Via Empresa interviews Albert Colomer

Albert Colomer, president of Autoocupació, has appeared on Via Empresa where, during an interview with Pau Garcia Fuster, he highlighted the current need to establish guarantees and facilities for self-employed workers. He also championed the work of small and medium-sized enterprises, one of the most important economic agents and job creators in the Catalan territory. In this regard, Albert Colomer, who is also the promoter and president of the Reempresa project, highlighted this initiative, linked to the buying and selling of small and medium-sized businesses in Catalonia, as an innovative and vibrant project with the capacity to renew the potential of small and medium-sized businesses that wish to sell for various reasons.

• Should self-employment be differentiated from entrepreneurship?

There can be a nominal discussion, but I believe that initially, all businesses start small, and on day one, it’s a one-person job. If that one person is very entrepreneurial, they will try to hire two or three like themselves on day two and grow from there. But if those they hire are not entrepreneurial, they will remain at the level of self-employment and provide some work.

• But often, one of the criteria for investors is to distinguish someone who aspires to grow the company into a large one from someone who just wants a job for themselves…

Yes, but I must be strange. Here, we have helped launch 5,000 businesses that are the living force of this country. 98.8% of businesses have fewer than 10 employees and are of this type. They account for 60% of employment and 75% of private employment. This is a treasure we have and it must be supported. For me, the person who finds a workspace for 10 people in Anoia, allowing 20 families to live, is just as good as anyone else. It’s clear that if you want to invest to multiply your capital, you’re interested in a racehorse. But the one pulling a cart every day is still a horse. Startups and entrepreneurs are sexier, but the gentleman who has been fixing motorcycles for an entire neighborhood in his workshop for 20 years is also fantastic.

• How has the crisis affected interest in self-employment?

People are realizing that we will all be self-employed or we will not be. Maybe we’ll call it freelance because it sounds better! (Laughs) We are heading towards a world of fragmented income, and the only way to organize it well is to be self-employed. For me, at 18, instead of an ID card, you should be given a self-employment card. A CIF number that allows you to start economic transactions, which is what we will eventually do.

• Precisely, some new regulations for the self-employed have been approved, which seem to have satisfied the sector’s associations…

Yes, we will extend the 50-euro contribution… but that doesn’t mean they are covering you for 1,000 and you pay 50. You are contributing 50 and you have the right to self-exploit. Agreed. Or the part-time self-employed person, with whom you have the right to be legally precarious. I believe the change must be mental: do we help these people or not?

• What changes would you make, then?

Firstly, the self-employment regime is what politicians should have. Why aren’t deputies self-employed? They don’t work for any company. If they were self-employed, we would see how conditions improve. We all have guarantees provided by the system for working. Why should not working for others have different guarantees? With this criterion, we could also put different guarantees for blondes and brunettes. The scheme of the two regimes is absolutely dusty. Everyone wants autonomy except the self-employment regime! I believe we should all have a self-employment regime, and I would prohibit the employed regime. You work for yourself, whatever the framework.

“The self-employment regime is what politicians should have”

• Those who have participated in Reempresa are also self-employed. How is it going?

It’s going like a rocket! We travel the world and people are amazed, and so am I. I invented it flying to Beijing in 2009. I took a lot of documentation to organize myself, and this came out, of which there were already examples in Europe. Ultimately, it’s about thinking, first, that not only those who start from scratch are entrepreneurs. In fact, it’s much harder to start from scratch than to start from four. And, at the same time, understanding that there wasn’t a market for buying and selling businesses.  

• Well, there have always been the “For Sale. Inquire here” signs…

That’s shooting yourself in the foot. They don’t put “collapsing” because… When it’s already falling apart, you put up the sign to see if you can get something out of it. Reempresa is something else. It’s a renewing, very vibrant movement. Many people have found a way to refocus during very tough times due to the crisis. Currently, there are almost 200 technicians trained by Reempresa in more than 80 institutions in Catalonia who had never worked in a network and are now doing so.

• What is the profile of both the transferor and the successor?

30% of those who sell their business do so due to retirement, and with this, we have changed the mentality that selling your business was for something bad. The business doesn’t have to be doing badly when it’s sold. We have also found thousands of highly skilled people who were unemployed. People aged 50 and over who corporations have laid off. They are not entrepreneurs, but they know how to manage a small team and understand numbers. They provide work for a few and have enough to live on; they don’t need more.

“It’s much harder to start from scratch than to start from four”

• Is the key to its success the structured handover?

We call it business transfer. Transfer means it’s done with care. And, in fact, transfer can be associated with free, and much of what is transferred is like that. Someone who transfers 50 years of a bakery to you, with the name, the premises, the clients… all for 40,000 euros? They’re not giving it away, but almost. The main interested party in the business continuing to operate is the one transferring it. It’s not the ‘take the money and run’ of traditional transfers. Here, there’s a whole process of mentoring and follow-up. Just like in an athletics relay, both runners take the baton and run a few steps together; we do the same. We have already sold 1,270 businesses, more than one every day last year (404), and this year we already have more than 200.