Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2010, in the middle of Spain’s economic crisis; its references to the last decade and its forecast that renewables and solar power would be the star businesses reflect 2010.
What business should you start? Even though Spain is one of the countries hit hardest by the crisis, we can still create very profitable businesses. In fact, it’s worth asking why, as in any other country, many businesses have closed while others are still in full expansion.
As a Spaniard myself, I’ve seen from a young age how the entrepreneurial mindset of Spanish business owners clings to the business thinking of earlier generations. The old saying “Quien tenga tienda que atienda” (roughly, “whoever owns a shop should mind it”) is more than outdated. That way of thinking has meant that businesses in Spain with more potential than others never went on to become international businesses.
The lack of innovation among Spanish business owners has taken its toll over the last decade, when we thought we were masters of business without realising that any apprentice was setting up their own company.
It has been shown that anyone could be a great businessperson when the wind was in their favour, just as it has been shown that, with the wind against them, very few business owners knew how to run their business.
Spain has had three big sources of income and three big businesses: oil, construction and tourism. Right now the biggest of them has failed, breaking the chain of income that benefited other businesses. So what we need, more than new business ideas, is a new mindset to apply to our businesses.
We have gathered the sectors with the most demand right now and looked at the businesses with the brightest future in Spain.
Spain is still a country with strong demand from tourists, so we have gathered the best business ideas related to leisure and tourism.
As in any country, there is still room for businesses providing services to homes and companies:
And our star businesses in the very near future will be the ones generated by renewable energy and solar power, since Spain’s climate is ideal for them.
Further reading
- Renewable energy businesses
- The businesses of the future
- Common mistakes Spanish business owners make
- Differences between Spanish and American entrepreneurs
Featured image: Koza1983, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
