Entrepreneur in the Spotlight: Renato Ignacio Minubia: Everybody Always Mobile, Always Connected

This edition’s Entrepreneur in the Spotlight is Mr. Renato Ignacio, founder and CEO of Minubia, a company based in Curaçao that opened its office in Bogotá, Colombia in early 2016. Minubia also has clients living in other parts of the Dutch Caribbean – Aruba, Sint Maarten and Bonaire, to name a few.

TEXT NEELAM MELWANI

A smartphone. In short, according to Mr. Renato Ignacio, that was the start of Minubia, a company that now offers a variety of enterprise mobile solutions to businesses in Latin America and the Caribbean. Enterprise mobility is an up-and-coming trend that enables and promotes employees to work outside of the typical office environment, while constantly being able to connect to their work. The essence of enterprise mobility is essentially far greater than just the mobile technology, and actually allows for the relationship between an employer and employee to change – creating more flexibility in working environments, where results, rather than the number of hours per day a person works, determines their success.

About Minubia
Minubia is an innovative company, that, in the line of enterprise mobile solutions, offers ‘Minubia Cloud ERP,’ ‘MiOrder,’ and ‘MiFlow.’ Each of these different products is linked to Minubia cloud, the ‘brain’ behind all Minubia’s solutions. The database contains everything ranging from customers, products, tasks, GPS tracking, orders and messaging, and employee information. The cloud gives you insight into the workings of your company, providing each user with the information they need to do their job effectively.

‘Minubia Cloud ERP’ is a cloud-based ‘Enterprise Resource Planning’ allowing companies to effectively connect to the workforce, making information readily available on a ‘cloud’ in real-time. This allows for employees to work from anywhere at any time. Essentially, investing in something like this could make complicated work processes obsolete. ‘MiOrder’ is a sales tool that efficiently manages sales speed and order processing. Lastly, ‘MiFlow’ is a workflow management tool that allows companies to keep track of progress through using the cloud services.

What’s a ‘Cloud’?
A ‘Cloud’ is an online workspace that is always available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from anywhere around the globe… where you have access to a secure Internet connection. A cloud provides you with a system to centrally manageyour work – without accumulating a pile of papers on the side of your desk. It updates automatically, and all users can access it at the same time, without delay… updating the contents in real time. It’s easy to use, and above all, Minubia aims to provide its clients with far more than just the technology, Minubia gives the one-on-one attention a company needs to actually use all the resources linked to the cloud.

Dedication Pays Off
According to Ignacio, who studied software development and business informatics, “We have so much potential at our fingertips, and in 2013, we were doing so little with this technology – just taking pictures and messaging. Mobile devices are supposed to make our lives easier; we wanted to maximize the use of smartphones.” Ignacio highlighted the importance of timing and dedication for starting a business. This is Ignacio’s third company, and he says, “This was just the right time.” In 2013, there was enough technology available to make Minubia useful, and enough people had a smartphone, making the product increasingly attractive to potential clients.

After developing their basic product, he picked up the phone and used it for its most basic use – calling a long list of potential clients one by one. Quickly, he realized that it was far easy to reject an innovative idea on the phone, than it would be in real life. So, he took to the streets, driving to companies and organizations on the island, and having meetings and giving presentations.with. A year and a half later, Ignacio saw the fruits of his labor.

“My father is my biggest inspiration – he too has his own business. No matter what kind of day he had the day before, he’d wake up and go to work and be better than the day before – not just to provide for his family, but also to offer the best of the best in every way he could.” This core principle is what keeps Ignacio going everyday. He believes in his products and he knows if he does, then other people will as well.

Growing Minubia
The great majority of Minubia’s customers are from the wholesale, distribution and financial sector. Minubia’s focus lies in personalizing solutions for customers, something that can be time consuming and complex. “We always try to design our solutions in a way we can easily adapt it to meet our customers needs. We focus on the simplicity of our solutions. Most of our end users have not used business software before, so we try to make things as easy as possible.” Minubia’s focus lies on developing one-on-one relationships with their customers.

Ignacio often uses his track record and existing network to reach out to his clients. The key to starting a business in Curaçao is using it to learn and grow and keeping in mind that the market will be saturated relatively quickly. For Minubia, this means building a brand in Curaçao, and expanding on the types of products the brand offers. “We’re constantly developing new software products to sell on the local market.”

Minubia started looking for other international markets very early on. They trusted their product, and were sure that there was a need for this product in Curaçao as well as abroad. Minubia opened an office in Bogotá, Colombia earlier this year. They also already have a client base in the rest of the Dutch Caribbean. “By the end of the year, we’ll be active in both the Caribbean and Latin American markets,” added Ignacio proudly.

“We recruited the ‘right’ people… on purpose.”
Minubia’s team currently consists of seven members. Building the company in Colombia however, means that their team will continue to expand. Minubia is a flat organization, and Ignacio focuses on encouraging collaboration and critical thinking. “Our days are packed, that’s why we’re constantly prioritizing our work to increase our efficiency. We try not to work overtime.”

“All my heroes – they’ll all tell you that they didn’t build their companies on their own. Thesame way, I always knew I couldn’t do it on my own. It’s about all the people I surround myself with – I find the ‘right kind of people.’ No one who works for Minubia works there by accident.”

According to Ignacio, Minubia is only successful because of its dynamic and professional team. A good idea is nothing, if the people who you work with don’t believe in it as well. In terms of employment (and everything really), Minubia plans five years ahead. This allows them to know what kind of people they are looking for and at what time, and they can add people to their shortlist over time, even if the position hasn’t opened up yet. When it does, they know exactly who they can reach out to. They regularly interview potential candidates just to know what makes them tick. Skills are something that can be taught, but a person’s ‘why,’ that’s what makes them unique, and that’s how you know if they fit into your company or not.

Measuring Our Own Success Keeps Us Sharp!
Ignacio mentioned that they spend a lot of time reflecting on their product, services, and processes. They document their successes, as well as their mistakes to make sure they never make them again. “If we do something wrong more than once, that means we didn’t learn from it… and the learning part, that’s most important to us. That’s why we measure everything.” Because we measure everything, we can predict how long it will take to finish a product or to land a customer. Minubia quantifies everything. Most of the time, Ignacio says, it’s much better to take a risk and make a mistake, learn from it and move on rather than asking ‘What if.’ No matter the outcome, it will always be lucrative, especially if there is little chance of success. “We experiment frequently, not just to improve our products, but to keep us sharp.”

Keep on Innovating
Ignacio’s role models say so much about his company and its model. When we asked him who is role models in the industry were, he mentioned Elon Musk, CEO and CTO of SpaceX and co-founder and CEO of Tesla Motors (amongst others). The reason for this is his dedication to make his dream reality – starting somewhere one day, and knowing where you want to be one week, one month, one year, or ten years down the road and making it happen. Similar to Musk’s ideas, Ignacio says the most important part of his business model is to keep innovating – making his own product obsolete by creating something newer and better before the market does. “We try to capitalize on our own products and predict what the next invention is going to be that could make our product obsolete. Then, we build the new product and making it obsolete before anyone else has the chance to do so.” Minubia’s first product is already three years old, and of course, they are constantly upgrading it to best meet the needs of their customers, but more importantly to hold on to their market share by always raising the bar, and making something better than what they made before.

Curaçao is the Best of Both Worlds
Aside from being from Curaçao, Ignacio emphasized that Curaçao is a good place to build a business. While it takes a lot of effort, the market is small which makes it easier to connect with customers. It does take time and patience, especially when it means creating demand for something people might not even know they need yet.

Ignacio focused on the importance of looking at the market in Curaçao – finding ways to make a product that appeals to the whole market, and the chance is if you can do that in Curaçao, then your product will survive abroad. According to Ignacio, “Curaçao is the crossroad between Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean. Its strategic location and influences from so many different countries makes it a unique market – one where so many different cultures come together.” This is the perfect incubator for a start-up or a new idea – because you have the space to change, experiment, learn and grow, as long as you plan ahead.

The Future is Bright
Like his role model, Elon Musk, Ignacio is driven and motivated. We asked him how he started his day, and his answer was simple: “Every morning, I challenge myself. I have a list of goals – weekly goals, monthly goals, yearly goals. Everyday I ask myself, which goal am I going to achieve today? It’s about having a vision and a dream – starting somewhere, and making sure you finish exactly where you want to be a couple years later.”

Minubia hopes to continue to improve the quality of life by making tasks more efficient, and giving their clients more time to enjoy the things in the world outside of the office – the things that matter. It’s not just about the product, it’s about the effect that the product has on the lives of those who use it – that is what drives Renato Ignacio and what is at the essence of Minubia’s success.

As Minubia continues to reach new markets, plans have been drawn up for what kind of company they want to be ten years down the road… down to their next hire in order to get there. This long-term thinking and endless dedication is what will continue to be a deciding factor as Minubia signs their next deal, enters a new market, or makes one individual’s life a whole lot easier with a product that they might not even have developed yet!