“For me success is the freedom of choosing between options, making the right decision and then being able to share the consequences with the people that matter.”
These are the words of one of the most successful Magento entrepreneurs of his age, Ignacio Riesco Martin.
With more than 15 years of experience, Ignacio Martin, the Chief Operating Officer at Interactiv4 is one of the most celebrated entrepreneurs in Spain today. He is also credited to have organized the first ever Meet Magento event in Madrid. In his own words, ‘The event was a huge success.’
During the interview with Cloudways, he candidly shared his plans to organize more Magento related events in the coming months. Ignacio is very much optimistic about the release of Magento 2.0 – the much-awaited version for ecommerce websites. He also shares his opinion about the problems being faced by Magento end users, the security of web stores, and hosting.
Cloudways. Ignacio, the community knows you as CEO & Founder of Interactiv4. For the last 10 years, you have achieved tremendous success. You are an entrepreneur in your own right. How would you define success? What challenges did you face during all these years? What was the motivating factor that kept you moving all these years long?
Ignacio: What a question to begin… the meaning of success… Well, for me success is the freedom of choosing between options, making the right decision and then being able to share the consequences with the people that matter. If we talk about business, it is all about achieving your goals… and enjoying doing it.
For me, success is something always related with finding the right people to be around you. In this case, I really want to mention my partner Juan Alcantara for sharing with me his knowledge, unconditional support and friendship.
The main challenge I faced is to learn how to be focused and reach the correct definition about what kind of company you want to be and then make the very best of it.
My motivation is my family, no question about it. I am the most lucky guy on the earth for having the understanding, unconditional love and fresh lovely smile of my wife and kids.
Cloudways: Interactiv4 is credited to organize Meet Magento Spain in 2014. This was the first ever such event in Spain. How was the experience? These events are good source of encouragement and you get a lot of exposure on the whole. Are you planning to hold other such events in the future?
Ignacio: The experience was awesome. I really enjoyed organizing the first Meet Magento event of 2014. If you had the chance of taking a look to the speaker lineup, the content provided in the presentations, the quality of the event production and the whole Magento Community atmosphere we created… everything was perfect.
I only can say thanks to the team, speakers, attendees and for sure all the sponsors that support the event. I want to see those happy faces again the 2015 edition in Madrid!
And, I am also very proud to say that interactiv4 is the only company that made two Meet Magento editions for the first time in two different countries in the same year. My partner Kimberely Thomas made an impressive job at Meet Magento New York and I also believe that this year’s edition in going to be even better.
Save the dates:
Meet Magento NY 2015: New York City, September 21-22, 2015.
Meet Magento Spain 2015: Madrid, October 27-28, 2015.
Cloudways: As we all know, ecommerce is growing with each passing day. Magento 2.0 is to be released in 2015. As someone who keeps a close eye on upcoming trends, what impact on ecommerce do you believe Magento 2.0 will have?
Ignacio: It’s really difficult to predict an impact of something that is still in continuous evolution. But I do think that from the last year, Magento is making good decisions and there is a very reliable team behind focusing on delivering a really good product. I want to make a special mention to Alant Kent and Ben Marks (so glad we have them onboard) for keeping the eye on quality and leading the project.
But at the end, all it is about merchants. They are the most important part of the ecosystem, and I hope that we all have the responsibility of making them keep the trust by delivering better tools and solutions. I hope that Magento 2.0 will offer a new quality of standards by optimizing all ecommerce processes to increase the conversion rate and reducing the transaction costs.
For us it is an opportunity. We are looking forward the launch date and we are currently playing a lot with it.
Cloudways: Being the Founder of an ecommerce organization, you must have had a fair idea of the problems online businesses traditionally face during the initial years after the launch. Give three tips to start a successful and sustainable online business.
Ignacio:
- Ecommerce development is not a cost, is an investment.
- Make a real business plan and don’t be afraid of asking for help and advice.
- Find a good, experienced and reliable ecommerce development partner.
Cloudways: Magento websites are prone to various security threats such as, credit card misuse, information theft, etc. How can online businesses protect themselves from the clutches of hackers?
Ignacio: My advice: I think that no one is 100% safe from hacker attacks. All eCommerce sites must have a DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan). If you are a merchant, make it with your hosting and development partner. Prevention is the key, but a good and rock solid reaction plan will make you feel safer. Regarding Magento project, be sure you have all security patches applied.
Cloudways: I follow you on twitter and facebook, You mention that on your twitter profile you have three kids. What do you like to do on the weekends? How do you spend your time besides work, with your family? What are your favorite sports?
Ignacio: I love being with my family. As you mention, I have three kids and there is always something new. I love to learn from them. My kids, like I did when I was a child, are playing basketball and we love to go together to watch their weekend competition games. We have a small bball court next to our home and I use to coach them some tricks… they always want more and more.
Cloudways: Speed, performance, and optimization are three important components of ecommerce website. Do you believe hosting plays the main role in this regard? Share with our readers some magento performance optimization tips (in 3 points).
Ignacio: Definitely, hosting is really important. But not the only thing.
My tips:
- Fix all your performance issues at application-code level before bounding them with advance cache systems.
- Please use Flat Tables for catalog and product level. (Seems like a newbie advice, but I am tired of facing stores with this functionality disabled at Magento Admin)
- There are functionalities and content that are 100% against the performance. And the main reason is that this problem is normally made at definition level of the project. Usually these are UX/UI/Design problems.
Cloudways: Cloudways offers 1-click Magento installation. With blazing fast speed and optimized Cloudways performance, you get a fabulous experience of hosting your Magento websites on Cloudways cloud platform. I would like you to check it yourself and share your opinion about the platform. What we can do to further improve the outlook and performance of the platform?
Ignacio: I did not play with it before, but now I have to say that it is brilliant. It is so easy to set up a new Magento instance and work with it in less than 5 minutes.
The admin tool gives you the ability to configure and change settings 100% oriented to maintain your Magento project. 100% recommendable.
Our team is checking how to introduce Cloudways in our workflow for certain clients.
You can follow Ignacio Martin on Twitter.
Abdur Rahman
Abdur Rahman is the Magento whizz at Cloudways. He is growth ambitious, and aims to learn & share information about Ecommerce & Magento Development through practice and experimentation. He loves to travel and explore new ideas whenever he finds time. Get in touch with him at [email protected]
