Accelero trip: three days in Barcelona

AI first, human in the loop (and vice versa)

It’s not even seven in the morning on Passeig Marítim in Barceloneta, along Barcelona’s coastline. The sun is just rising over the Mediterranean, yet the promenade is already busier than Ghent’s Coupure on a Monday morning. A pack of around 120 runners passes by in the morning light.
It’s the image of Barcelona that stays with me: a city that wakes up early, buzzing with an infectious, positive energy. We would find that same energy everywhere over the following days: in meeting rooms, among the people themselves and across a city where entrepreneurship, gastronomy and sports blend effortlessly. With sunshine thrown in. On the rocks. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

Scaling takes centre stage

During the founder sessions, Sebastian Ross (IESE) shared ten principles of scaling with us. Through his Foundations of Scaling programme, he has already coached more than a hundred founders. The difference between growing and scaling is fairly simple. When you grow, additional input generates a similar amount of additional output. When you scale, you get more output for less input.

Scaling comes with growing pains. The kind that traditional painkillers such as workplace massages, a fun offsite, a wellness budget or resilience training simply can’t fix. We were presented with around twenty painfully recognisable growing pains. Confronting? Definitely. But confrontation helps: you can only start working on a growing pain once you have identified it.

Meeting several entrepreneurs at Banco Sabadell’s start-up studio was equally insightful:

• Axel Puerta, CRO of Smartpoint, shared a fascinating story about the pivot his PropTech scale-up has gone through in recent years. From digital lockers to a fully fledged service kiosk for residential buildings and offices.
• Jan Heuninck is 26, has already sold one successful company and is now active at Hotelspeaker, which has meanwhile grown to 170 employees: scaling squared, from a sailing boat at the Paris Olympics. Your jaw drops and you can’t help wondering what on earth you were doing at 26.
• Tanya Van Gastel bootstrapped her first company through SEO and is now putting that expertise to work at Ranking on AI, her agency focused on AI visibility for fast-growing SaaS companies worldwide. Never underestimate the importance of backlinks, so: you’re welcome, Tanya.

At Factorial, Barcelona's HR-tech unicorn, we saw those scaling principles in action. On steroids. Their platform covers everything from payroll and finance to talent management, with AI first as a guiding principle, of course. One detail stuck with me: Spain has required employers to record working hours daily since 2019, under Royal Decree-Law 8/2019. Belgium is due to get the same obligation on 1 January 2027. So a company we visited as a scaling case study turned out to have spent seven years solving a problem that lands on our desks next year. They already serve Belgian customers, and were refreshingly honest about their own growing pains.

If AI is the answer, what is the question?

One session that offered a refreshing perspective came from Domestic Data Streamers, a studio that turns data into human experiences for clients including Google, Spotify and the United Nations. Data scientists, artists, engineers and developers literally sit around the same table to make numbers easier to grasp. Too many numbers make people switch off; understanding those numbers creates engagement.

Naturally, they are also exploring the power of AI. But the key question they ask with every AI project isn’t “what can AI do here?”, but rather: “if AI is the answer, what was the question again?” A refreshing perspective for anyone who mainly thinks of AI as a synonym for efficiency.

They also tackle socially critical issues. In response to the proliferation of CCTV cameras, they decided it was time to start keeping an eye on policymakers themselves.

AI is everywhere, and so is Voka

A Voka inspiration trip comes with a packed schedule. Between company visits, you hop onto a shared bike or into an Uber and watch the city fly by, passing countless businesses along the way.

At a powerhouse like MediaPro, a global player in sports production with around 7,000 employees and more than 25,000 live events a year, we heard how technology is making sports content production faster and faster, and how M&A as a scaling model is now benefiting from reconsolidation and efficiency. At Barcelona XRLAB, we immersed ourselves in new forms of storytelling through virtual reality and immersive screens. And Spain’s fastest supercomputer, MareNostrum, is fittingly housed in a former chapel on the campus of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. Our Father, who art in the cloud, hallowed be thy name.

A glass of wine with Claude?

The common thread running through most of the company visits and presentations is obvious: AI, of course. It’s everywhere. In every idea, every concept, every presentation. Everyone realises that AI is the challenge, the opportunity and a key success factor for the future and growth of their business. AI is both a value generator and an efficiency tool, whether for a company that is growing or one that needs to reconsolidate.

But what you take away from a trip like this goes beyond those insights alone. It’s a bit like a university course, combining theory and practice. The theory comes from the presentations, tours and cases you are presented with during the inspiration sessions.

The practical part happens when you talk to speakers and fellow entrepreneurs about how to apply those ideas, exchange experiences and discuss growing pains. Ideally over patatas bravas, jamón ibérico and a glass of wine.

Those interactions probably give you the most practical insights to take back and apply in your own organisation. One big think tank, three days straight, grounded in real-world experience. And sure, you can brainstorm with Claude too, but I’d still rather do it with a human. Human first, AI in the loop.

No offence, Claude.

A huge thank you to Voka, my fellow entrepreneurs and all the organisations that welcomed us so warmly for three days of energy and inspiration.