My path - 10,000 doors in my face

It's been a long road from working in a butcher's shop to starting my own business, and although I feel accomplished now, it's still hard.?

The day I got my first standing ovation, I was a young woman of 25 at the very beginning of her career, and a businessman over 50 said to me: "Make a note in your diary: today I got my first applause and they came to shake my hand and congratulate me."

I decided to follow his advice, but I did not mark the date in my diary, instead I decided to tell about my journey to give courage to those who, like me, for years have only received doors in their faces from the world of work.

Don't believe it?

Read this...

"I received your CV from Paola, but you had already sent your application, hadn't you? For an internship..." The confused look on my face said more than a thousand words and I wondered what the hell I was doing there... Then I remembered: I would soon be unemployed. I replied: “Have you read my resume?" The examiner blushed slightly: "Of course..." She replied hesitantly. "I'm a first level, do you think I send out applications for internships?" My tone was calm but slightly irritated. "Well, we had it categorized as an internship application." She replied boredly, "Besides, we like to get to know people before we hire them." "Sorry, then I'm not the right person for you: I have a permanent job and have been working for almost nine years."

Two weeks later, the market logic of the American multinational I was working for got the better of my permanent job, and although the situation had already decimated the company's staff and it was clear that the next shift would fall to me, the dismissal came like a cold shower at 5:35 p.m. on a Tuesday at the end of January: "By 6 p.m. you must have taken all your things and be out of the company." Not even if I was a thief or used to industrial espionage….

A month later, I accepted the job at the cosmetics company that had originally offered me an internship. At a reduced salary, for a limited period and with the certainty that my training would start from scratch. Why? Because I had never worked in the industry, what a question!

I was happiest when I got up at a quarter to six to go to work in a butcher's shop.

I liked working there, it wasn't my first job, right after graduation I had spent a summer as an animator in Sardinia: fun, but exhausting and with an almost non-existent salary. When I came back, I slept for a week.?

The butcher's shop was different: I started at a quarter to seven in the morning, cleaning all the windows and arranging the meat and sausages in the refrigerator; at seven o'clock the shop opened and people started coming in. Among the loyal customers was an old lady who always mistook me for a boy: “What a beautiful boy! Are you sixteen?” It was explained to her that I was a woman and twenty years old, but the next time she would start again: “What a beautiful boy!"

During my university years, I changed many jobs to pay my studies, all of them poorly paid... but enough to cover the tuition. The excuse was always the same: I had to learn.

Once I had an interview with the CEO of an important company operating in the Internet (before the speculative bubble, then I hardly heard from them again, and this makes me think...). We had a great interview, they were happy and asked me when I could start, I replied and asked the fateful question: "Is there any compensation?” "Listen," the CEO replied, "we are offering you a job where you can grow and learn. Not only should we not pay you, but you should pay us for the service we provide. Tell you what, you think about it and we'll get back to you in the next few days." Obviously, they didn't hire me, and I realized that the pay shown in the ad and the words "career opportunity" were just a fake.

After working in the cosmetics industry, I returned to the field I was truly passionate about: software. As much as the multi-billion dollar makeup industry seemed frivolous and boring to me, the evolution of technology fascinated and intrigued me.

In that job I was the marketing manager for the ERPs sold by the company and was responsible for the launch of some new softwares, including the current flagship ERP.

After a few months, I realized that this was my world and decided that if I never started my own business, this would be the ultimate company to work for. The only one for which I could give up the idea of starting my own company.

But I couldn't leave that path untrodden, and although I was doing well, after about two years I decided to go out on my own.

My mother was scared: "You're the daughter of a factory worker and a clerk, we're not a family of entrepreneurs, you won't succeed." Of course, I didn't listen to her. It was 2009.

After a few years in marketing and communications, I was lucky enough to cross paths with Marco Ravagnan and Marzia Di Meo.

With anthropologist Linda Armano and Marco Ravagnan (a brilliant Strategic Marketing and Data analysis Manager), I theorized the concept and methodology of anthropological marketing and wanted to create a start-up that would develop technological solutions for analyzing people's insights (consumers and workers) from open data: real-time analysis of people's insights in stores, companies and events. Marco Ravagnan and Marzia Di Meo were the right people to start a business with.

On October 1, 2016, we launched InTribe to offer our technology solutions to large enterprises.

Being an entrepreneur in Italy is very tough because there is not a healthy ecosystem, but since last year we have corporations customers in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and test users in the US. We also have a client (a global company in the luxury sector) for whom we analyze consumer insights worldwide.

It is a very tough challenge, but I am sure we are on our way to becoming a multinational.

You may be wondering what the moral is.

After 10,000 doors in my face and many disappointments, I realized that the only way to get what you want is to be clear in your mind and work hard for it. Prove who you are, show that you are worthy, and ask when you know you deserve something. Leave the complaining and the “poor me" to those who spend their days in front of the screen of a smartphone. Don't give a damn about the recession, the labor reform, the unemployment rate, and go after what you want: if you're persistent, you'll get it; the world of work is full of people who make it and get back up every time they fall.?

The only difference between making it and being crushed by the logic of the market is the passion you put into what you do. Believe in it, because if you don't believe in yourself, how can anyone else?