Alejandro Betancourt López Says ‘Business Intuition’ Is His Success Secret
Successful entrepreneur Alejandro Betancourt López attributes his remarkable business achievements to something that can’t be found in spreadsheets or algorithms: finely tuned intuition. While data analytics drives many corporate strategies today, this global businessman takes a different path. Having built and transformed companies spanning eyewear, transportation, energy, and finance, Betancourt López consistently emphasizes how his gut feelings — properly informed by quality information — have guided his most successful decisions.
As someone who has spotted opportunities before markets shifted, Betancourt López offers valuable insights into how intuition functions alongside data in the modern business world.
The Intelligence Behind Instinct
For Betancourt López, business intuition isn’t mystical or random. It’s intelligence refined through experience and quality inputs. “Everything I do is based on intuition and information,” he explains. “Intuition is based on the right information and the right people that surround you. You have to surround yourself with people that are at the top of their game.”
This perspective places equal weight on feeling and fact, creating a decision-making method that pulls from both domains. What makes his view particularly interesting is how he connects the quality of intuition directly to the quality of one’s professional and social circles.
“If I go to a bar to get drunk every time and every night, I’m not going to get good intuition and no good information,” he notes candidly. “But if I go to the right places and I interact with the right people, I’m going to get good information. My intuition is going to be more tuned up and better.”
This acknowledges that gut feelings don’t exist in isolation. They’re shaped by the information we consume and the experts we engage with. By thoughtfully curating these inputs, Alejandro Betancourt López believes business leaders can sharpen their instincts to spot opportunities that pure data analysis might miss.
Predicting Value Chain Shifts
One of Betancourt López’s signature skills has been his knack for foreseeing where profit centres will emerge next in various industries — what he calls predicting “where the chain of value is going to be.” This talent for spotting transitions before competitors has allowed him to position his ventures advantageously, time and again.
“I think I have a good sense of knowing or perceiving what is going to be the next cycle of profitable businesses,” he reflects. “I have been lucky enough to be accurate in predicting where the profits are going to come from a different industry or when the shift of an industry to another cycle is going to be.”
This foresight isn’t just theoretical. Betancourt López has repeatedly transformed intuitive insights into practical business moves. He cites his transportation venture in Spain as a prime example: “When we started the traveling business in Spain, Auro, we knew that Uber was going to come to Spain. It was a regulated environment on the licenses for private vehicle transportation.”
By purchasing ride-sharing licenses well before Uber’s entry into the Spanish market, he positioned his company perfectly for either competition or acquisition. What looked risky to outsiders was, to him, a calculated move based on patterns he had observed in other markets. “It was a gamble, but it was a calculated gamble, because we knew that the market was going to shift to private riding industry instead of taxis and it was going to get a lot of hype from it.”
Balancing Gut Feeling With Expert Input
While celebrating intuition, Alejandro Betancourt López doesn’t advocate for solo decision-making. Instead, he emphasizes creating business structures where intuitive leadership works alongside specialized expertise — what he describes as “a mix of surrounding yourself with good, talented people, listening to them, and then putting that intuition of yours into good work.”
His take on building organizations reflects this philosophy. “I make my investment, I make sure the structure of command is in place and I can go in and out as I please, but it’s a stand-alone investment,” he explains. “It doesn’t need me, but it has my attention every time I can be there.”
This outlook has allowed him to develop diverse business interests without spreading himself too thin. By trusting his intuition about which talented people to bring on board, then giving them authority to execute within their areas of expertise, he creates efficient organizations that can operate independently while still benefiting from his insights.
Intuition in High-Risk Decisions
Alejandro Betancourt López describes himself as “a very high risk taker, a massive risk taker,” and credits intuition with helping him maintain what he calls “a good batting average” despite taking bold chances. His risk assessment process combines gut feeling with analysis in ways that have repeatedly paid off.
His early investment in artificial intelligence illustrates this. “I have a big investment I made about five years ago in AI, and now it’s exploding,” he notes. “When I invested again it wasn’t a big thing. So I think I got lucky. I’m not going to tell you I’m a visionary. But I thought it was a great idea.”
This humility is telling. Betancourt López doesn’t claim supernatural foresight. Instead, he acknowledges that his intuitive decisions sometimes contain an element of fortunate timing. Yet his consistent success across various ventures suggests more than mere luck is at work. By acting on well-informed instincts, he’s repeatedly identified opportunities at their early stages, whether in fashion, transportation, or technology.
Cultivating Your Business Intuition
For those looking to develop their own business intuition, Betancourt López offers practical advice through his example. His approach suggests several key practices:
First, choose your information sources and social connections with intention, recognizing they directly impact your intuitive capabilities. “It’s a mix of surrounding yourself with good, talented people, listening to them, and then putting that intuition of yours into good work,” he advises.
Second, study patterns across industries rather than staying narrowly focused within a single sector. Betancourt López often references historical examples from different fields — from John D. Rockefeller’s control of oil refineries to Aristotle Onassis’s shipping empire — to show how value shifts occur. This cross-industry perspective helps him recognize similar patterns as they emerge in contemporary markets.
Third, be willing to act decisively when intuition and information align. Betancourt López doesn’t just contemplate opportunities, he moves on them, often before market consensus forms. This first-mover tactic has been central to his success with ventures like Hawkers sunglasses and Auro’s ride-sharing licenses.
Finally, maintain a balance between trusting your instincts and seeking expert input. “I consider myself a very fast learner, and that’s why I call myself, I could be a good director for orchestra because I know how to play a little bit of every instrument,” he says. This metaphor perfectly captures how he views his role: knowing enough to guide intuitively while relying on specialists for execution.
In business landscapes increasingly dominated by big data and predictive analytics, Alejandro Betancourt López’s perspective serves as a valuable reminder that human intuition remains irreplaceable. His successful track record across multiple industries suggests that perhaps the most powerful business intelligence still comes from the thoughtful combination of informed instinct and analytical thinking — the very approach that has guided his remarkable entrepreneurial journey.
Originally published at https://businessinthenews.co.uk on April 10, 2025.
