{"id":5196,"date":"2019-03-12T11:14:10","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T15:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/?page_id=5196"},"modified":"2019-06-03T13:38:39","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T17:38:39","slug":"nacho-guitars-plastinsa-banos","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/spring-2019\/nacho-guitars-plastinsa-banos\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocking CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

As an undergraduate student in his hometown of Valencia, Spain, Ignacio Ba\u00f1os signed up to live with an American family for a summer to improve his English. But Ba\u00f1os (MBA\u201994) didn\u2019t want just any American experience\u2014he wanted the full<\/em> American experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote a letter to the organizers of the program,\u201d he says, \u201cand in my letter I said, \u2018I want to be a cowboy. I want to go to rodeos. I like country music a lot.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

So, as the other students in his program caught flights to California\u2014\u201ceveryone wanted to go to California\u201d\u2014Ba\u00f1os boarded a plane to Boise. He spent the summer of 1985 on an Idaho farm, riding horses, milking cows, slaughtering chickens, driving pickup trucks, and cheering fellow cowboys at the rodeo.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came back with the full outfit,\u201d he says. \u201cCowboy hat, cowboy boots, everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Complete immersion is Ba\u00f1os\u2019 way. He doesn\u2019t have interests; he has obsessions. \u201cIf you like something, like it all the way,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you want to do something, do it all the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

This all-in attitude shapes the culture of both of Ba\u00f1os\u2019 companies: Plastinsa<\/a>, a Valencia-based manufacturer of merchandising materials for the food and beverage industry, and Nacho Guitars<\/a>, a boutique maker of premium electric guitars.<\/p>\n

Every instrument crafted by Nacho Guitars is a collector\u2019s item\u2014less than 100 are made each year. Ba\u00f1os (known to his friends as \u201cNacho\u201d) doesn\u2019t take orders from customers; he makes what he wants to make, using materials he chooses. He doesn\u2019t work toward deadlines or delivery dates; guitars are finished when he deems them perfect.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The guitars handcrafted by Ignacio Ba\u00f1os and his team at Nacho Guitars are lauded around the world, including by ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons. The company’s range has been expanded to include Stratocasters (shown above), as well as Telecasters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cIf we feel like we need to do another paint job, or we don\u2019t like the shade of the finish, or the wood is not well cut, or some detail could be improved, then we\u2019ll do it again,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The guitars are tribute instruments, made to resemble the early 1950s Fender Telecasters that Ba\u00f1os collects\u2014right down to the chipped necks and cracked varnish. While a top-condition vintage Tele can sell for as much as $200,000, a Nacho Guitars replica costs $5,500. (New Fender Telecasters go for around $500 to $2,000.)<\/p>\n

Having full creative license over his product is satisfying, Ba\u00f1os says, and the labor-intensive work is fulfilling \u201cbecause what we do is special. The attention to detail and quality is very high, and people appreciate what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nacho Guitars has no assembly lines. Ba\u00f1os and two fellow craftspeople painstakingly carve, cut, bolt, wind, solder, paint, stain, and distress guitars and most of their components by hand in a small Valencia workshop. Each year, they make four batches of 15 to 20 guitars, and loyal customers, who range from dentists and lawyers who play music on the weekend to professional studio musicians to legit rock stars, eagerly await each release.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our best clients is Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top,\u201d Ba\u00f1os says. \u201cJeff Tweedy from Wilco uses our guitars all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Ba\u00f1os makes a guitar, he aims to replicate the look, feel, and tone of the guitars Leo Fender made in his California factory in the early 1950s\u2014and he succeeds. \u201cTo see a Nacho Telecaster is to behold the most artfully inspired vintage reproduction ever created,\u201d writes the ToneQuest Report<\/em><\/a>, a newsletter for guitar enthusiasts. ZZ Top\u2019s Gibbons has reportedly called the sound and style of a Nacho guitar \u201csheer genius.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ba\u00f1os began playing guitar and obsessing over music as a teenager. As he studied the covers of his vinyl albums, he noticed the guitarists he most admired\u2014Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, bluesman Albert Collins, country music legend Roy Nichols\u2014seemed to be holding the same instrument: a Fender Telecaster. Ba\u00f1os wanted one of his own. He saved his money and purchased his first Telecaster in 1987, on his 21st birthday.<\/p>\n

As an MBA student in Boston a few years later, Ba\u00f1os says, \u201cI realized that all the guitars I couldn\u2019t get in Spain or Europe were easily found in the United States. That was before the market went up through the roof, so for between $500 and $1,000 you could get a pretty good vintage electric guitar.\u201d<\/p>\n

He decided to trade his apartment in Kenmore Square for a cheaper basement unit on Beacon Street so that he could spend his rent savings on guitars. \u201cWhen the snow came, we couldn\u2019t get out of the place because the front door was blocked,\u201d but the tradeoff was worth it, he says.<\/p>\n

After he returned to Spain, Ba\u00f1os remained a serious Telecaster collector. To better understand the guitars he owned and loved, he took the instruments apart, analyzed their components, and reassembled them. In the late 1990s, when internet message boards gave Tele enthusiasts a place to connect with one another, Ba\u00f1os quickly became known in online circles as the expert who could answer any Telecaster-related question, settle disputes about Fender trivia, and easily spot fake vintage guitars.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day,\u201d he says, \u201csomeone said, \u2018Why don\u2019t you write a book?\u2019\u201d Ba\u00f1os took on the project as he would a doctoral dissertation.<\/p>\n

To add to his already exhaustive Telecaster knowledge, he combed through the archives at the Fender Museum (now closed) in Corona, Calif. He disassembled every guitar he had access to and took measurements and photos of each detail. In 2005, after more than three years of research, he self-published The Blackguard Book<\/em><\/a>, a 420-page coffee-table book featuring thousands of color photographs of guitars and their components. (\u201cBlackguard\u201d is the term for the original Telecasters produced between 1950 and 1954, before Fender switched from black pickguards to white.) The book, Ba\u00f1os says, is \u201cvery deep, very dense, very complete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ba\u00f1os\u2019 next step was to use his unparalleled knowledge of Telecasters to make his own. In 2010, he made his first four experimental guitars and gifted them to musicians he knew and respected. When all four recipients heaped praise on the instruments, Ba\u00f1os decided to make eight more, and then eight more. \u201cAnd that\u2019s been going on for nine years, now,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Turning a hobby into a job can quickly sap the joy from it, but Ba\u00f1os\u2019 passion remains strong\u2014perhaps because he makes guitars to satisfy himself, not simply to satisfy customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot doing it for the money is key,\u201d he says. While Nacho Guitars is a profitable business, \u201cI do have another job. I don\u2019t need to work on guitars to make a living.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ignacio Ba\u00f1os has grown Valencia, Spain\u2013based merchandising materials manufacturer Plastinsa from a small firm to one with nearly $10 million in annual revenue and a subsidiary in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Ba\u00f1os has had his other job since December 1993, taking the helm at Plastinsa immediately after finishing his MBA coursework. He was considering a corporate job in northern Europe when his father\u2014a serial entrepreneur and a pioneer in the Spanish plastics industry\u2014made an offer.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018You can go to London and have your career and that would be great,\u2019\u201d Ba\u00f1os recalls, \u201c\u2018but I have this little company here that I think you could have fun with. It\u2019s got a lot of potential. You could develop it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As CEO, Ba\u00f1os has since grown Plastinsa from a company with annual revenue of roughly $500,000 to a leader in its industry\u2014with 30 Valencia-based employees, a subsidiary in Hong Kong, and nearly $10 million in revenue. Among his customers are multinational beverage companies Coca-Cola, Campari, Heineken, and Pernod Ricard. Plastinsa designs and manufactures ice buckets, napkin boxes, menu holders, bottle openers, point-of-sale displays, and other items emblazoned with customers\u2019 logos to help them promote their brands. The company\u2019s market includes all of Europe, and Ba\u00f1os is looking to open a US factory to expand into the American market.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you like something, like it all the way. If you want to do something, do it all the way.<\/span>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In contrast to Nacho Guitars, Plastinsa gains most of its business by responding to requests for proposals. \u201cIt\u2019s a very competitive setting,\u201d Ba\u00f1os says. To win bids, Plastinsa must be aggressive, \u201cgoing to the limit of our possibilities to make the best product for a certain situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Customers are always looking for new ideas to help them stand out in the marketplace, Ba\u00f1os says, \u201cso we have to be creative and innovative\u2014and quality is very important.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s never considered leaving Plastinsa to focus solely on music-related pursuits. \u201cI like to do different things in life,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you have the energy and the passion to do different things, why stick to just one?\u201d<\/p>\n

Always restless for a new challenge, Ba\u00f1os has added new guitars to his product line, which now includes both solid-body blackguards and whiteguards, bass guitars, and reproductions of Fender\u2019s 1949 hollow-body pine prototypes. He has also plowed into another research project with the intent of publishing The Pinecaster Book<\/em>, which will detail the history of the electric guitar from the 1930s through Fender\u2019s prototype stages. He promises it, too, will be characteristically artful\u2014and thorough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As an undergraduate student in his hometown of Valencia, Spain, Ignacio Ba\u00f1os signed up to live with an American family for a summer to improve his English. But Ba\u00f1os (MBA\u201994) didn\u2019t want just any American experience\u2014he wanted the full American experience. \u201cI wrote a letter to the organizers of the program,\u201d he says, \u201cand in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14430,"featured_media":0,"parent":5191,"menu_order":19,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"story.php","meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nRocking CEO - Questrom Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/spring-2019\/nacho-guitars-plastinsa-banos\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rocking CEO - Questrom Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As an undergraduate student in his hometown of Valencia, Spain, Ignacio Ba\u00f1os signed up to live with an American family for a summer to improve his English. 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