The KopyCenter copy shop, located in Arrecife, is closing its doors after 26 years of service. The founder of the company, Jaime Izquierdo, explains that at first he was going to set it up with some Germans "but in the end they backed out", so, together with his wife, Emma Rodríguez, they decided to "take a risk" and started the business together.
Izquierdo points out that the passage of time and "the advance of technology" have brought great changes. "It went from being a simple copy shop to being much more, a graphic printing center. We have taken clients such as the Cabildo, the City Council and the advertising of the airport, I still carry it exclusively," says the founder of KopyCenter.
"We have been adapting to the current of each time. When people asked for plans, we put plans, when they started asking for vinyls for the floor, we made them. We have lined half of Lanzarote with them. And when they have asked for QR codes, we started studying and we did them," he explains.
Izquierdo points out that he is "sorry" that he has not been able to transfer the business. "There was no interest in buying. I don't see young people very risky to work so hard. This is a job that is hard, it is many hours. So either young people don't take risks like we used to take risks before or maybe the banks don't support them as they supported us at the time. To open this I needed money, buy machines and take a lot of risks. And my heritage," he adds.
After more than two decades of work, Izquierdo and Rodríguez will now enjoy their retirement doing one of the activities they enjoy the most. "Now one is older and what he wants is to ride a motorcycle. My wife and I take a motorcycle and we are going to go to the North Cape, to the north of Norway. A month and a half of travel. We take a motorcycle in Lanzarote, we take it to Huelva and we do 15,000 kilometers round trip," he says.
After so many years, the founder of KopyCenter explains that he takes the clients in his memory. "I'm staying with the small clients. They have been the ones who have kept us going. The big ones always squeeze you a lot, but I thank the small client for having continued there. Local commerce is the most important of all and it is the one that must be taken care of and who should be saved. What the big ones do is squeeze us and in the end we all work for two nothing more, which is what is happening," concludes Izquierdo.
