Diary of an Economic Crisis Survivor

Life, Death and Miracles of a Startup, in the Italy of the Economic Crisis

Tag: Fantomatica C

8 September 2014

21. Born of a Startup: building a company in Italy.

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014, HOURS 21:56

DAY 204

diary of a crisis survivor 21 key door

The time has come.

We have made the most important step.

We officially created our company.

Victory is officially a  “Società a responsabilità Limitata” (the equivalent of the English limited company) (CLUE N.7).

 

After so many months, we have arrived where so many of us didn’t think to arrive.

It was not easy of course, and everything will be much harder from now on.

But our time has come.

 

The first question we asked ourselves was: “What is the best type of company to build our startup?”

The first choice was to set up a company where the responsibility is only of the company and not of the partners.

The second choice was to choose the type of company. We opted for a private limited company, that, in Italy, is a company where the human element is stronger than the interests of the shareholder.

Finally, it will be important to be able to be recognized as an “Innovative Startup“, a new and unique type of Limited Company, which can be exploited in Italy for two years now.

 

I will speak about it in the next post, now I’m going to celebrate Victory with the team.

I see the light at the end of the tunnel, I see that The Great C is escaping.

diary of a crisis survivor 21 The great c is escaping

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1 September 2014

20. Start up Competition: a way to grow

SEPTEMBER 1, 2014, HOURS 13:20

DAY 197

diary of a crisis survivor startup competition win

We fight the Great C.

Now officially.

While the wars rage in the world, while Italy continues risking sinking (inaction is not usefull) and the Great C is looking for another victim, we face an important moment in the life of a startup.

 

Thanks to writing a Business Plan we are able to sign up to the Startup Competition that we have identified.

It will be an important step, because we will face the public for the first time.

The goal is plural:

  1. Finding financiers or “companions” that can help us on the journey;
  2. Giving visibility to our idea.

For this reason, we are motivated.

Obviously we don’t know yet if we can.

However, being able to “compete officially” gives us a lot of enthusiasm.

We decided to take this step because the first feedback (with friends, family and experts) has been extremely positive.

I’ll leave you, now is the time.

With my click we will be officially in the race.

I’m going to click on (and begin to think that, this time seriously and concretely this time, we will win our battle with the Great C).

diary of a crisis survivor startup competition

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6 August 2014

19. No Country for Young Men.

Agoust 6, 2014, HOURS 22:31

DAY 171. diary of a crisis survivor recession

Recession. GDP -0.2%.

The worst for 14 years.

“Recession is back in Italy”

No. The Great C is back. Rather. It was never gone. And we knew it, I always repeat it in this blog: the inaction of the country is evident, and the cultural, economic, structural gap with other European countries is widening. “The Italian growth will come between 10 years.”  The voice of the people…10 years because they realize that the job is so much to do that it will be a long path.

The problem is the lack of  trust and opportunities for the young men. We need to have our chanche to play, we are too brilliant to be wasted. Victory is the startup of my dreams. For her, I fight every day to overcome the obstacles that sometimes seems to be insurmountable.

I can’t continue to be an “aspiring old  in a country for old men,” in Italy I can’t afford to invest my few money in a startup(although it is my startup and my dream). The risk is too high. Am I a gambler? Perhaps. Maybe the solution is in another country…. I’ll propose this idea to Victory’s team.

How many startup will die before the end of The Great C?

How many entrepreneurs will waste their projects?

How many young man will leave the country?

Maybe there is no hope Italy. No country for young men.

diary of a crisis survivor No Country for Young Men

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29 July 2014

18. I’m staying in Italy. For the moment. To Build my Startup

July 29, 2014, HOURS 10:37

DAY 164

Made in italy diary of a crisis survivor

I’m staying in Italy.

For the moment.

The Great C failed to get me.

The offer by the German multinational was not enticing enough.

The trade-off is in favour of Victory, my startup.

 And now?

We continue planning: at the moment we have just completed an intense brainstorming phase and now we are starting with the preparation of the Business Plan.

Accordingly, the form and the information of a Business Plan change depending on the goals (and hence on the receiver): our business plan will be basically divided in  two main sections:

– A qualitative part;

– A quantitative part.

The first part contains all the elements that constitute the concrete analysis of the inside and outside environment of the startup. Specifically, the qualitative part of the Business Plan of Victory, first analyzes the competitive arena and the strategies to create a competitive advantage over the competitors; later, we will analyze our business system, in its various components. The quantitative part aggregates a set of relevant data, including  forecasts and economic and financial analysis. On this point, we are lacking (for now). But two young professionals will help us.

 

Last but not least, the Executive Summary, which summarizes in a few lines the entire contents of the Business Plan.

Efficiency, Objectivity, Madness and Online Services (CLUE n. 6).

 Here we are, here is Victory, the one who will defeat the Great C.

The Great Economic Crisis, diary of a crisis survivor

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2 July 2014

14. Startup’s Naming Process: the first key to success

JULY 2, 2014, HOURS 14:33

DAY 137

dIARY OF A CRISIS SURVIVOR naming

Victory.

Finally our startup has a name.

Of course, this is not the “real name”, but a name chosen for this blog. From now on, I won’t have to say “my startup” but simply Victory. Obviously, this name isn’t complete because there will be a code name (combined with the type of company chosen), but that’s another story.

Meanwhile, on the streets of my city, my Gotham City, there is someone who is talking about people who are managing to fight and defeat the Great C, confused and distant stories, about heroes from a far away Italy of today; heroes who persevered in the crisis and took the opportunity to become big. Enthusiastic examples of partisans whose weren’t adversely affected their pride and dignity by The Great C.

I don’t know…maybe it’s this slight breeze of enthusiasm that gave inspiration to the team and in particular to D, our designers, to find a name for our startup. So that week-long process is over. D made ​​us work with a methodology called inductive: we found the name after carefully studying the very identity of the type of service that we offer. So we analyzed the identified consumer target, finding the best trade-off between these two elements and our goals. From that moment on, it was fun to identify a possible logo (although that’s another story).

So…Naming process as an essential step for the presentation on the market(which took place a few days ago with our beta version https://diaryofacrisissurvivor.com/2014/06/24/test-to-start-your-startup/). The name is our first business card, even before the Internet site. In fact the name of a startup is the first element that can arouse or not a reaction among the people.

Same concept for the name that I have chosen for you, for this blog and for this post. It has to inspire and “garra” (the South American). So I decided to call my startup in this way.

Victory.

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24 June 2014

13. Test to start your Startup

June 24, 2014, HOURS 12:21

DAY 129

diary of a crisis survivor
Here we are.

Our beta version is ready. (CLUE n. 5).

Although things aren’t going well, we go public testing our service (obviously not here, not in this blog).

The streets of my city are desolate. A city like so many others, and like all these other, was hit hard by the Great C, which created recession, unemployment and depression.

You know my story, and you know how, with my startup, I’m daily trying to fight The Great C. The first step was to create a team, and now, we’re launching our beta version of the site.
Because for a startup is fundamental:
1) check the appeal of your product / service;
2) create a critical mass that can act as a springboard for the project.

As can be convinced (or love) of our business idea, unfortunately, the response of the market is always different from the initial expectations, and start a test phase will enable us to understand where the process of buying is gonna blocked and where we go wrong. If we are unable to successfully pass this test phase, creating a sufficient critical mass, we will be able to throw in a total market.

I would say, first of all, in a startup, as in the life, it is necessary to risk: if the test will be positive, we can think of detonate the bomb … and then, I think that the Great C wouldn’t be able to resist.

We see the light, we know the way: now is our turn to survive…and risk.

(We don’t know what we can achieve unless we try).

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3 June 2014

11. In Italy, today, or you create a Startup or you die

June 3, 2014, HOURS 17:12

DAY 108

*“Our mother has been absent, ever since we founded Rome. But there ‘s going to be a party, When the wolf(or the Great C) comes home “.

Mood of a Startup. and of startuppers . Today we feel so.

Completely abandoned by those who should have created a better country for their children and their grandchildren. The business world and the political class. The Great C. When it comes home, we’ll have a big party. That ‘s for sure. Because it would mean that today we couldn’t leave the country and be successful with our startup.

This is not a cry for help but a post of complaint. To remind all young Italian startuppers that we are few, but we can do it. Technically speaking, compared to other generations, we have the best tool to overcome these difficulties: the network. Internet has given us the best way to share and, for our startup, led us to share experiences with another startup, resulting in a strategic partnership with the specific aim of facing the market together, satisfying two types of different but complementary needs .

How important is sharing in 2014? Fundamental. Because if we get together and share experiences, ideas and mistakes , maybe we can do it.

There is only one alternative, leave the country killing our startups .

I have been stalked by The Great C since I left my job. I have become, less than 1 month, a self-employed with a handful of customers in his pocket, a few euros of income, and an entrepreneurial project in my heart. And I’m seriously thinking of leaving everything and changing country.

It ‘s my team that tries to motivate me in these days of darkness, reminding me every day what we’ve been through, the difficulties that we have overcome together, and above all that we have shared. For these reasons, if I want to stay in Italy and survive the Great C, the only solution is my startup .

And therefore, in Italy, today, “or you create a Startup or you die.”

diario-di-un-sopravvissuto-alla-crisi-startup

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27 May 2014

10. Misinformation

May 26, 2014, h. 16:16

DAY 100

Disinformation.

The reason of the failure of so many good projects.

Startup or Politicians.

Disinformation is also the word emblem of the last European elections, in my opinion.

diary of a crisis survivor disinformation

Most of the Italian citizens couldn’t benefit from a proper system of information by the media and political parties, because last week, the three “Big Boss“(Renzi , Grillo and Berlusconi) thought only to insult between them. And the citizens didn’t even know how to vote.

It matters little that won the Partito Democratico.. ’cause now, in Italy the only loser is the citizen…who knows little of what actually happens in the politic’s palaces and who daily must survive the Great C.

Aware of the importance of communication I have raised the issue to the team of my startup, and from a couple of weeks to now, we are organizing a Marketing Plan, at a strategic level and at a operational level. Probably I’ll tell you in the future.

Meanwhile, we are stuck in the critical step of identifying the target customer of  our startup(step number 1 in a definition of Marketing Strategy): market analysis and subsequent viability and sustainability of the idea. There is so much to do. Because the later stages will be to work closely with our designers D and with “I Nerd per caso“, which respectively  will deal with the graphics and development.

But in the meantime we will do everything possible to inform “our target customers ” of what we do, how we do it and, especially, why we do it.

The disinformation is nothing more than a helper of Great C.

We will fight it, even for you.

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21 May 2014

9. I quit work for my Startup

May 15, 2014

DAY 89

diario-di-un-sopravvissuto-alla-crisi-startup-licenziarsi-per-la-propria-startup

It ‘s almost happened.

The Great C was going to enlist in its ranks. Bringing my startup.

Everything happened in a short, very short time, and it lasted a few days.

The Great C has knocked on my door and quickly I had to make the best decision: quit my job.

 

I’m unemployed, like many young people in Italy at the moment.

But I came out head-up, and above all, in spite of the Great C finding me, flushing me, chasing me and “dressing to kill” .. I managed to escape: I leave a consulting job in a multinational company after a few(perhaps too many few years), but in my small baggage I have the right elements to continue / start my journey.

Compared to two years ago, I have a bit of extra money, experience and above all my startup. In fact, they  required me to take a cut in my salary, increase my working hours(from 40 to 45), so to have the “safe” possibility to have a career.

Do you believe? I don’t. and then I quit.

But I feel I made the right step. At least for now. Leave a stable job and “career opportunities”, to give birth to my startup, I’m motivated and careful.

Because the Great C never.

The Great C will never have me.

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8 May 2014

8. Save or Quality? The choice of the Competitive Strategy

MAY 8, 2014, h.12:26

DAY 82

diario-di-un-sopravvissuto-alla-crisis-startup-strategia-differenziazione-bassi-costi
I’m tired. Tired of a sick system, in a country that tries to get up but has no strength in its legs .

And I feel people’s depression. The Great C is enlarging its ranks: everyday there are more victims. From the ” real victims “( those who really don’t make it), to those who, being too depressed, don’t do anything to survive, and, in this way, they enlarge the ranks of The Great C, abandoning wonderful work projects , including startup projects.

In this environment it’s very hard to work on a startup. Last night, infact, during our weekly meeting of the startup, there was a dispute. The reason ? The choice of the strategic competitive advantage to pursue.

Savings or quality, how many times I have heard this phrase.

On TV, in commercials. Theoretically , knowingly or unknowingly, when you start your own business, you make a strategic choice of competitive advantage: focus on the quality of your product, and then point to the fact that customers are willing to pay a premium price for that “plus”, or supporting low-cost and offer the product to the market at a more competitive price than competitors ?

To these two basic competitive strategies, Michael Porter (in his “4 competitive strategies“) has added another variable: the choice of the range, how many customers compose your target? the entire market , a niche or even a niche within a niche?

To make you understand better, a few examples for the different competitive strategies :

– Differentiation strategy (quality, entire market): Apple with its iPhones ;

– Strategy of cost leadership (savings, entire market): Ikea;

– Strategy of focusing on differentiation (quality, niche): Ferrari;

– Strategy of focusing on cost leadership (savings, niche): (the begin) of McDonalds.

In fact there are those who say that the choice of a competitive advantage is not an important thing , and that, it consequently, it does not pay to be consistent.

Which is the best choice for a startup? You can’t answer this, the answer will vary from case to case, it is a very relative thing.

I believe that the future of our startup is a choice of competitive advantage – focusing on cost leadership (CLUE N.4), Tim thinks like me. The others don’t. And from here the fight. Unsolved.

Although there are those, like Instagram, who do not make a choice( before a certain determined time), and it’s successful.

It’s important not to stay in the middle of the road too long, because it is like being on one of those frail bridges in the Andes, suspended over a deep ravine, with the possibility to go from one part(quality) or the other (savings) .. but if you stay in the middle of the path too long, the ropes will be broken and the company goes bust.

And the same thing for Italy, a country that for history and capacity should strongly focus on quality, it is getting enchanted by the sirens of the low costs, and thus remains on the middle of the bridge, with the risk of falling.

While The Great C, at the foot of the ravine, waits. And every day there is, at least, one more victim.

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