Jfederero | From User to an Investor in WeFish App

WeFish managed to close a round of financing in just one week. During that time, many investors were able to join this project with a clear international growth path, and we want to highlight one of them, jfederero. What’s special about this investor compared to the rest? Juan Federero is not only an investor but also a user of WeFish. His passion for fishing has led him to fall in love with this project. How about we let him tell us himself? Take a look at his interview and learn more about his motivation.

First of all, who is jfederero?

My name is Juan Federero and I am from Seville, although I currently live in Barcelona. For the past 4 years I have been working in Digital Marketing and currently work as a CRM Manager at Glovo. I have worked in several startups and I love applying my knowledge in promising digital projects, where I learn from daily.
I do that from Monday to Friday, but I am fan of fishing every day of the week since I was 14 years old, which is what brings me here today.

Why did you decide to invest in WeFish?

Although I have invested in a few startups, with WeFish it was different from the start. I met Alberto through common acquaintances and the enthusiasm & desire with which he spoke to me about his company, I had no doubt that he was going to get the project ahead on his own. But for me, the most important aspect was that we are united by the passion for this sport and I believe that this gives a value to my investment that is more sentimental than economic.

What differential value do you think this app has?

From my point of view, the anglers who fish as a sport feel a sense of community. When Facebook started growing, we went there to share content in a different way. But the reality is that Facebook is not made for this, since we also share the space with non-fishing friends and family, who couldn’t care less about posts related to fishing.
However, WeFish is an app that offers us a social network, where we can share our catches and show off a bit, as well as a way to track our catches with data that I would never have saved.
Additionally, I think that WeFish is a product that has a long journey ahead with many functionalities, where it can become into a great app for fishermen: we now have a diary where we can track catches with analytics including time, pressure, statistics, etc. and a place to sell second-hand equipment, but maybe I could also find the lure I was looking for, in the store where it is cheapest or discuss in posts with other anglers on different topics, see interesting articles or videos about my preferred fishing modality that I’m too lazy to search for on Youtube… And I could talk all day about this…

What are you liking the most about the app?

You are probably going to kill me, but I do not use it as much as I would like, the reason is because I have gone from fishing every weekend to doing it at most once every two months. So, getting into the app and seeing so many anglers pulling out big catches, gives me too much anxiety and an itch for me to go out fishing again immediately.
Now in times of COVID, I am catching up on my fishing diary and seeing what I can buy on the marketplace. For me, what I liked the most and what I am figuring out how to get the most out of, are the statistics of my catches: being able to upload a catch with its location and a date, and learning everything that happened that day in terms of for time, temperature, atmospheric pressure and lunar phases, I found it fascinating.

“What I liked the most and what I am figuring out how to get the most out of, are the statistics of my catches”.

What do you think the return on that investment will be like?

Like any investment in a startup, the perceived risk that it has is clear, but it also has a great long-term return if all goes well. Actually, I don’t consider any return forecast yet as there is still a lot left for that and, as long as the team continues to do a great job and continues to showcase good numbers, both I and other investors who enter can continue to contribute as long as possible.
This period of COVID has created a great deal of uncertainty among investors, but it also opens up new opportunities for many companies that are going to emerge and we are sure to get some surprises, for better and for worse. By closing the round pre-COVID, WeFish will now have to demonstrate that it can make a good product and is scalable to other markets with sustainable user growth. The rest will come.

How was your first fishing experience?

My fondness for fishing came to me when I was little, when I would go fishing with my grandfather, “surfcasting” without me realizing it, in Isla Cristina (Huelva). Later, a classmate told me about going fishing in the Guadalquivir dock, with: a literal 2-euro barbecue rod from “Deca”, a buoy, hooks, a putty made with flour and “ground-bait” that I prepared at home from breadcrumbs that my mother wanted to kill me for, because I would leave a mess in the kitchen.
Meanwhile, in a fishing forum called Spainbass, I discovered black-bass fishing and every afternoon after school at 17:30, I would plug into the computer and read all the posts. I learned all the brands, lures and colors by category. My mother always told me: “If you would put the same effort in your studies as you do in fishing …” (Laughs) and I had to laugh, of course, because she was right. Also there, I met a fishing club called Giralda Bass and I made very good friends who would take me out to the Andalusian reservoirs every weekend when I didn’t have a car nor a driving license.
From that moment on I completely changed all the Friday night parties that I was expected to have at my age, to preparing equipment and getting up at 5am on a Saturday morning to go fishing. And here I am, with a room full of fishing gear and living in Barcelona but wishing I could fly to Seville to go fishing once the quarantine is over.

“Every afternoon after school at 17:30, I would plug into the computer and read all the posts. I learned all the brands, lures and colors by category”.

As a fisherman, what has been your best fishing experience? Share with us that memory that remains with you forever.

I have never stopped to think about it, as each one has its charm and not only because of the fish: going fishing in January and almost catching hypothermia, leaving my house at 2:30 in the morning, when the alarm was at 5:00 because I couldn’t sleep from nervousness, driving 1,100km with a boat in tow just to fish for a weekend… (Laughs).
Perhaps the most recent and most memorable, was in February 2019, a 6-7 day fishing trip that I did with a friend to the Bacurato reservoir, near Los Mochis in Sinaloa (Mexico). More than 24 hours of travel with the necessary stops. We planned everything a year in advance, we were buying equipment during that time ONLY for that trip. I took a checked bag (20 kilos exactly) full of the material, a 2.20 meter PVC tube for 9 fishing rods and then a small hand bag, with some clothes for 8-9 days, with more lures and reels . In all the checkpoints, they made us explain what the suitcases contained. In short, they took it very seriously.
We got up every morning at 4:50am, had breakfast and went fishing until 18:00 on a boat with the guide only because there was no space for more. To give you an idea, in Spain it is very unusual to get black-bass catches greater than three kilos. There, due to the variety of the species, the abundance of food and the practice of catch and release, several fish of that size or larger came out daily. For me it was something incredible. We left the trip, booking another one for this year 2020, but we couldn’t make it. Nonetheless, we will return for sure.