Miscota is the number one online store selling pet products in Spain, and has a strong presence in eight other European countries. In total, it bills more than 140,000 euros per month and distributes more than 15,000 references. Still, Miscota is a young company. It was founded earlier this year by Albert Costa and Xiaolei Jin, two entrepreneurs with extensive experience in ecommerce, who maintain their headquarters in Mataró.Intelectium has led the process of structuring and raising funding for the company. In addition, we have invested in the company through Techxios, a financing vehicle through which we have already participated in five other start-ups. For all these reasons, we believe that Albert Costa He is a perfect protagonist to be part of the series of interviews that we started a few weeks ago with Francisco Carrero, from BrainSins.“An entrepreneur enjoys being that every day. There are adrenaline surges when you achieve milestones, but you also enjoy learning from things you didn't expect“. This is how pragmatic but enthusiastic Albert appears to be from the start. “We have been through bad times, but after something bad, something good usually comes”.One of those bad moments was the budget. Intelectium helped to raise 1 million euros in funding for the company in two rounds, in addition to designing the business plan. “In Miscota we think we're good at selling online. But we are not specialists in defining the business plan. We started designing it on our own, but we saw that we had to rely on a specialized company. Intelectium helped us to do this in an organized and professional way”, says Albert. Despite these initial problems, already resolved, Albert does not notice that the crisis has had a decisive influence on the evolution of Miscota. “The crisis has not been noticed when it comes to raising capital for our company. In Spain there is capital, although, of course, only for good projects. And that's what we've been focusing on. We believe that we have a solid project, nourished by our experience, which includes the things we have done wrong. In addition, we have taken the last steps easily, and quickly”.Albert is grateful for the role of investors, which he believes is fundamental, since he considers it “very difficult” to grow organically, without their help. “Investors are even more important in a project like ours, since we have an important international expansion objective.” Support that is not only limited to the economic sphere: “With their vision, they help us to contrast what we do and to move faster“.Costa believes that in Spain people no longer sell online due to lack of supply, and believes that this is a good time for specialized initiatives such as Miscota. “Ours is a mass market, a lot of people have pets, but in general there aren't many highly professional online sales companies. It is a very good time for online sales businesses specializing in a sector to start, and that they aim for internationalization”.Where will it be? Miscota a decade from now? Albert wants the company to be a leader in Europe. But he makes notes: “We want to be leaders, but above all leaders in execution and buying experience. We strive for excellence in service so that both suppliers and customers are one hundred percent happy with our operations“.Costa concludes the interview by advising entrepreneurs for work and passion: “There are so many aspects that you don't count on, that if you don't have passion, they don't succeed. In our case, it has been especially important, because, unlike other businesses, in ecommerce you don't just focus on the product and the web, but there are other areas, such as logistics or customer service”.
