Daniel Leo was looking for a place with low taxes to move his business to. After attending a course on the tax benefits of the Canary Islands Special Zone (ZEC), he moved from Lecce, in the heel of the Italian boot, to Lanzarote. An island he fell so much in love with that his dream is to create an application in which all the businesses on the island can advertise their products for free.
His company, PortalClub Internacional, specializes in digitalization. In particular, in the field of web multi-publication, which allows its customers to advertise products on multiple channels such as Facebook, Amazon or Ebay at the same time. An experience that Leo now applies to all types of companies thanks to the fact that, according to him, PortalClub Internacional is today the only supplier in Lanzarote of the Digital Kit for web presence.
Ekonomus has spoken with him at his headquarters in Arrecife, designed in the purest Google style, so that his workers feel at home. This is the first in a series of interviews with entrepreneurs who, thanks to the ZEC, have created economic activity on the island.
Why did you decide to come to the Canary Islands and in particular to Lanzarote?
I was looking for a place that would give me the possibility to make the most of my savings and in the Canary Islands I found the opportunity of the ZEC thanks to a course offered in Tenerife, where I learned about all the benefits of being in the ZEC.
I came to Lanzarote, first, because the investment you have to make to qualify for the ZEC is less than in Gran Canaria or Tenerife and second, because it is the most beautiful island, everyone who comes falls in love with Lanzarote, it is unique. In addition, among the non-capital islands, Lanzarote has the largest population and the most life.
How did you find out about the ZEC?
I had a lawyer friend in my country who told me: 'I have heard that the Canary Islands has the lowest taxes in all of Europe'.
How many employees do you have?
I have nine employees in Lanzarote and I would have more, but it is very difficult to find an apartment in Lanzarote. So I also have some computer scientists working remotely from other places. We want to grow as a company and have more employees in Lanzarote because the strength of the company is in the people who make it up, not in the boss.
I understand from your words that there are some profiles that are difficult to find here. Which ones are they?
Programmers, because the island is so focused on tourism that few people study programming. And those who do, do not usually return to Lanzarote, because once they are outside they already find work there.
I have also hired engineers from Lanzarote and I have worked with them for many years. Apart from programmers, we are also looking for sales agents. A profile that we do find on the island and that is very necessary, because our main market, apart from the Canary Islands, is in the peninsula, so we do a lot of sales by telephone.
What are the main advantages that the ZEC provides you now in your business?
Surely the taxes, also the purchase of the premises, since I saved the IGIC. Thanks to that I changed my life and enjoy my time more, I enjoy more things. And this opportunity was given to me by the ZEC. Also the opportunity to expand the business and do more things, such as becoming a digitalizing agent of the digital kit. Without the ZEC I would not be here. It may be that I was in another place, paying more taxes...
What was the business like in Italy?
In Italy I took a course on the Google indexing engine. Once I understood what SEO (search engine optimization) is, I went back to my job and quit. I realized that understanding SEO there was a lot of work.
We started playing and developed a car website. We got to have 4,000 daily visits, which was a lot in 2007 when the crisis started in Italy. The problem in Italy is that the tax burden is very high and companies have to pay a lot, even if they have not yet collected from their customers.
How was the move to Spain? Did your number of customers grow?
We opened in Lanzarote and the company became international. In addition to Italy, we have customers in France and in Luxembourg. We have also worked with the largest company in the car dealership sector in the United States. Spain is today our largest market, where we have about 500 customers. We are the second largest company in the country in web services for car dealerships.
When did you make the leap to making websites for all types of businesses?
Actually, always, our customers in the car sector always had a friend in another sector who needed a website to promote their products. Today we are a reference center in multi-publication services.
But thanks to becoming an official digitizing agent, thanks to European funds, we work with all sectors providing innovation and also entering the field of restoration, where we are digitizing orders, cash register, warehouse management, etc.
We are the only official digitizing company in Lanzarote. We have not found any other that has joined the program. We are official digitizers of the Government. This is incredible because the Digital Kit is a unique opportunity for IT companies. You work for free for the clients and then you get paid by the Government. The client only has to pay the IGIC, which they then recover when they file the declaration.
Could you explain that app for Lanzarote companies that you dream of?
In the same way that we can export the information about the products sold by the companies that collaborate with us to channels such as Facebook, the whatsapp catalog, amazon, ebay... we can also export these products to a Lanzarote app.
I would like to offer this service for free to all companies in Lanzarote to put their products. So that an internet user can download the application and see all the products of the companies on the island.
I would need the support of some outside investor, it could be the Cabildo or some bank because I want it to be free for the companies. Orders would be made in a similar way to how they are made with the Glovo application. In addition, many of these companies are already in our system. It would be a way to give back to Lanzarote and the ZEC the opportunity they have given us, that is my dream.
