just grewtired of the project before we
were launched.
The second one, Wolliva, webuilt it, we talked to potential
people who'd be interested inthat, potential customers,
potential partners, but wedidn't see a way to monetize it.
(07:56):
When we actually soft launch it,people are like, yeah, that's
cool, that's nice, but how arewe like, how are you gonna
monetize it, right?
And we we didn't think that wasthe model.
Um and actually, I it's alsofair to think that perhaps we in
retrospect we didn't have thecontext.
(08:17):
No, we didn't have the context,and we didn't have the business
knowledge to see, like, probablywe should have tested this with
an MVP, sending some emails tothe right people with some forms
and whatnot, before actuallycommitting to such a large um
idea.
The third one was cooking.me,which is also a project you can
(08:40):
cite uh you can see over here.
Um, because we thought, youknow, the first two projects
were killed because they weretoo ambitious, and we thought we
wouldn't be able to findsomebody who would use them.
And for the third one, we said,how about we build something
that we actually can use, andpeople and our immediate
(09:01):
surroundings can use, likefriends and family, and perhaps
one or two fools as well.
Um and hence cooking.me was bornthat was designed and built to
be the cookbook, a digitalcookbook for iPad.
Because at the time, most ofthese applications either sucked
(09:22):
or they were just like toooverloaded with stuff, they
looked like really old, theywere not correctly adapted to
iPad, which is the sort ofdevice you bring into your
kitchen and have it as areference for helping you to
cook, right?
That happened more or lessaround the time when a company
from Barcelona got very popularand was selected as one of the
(09:45):
Apple's highlighted apps forthat year.
And that company actually didexactly and precisely that.
So our app was killed before weeven started.
We could have launched anyways.
We could have launched anywaysbecause uh it's never too late
to be number two in the marketand whatnot.
But like it happened with thefirst two projects, we didn't
(10:09):
have the right connections, wedidn't have the right contacts,
we didn't we didn't know what todo with that app.
And that was our problem.
Because we did these threefailed projects, we found out
that actually we were good atdesigning and building
applications, not the rest ofthings that come with it.
We were not good at selling it,marketing it, raising funds for
(10:34):
it, trying to s strike somepartnerships with people,
thinking about the potentialproduct roadmap, building
community and stuff like that,right?
So after these three failedexperiments, we discovered our
forte.
And hence we said, what if wejust forget about all of the
(10:59):
surrounding stuff, about all thestuff that comes with launching
digital products and we haveother people launch them?
How about instead of uscommitting a lot of money and
time and effort into buildingsomething that we don't know if
we can launch it correctly, ifwe are the right people to do
that and market it properly, andjust like trying to
(11:22):
commercialize this around theglobe, how about we help other
people to do that?
People with ideas, businesspeople that come to us, they
need an IT partner to help themto design and develop
applications.
We built the right solution forthem, and they figure out the
rest.
(11:42):
And moreover, we can actuallycash on that, right?
So we get paid to do what wewant.
And so we came up with the ideaof establishing as a group of
freelancers.
And the first idea ofMars-based, which was yet to be
named Mars-based, to be honest.
(12:03):
Uh, but there will be a separateepisode for that.
We'll talk about naming inanother episode.
So we decided to become a smalldesign and development studio.
But again, we got it wrong, orat least not exactly right,
because some people might think,oh, you guys created your you
(12:26):
knew you were gonna be anagency.
No, we didn't.
We didn't.
As a matter of fact, I have avery good anecdote for you.
And I think that is a the sortof stuff that will help you to
see if you're really alignedwith your co-founders, right?
I remember that at the verybeginning of Marspace when we
were conceptualizing, oh, so weare coming up with the idea of
(12:46):
creating the company.
Uh, let's think about names,let's think about like the
services we can offer, whattechnologies we're gonna work
with, what we will do, what wewill not do, what will be a
value proposition, all of theseyou'll find in the next
episodes, most likely.
But there's one thing that I Ithink I came up with this idea.
I don't know if I borrowed itfrom somebody else, but I asked
(13:06):
Xavi and Jordi and my twoco-founders to send me an email
saying where did they see theywere going on a personal level,
and where would Marsbase be inone month time, three months,
and six months, in one year,three years, five years, and ten
(13:29):
years.
And so it was fun to read all ofthis, but we actually got it all
together, and I scheduled someemails into the future, so that
in a month's time we'd bereceiving the three answers,
that of Jordi, that of mine, andthat of Xavi, to where did they
(13:50):
see themselves professionallyand personally and the company
in one month, and successivelythree months, six months, one
year, etc.
etc.
And that goes to show that weare very good at overestimating
what we can achieve in the shortterm and underestimating what we
can do in the long term.
So it was fun after all thesemonths and years past to receive
(14:13):
this email because the firstones we did expect them.
The last ones we had completelyforgotten about them.
And what's more, as I mentioned,like they go to show that we are
not really good at planning.
We as species, not as a company,not as Marspace.
Um because the predictions forthe next month, of course, we
(14:37):
nailed it.
For three months, we actuallyunderestimated what we could do.
And we surpassed ourexpectations and the goals we
had set.
Six months, we completelysurpassed.
And then that dynamic changed.
Like in the in year three, Ithink it was year three, it's
(14:57):
like we thought we were gonna bebigger than we actually were,
but at least the exercise wasreally good because it helped us
to see whether we're thinkingabout the same things or not.
Like, did we actually have uhwant to have a team?
Did we actually want to grow thecompany to be part of a bigger
project someday or just run itas a lifestyle business, like
(15:18):
we've done?
Do we actually want to bootstrapor we want to raise funds?
Uh, do we want to keep being asmall and specialist boutique
agency, or do we want to grow tobecome like a large, big
generalist consultancy and stufflike that?
That exercise was really, reallyuseful.
The other thing that was reallyuseful, and I think that also is
(15:39):
a great exercise for first-timefounders or also for you know
serial founders, but uh I thinkit's most likely first-time
founders don't know about this,the rest have got it figured out
is how and when will you commitfull-time to the project?
And that's something that wedefined early on in the in the
(15:59):
conversations because at thetime Xavi and Jordi were keeping
their jobs, and I just I had toquit my job because I I was
taking a giant leap of faith,and uh my I really hated my own
job, my my previous job, and Iwanted to start something new
and I wanted to be, you know,unshackled and try to be more
(16:21):
focused on what I was doingbecause I thought like if I if I
commit 100% on this, even thoughI'm burning my savings, this is
gonna fly sooner, right?
And uh they've got families,they needed more cash, they
needed the cash more than I didback in the day.
So I think it was uh reasonablethat I took this leap of faith
and they didn't.
So the other thing with it ishey, um the company, you know,
(16:46):
when we found the firstprojects, and that will come in
another in a separate episode,but uh what is the right moment
when we will start payingourselves a salary?
How do we know that is the righttime to commit full-time to
this?
So we established a couple ofrules.
One of them was recurringrevenue.
(17:06):
So we have to have this minimumof recurring revenue per month.
And the second is a minimumamount of cash and the bank.
Whenever these two goals weremet, we would start going
full-time for the project.
At least me get paid, then theywould join later on and uh start
working on the company full-timewith exclusivity as well, right?
(17:30):
These two things help to getMars based off the crown, and I
think there's uh there's acouple of really interesting
experiments that you might wantto bounce off your co-founders
and might help you get yourcompany off the crown.
What else?
Another thing that I wanted tocomment in this episode was uh
naming and branding, right?
(17:50):
Because even though we can havea separate episode about this,
there's something really, reallyshort I want to say here, which
is don't wait till you have theperfect logo, don't wait till
you have perfect name, right?
Because we committed thesemistakes and the first three
projects um that we never reallylaunched before Mars based, we
(18:13):
knew we Marspace couldn't sufferthe same fate.
And so we decided to go forsomething quicker.
We decided to, hey, let's dolike I I think even the first
logo was done with MicrosoftPain uh by Jordi.
And great.
I mean, you can say it here.
It's not not not terrible.
You can see it.
It I think it remained with usfor at least one year or two.
(18:37):
And with the naming, it wassomething great.
We just did a naming experimentof hey, we gotta we gotta come
up with something quick.
Like uh let's set some ideas.
And at the time it was uh twosyllables, um uh this vowels,
and it's got to be like, youknow, easy on the tongue and
stuff like that.
(18:57):
Our reference was like pocketbuffer, companies like that.
Um and so I think it was Jordiwho just got a like a bag and
threw in some small papers withuh two collections of words that
we could mix, right?
And so the first name we came upwith that we actually liked, so
(19:21):
by mixing them, I think it wasmoon-based.
Or like, there's something herewe like this name.
And I don't think we everdesigned a logo for that one.
But the next day, Jordy came andsaid, I've got something better.
And he comes with a logo on thename.
(19:41):
It's like Marspace soundsbetter.
Now, a lot of people have askedwhen I asked people on social
media and our you knowsurroundings to to send
questions for for the podcast.
And one of the most popularquestions is like, why did you
choose the name of Marspace?
Well, that we'll have to waitfor the episode that we actually
(20:03):
dedicate fully to naming, butno, it has nothing to do with
David Bowie, even though we haveused David Bowie as a reference
for a lot of things.
You can say it here, whenever welaunch our first website,
there's a reference to SpaceOddity that I had uh or that we
had built onto the deploymentprocess of our website on
(20:25):
Jekyll, if I remember correctly.
And um and there were more.
We would use David Poe in thehiring process.
There was, I think there was anEaster egg on the website, um,
there was a reference on thefirst blog posts and stuff like
that.
But we never got to theconclusion that we got the
(20:47):
reference or the inspirationfrom David Poe.
It's like we liked how itsounded.
Marspace definitely like struckon us and we're like, yeah,
sounds great, looks cool.
It's got this alien idea that wereally like.
Like we, you know, we want tomake things differently and uh
also related to innovation andtechnology somehow.
(21:09):
Um, and so it was cool, anddefinitely that's why we've
always weaved space explorationand you know astronauts and
aliens and Martians onto ourwebsite, our documents and
stuff, right?
And I think that's pretty mucheverything there is to say about
the how to find idea.
As a recap, we tried many, manythings over the course of a
(21:35):
couple years.
And so we started building stuffaround 2011, experiments in
2012, even 2013.
We actually built the Mars-basedwebsite and we sent the first
email.
One year we incorporated thecompany, one year before we
(21:55):
actually incorporated thecompany.
So that was in March 2013.
The company was incorporated inMarch 2014.
And so for that year, wesilently kept working on the
background as a side thing.
That's also another learning.
Like you don't have to commitfull-time freight.
Like you can do it if you reallycan afford it.
(22:16):
We could not afford it.
Um, we thought it would be moresustainable if we just did it on
the side until we were safe.
Um, another learning is I know,you never get it right on the
first try.
And in our case, like thatsearch spent over the course of
many, many years.
And also, most of these thingswere not planned, they were not
(22:38):
analyzed, they were notstrategized, they were not
architectured, like we didn'tknow what the hell we were
doing.
This is the first company,hopefully it will be our last
company.
And I just want to share this,you know, as open-heartedly as
possible, that we didn't knowwhy we do certain things.
(22:59):
We still don't know why we didthem.
In hindsight, they look likereasonable decisions and very
sound decisions made by us.
But at the time, we're justfiguring things out.
And some things work out great,some things didn't fly.
And some of the things thatdidn't fly never saw the light
of day, like these projects orsome other marketing initiatives
and stuff.
Some you saw over the course ofthe years, like some events,
(23:23):
like the Martian tech eventsthat we Martian talks that we
that we did in 2016 or so, theydidn't fly.
The first iteration of thenewsletter didn't fly either,
and stuff like that.
But some others, they workedsince the very beginning, right?
And even though they look like areally, really, really good set
of decisions, there's a part ofluck that you cannot really
(23:46):
count on it if you want to builda company, right?
So we just want to be astransparent as possible.
That's the one of the reasonsbehind this podcast series.
And we just want to encourageother people that if you want to
build a company, you can do it.
Send us more questions.
I'll be happy to answer all ofthese questions coming in.
We've got some episodes whereI'm just talking, like in this
(24:08):
one.
We've got some other episodes inwhich I will be going over one
question only because it's verybroad and very, you know, it
provides for a lot of um a lotof explanation and and
storytelling.
And some episodes will be like,you know, so technology, for
instance, like A, B, C, likegoing over a set of questions,
and and so feel free to sendthem at Ola at marspace.com or
(24:32):
tweet at me directly, uh sendthem through our social media.
And so, until the next episode,subscribe and like this video,
subscribe to the channel andshare with other people.
If you got ideas for companiesand you want more guidance,
happy, happy to schedule a callwith you or send the questions
to to the to the podcast so wecan answer them here.
(24:54):
And um, feel free to share yourjourney with ours because uh we
have been inspired by otherpeople.
We just want to inspire the nextgeneration of Mars based and
entrepreneurs.
So I'll see you in the nextepisode.
Thanks.
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