Laura Cots leads the venture builder at GCO Ventures with a conviction that rarely appears in pitch decks: when a project succeeds, the decisive factor is often not the idea or market timing, but the team. This perspective, built from within a large corporation that has chosen to create new businesses from scratch, defines her understanding of venture building. Laura does not talk about scaling without traction or raising a round without knowing exactly why. She talks about people, judgement and knowing how to read what is not being said. Her stated goal is to build Spain’s first corporate venture builder with real impact.

If you had to explain what you do at GCO Ventures without using your job title, what would you say?

Guiding the team and providing the resources needed for projects to come to life. In practice, that means being in many places at once: with the team when difficult decisions have to be made, with the corporation when support is needed, and with the projects when they need strategic guidance.

What did you believe about the startup world before working here, and what did you change your mind about most quickly?

I used to think entrepreneurship was only for people with a very high appetite for risk, people who were not afraid of losing everything. I had that image in my mind of the founder who leaves everything behind and jumps into the unknown without a plan. The reality is that there are many forms of entrepreneurship, and I have learned that risk can be managed, that there are methodologies and frameworks to reduce uncertainty. Entrepreneurship is tolerance for ambiguity combined with rigour in execution.

What type of person – founder, builder or teammate – makes you think: “I would get into trouble with this person”?

It depends on the type of trouble. For a long-term strategic challenge, I look for someone with a clear vision and the ability to think abstractly, someone who can connect dots that others do not see yet. To navigate the internal politics of a large corporation, I need someone who understands timing, balance and sensitivities without losing sight of the objective. To scale an early-stage product, I look for someone completely obsessed with the customer and with data. There is no single profile that works for everything: the best people are those who understand the kind of trouble they are in and act accordingly.

What skill would you never put on LinkedIn, but is essential in your day-to-day work?

Knowing how to read between the lines. Not everything that matters is said in a meeting, and an important part of my job is to pick up on what is not verbalised: a hesitation, a change in attitude, a sign that something is not right even if nobody has said it yet. I would also add the ability to move things forward when the situation requires it, activating the right levers at the right time. And, when necessary, knowing when to give way, not out of convenience, but as a strategy to help things move forward. Within a large corporation with a venture builder attached to it, those skills are as decisive as any hard skill.

The professional mistake that has taught you the most, and that you would make again despite everything.

Prioritising people over a specific short-term result. From a business and timing perspective, it may have seemed like a mistake in judgement at the time. But with perspective, I see it differently: when you build the team well, when you develop it, take care of it and give it room to grow, the result eventually follows. I have learned that sacrificing people to meet a specific objective often costs much more in the long term than the objective that was supposedly being pursued. I would do it again.

What question would you like more teams to ask themselves before scaling or raising a round?

In reality, there are three connected questions. First: do we have real early-stage market fit, with real traction and monetisation, not projections based on an optimistic financial model? Second: is the business model genuinely scalable, or are we growing by adding costs proportionally? Third: is there a clear and credible path to profitability, or are we still postponing that conversation? Teams that ask themselves these questions honestly, before they need the money, do not collapse when problems arrive. Those that do not ask them also fail to see it coming when the market or investors start demanding answers.

What trend do you think is currently overvalued, and which one is undervalued?

Artificial intelligence is both overvalued and undervalued at the same time. I believe enormously in its potential, and I say that without hesitation. But there is also noise and a certain amount of hype around it in the startup world. I see AI as an enabler, a major lever for exponential acceleration in businesses, but not as an end in itself. What I find most interesting is that its limits are also undervalued: precisely because we have not reached them yet, we cannot see them clearly. We do not really know where the true ceilings of this technology are.

When a project does not work – startup, product or initiative – what usually has the greatest impact: context, the idea, the team or ego?

The team, without question. I have seen mediocre ideas with excellent teams achieve results nobody expected, and I have also seen brilliant ideas collapse because the teams could not execute them or adapt when the context changed. Context can be anticipated or managed. The idea can be pivoted if the team has judgement. Ego is the element that poisons everything when it appears, because it blocks listening, prevents learning and destroys cohesion. But ultimately, the team is the only thing with the real ability to react, survive problems and build something that lasts.

What do you do outside work that, without realising it, makes you better at your job?

Singing. It helps me listen better, be more present and understand the importance of rhythm, silence and harmony with others. I think, indirectly, all of that also translates into teamwork.

If someone reads this interview five years from now, what would you like them to think about your time at GCO Ventures?

That we built Spain’s first corporate venture builder capable of generating real value for society. That we did not stop at the discourse of innovation, but solved real problems with new businesses that had a concrete impact on people’s lives. That the team that made it possible was extraordinary and that we knew how to combine the backing of a solid corporation with the agility and judgement required to build from scratch. And, if possible, that one of our exits was significant enough for people to remember it.

The conversation returns again and again to the same idea: a company is not built solely from a well-identified opportunity. The idea matters, but it is not enough. What ultimately makes the difference is the ability to form a team that can read the context, ask uncomfortable questions in time, adapt when assumptions change and sustain the project beyond the usual management timelines.

That is also how Laura’s view of artificial intelligence should be understood. It does not appear as an automatic answer to every challenge, but as a tool with enormous potential that requires the same judgement as any other lever for growth. Before scaling, investing or incorporating a new technology, the underlying question remains the same: what problem does it solve, what value does it create, and which team will be able to turn that opportunity into something real?

Come back to the GCO Ventures blog to keep reading more perspectives from the team and from the professionals building the ecosystem from within.