Hawkers was bleeding cash in 2016. The Spanish sunglasses company had projected €70 million in revenue and brought in only €60 million, while a key subsidiary watched its losses climb by 500 percent. The founders were weighing whether to shut the doors for good.
What Alejandro Betancourt López did next reads like a short course in crisis management under real pressure. Rather than run the usual distressed-company playbook, he made a large bet on the company at its lowest point and then went to work on it.
A Startup Running Out of Road
Hawkers had exploded out of the gate. Four university friends launched it in 2013 with just €300 and sold trendy sunglasses online at €20 to €40 a pair while Facebook advertising was still cheap. Demand outran supply for a stretch. By 2016, though, that same breakneck speed had turned into a set of serious problems.
“Fashion brands are valued at very low multiple levels because you don’t know for how long they’re going to be sustainable,” Betancourt López said. “Hawkers, for example, you have to convince everybody in the market to buy a pair of sunglasses every day and put a lot of marketing and wake up the next day and do the same all over and all over and all over.”
A €50 Million Bet and the President’s Chair
He led a €50 million investment round in October 2016 through O’Hara Administration and became the company’s largest shareholder. One month later, the board named him president and handed him direct control of the turnaround he had just financed.
The standard distressed-company script calls for deep cuts, fewer people and a retreat to core markets. He went the other way and protected the talent that made Hawkers tick while he rebuilt how the company operated from the inside out.
Backing the Team Instead of Gutting It
“So you have to use all the tools you have in marketing, creativity, reinvent yourself constantly,” he said. “It’s a matter of being able to adapt constantly or in the long term or in the medium term.” The company’s ability to move fast came from having kept people who could rethink the model on the fly.
He did reshape leadership. He replaced some directors and employees to fit the growth goals and kept his strongest performers close. The philosophy was blunt: in a crisis, the people who can deliver stay, and the ones who can’t make room for those who can.