Carolina Argenté is from Sitges (Barcelona), studied Business Administration and Management, and holds a master's degree in strategic information technology management. After working for large technology companies, she decided to leave everything behind in 2016 and travel the world for three years until she settled in Lanzarote.
Currently, he directs the tech start-up Go PopUp from the island, a platform for any company to find the right space "to create a pop-up store to position a brand or product," places that are also hired for filming, photo and video shoots, meetings, or workshops.
More than 3,000 spaces in thirteen countries
Argenté's company brings together more than 3,000 spaces in cities across thirteen European countries, including Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Vienna.
Go Popup offers venues for these presentations or any other type of corporate event, similar to what Airbnb does with accommodations. “You can ‘rent a tent or a space for just one month or for three days. It’s about bringing the digital to the physical.”
“We do a lot of SEO positioning and work to ensure the best experience for users and owners. As an expert in digitalization, business development, and above all technology, I am in charge of scaling the platform.”
In addition to the technological platform, Go Popups has another smaller business line where they directly offer the design and production of the popups or ephemeral stores themselves, a team led by the company's co-founder, Michelle Felip.
A journey around the world that concludes in Lanzarote
“I was doing very well, I had been promoted every year, I was in charge of an innovation department, but I didn't want to work for a large multinational. I needed to start my own business, do something of my own, and I started by exploring the world,” she shares.She did it alone and by hitchhiking. She was in Central America, North America, and especially in Southeast Asia, where she trained in diving, a sport that was key to her moving to Lanzarote.
"Lanzarote is an island that really helps you have your corner to create, to visualize your company's strategy well"
"I wanted to stop running around so much and be closer to home, but I was clear that I didn't want to live in a big city." Through some friends who were surfing in Indonesia, she found accommodation in La Santa in February 2019, where she obtained her diving instructor certification, one of her great hobbies.
She even worked briefly in it, but the pandemic arrived and once confined, she got to work on her dream: "A company with global impact, I'm that unambitious" (Laughter).
The entrepreneur based in La Santa, who considers herself "one more Canarian," shares that her objective now is "to establish ourselves as leaders in the countries where we already have many spaces, and then expand to others."
How did the company emerge?
The truth is that he didn't have to create it but rescue it from bankruptcy. He secured €300,000 in funding from Ona Capital and changed the business model.When asked about the reasons for Go Popup's bankruptcy, Argenté believes that "it was created too soon.""In 2013, if you told a company they had to do a pop-up, they'd say: 'What's that?'" The generalization of this phenomenon is recent, "it comes from the pandemic, which represented a structural change.""We were coming from an increasingly digital world, but the pandemic was a turning point for online commerce to explode," explains Argenté, which made many physical stores and premises available.
Lanzarote, its spaces and its potential for entrepreneurship
Argenté explains that they also want to expand throughout the Canary Islands and, in fact, already has several spaces available in Lanzarote and Tenerife.The founder of Go Popups highlights "Lanzarote's potential at an entrepreneurial level because it is a very creative island, it is an island that helps you a lot to have your corner to create, to visualize your company's strategy well without so much noise."Argenté believes that “Lanzarote is perfect for doing business. A big city is not necessary to create a big company”.He also highlights the opportunities offered by the Chamber of Commerce of Lanzarote and La Graciosa, such as "the Impulsa program, which is very interesting".
