0 / 1: NYNB A StartUp Journey
First things first, Happy New Year!🎊
For many, NYNB: a “New Year” means a new beginning: the hope of a new start, to change even the smaller things in everyday life. This year, I have a new beginning! I will build a start-up supported by Antler, a global early-stage VC in Oslo. This will be a totally new experience for me — something extraordinary (from Latin: Extra Ordinem — outside the normal course of events).
But first, let me introduce myself:
My name is Cristiano (like the football player — as every single Uber driver like to point out 😓). I am 33 years old (or young) from Rome, Italy but I live in London since 2015. I am an Architect with both Bachelor and Master’s degree from Roma Tre University and have been working as Architect, Lecturer, Teaching Assistant and Team Leader and Senior Design Analyst at a Proptech consultancy. My side hustle is reading about everything (I consider myself a sponge), as well as travel, photography and drones (to make it simple — if it is tech-y and flies, I like it).
You probably ask, as many did, why join a start-up programme with my background? I would say, why not? As Elon Musk so eloquently put it “when something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor”. Ideas are free: finding ideas and solutions to difficult problems are unrelated to your background and I always loved puzzles and being a problem-solver!
This is also not my first venture: I did several things prior to moving to London. I started my first business when I was 17, second when I was 21 and third at 27. Despite the fact that I always loved the idea of starting something myself, I realized that making my own company is not a part-time job and I found it difficult to pair it with studying or another job. The above lead me to apply to Antler (which you will read more about in the next section).
Let’s look at the start-up programme I will be joining in February:
Antler, founded in Singapore in 2017, is a global early-stage VC that invests in start-ups. They offer a programme where they screen and select people to be founders, help them find the right co-founder(s), validate their business model, connect them to top tier network of advisors and experts, and ultimately invest in them if their pitch is successful.
Learn more about Antler Norway and apply at www.antler.co/oslo
So why did I decide to write this column?
For a very simple reason! Most of the books you find about start-ups are written by people that are already accomplished CEOs, Managers, VCs. Although it is inspiring to a certain extent to read about their success, I personally struggled to find literature from someone who was in the process of starting their own venture.
Ben Horowitz dedicated a full chapter to the Struggle in his book “The Hard Thing about Hard Things”, as a full-set of emotions / feelings involved in the realization and management of a company. Although Horowitz is a tremendously successful VC investor and serial entrepreneur, he is not exactly my peer.
Without sugar-coating it, I will try to describe “the Struggle”, but from a rookie’s perspective. I will provide you with my recommended reading lists, useful insights I stumble across on my journey and try to depict my full experience as a founder. I hope you will join me as I go from 0 to 1.
Inspired by serial entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel and his book “Zero to One”, I decided to launch my column about startups and how to build the future. This is my journey, 0 to 1 (billion 😃), as I learn, grow and create a start-up from scratch. I am part of the Antler 2021 February cohort, where I will get the opportunity to meet with extraordinary people and find my co-founder(s). After choosing and validating our business idea, we will get to realize it assuming our pitch is successful (🙏).
I hope this column will help and / or inspire you to navigate the ocean of information surrounding the start-up environment. Start-ups are all about “learning by doing”, and we will do this together. To infinity and beyond 🚀.
