Decalogue for entrepreneurship by Javier Perea, CEO of Smart Protection

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“Coffee with Entrepreneurs” is an initiative by the Bankinter Innovation Foundation that connects audiences with leaders from the entrepreneurial ecosystem to share their experiences. The autumn 2021 series began with Javier Perea, a seasoned entrepreneur in cybersecurity. Javier co-founded Anyware in 1989, which was acquired by McAfee in 1998, and is currently CEO of Smart Protection. His entrepreneurial journey started early, with his first company born from his university project. After years of intrapreneurship at McAfee and Intel, he invested in and grew Smart Protection from a small team to over 140 employees. Smart Protection specializes in protecting intellectual property online by removing illegal digital content, having taken down over 11 million URLs as a certified Google partner.

In a conversation with José Carlos Huerta, Javier shared over 30 years of insights from entrepreneurship and corporate innovation. He emphasized a healthy relationship with risk and highlighted the value of gaining experience within large companies before starting a venture. Key lessons include the importance of anticipating market trends, choosing whether to focus on products or services, and building a strong, international team. Javier advocates for balancing profit with people and planet—ensuring business benefits society and the environment. He stressed patience in entrepreneurship, the necessity of delegation, and the critical role of venture capital and industry knowledge. He also praised Spain’s vibrant startup ecosystem, noting improved social appreciation for entrepreneurs and greater technological and marketing capabilities among young professionals.

During his talk at our "Coffee with Entrepreneurs", Javier Perea, CEO of Smart Protection, commented on the 10 essential attitudes that must be developed to be a successful entrepreneur.

“Coffee with Entrepreneurs” is the initiative of the Bankinter Innovation Foundation that brings you closer to leaders in the entrepreneurial ecosystem to learn first-hand about their experience and trajectory.
The autumn 2021 cycle has begun with Javier Perea, an entrepreneur linked to the world of cybersecurity, current CEO of Smart Protection, and co-founder of Anyware in 1989, acquired by McAfee in 1998.Javier has entrepreneurship in his blood. When he created Anyware with Carlos Jiménez, he had not yet finished his business degree and the germ of the company was his final degree project and the antivirus against the Viernes13 virus created by Carlos. Ten years later, they sold Anyware to McAfee and Javier embarked on the corporate world with McAfee, carrying out intrapreneurship for many years until, in 2017, he invested and embarked on Smart Protection, which had just over 10 employees then and today has more than 140.In this startup, they protect intellectual and industrial property rights on the Internet; They find and remove illegal copies of digital assets with the aim of minimizing the negative effects that piracy has on sales or a brand’s reputation. To date, they have removed more than 11 million URLs from Google thanks to their certification as a Google TCRP (Trusted Copyright Removal Program) partner.

In his chat with José Carlos Huerta, our Head of Analysis of the Startups Program, Javier told us about his experience of more than 30 years in the world of cybersecurity, both entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship in large corporations (McAfee and Intel). Here are 10 lessons we learned from this talk:

  1. To be an entrepreneur you have to have a “good relationship” with risk: the uncertainties and ambiguities of the market are two realities that you have to live with without being altered.
  2. If you have an entrepreneurial spirit, in a large corporation you can learn many things:
    1. They have great experts from whom you can learn a lot.
    2. They have very powerful methodologies .
    3. You canbe an entrepreneur, taking risks that others do not want to take.
    4. You learn about mass markets, mature products, what strong marketing campaigns look like, etc.
    5. And, above all, it gives you a global vision of the market and the knowledge to be international.
  3. From this last point, the third arises: To go international, you must surround yourself with a team that has international experience. Knowledge of the international go-to-market is not so common. Approaching international markets in a profitable and industrial way is not easy and there is a lack of profiles. Javier knows this well because in Smart Protection he has clients such as Netflix, Warner Bros or Amazon, and global agreements with Google and the main social networks.
  4. If you want to grow fast, you have to be one or two years ahead of what is going to happen in your market. Without anticipation, you’re late.
  5. When you decide to become an entrepreneur, the first thing you have to decide is if you want to have a product or if you want to sell services. In Spain there is a lot of orientation towards the provision of services and little culture to create products. The huge difference is scalability: with services, you’re going to have much slower and more complex growth. Also, if your intention is to sell, the company with products usually has much more value than the company with services.
  6. To be an entrepreneur, you have to be aware of the value you bring. What is the why, the purpose. Javier recommends that we base ourselves on the3Ps: Profit, People and Planet.Of course you want to make money and create wealth, but that is not enough: you must also focus on ensuring that the people who accompany you on the journey of entrepreneurship can develop personally and professionally in all their capacities and, in addition, that your business is beneficial to the environment or, at least, neutral.
  7. You must also adopt the mindset that you are a long-distance runner. Success is almost never fast, although from the outside it may seem so. Paraphrasing Steve Jobs, Javier tells us that “If you look closely, most successes took a long time.”
  8. The team you surround yourself with is essential: Choose good travel companions very well, let them make mistakes and learn, and build the group with which you want to enjoy your adventure. And speaking of equipment, the ninth lesson:
  9. Learn early where you contribute and where you don’t: Entrepreneurs often have the defect of thinking that they do everything very well and that they cannot delegate. It is important to change your mindset to know who can do things better than you, and even direct yourself.
  10. Two fundamental keys to success: Venture Capital and knowledge of the sector. Venture Capital allows you to accelerate both product development and market time. Knowledge of the sector will allow you to detect needs earlier and offer more horizontal products (to more customers in more sectors). Javier points out the excellent state of health of the Spanish entrepreneurial ecosystem, of which the Bankinter Innovation Foundation is a key player with the Startup Observatory and the Scaleup Spain Network Program program, which, created together with Endeavor and Wayra, is now celebrating its second edition.

You can check out the Coffee with Entrepreneurs here:

  • Venture Capital did not exist then and now there is a lot of money and a lot of support and help. This is a huge advantage for growing and scaling, although it could become negative, if you don’t get the full return on what you invest.
  • Theimage of the entrepreneur has changed completely: Before, he was not well understood and was the “weirdo” of the group and the family, and now he is very well regarded socially.
  • The technological and marketing capacity is much greater; young professionals who go out on the market are much more prepared and in Spain