Neither waiting in series nor launching and fixing it later
When an activity needs authorisation, the plan tends to order itself: authorisation first, everything else afterwards. It looks prudent. In practice, it means partners, team and first customers wait for a process whose timetable nobody in the company controls.
The opposite temptation is worse. Launching before knowing what is allowed and fixing it later exposes the company to the regulator, to its partners and to the customers it promised something it could not offer.
The regulator, partners and first customers do not run on the same calendar. Regulation sets the pace, but someone has to set the sequence. Your advisers run the process; leadership decides the order. It is strategy, not paperwork, and it is the core of a technology and regulated markets mandate in Spain.
Map the regulated perimeter with your advisers
The first step is not commercial. It is knowing, from your advisers' analysis, which part of the activity is regulated in Spain and which is not.
It is rarely all or nothing. There is usually a core that needs authorisation and work around it that does not, or that needs it in a different form. Until that perimeter is in writing, every conversation with partners or customers is a bet.
Leadership does not decide the perimeter. The rules set it, as your advisers interpret them. What leadership does decide is what to do with it.
What can move in parallel while you wait for authorisation in Spain
Once the perimeter is clear, some work does not need to wait, without prejudice to what the rules require and to what your advisers confirm.
Partners. Identify who makes sense to work with in Spain and prepare conversations consistent with your regulatory position, without promising what you cannot yet offer.
Team. Define the profile of the first local team and which functions must be covered before operating.
Internal governance. Decide who answers in Spain, how the board is kept informed and how regulatory advisers are coordinated with the commercial plan.
Sector conversations. Order who to speak to first and with what message, so that everything said is consistent with the regulatory position.
What does not move in parallel is the regulated activity itself, or offering or promoting it. That waits until the process allows it.
What to do
- Ask your advisers for a written perimeter: which part of the activity is regulated in Spain and which is not.
- Separate in the plan what depends on authorisation from what can move in parallel, and confirm that split with your advisers.
- Prepare conversations with partners and first customers consistently with your regulatory position, without commitments you cannot yet meet.
- Name one person accountable for coordinating the regulatory process with the commercial plan.
Written by Xavier Cima, Founder & CEO