So first of all, what do you do at Trackingplan?
My role at Trackingplan is a bit like being a one-man band, or a Swiss Army knife (officially, I’m the Chief Revenue Officer). In practice, I handle everything that isn’t engineering. Anything that’s not directly related to the technical side of how Trackingplan works tends to fall under my scope.
That includes marketing and communications, sales, customer support, Customer Success, and also the strategic side of the product—particularly in terms of go-to-market: where we’re heading, what we want to build, what our value proposition is, and which problems we want to solve for our users.
It’s a very transversal role. I’m involved in both the small, day-to-day operational details and the long-term strategic vision. It also keeps me very close to our users and customers, which I value a lot.
What’s a day in the life of David like?
My days at Trackingplan are quite varied. Every morning starts with dropping my kids off at school. On my way back home or to the office, I usually connect to our daily meeting. That’s my typical routine.
After the daily, I start with monitoring tasks: checking where we stand, reviewing social media conversations, and looking at ongoing discussions in our space. I follow many people in our industry—call them influencers if you like—and I pay attention to what’s happening, who’s talking about what, and how our content is performing, both in SEO and on social media.
That first block of the day allows me to be reactive and participate in conversations that matter to our users. If Trackingplan can contribute meaningfully to a debate happening in the market, I like making sure we’re there.
From there, my work splits between long-term and short-term tasks, which is often the main challenge. On the strategic side, I may be researching new product features or exploring new market segments that we may want to understand or potentially address in the future. At the same time, there are always tactical, day-to-day matters: Slack conversations, support requests coming through email, or situations where I need to step in, collaborate, or provide guidance.
My week is also filled with meetings, especially with clients in the sales process. The early stages—outreach and initial contact—are handled entirely by the sales team. However, once there has been an initial conversation with a potential client, and especially if that client enters a trial process, I start dedicating much more time to them.
I join meetings with the sales team, follow up on their installation, dashboards, and first alerts. During the trial phase, I take on a more pre-sales-oriented role, supporting them closely until they sign the contract. After that, our Customer Success team takes over the direct relationship.
That’s more or less what my day-to-day looks like.
At Trackingplan, you wear many hats… How do you manage all these responsibilities?
For me, this situation feels quite natural. In the past, I’ve founded several companies and acted as CEO in very early-stage tech projects. At that stage, you do everything—from raising funding to literally changing the toilet paper roll when it runs out.
Managing high levels of uncertainty and constantly zooming in and out between operational details and big-picture thinking is something I have gradually become more comfortable with over the years. It is definitely part of startup life, especially at our current stage, where we are still a small company.
What has changed significantly in recent years is the way people work. The disruption brought by AI has increased each individual’s execution power, impact, and access to information. Roles that used to be middle management—where someone managed one or two people in addition to their own tasks—are disappearing. In our case, they’ve disappeared completely.
Everyone at Trackingplan, whether they lead a department or not, is first and foremost an individual contributor. We all have to deliver. That makes trust critical. It is very important for me to be able to trust the capability and judgment of the people I work with on a daily basis, and to feel confident that I don’t need to constantly supervise their work or give direct instructions because they are already doing what is right and appropriate, and it’s also my responsibility to communicate the company’s needs and priorities clearly.
At the same time, the ecosystem of tools, both external and the ones we build internally, allows us to operate with high leverage. In a single day, I might launch a new product feature without depending on a developer to build it from scratch, publish a piece of content without blocking the marketing team, or solve a client issue and then create a training video to help them avoid that issue in the future.
How do you balance strategic thinking with day-to-day execution?
During a regular working day, it is very difficult to dedicate time to strategic thinking.
Those of us who are deeply involved in our work tend to be somewhat obsessive. That does not mean we think about work 24 hours a day, but it is something that is always somewhere in the background of our minds.
Sport is something that works very well for me. When I run, swim, or go to the gym, that is usually when I have my deepest thoughts and solve the most complex problems. Having half an hour or an hour without interruptions allows me to think about those long-term questions.
I also consume a lot of content in general and read quite a bit. Blogs and social media tend to provide more tactical, day-to-day content, while podcasts usually focus on more business-oriented topics—startups, strategic thinking, or people with that kind of profile. It’s something that generates many ideas for me and helps me think about different ways of doing things.
Together with Josele, Trackingplan’s CEO, we regularly exchange these insights. A very common routine for me is going for a run on Saturday mornings, spending 40 to 60 minutes thinking about problems and ideas while running, and then recording a couple of voice notes on my way home to send to him.
He listens to them later when he has time, and that back-and-forth helps us develop strategic thinking together.
What aspects of Trackingplan’s culture do you find most rewarding?
Comparisons between startup culture and corporate culture are almost unavoidable.
As companies grow, politics tends to play a larger role in day-to-day operations. In larger organizations, getting things done often requires navigating internal politics—not only relying on data or the technical correctness of an idea.
In smaller companies, when egos are aligned, and people clearly see how the company’s success benefits them personally, it is easier to focus on doing meaningful work and contributing to the organization.
In very large companies, individual impact becomes harder to observe, and it is more common for people to take actions that primarily benefit themselves.
I have worked in large corporations in the past. Those experiences were challenging but also enriching. However, that way of working is not part of my natural style. I feel much more comfortable in a small, aligned team where everyone is moving in the same direction.
Of course, people management is always complex because we are dealing with human situations and personal circumstances, but not having to constantly navigate ego-driven dynamics is a relief.
What lessons do you wish you had learned earlier?
Every company, project, or role I have had in the past has helped me learn new things, and I believe I am still learning and have a lot more to learn.
These three years at Trackingplan have helped me advance my strategic thinking, deepen my technical knowledge, and especially improve my understanding of B2B sales—probably one of the areas where I have learned the most.
One lesson from the past that I wish I had learned earlier is everything related to working with people management. I still have a lot to learn in this area, and I am constantly surprised by how complex it can be. There are always situations where you feel you lack the right tools to handle certain challenges.
I am not sure whether this is related to our education or to the culture in Southern Europe, but it is something that is not particularly emphasized in our professional development. I don’t think we are very well-trained for this type of responsibility.
People often become “managers” simply because they were good at performing a more or less technical task, but no one really teaches you how to lead a team. You learn by making mistakes, stumbling along the way, and figuring things out through experience or by educating yourself in your free time. It is always a challenge, and I believe it is undoubtedly one of the most difficult aspects of leadership.
Looking ahead, how do you see your role evolving?
Honestly, I think I will keep wearing many hats for quite a long time.
I can imagine Trackingplan doubling in size, but I do not think it will make sense for the company to grow five times larger in the near future. We will be able to build more, deliver more value, and stay very close to our customers without needing to scale headcount proportionally.
This naturally leads to a culture and way of working that favors smaller teams composed of very senior, highly autonomous people who are able to generate maximum impact.
As a result, I expect there will be fewer middle-management roles. Only a small number of people will have coordination or strategic roles, while many team members will be directly in contact with customers, generating impact through their daily work.
What I do believe will evolve significantly is the way we work. We are already building more internal tools and automating more processes. We are trying to establish a mindset where, before performing any task manually, we first consider whether AI can do it.
That shift in thinking will take us in a new direction.
From a product perspective, I believe we will expand horizontally. Until now, Trackingplan has been a very vertical solution focused on a specific problem. However, our typical user faces many more challenges that are spread across different areas of their marketing, data management, and business processes.
In the future, we will likely work with more data types, engage with more types of users, and expand within client organizations into other departments. That is where the next major challenge—and opportunity—lies.
How do you stay motivated in a fast-moving environment?
Speed and change are relative. Perhaps I have experienced more of it in the past in other environments than I do now.
In some of my previous roles, I became very aware that I have a high tolerance for uncertainty and for rapid change. For me, doing something one way today and changing it three months later is not frustrating—it is stimulating. It is something that helps me learn and grow.
However, I am also aware that this is not the case for many people. For some, constant change can be tedious or exhausting, and uncertainty can make their daily work more difficult. Not everyone feels comfortable in such environments.
Because of this, people like me sometimes need to be very careful with how we communicate this mindset, so that people with different preferences, sensitivities, or—more importantly—different working styles and capabilities can feel calm, comfortable, and able to perform at their best without feeling overwhelmed by the pace.
In fact, one of my responsibilities is to help the company move quickly. I push for things to happen faster. But this must be done while ensuring that the team remains comfortable and confident in their day-to-day work. It is about finding the right balance between driving speed and avoiding unnecessary anxiety.
Which books, podcasts, or resources influence your leadership philosophy?
Well, I don’t read as much now as I used to, especially since I had children. There have been periods in my life when I read absolutely everything related to my profession—books about building digital products or launching startups.
Zero to One is a good example and a very well-known one. That type of book influenced a part of who I am. There was also a time when The Lean Startup was a major discovery for many of us. Today, it has become a standard reference, but at the time it represented a paradigm shift.
There are also more tactical books, such as The Mom Test, which also provided me with many useful insights.
Something I particularly enjoy are biographies—not only professional ones, but also biographies of people outside my industry. For example, I have read all the biographies of Steve Jobs. When I was younger, he was a figure who fascinated me.
However, from a leadership perspective, I must say that his style is completely opposite to mine. I believe there are few leadership styles as intense—and perhaps as toxic—as the leadership culture Steve Jobs created during Apple’s early years.
It is true that part of the company’s success—its level of ambition, design quality, and disruptive drive—came from that pressure. But it is not something I personally align with, and I do not think I could lead in that way. It is not part of my nature. I will probably never run a company the way Apple was run at that time, and I will never achieve success at that scale, but I sleep very peacefully knowing that. I feel something similar regarding figures like Elon Musk.
On the other hand, there are other leadership books I deeply identify with. Creativity, Inc. is a fantastic book about how to build and lead a company when you are not primarily a business expert—when you come from a technical or technological background—and especially about how to manage teams and motivate people.
In my day-to-day life, I consume a lot of podcasts and follow people I respect on social media. People I consider friends and who I believe are good examples of business and team management.
I really like following people like Javi Santana. I appreciate his philosophy and how he approaches business and leadership. Many of the things he does are interesting to me, and I enjoy talking with him about these topics.
Regarding podcasts, I listen to a bit of everything. I am increasingly interested in economics rather than pure startup entrepreneurship. I am moving toward more general content rather than strictly startup-focused material.
I follow Iñigo’s podcast, SeedRocket’s podcast, and Spicy Fortuna, which is another regular podcast for me. I also listen to individual episodes from many other podcasts, depending on the guest.
Outside of work, what hobbies or activities help you recharge?
At this stage of my life, I think my children are my main hobby, more than anything else.
I have always enjoyed sports. Cycling has been a big part of my life—I even dedicated many years to it, sometimes prioritizing it over studies or work. I have also practiced triathlon competitively. I still try to stay active through different sports: skiing, running, and swimming.
Recently, encouraged by my wife, I have started playing the electric guitar again. I play a little, very little. I have done it in some periods of my life, left it aside for a long time, and then picked it up again.
I love music from the 1960s and 1970s, especially rock and roll, garage, and punk music. Since having children, I have not been able to enjoy it as freely as before, but I am trying to pass it on to them and share it with them.
Without a doubt, my main activity is my children. It is no longer something I do to recharge—it is my primary activity in life, and work comes after that.
The first thing I do when I wake up, after having breakfast and getting ready, is go wake them up, prepare their breakfast, and get them dressed for school. At night, if I am not the one putting them to bed and reading them a story, I may be working or relaxing by watching a series or a movie. But spending time with them is usually the first thing I do in the day and the last thing I do at night, and it is also where I dedicate most of my time—and I truly enjoy it.
I have always enjoyed being around children. I still like playing with my friends’ children—playing with them, joking with them, and entering their world of games.
As my children grow older, we can do more activities together. They are starting to ride bicycles with me, which is something that makes me very happy. It is something we enjoy more and more as a family.
Spending time outdoors and enjoying as much time as possible with my children is, without a doubt, what matters most to me.
