Ángel David Fernández del Valle is a lawyer by training and before creating Sil26 he practiced international law. This 35-year-old from Havana did not become an entrepreneur when he started the Local Development Project in La Timba and La Dionisia, which was recently approved as a MIPYME; Those who know him say that he has always been restless and eager.
With him we talked about his own entrepreneurship and his general views on the development and potential of MSMEs in Cuba.
—What does the activity carried out by Sil26 consist of?
—Sil 26 is a Local Development Project that has recently been approved as a MIPYME. It initially arose to provide a logistics service to platforms on-line. In the first moment it was done with the courier license, which had a simplified tax regime, but later the opportunity to hire workers was approved and we continued to expand and hire people, we moved to a general tax regime, we were even able to export the service of distribution, consolidation, classification and delivery of orders on-line. Afterwards we were able to obtain the necessary license and we began the elaboration of food from agricultural products, fundamentally to package them, benefit them, freeze them, and also some sausages. In other words, we emerged from a very simple activity that was messaging to become a company whose corporate purpose is the preparation and marketing of food. We are a logistics operator, we have two warehouses, and our corporate purpose is also to provide non-basic parcel and courier services, that is, the delivery and distribution of parcels and courier services.
—Why did you choose neighborhoods like La Timba and La Dionisia?
—Since the initial phase of the project, the social vocation of Sil26 was manifested, even when we were messengers and worked in collaboration with the municipal government, especially during the confinement stage due to COVID, the hardest stage, in which yes there were very strong issues and movement restrictions, we began to support them by managing, financing and bringing lunch to sixty elderly, vulnerable people who were not served by the Family Assistance System (SAF). We also did this during the vaccination stage, when we were in charge of attending to four polyclinics, that is, we are talking about assuming the feeding of 32 health workers associated with the vaccination process.
«That is to say, that since we emerged we had a commitment to the town and we tried to put part of the profits that were generated based on its well-being. Then they called us to try to support those communities and we showed up at an opportunity fair that was held in La Timba, we talked about the project and there interested parties began to approach. We carried out an immense recruitment process and began to insert those young people from La Timba and La Dionisia. Today there are already more than twelve integrated to what Sil26 is, to the entire process of distribution, consolidation, classification of orders. These young people today receive good salaries and have professional development and integration.
—They began as a Local Development Project (PDL). How did you get to MIPYME? What advantages and what new challenges does this change imply?
—Really, the importance of this change is the legal personality that one achieves, because as a PDL you do not have legal personality, that is, you have a bank account, an activity recognized by the community, with an agreement from the Municipal Administration Council, you have certain recognition, but you do not achieve legal personality until you become a MIPYME. Perhaps the duality between MIPYME and PDL complements each other, it even has certain facilities to have both conditions.
—Has it been difficult to set up this business? From your experience, what are the main obstacles that should be removed so that these initiatives can really contribute as expected to the development of localities and the nation?
—Entrepreneurship is very difficult, especially because the institutions that in the locality must serve entrepreneurs, there, first-hand, do not handle very well the contents of the regulations and policies that the government is issuing. These institutions also often lag behind the country’s political will and economic and social strategy. So, it is very difficult to come to an institution with new ideas, with innovative ideas, and not understand you. Really, you are wasting a lot of time due to misunderstandings, due to lack of information… These are things that can lead you to give up at a certain moment.
«I think that the most difficult thing is that, that there is no synergy between the institutions that intervene in the process of approval and implementation of any project, be it TCP, PDL or MIPYME, and that there is no interpretation in real time of the will of the Cuban government to promote and motivate this type of projects that generate income for the community, that generate employment, that, like ours, also generate access to food, to food sovereignty, to alleviate the saturation of commercial food network, and that in such a strong stage of COVID, when confinement, social distancing, was required, we proposed that solution, which was to develop concepts of electronic commerce and distribution ».
—Why bet on a venture in Cuba at a time when some say that the only option is to leave the country?
—I think that we are betting on doing an enterprise in Cuba right now because many business opportunities are opening up, to create, to carry out projects that are profitable, that create profits, but also, as they are linked to the place where we were born, They give us a sense of belonging. Seeing that a project that one starts from scratch begins to bear fruit, generates jobs and also contributes to the community in which one grew up, in which one develops; also help people who need it, that is a source of satisfaction.
“For young people who want to do things, today is the time, this is the opportunity and we must take advantage of it, not only concentrating on a single issue, but also carrying out projects that are economically and socially viable on different fronts, and try to contribute in everything possible, especially starting from generating well-being in the circle closest to one, starting with the family, generating employment for people close to them and then expanding to those who need it most.
«In my case, I have always liked to create things and try to innovate, that is why the project is called Sil26, because silicon is the element of the periodic table that has to do with everything that is the technological and industrial revolution, and I had been studying this topic of electronic commerce before, I knew that it was vital for the development of our country’s economy, and working with applications, that is, computerizing processes related to the productive economic sector, that was always going to have an impact real and was also going to generate development in the niche that was located.
—How much do you think this MSME can contribute to the community and society in general?
—I don’t know whether to talk about what it is going to contribute, I would like to talk about what we are contributing. We generate employment for more than 40 people, permanent jobs, some direct. We have given employment to young people from the neighborhoods of La Timba and La Dionisia who had no employment relationship during COVID, some had had situations with the justice system and had problems of social integration. We set ourselves that challenge, which is a great challenge, but many of them have joined and remain in our project, and with the remuneration they receive they help their families, their children, their mothers. I think that this is already a benefit that is being achieved and it is a contribution that Sil26 is giving to society, fundamentally to these vulnerable communities.
—You, who have experienced the process from within, what expectations do you have regarding the impact that MSMEs can have on the local and national economies?
—It is evident that MSMEs are going to have and already have a significant impact on local economies, on the generation of jobs, on production chains, in terms of inserting and generating dynamism among economic actors, in the relationship between them, because the MSMEs, in our opinion, are going to help a little to change the rhythms that some companies and institutions associated with the state sector have, because necessarily, to be able to connect and chain, it will be almost an obligation that they adapt and be flexible, elastic, to that the productive economic processes go quickly and that they are not affected by bureaucratic issues, by waiting for procedures or authorizations, and that synergy that is being built between all the actors is going to be a necessary objective to start talking about the engines of local development in the Cuban economy.
