I learned business at 14, with Yeray and 3,000 strangers

My first business school had no classrooms.

It had 3,000 people I'd never met.

I was 14.

Yeray and I organised events. Not birthday parties. Events of around 3,000 people. At an age when most adults wouldn't lend you their car, we were responsible for something that size.

I'm not going to pretend I remember every detail. I don't. And I'm not going to make up a heroic scene for you either. What I do remember is the feeling. And the feeling taught me more than the details ever would.

Doing it before you're ready

We had no idea what we were doing.

That sounds like a confession. It's actually the point.

Nobody is ready the first time. Not at 14 and not at 40. The difference is that at 14 you don't yet know you're supposed to wait until you are. So you don't wait.

I think that's the most useful thing those events left me with. Not knowing how to organise something big. Knowing that you can start without knowing, and learn on the way, as long as you take it seriously.

Nobody is ready the first time. At 14 you just haven't been told you're supposed to wait.

Years later, that same instinct was there when we started Foxnice with no investors and very little money. Was it sensible? Debatable. Were we ready? Obviously not. Did we do it anyway? Also obviously.

Three thousand people don't care how old you are

Here's the other thing a teenager learns fast when 3,000 people turn up.

They don't care about your excuses.

They don't care that you're young, or that it's your first time, or that something went wrong at the last minute. They came for something. Either it happens or it doesn't.

Clients are exactly the same. Nicer, usually. But the same.

When you're small, it's tempting to hide behind it. "We're just two people." "We're new." It's true, and it's irrelevant. The person on the other side has a problem and is trusting you with it. Your size is your business, not theirs.

Picking a partner at 14

And then there's Yeray.

Most people choose a business partner after years of career, some networking and, I imagine, a fair amount of spreadsheet. I chose mine at 14, without knowing that's what I was doing.

We're still at it. Friends and partners. And he still does what he did then: act as a counterweight. When I speed up, he slows things down. When I get carried away, he asks the boring question nobody wants to hear.

I don't think that's luck. Or not only luck. When you've organised something that big with someone, that young, you find out very quickly what each of you is like under pressure. That's a job interview no company can replicate.

So when people ask me where I learned business, I could say university. Or Barcelona. Or the years as a freelancer.

All true.

But the honest answer is that I learned it at 14, with Yeray and 3,000 strangers who didn't care how old we were.

P.S. All these years later, we still haven't agreed on who was in charge.