Matto
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Hi all,
my, not real, name is Matto, I'm from Italy.
In Italy "Matto" means something like "Fool" or "Crazy".
This name was given me by one of my Sister's friends and since around 30 years this is my nickname used by all my relatives and friends.
I'm sort of proud of it, because is something strange and out of ordinary.
And in the last 3 years this is something I get back to encourage myself... I'm going to tell you why right now.
I live in the northern part of Italy, near the Swiss border, I got a Software Engineering Master Degree but I started working around 18, while studying I started to building web sites and learning Linux around 1995.
After graduation I started working as a consultant in Java programming in Milan, mainly for banks software. I learned a lot but the commuting was too long, from 2 to 3 hours a day, so I looked for something closer to home and more rewarding from the paycheck side. I found a first job in Switzerland in the banking software that was interesting but the company was very crappy and fool of assholes so I changed quickly for a very high quality company that was developing with Test Driven Development techniques and Agile methodologies. There I learned really what meant to work. We made many courses oriented to the agile methodologies, coaching mentorships and technical stuff.
To make the story short I worked there for 7 years and in the meanwhile I was reading self-improvement books as a mad "Matto" man, "The Richest Man in Babylon", "Rich Dad Pour Dad", and a lot of this kind of books dreaming to one day being able to be an Entrepreneur.
In the meanwhile, even working a 9-5 job in Switzerland, I had a kind of activity, not really a company, but more like a professional business in Italy: I had some clients coming from the Web Sites designing activity and do some software programming for small companies.
It was quite demanding I was working in the evening, Saturdays and Sundays and I wanted to change the way it was.
On the Swiss front, I was loosing interest, doing that the company was settling down, there were no more interesting courses going on and the job became quite boring and not interesting.
So I tried to change, I found another Company that was in Digital Newspaper publications, they designed app for reading Newspaper in Europe but also in U.S.A. and I wanted to manage some people. I had some experiences in coaching a development team of 3 peoples but I was tired there so I changed.
And you know that was a real mess!
The Boss, the person who I reported directly was a Major a**hole, and after just one month I decided to leave, after 2 months I was out.
I arranged with the previous employer a kind of part time job because I had some other activities and person interested on founding a company in Italy so I asked to come back but working 3 days in Switzerland and 2 days for a new Company I and other 3 partners incorporate in Italy.
This new split working live went on for 2 years and reading both MJ's book's 2 times, I understood the many flaws that business had: 2 partners had other companies and were not so much interested in really developing the new one or at least they didn't know what a "New ideas incubator" was for. I had no idea either at that time (and maybe not at the moment too) but I was willing to commit to make that company work and stop working for someone else.
It came out that the two of us believing in the company, me and another friend/partner of mine, were lousing interest because we were working and others were just talking.
We came out the partnership, they kept the company but I kept the one really good employee we hired and I had managed to start some consulting contracts with some other company via my own contacts to at least make him work and pay his paycheck and my business costs.
The swiss company after around 6 months asked me to come back full time so I accepted and came back at the start like in Monopoly game: working full time in Switzerland and having my old side pseudo company going by.
I'm saying going by because you can imagine what kind of very good and dadicated job I and my employee could do. I was travelling kind of 200 Km. the times that I had to go around 5 PM from job to a Customer meeting to discuss for changes.
I was tired of that too after a while, was too much time consuming and not efficient.
I was earning quite well, around 70k in Swiss and scraping some 10k from Italy.
But I was dreaming something completely on my own...
So I meet a very old family friend that is 10 years older than me having some activities in Swiss that had big company experiences and I started to follow him, in the remaining time (that was definitely non much).
He was full of ideas very creative and without boundaries, I mean mental ones.
I started to help for the technical part but a first attempt failed with no sales.
Than the relation loose down a bit and some months passed...
Almost two and a half years ago he got me involved in an eCommerce activity (I was reading last night a very interesting post from @Contrarian outlining a kind of similar partnership) and after 4 months, since I was really tired and unhappy of my well paying job, I left the job and started helping him in this new venture.
After almost two years I can tell you I learned many many different things from Marketing, to peoples management, from product creation, to warehouse managing, from patent thinking to copywriting, from trade mark selling to finance.
It's a great experience and without a kind of mentor, thinking of doing all this things alone I frankly tell is' impossible. This is really the kind of experience you read in books that is better to buy because making it be yourself is impossible in short time.
It seems all very beautiful but I'm going to tell you that being as Entrepreneurs the last ring of the chain we are earning not much money, constantly struggling with financial issues (we got 5 companies now not all in the ecommerce business).
The first eCommerce company was doing quite well but since was relying on Amazon as the main source of orders (>50%) and Amazon started to sell the very same products, we are facing a 50% income cut that put the company in serious troubles. Is was very eye opening when reading Unscripted (thanks a lot @MJ DeMarco ) MJ mentioned the very same experience with Amazon under the Control section of the Productocracy.
We have a software company that is barely able to pay his costs and other activities that are doing not much.
I started willing to be short but it was very compelling and useful especially to me to outline the journey that brought me here!
Probably from the FastLane forum I expect to find some peers that had some troubles like mine, some solved them some not, some I will be very happy to help if I can, sharing my experiences.
Writing these words was really helpful to me.
Please forgive my english if I made some typo, I'm not a native english speaker nor writer and I learned my english, in school, some abroad experiences in the U.S.A. and around the worlds and a lot in the last 6 recently years reading to english books and listening to audiobooks.
Even though I'm facing existential problems related to my work, I'm very positive, I got 2 fantastic kids and a marvelous spouse. They make my life Beautiful!
my, not real, name is Matto, I'm from Italy.
In Italy "Matto" means something like "Fool" or "Crazy".
This name was given me by one of my Sister's friends and since around 30 years this is my nickname used by all my relatives and friends.
I'm sort of proud of it, because is something strange and out of ordinary.
And in the last 3 years this is something I get back to encourage myself... I'm going to tell you why right now.
I live in the northern part of Italy, near the Swiss border, I got a Software Engineering Master Degree but I started working around 18, while studying I started to building web sites and learning Linux around 1995.
After graduation I started working as a consultant in Java programming in Milan, mainly for banks software. I learned a lot but the commuting was too long, from 2 to 3 hours a day, so I looked for something closer to home and more rewarding from the paycheck side. I found a first job in Switzerland in the banking software that was interesting but the company was very crappy and fool of assholes so I changed quickly for a very high quality company that was developing with Test Driven Development techniques and Agile methodologies. There I learned really what meant to work. We made many courses oriented to the agile methodologies, coaching mentorships and technical stuff.
To make the story short I worked there for 7 years and in the meanwhile I was reading self-improvement books as a mad "Matto" man, "The Richest Man in Babylon", "Rich Dad Pour Dad", and a lot of this kind of books dreaming to one day being able to be an Entrepreneur.
In the meanwhile, even working a 9-5 job in Switzerland, I had a kind of activity, not really a company, but more like a professional business in Italy: I had some clients coming from the Web Sites designing activity and do some software programming for small companies.
It was quite demanding I was working in the evening, Saturdays and Sundays and I wanted to change the way it was.
On the Swiss front, I was loosing interest, doing that the company was settling down, there were no more interesting courses going on and the job became quite boring and not interesting.
So I tried to change, I found another Company that was in Digital Newspaper publications, they designed app for reading Newspaper in Europe but also in U.S.A. and I wanted to manage some people. I had some experiences in coaching a development team of 3 peoples but I was tired there so I changed.
And you know that was a real mess!
The Boss, the person who I reported directly was a Major a**hole, and after just one month I decided to leave, after 2 months I was out.
I arranged with the previous employer a kind of part time job because I had some other activities and person interested on founding a company in Italy so I asked to come back but working 3 days in Switzerland and 2 days for a new Company I and other 3 partners incorporate in Italy.
This new split working live went on for 2 years and reading both MJ's book's 2 times, I understood the many flaws that business had: 2 partners had other companies and were not so much interested in really developing the new one or at least they didn't know what a "New ideas incubator" was for. I had no idea either at that time (and maybe not at the moment too) but I was willing to commit to make that company work and stop working for someone else.
It came out that the two of us believing in the company, me and another friend/partner of mine, were lousing interest because we were working and others were just talking.
We came out the partnership, they kept the company but I kept the one really good employee we hired and I had managed to start some consulting contracts with some other company via my own contacts to at least make him work and pay his paycheck and my business costs.
The swiss company after around 6 months asked me to come back full time so I accepted and came back at the start like in Monopoly game: working full time in Switzerland and having my old side pseudo company going by.
I'm saying going by because you can imagine what kind of very good and dadicated job I and my employee could do. I was travelling kind of 200 Km. the times that I had to go around 5 PM from job to a Customer meeting to discuss for changes.
I was tired of that too after a while, was too much time consuming and not efficient.
I was earning quite well, around 70k in Swiss and scraping some 10k from Italy.
But I was dreaming something completely on my own...
So I meet a very old family friend that is 10 years older than me having some activities in Swiss that had big company experiences and I started to follow him, in the remaining time (that was definitely non much).
He was full of ideas very creative and without boundaries, I mean mental ones.
I started to help for the technical part but a first attempt failed with no sales.
Than the relation loose down a bit and some months passed...
Almost two and a half years ago he got me involved in an eCommerce activity (I was reading last night a very interesting post from @Contrarian outlining a kind of similar partnership) and after 4 months, since I was really tired and unhappy of my well paying job, I left the job and started helping him in this new venture.
After almost two years I can tell you I learned many many different things from Marketing, to peoples management, from product creation, to warehouse managing, from patent thinking to copywriting, from trade mark selling to finance.
It's a great experience and without a kind of mentor, thinking of doing all this things alone I frankly tell is' impossible. This is really the kind of experience you read in books that is better to buy because making it be yourself is impossible in short time.
It seems all very beautiful but I'm going to tell you that being as Entrepreneurs the last ring of the chain we are earning not much money, constantly struggling with financial issues (we got 5 companies now not all in the ecommerce business).
The first eCommerce company was doing quite well but since was relying on Amazon as the main source of orders (>50%) and Amazon started to sell the very same products, we are facing a 50% income cut that put the company in serious troubles. Is was very eye opening when reading Unscripted (thanks a lot @MJ DeMarco ) MJ mentioned the very same experience with Amazon under the Control section of the Productocracy.
We have a software company that is barely able to pay his costs and other activities that are doing not much.
I started willing to be short but it was very compelling and useful especially to me to outline the journey that brought me here!
Probably from the FastLane forum I expect to find some peers that had some troubles like mine, some solved them some not, some I will be very happy to help if I can, sharing my experiences.
Writing these words was really helpful to me.
Please forgive my english if I made some typo, I'm not a native english speaker nor writer and I learned my english, in school, some abroad experiences in the U.S.A. and around the worlds and a lot in the last 6 recently years reading to english books and listening to audiobooks.
Even though I'm facing existential problems related to my work, I'm very positive, I got 2 fantastic kids and a marvelous spouse. They make my life Beautiful!
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