Exporter of the week: ingeniously transforming Colombian concrete into street and home furnishings
In this written and video interview, Daniel Mesa, manager of Konkretus, tells us the story behind his success with Colombian concrete and what he recommends to other entrepreneurs.
Find below
This week we have a special guest, an entrepreneur who is taking his home and public space furnishings to several cities around the world.
This is Daniel Mesa, CEO of Konkretus, who along with his team is dedicated to exalt the Colombian concrete through technological processes that ennoble the material and allow it to fit into any space through high-level design.
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Home furnishings, such as sinks and bathtubs, benches and bicycle racks for entertainment spaces in the world’s cities, is part of the portfolio of Konkretus, a Colombian company that decided to transform Colombian concrete into designer furnishings.
The company was founded in 2012 and, at that time, produced precast Colombian concrete objects for the construction industry.
Today, the company exports its Colombian concrete home furnishings to the United States, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and is in talks with the Spanish and Australian markets.
The company expects to increase its turnover by 57% this year and 30% next year. Konkretus manages two well-defined lines of business in Colombia: one of these lines is Urban, for public spaces. This has been expanding in Colombia. An example of this is the Malecón del Río in Barranquilla, whose benches, bicycle racks, and trash cans were made by this company.
The second line is Home, the home line. This is the one that is exported from Colombia.
Below you can read a part of the interview with Daniel Mesa, director and co-founder of Konkretus, which you can watch in full in the video at the top of the page.
How was Konkretus born and who came up with the idea of transforming Colombian concrete into furnishings?
Konkretus is a company that is more than 11 years old and currently has five partners. It was born thanks to a conversation between Andrés Mesa (my brother) and Luis Ignacio Franco.
They have always been close friends, to the point that they were schoolmates and at some point they wanted to start a scaffolding company.
In 2011 they resumed that conversation, invited me to the talk and we began an exploration of ideas; in 2012, we came up with a proposal to industrialize construction processes.
That was when Konkretus was born, thanks to Gonzalo Perez, the former president of the company Sura, who landed those ideas with a winning idea: a bench that we called Viro, which later won the Lápiz de Acero award.
That bench ended up being part of the urban renovation of the Suramericana building in Medellín, thanks to Gonzalo Pérez.
And so began the theme of home and street furnishings. In other words, Konkretus is an idea that Andrés Mesa and Luis Ignacio Franco came up with, but in reality it has been the result of 12 years of conversations and crossing ideas.
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How can Colombian concrete compete with materials such as stainless steel and glass?
I am going to talk a little bit about urban furnishings because we believe that concrete is the best material that can exist for the modeling of public space. And we have reasons for this.
The first, and I think the most important, is that concrete is a material that is not attractive to vandalism. When someone vandalizes a stainless steel or aluminum bench, they put it in a bundle, take it away, and sell it for scrap.
This does not happen with concrete, because it is not attractive to take a chisel and a hammer and start destroying furnishings; it is a very time-consuming task. That makes concrete superior to other materials in the public space.
Another reason is that concrete is a material that is essentially liquid stone. When it is mixed and poured into a mold, it takes the shape you want it to take. So it is much more versatile in terms of design than other materials.
And finally, there is a third advantage, and that is that concrete is possibly the only material on Earth that gains a little bit of strength every day. That is why we believe it is the material par excellence for dressing urban spaces.
How does Colombian concrete fare in terms of home furnishings?
In the interior space the equation changes, because Colombian concrete in the bathroom and kitchen has connotations of use in which it is subjected to permanent chemical attacks, thermal shocks, and a number of conditions for which it has not traditionally been good.
Fortunately, in the last 20 years, concrete has undergone gigantic technological growth. With admixtures and reinforcement systems that we can involve, we are now catching up in terms of performance.
This means that, today, concrete is no better or worse than porcelain, stainless steel, or glass.
But in terms of design we do believe that it is very superior, and there is a set of advantages that have made us position the brand and grow these 11 years in the markets, in the area of home furnishings.
What kind of furnishings are you currently exporting and to which countries do you reach?
The subject of urban furnishings, especially in Colombia, is closely tied to the electoral cycles of mayors and governors.
When there are changes of government, as in Colombia at the moment, the first two years are of little public execution. Therefore, urban projects are not a priority.
That is why in 2018 we prepared for the upcoming elections, because that change was going to hit the company’s finances hard.
We started thinking about another type of product that we could market and we accidentally came across the bathroom and kitchen industry. Thus, started the home furnishings business.
We launched this line at the end of 2019, and since then it has grown slowly. Today we reach 10 countries in Latin America and the United States with a line of sinks to which we have incorporated dishwashers and bathtubs.
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How do you see the company’s growth in 2024?
If we analyze the projected growth figures for 2024 with respect to those for 2023, we could think that the company will experience a deceleration process, going from 57% this year to 30% in 2024.
As we are immersed in a business tied to public execution, as is the case of the Urban line, we believe that by 2024 there will be a 40% drop in sales in that business, which currently has the greatest weight in our turnover.
The great news is that, even so, we will be able to grow by 30%, and this will be the result of our consolidation and growth in the North American market with the Home line.
Where are your production plants located?
We currently have two production plants. The main plant is located in the La Estrella neighborhood, in the south of Medellín. From there we serve the entire public space market in Colombia and 10 countries in Latin America and the United States with the line of sinks and dishwashers, that is, home furnishings.
We also have a plant under the franchise model in Cumbayá, Ecuador, and from there we serve the public space market in Ecuador, Peru and Panama.
Have you received any special support from the public sector to reach these international markets?
When we were in the internationalization exercise with the hand-washing line, ProColombia helped us in the structuring of the internationalization scheme, with logistical issues, market studies, prices, how to get there, how to establish the business abroad.
It was a fundamental support for this project to be feasible and we could take the Konkretus brand to other markets.
Exporting from Colombia has many challenges. There were a couple of exercises of exporting benches in 2016 to Panama, and the anti-narcotics issue hit the company because the police drilled and drilled the products in search of drugs.
But today, with the exports of sinks and dishwashers, all that has been overcome; it is an exercise that is completely standardized.
As long as you follow the standard and have the documents signed, the certificates, and everything that an export requires, the process is simple and has no greater level of complexity.
How has the business grown and what are your expectations for the next 5 and 10 years?
We expect that in 5 years the international turnover of concrete products will be between 60 and 70% of the company’s total. Let’s remember that 3 years ago that number was zero. In 10 years from now, the turnover we have abroad will hopefully be more than 80% of the total.
In the short term, next year will be a very challenging year, because obviously there will be a change of mayors and governors. We expect the mobility and public space line to decrease by more or less 40%.
In the home furnishings line, it is also going to be a difficult year in Colombia, because the situation with construction is very difficult.
Interest rates make debt too expensive for the vast majority of people. But even so, with the sales that will be generated abroad, the company should grow 30% next year.
What recommendations would you give to a medium-sized businessman of the same sector, so that he can reach those international markets where you are already positioned?
I would make two recommendations to a businessman who is following the path we have been following for 11 years.
The first one is to do things right. And doing things right means not allowing oneself to be corrupted. We live in a corrupt country, but corruption has two wings: a public official who asks for money and a private person who gives it away.
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If the private sector does not provide resources, corruption will end. In other words, we as private businessmen have in our hands the possibility of ending this scourge.
In Konkretus we have lost a lot of money in these 11 years for not giving bribes or not buying an official, but we believe that there is one very important thing: we prefer to sleep peacefully than to give money to an official who asks us for a bribe to award a contract.
Advice: sleep well, do things well, peace of mind is priceless.
And the second thing is to do different things. When Konkretus exports home furnishings, such as bathrooms and kitchens, it arrives with a different material, color and design, with a more flexible customer service and with the “bacanería” that characterizes Colombians.
That makes the difference. We have to compete with different tools.
