Erick Vera exemplifies the Alliance Manchester Business School spirit: he’s hands-on, he sees opportunities and seizes them and he’s full of optimism and a love for entrepreneurship.
Erick graduated from the Full-time MBA in 2018 and since then he has been building his company, Little Inca from the ground up. During his MBA, as a seasoned entrepreneur, he worked on his own business ideas when students typically do an internship.
Little Inca started close to home for Erick, “When I was 16 or 17 years old my dad got some beautiful land in the south of Peru, a farm with a river and mountains. At that time I had an idea - ok, we need to grow something and we need to export worldwide, you know?” But the time wasn’t right, so Erick first developed a restaurant in the seaside town of Cartagena in Colombia. “It was on a corner and the concept was good, the location was good but I didn’t have the right team at the time. The idea was quite crazy because I was working full-time in Peru in insurance. I learned a lot and it was a great experience but after a few years I thought, my family has this beautiful area in the Andes so I need to do something.” That’s when the idea that would become Little Inca was born.
“I did my research and saw that quinoa prices were increasing every year, so that’s when I decided to grow it. It sounds very simple, right? But I didn’t have any idea how to do it! I was still working in insurance at the time. So, I spoke with my dad and my uncle. There were several hurdles - it’s difficult to have organic certification, for example, so I went to food trade shows and met different exporters. I told them, look, why don’t we work together and I can grow for you? You can export it and you can help me to grow. I met one exporter from Peru, he was very kind and he helped me a lot. Within six months we were growing quinoa. My first harvest was in 2014 and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation had declared 2013 the International Year of Quinoa. They published a report that compared quinoa with other grains and legumes and they said that quinoa could tackle malnutrition. Because that report was released, all the markets went crazy in the US, Europe, everywhere. The price skyrocketed by more than 200%. It was amazing and I loved being involved in food, but from the start growing the ingredient and developing the product was challenging. When you’re a farmer, you depend on raw materials with volatile prices and your costs change all the time. You want to develop value-added products – it’s just more stable.
I figured I needed to develop a great product but which product? So, I went into supermarkets in Peru and I checked out all the different options: quinoa pasta, quinoa burgers… I had all of these ideas but then I went to the baby aisle, and I found there was fruit, some vegetables but no more. That’s when I thought OK! Quinoa for babies! Of course, I did my research to see if quinoa is good for babies and that’s how we started. That was in 2015 and I went home and spoke to my parents. We worked so hard, I was developing the formulas in the kitchen with them. We went to an event for parents in Lima and we just presented. I printed a banner that said Quinoa for Babies and outlined the benefits and the parents liked it. It was very interesting for me to have that feedback directly from the consumer. That day we sold out and it was great. My mom had to come back in the afternoon with more purees to feed different children, it was a great experience. ”
Choosing an MBA
That was the moment Erick decided to go for an MBA. “I had some capital and I started to apply to top universities. I selected Alliance Manchester Business School because it’s in the UK. I knew the UK was a very entrepreneurial country and I wanted to be in that type of environment. It was critical for me to be in Europe and to be in the UK. I stopped work on Little Inca for a bit and I was focused on doing my MBA.”
He explained how the programme helped him get from idea to execution. “I didn’t have any idea of how to set up a company here. You don’t have any guidance, so the MBA was a platform where I could connect and get help. In the beginning, I was very slow but I realised it was so good to be in an environment where I could meet more entrepreneurs and I went to lots of different events with Manchester Enterprise Centre. It was so critical for me to hear people’s ideas because they stick with you, you start to think ‘you know I think this (my business idea) is possible.’ You are surrounded by people who are very motivated and that’s quite inspiring.
I think it was very important that I had a clear idea of what I wanted after the MBA and I’d recommend that to candidates. It doesn’t have to be 100% of course, but at least 40%. Just an idea of whether you want to find a job or get into entrepreneurship because that will help you to go straight towards what you want. For example in my class, I knew someone who wanted to find a job and since they arrived here they have connected with people and networked with the postgraduate careers team here. In the end, they got a very good job. I believe that if you have a good idea of what you want to do, you can get there. If you are interested in entrepreneurship, you have Manchester Enterprise Centre as well and they have lots of connections. Before I even came to the UK, I had a call with Martin Henery and he talked through my goals, he told me about the steps I would need to take to reach them, he explained my options. I asked him about my idea and the health market in the UK. It was so interesting, and people at AMBS are so keen to help you along your journey.”
With a strong sense of his goals and an entrepreneurship scholarship in hand, Erick quit his job and came to AMBS. “I was still thinking about Little Inca, of course, so the first thing I did when I came here was go to Tesco and Sainsbury’s and I looked at the baby category. I was surprised that I didn’t see any products with quinoa and I knew I had to develop one. During the whole MBA I was working on that idea, that’s why I didn’t do an internship, I was focused on my personal project. Then suddenly the ball started rolling. I started to meet more people because, during the MBA, I was doing another project as well. I was exporting Physalis, a type of Peruvian berry to the US. Before the MBA, I set up a factory in Peru. I exported dry berries, chocolate, purees and things like that. It was quite difficult to manage because I was here, the factory was in Peru and I was sending it to the US. The first six months of the MBA were crazy for me, I didn’t sleep. That’s how I met my current co-founder because he has a factory in Peru and he was making all those products for me. I had this critical point in 2017 - the MBA was finishing in April and I needed to figure out what I would do after, whether I’d get a job or keep doing my own thing. I wanted to work on my ideas so I needed another type of visa because I don’t have a UK passport.
Funding Little Inca
I applied to the Start-up visa through the university. You need to send a pitch deck to a professor and if they approve, then you are invited to pitch. The university approved my project and I got the visa. So with the legal side sorted, I needed to continue. I moved to London because it’s very interesting for doing business. There are a lot of events, a lot of connections, and I had so many meetings with investors. The main problem I had at that time was that I didn’t have a track record, I just had an idea. Most investors want a track record and I spoke with one investor who told me, ‘Erick, I have 100 start-ups that have been selling for more than two years and they want the same amount of money as you.’
It was very tough for me to find investment but fortunately, a Peruvian investor I had met before was coincidentally in London. We had a call and I sent him my pitch and he really liked it. He had known me for four years and he knew everything I wanted to do. He really liked my perseverance over the years so a week after sending my pitch, I had secured my first funding.
That’s when I set up my company. I was working on the concept of the brand, we found a good factory and we had good prices. In 2019 we had our second funding round because we needed smart money: an investor with connections in the industry to help us grow. We met this person two years ago at an event in London. His company has been one of the fastest-growing companies in the UK for two consecutive years. I was actually in touch with him for years. I went to his office every three months and said, ‘Hey look I’m doing this.’The last time I went, I told him about quinoa for babies and he liked the concept. Six months after that I got back in touch when I got my visa. That’s when he said, ‘Ok, Erick let’s talk now - I’m very interested.’ We had the factory, we had real samples and that was great. We negotiated for almost three months and in April 2019 we secured our second funding and that pushed us to produce. We just finished production in December 2019.
We now have a science and nutrition team: we have Joao Incio, a Harvard PhD graduate in w life sciences who gives us access to the latest research. We also have Catherine Jeans, one of the greatest nutritionists in the UK who appears on the BBC sometimes. She backed our brand and we just finished our website. Once we got investment I worked with my team to secure listings with distributors and supermarkets. Fortunately, we were listed with a major distributor in the UK and we just received our first purchase order. They work with different stores like Planet Organic and Whole Foods. We sent our samples and the presentation to Whole Foods and the feedback was quite positive: they liked the brand, they think it's different. Especially with recent research into the gut microbiome which is very important for parents.”
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