Enrique Linares (letgo and Plus Partners): “VDS turns connections into real opportunities”

Enrique Linares, co-founder of letgo and partner at Plus Partners, reflects on his journey as an entrepreneur within a tech ecosystem that has changed dramatically over the past decade. In this interview, he looks at the role of VDS as a global meeting point for founders, investors, and corporations, and highlights how Valencia is steadily establishing itself as one of Southern Europe’s major tech and entrepreneurship hubs.

 

What was your experience like when you first started out as an entrepreneur?

I started out because I wanted to build my own company. I didn’t even know that was called “entrepreneurship” at the time. As time goes by, you start discovering the internet, you start seeing stories from the United States… I launched my first startup in 2009. Back then, in Spain, you had companies like Tuenti and Idealista, but that was the first wave. There simply weren’t that many entrepreneurs. There were no events like this, no blogs, and not even venture capital firms.

So it was more about a dream, about wanting to build your own project and link it to technology, because it was clearly the future. I loved everything related to the internet, innovation, and so on. That’s when I founded Capitalis, a fintech startup designed to help banks acquire customers online. We sold Capitalis in 2014, and that’s when we were fortunate enough to catch the next wave: apps. The iPhone launched in 2007, it took time to gain traction, and by 2014 you reached that peak moment when smartphones were everywhere, networks were ready to transmit data, and new business opportunities emerged. We saw it, we built letgo, and within three years it became a unicorn because it was truly disruptive. It’s similar to what we’re seeing now with AI companies, where valuations can grow extremely fast.

 

What do you think defines the entrepreneur’s DNA?

I think entrepreneurship starts with a dream: wanting to change the world, wanting to be your own boss, wanting to build a team, to be disruptive, to create things, and to grow as a person. There’s obviously a financial component, but because you’re constantly pushed far outside your comfort zone, under a lot of stress, you end up developing skills that are very hard to acquire in other environments.

 

What differences do you see between starting a company more than ten years ago and doing it today?

The difference is enormous. By nature, entrepreneurs are alone. When you’re leading something, when you’re the one making the decisions, that inevitably creates a deep sense of solitude. You feel there are things you can’t really share with anyone. Today, though, that solitude is much more supported. You have other entrepreneurs, access to success stories, and even access to investors and business angels who help you along the way, as well as advisors. I think that support is fundamental.

 

What role does VDS play in this evolution?

An event like VDS is truly impressive. The fact that Valencia has grown to this scale, with this level of speakers, investors, and people coming from all over the world, is remarkable. It’s good for Spain, good for Southern Europe, and extraordinarily good for Valencia.

Having something like this so close means that a young person who’s still studying, who may be years away from starting a company, can come here, experience it, see the ecosystem, and talk to people. That’s incredibly powerful.

When I started out, there was nothing. No success stories to talk about, no community. Today, it’s very easy to talk to someone and have them share information or talk openly about their mistakes. Of course, there’s far more information online, but the real difference is the human element. The energy, the feeling, the atmosphere—that’s what VDS is about.

Here you meet people you simply wouldn’t have access to online. By pure chance, you might end up having coffee next to exactly the person you needed to talk to. That happens to me all the time. Those coincidences really matter in entrepreneurship, and you have to believe in them.

 

How do you see the Valencian startup ecosystem, and what do you think will happen here over the next ten years?

I came to Valencia for the first time three years ago to give a talk, and I was truly impressed. What’s even more impressive is how much it has evolved since then. And once again, VDS plays a key role in that positioning, in the role it plays within Spain. Everyone I speak to is here during these days. You can feel the impact, the growth, how professional everything is, and how well organized it all is. That really shows, and it makes a difference.