Interview 001 – Carlos Quesada
Carlos Quesada - COO of Neko Escalada, Spain
Please could you tell us about yourself, where are you based, and what do you do in your role?
My name is Carlos Quesada, I am partner and founder of Neko Escalada in Logroño, Spain. I am Neko’s COO and in charge of all the business operations. I lived in the USA for 26 years where I spent most of my time developing operations for a company in the Midwest as well as leading role as CEO of a non for profit in California.
How would you describe the state of the climbing industry in your country, and how do you see it evolving in the next few years?
Climbing gyms are a fast growing industry in Spain. And there is no sign to slow down, on the contrary there is more and more money invested in Spain every day. It has picked up a lot of speed in cities like Madrid and areas like Catalunya, but it is spreading all around the country quickly.
Neko had a grand ambition to open a premium bouldering centre on a relatively thin budget, in the middle of the beautiful, wine-growing Rioja region of Spain. How did you and your team manage this achievement and how has this affected your future plans for expansion?
My brother and partner, Diego, pinpointed the city of Logroño as an ideal location for the development of a commercial boulder gym. Its location, culture and population was the right fit for the size and type of investment we were looking for. We spent a lot of time researching the industry not only in Spain but all around Europe and Great Britain. We worked very closely with the designer and builder of the walls and came up with an original and advanced design that is being recognized very quickly by the climbing community. We pulled together all our assets and after finding the right location inside the city we worked many hours ourselves getting the building ready. Logroño has been from the beginning a test site for future developments.
By using local talent for almost every aspect of the build and opening how do you feel this affects the end product for your customers?
We search local help for generic parts of the project, for critical ones, we searched all over the place, including outside Spain. We ended using Surfaces for Climbing, a phenomenal team of experts based in the northeast of Spain.
We knew that finding the right routesetting team was going to be the biggest challenge, so we searched for some of the best outside our region and involved them on the purchasing and the installing of the holds to begin, while we seek experienced routesetters in our region. We were very fortunate to hire some great talent. Having great setters is critical, our product are the blocks, and we need to continue offering great quality for all levels of difficulty.
What are some obvious areas of weakness in the industry in your area of expertise; are there a lack of qualified people, is there a defined pathway into what you do, are there any development opportunities?
The financial world does not understand the potential and magnitude of return on the investment of our industry. Finding people who sees that and want to join a venture like ours is very difficult. It is a growing industry so professionals who understand it is very hard to find. We at Neko are entrepreneurs who climb, not climbers who are entrepreneurs. The norm is for people who love to climb to open a climbing gym and struggle developing an organization, a professional operation, etc. The original Neko team is made of experts on operations, finance, customer service and climbing. We built a very strong team to manage all aspects of the business at the same time. Impossible to do correctly when it is just one person.
We believe the industry needs to collaborate to professionalize many of the critical positions, in particular routesetting, and educate the financial world so they understand what a commercial climbing gym looks like, vs just a climbing gym.
Opportunities are everywhere, but the investment needs to match the potential of a location. They are investing absurd amounts of money on cities who cannot possibly achieve the financial goals needed; I hope I am wrong about this, but we believe we have found the right balance of investment and financial potential return.
We are already lining up opportunities in Latin America and other countries around the world.
What advice would you give to a new climbing wall business that has just signed for their first property?
First of all, build a strong team to start with, don’t try to do it all yourself. Do your research. Build your market base, don’t just open and wait to see what happens. Ask yourself, who are my customers? Is the climbing community enough to fulfill your goals or you need to create market? What are your goals, to have an awesome place for hardcore climbers or do you want to be something everyone can enjoy?
How can people find you if they’d like to learn more and get in touch?
