Making it Happen in Africa

We talked to Adrian Vinuales on how Jobartis has the largest number of offers on the market and he the following to say about it.

First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times? 

Adrian Vinuales: Doing well, thanks! It is actually such a critical question for an entrepreneur who decides to start a tech startup having a wife and kids, relying on all his income and family support to the project. And more importantly, in these Covid times, to be close to them while at the same time focusing on the project.

Tell us about you, your career, how you founded Jobartis.

Adrian Vinuales: I was born in Barcelona (Spain) but presently living in Luanda (Angola) since 2009. I worked on several projects until 2014, when I co-founded one of the first local tech startups in Angola, the first and only online job board today in the country. Since its creation, I have been the Director of Business Development besides general coordination.

I studied for my Social Psychology degree in Spain, later completed a Master’s degree in Organizational Psychology/HR in California, and also finalized an MBA in the US too. I have broad international work experience with a focus on HR, e-learning, and business development in several countries such as Spain, Portugal, the USA, Mexico, Lebanon, Mozambique, and Angola.

How does Jobartis innovate? 

Adrian Vinuales: The online job board www.jobartis.com is the only online job portal with a presence in Angola. Jobartis is the leading brand in the Angolan market in terms of online recruitment, with the largest database of Angolan candidates. We have positioned ourselves as a highly recognized brand among the Angolan public. This local success contributed to our offline activities, such as our agreements with educational institutions in Angola, and other online initiatives like Educartis.com for education.

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?

Adrian Vinuales: Like any other business in the world, online job boards have decreased their online business by around 40% due to fewer recruitments made during this time, and a shortage of personnel working, since teleworking is not yet a reality in many African countries. We developed some offline add-on services to cope with the situation leading us to end this year with some slight growth compared to last year.

Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?

Adrian Vinuales: The most difficult choices have been with our personnel, reducing the team, and forcing human resources decisions on our staff. Having contingency plans for these situations is the best lesson learnt, despite being difficult to anticipate.

How do you deal with stress and anxiety?

Adrian Vinuales: I have been training more than ever, once a day for one hour. Working from home for many months is a dangerous situation, and balancing physical and mental health is key to endure in this long process back to normality.

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

Adrian Vinuales: We don’t have still competitors in the online business in Angola. Since we have developed some offline add-on services, we are also competing with traditional recruitment agencies, opening a new way of planning our strategies. Besides, we are now expanding to new countries in the region where we will find some local online competitors.

Your final thoughts?

Adrian Vinuales: Africa is still a really small percentage of the global investment for tech startups, with a lack of local investors in most, which makes it a really challenging arena. Even worse in non-English speaking countries, which are out of international networks. But still, there are great opportunities to disrupt with simple ideas becoming quickly the market leader with barely any competitors. Hopefully, with the help of media like yours, we can bring more attention to international tech companies, ecosystem builders, investors, and others to help us turn around this challenging environment making tech and digital initiatives the future real economic resource of Africa. 

Your website?

https://www.jobartis.com/