Nicknamed the Spanish Mark Zuckerberg, Jesús Encinar is founder and CEO of Idealista and 11870.com, two popular Spanish startups. Named one of the 25 most influential Spaniards on the Internet by leading Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Encinar was the only Spanish entrepreneur elected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2008. The Ávila-born Encinar is also a member of the Association of Internet Investors and Entrepreneurs (AIEI), a collaborator at technology accelerator SeedRocket and is on the advisory board of Seaya Ventures.
But unlike the famed Facebook founder, Encinar’s entrepreneurial journey did not start in a college dormitory room; neither did he drop out of university. Instead, he took a decidedly conventional route, graduating top of his class at Madrid’s ICADE University after studying Business Administration and subsequently earning an MBA from Harvard Business School in the US.
Born in 1970, Encinar had also seemed destined to climb the corporate ladder. He cut his teeth at McKinsey & Company and worked in brand consulting for the likes of Yahoo and Amazon in Silicon Valley. He returned to Spain in the late 1990s, leading the European consulting team at Wolff Olins, where he worked with major Spanish companies clients such as Vueling, Acciona, ONO and R.
Idealista, his first foray
Yet in 2000 and just shy of his 30th birthday, Encinar eventually left the corporate world to establish real estate portal Idealista with his brother Fernando, finding inspiration for the startup’s name from his mother who had always called him an idealist.
In an era that was still dominated by paid classified ads, Idealista attracted homeowners who could post their ads on Idealista for free, as well as real estate professionals who took advantage of the new online medium to market their properties.
Today, Idealista is Spain’s top online real estate marketplace, and is Europe’s third largest. It has more than 775,000 listed ads, 130 million page views and over 4.5 million users per month. In addition to its native Spain, the company has established a presence in Italy since 2007 and subsequently in Portugal.
From its roots as a digital repository of property ads, Idealista has become a feature-filled portal. Sellers and renters can upload a large number of images and videos to enhance their ads, while professionals have access the site’s cloud document storage service.
Mirroring this growth, the bulk of Idealista’s income which was initially derived from web advertising revenue, now comes from real estate professionals who pay to use the portal’s tools to manage their portfolio of properties, contributing 65% of the company’s current income.
Idealista had received early funding from socially-conscious Spanish bank Kutxabank and Bonsai Venture Capital SCR, which injected €1 million into the company in January 2003. Marked by such conservative fund-raising in its earlier years, Idealista grew organically without the fanfare and inordinate valuations usually associated with technology unicorns. The company’s founders had long preferred to maintain control over the company and did not consider an exit through an IPO.
However, following the €273 million sale of 82.6% of Idealista to UK private equity firm Apax Partners in June 2015 (leaving the founders with a 15% share of the company), a public offering is now a possibility even though it is still not the company’s stated goal.
11870.com & Co.
Founded in 2006 by Encinar with Nacho Puell and Roberto Heredia, 11870.com aimed to help food establishments better manage their customer reservation systems.
When he started 11870.com, Encinar acknowledged his food-enthusiast instincts while drawing on the same business strategy he had employed in Idealista - providing reasonably-priced technological tools to professionals in the restaurant sector.
The company has since expanded globally and now features a variety of small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) who are keen to increase their visibility online, while riding on the trend of customers who are increasingly relying on online reviews to make purchase decisions. Be it a capsule hotel Tokyo or ferry service in New York, each SME is featured on its own webpage. Users can post reviews and opinions, photos and videos as well as join conversations in a blog and forum style.
By 2016, 11870.com was attracting more than 300,000 online reviews and 2 million calls to its 11870 telephone information service. A marketing agreement with QDQ Media further boosted the number of SMEs listed on 11870.com, making it one of Spain’s top recommendation sites today.
When he is not founding companies, Encinar is busy investing in them. He has taken stakes in Rentalia and TopRural, real-estate related startups founded by María Esteve and François Derbaix, and has also served on their management teams. In 2012, TopRural was sold to HomeAway for €14 million, while Idealista acquired Rentalia.
Combining features from Idealista and 11870.com, Rentalia connects users and owners for temporary or short-term stays in holiday homes and country cottages. Property owners can pay to upload unlimited photograph uploads and have their ads translated into seven languages, while users have the option to leave reviews on the site.
Despite his forays into real-estate technology, Encinar seems to have eschewed Internet time, taking a measured approach that is evident in his work and life. Ironically, he was well into his forties before he acquired his own house and even then, had spent two years searching for it. One cannot help but wonder if Encinar’s success is due to, not in spite of, his down-to-earth approach that is so different from the fabled lives of other technology entrepreneurs that we have become accustomed to.
