Startup success and failure in Spain: Real case studies

Startup success and failure in Spain: who wins and who closes

Can you build a business in Spain without being crushed by the tax office, regulations, or local bureaucracy? This question has persisted for over six years, generating 293 answers from those who tried. The balance is far from a glossy incubator brochure: some earn from a bedroom, others near success, and there is an endless list of closures.

No one agrees on what success means. For some, it is living off one's passion, even with modest income. For others, declaring oneself a 'successful entrepreneur' before 50 is being naive. The narrative swings between these extremes and rarely stays still.

How much does one earn from ten own websites?

A self-taught programmer — who dropped out of university — maintains ten websites and apps, mostly adult content: webcams, Japanese niches, and obscure material to avoid copyright strikes. Together, they yield €300-500 per month. 80% of the money is in cryptocurrencies, received in accounts outside Spain.

His annual investment is around €100 for domains and servers. The rest is time, which he says are 'infinite'. Technically, the sites are robust — NextJS, DatoCMS, serverless databases, prerendered for SEO — but the boring work of uploading and tagging content never ends. He admits that easily a dozen time-consuming projects yield nothing.

The inventory of failures rarely published

The list of closures is longer than that of successes. A publishing house no one bought books from. An osteopathy clinic with two or three patients a week. An apiary wiped out by varroa. A garden destroyed by potato prices. A concrete mixer bought just as the bubble burst. A stationery shop, a greengrocer next to competitors, an online language platform with zero students. Even truffle oak trees that disappeared two days after planting.

This is not an isolated anecdote. The pattern repeats: thin margins, regulatory changes, and unforgiving competition. And a warning many repeat: investing 8 to 10 hours daily for years in something that ends up ruinous is not recovered with a motivational course.

The R&D subsidy that ended in zero

One of the best-reported projects is a shower timer that cuts water and saves gas. It is called Acqua Tempus and, according to its promoter, exports to Australia, the UK, Denmark, Chile, Uruguay, Canada, and the US, with an investment counted 'with five zeros'. The same story claims he applied for a RIS3 grant from the Community of Madrid and the response was zero, literally zero: pats on the back, and asking for a bank loan.

An intermediary would have asked, according to this version, a 25% commission to secure the subsidy. And the opposite is also read: that the company is in creditor proceedings and has given no signs for months. The promoter responds that he just cleared inventory due to an avalanche of orders after a report aired in Russia. Versions do not match.

Portugal, London, and Amazon's top seller

For several, the solution is to leave. One moved his project to Portugal as soon as he knew it would be profitable. Another has two failed startups in Madrid and now lives in London, where he has a small IT consultancy; he claims 'it is rare for a month not to raise five figures' and that he was born poor, with no connections.

There is also one who boasts of being the top seller of Amazon Spain in electronics, with a three-story villa and pool in a private urbanization, although he now starts an artisanal products business and admits he does not have much left. And one who sold his mobile accessories store to a Swedish company with a profit between €20,000 and €30,000 after taxes.

Closing without debt: the decision that saves

An importer of electrician batteries survived five years with good results until a change in air transport safety regulations made the product unviable. He liquidated and closed without debt. The key, he says, was never hiring anyone. Another similar case: mp4 players that the Spanish customs did not know how to tax.

Some, after 25 years in the trade, summarize their experience in several rules: work only in what you love, have no partners, have no office, and learn to say no. And one who warns that starting before 35 without a veteran mentor in the sector is almost guaranteed error.

Ten years as a self-employed worker: the success not in headlines

There is a definition of success not found on any front page: staying alive. A self-employed worker who has worked from home for a decade considers this a success, especially because it allows him to live wherever he wants. In contrast, the thesis that taking civil service exams is the true form of entrepreneurship sounds like office consolation.

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With all this, the answer to the initial question is yes, there are people who have done well. Whether that success can be repeated, last, or serve as a recipe is another matter. And if someone has the infallible formula, they better share it soon: here there is still a queue to read it.