Pietro Ferracini: Lessons from being a three-time founder | 19/100 Interviews

TL;DR

1?? The co-founder you choose will make or break your startup. Pietro Ferracini experienced this when, one day, one of his co-founders took their product and started competing against him??

2?? The golden rules for evaluating businesses are to focus on a growing market, solve a massive pain, and serve people who can pay a premium and who are easy to target.

3?? There are many ways to find product-market fit, but arguably, testing demand and then building is the most efficient way.?

Choose your co-founder wisely?

The number one reason why startups fail is internal conflict. Co-founders are humans, and humans act in their self-interest. Pietro and his co-founder, Valentino Majdandjic , experienced this first-hand in their startup in its early days with their third co-founder. One month and a half into the project, the third co-founder unexpectedly took the technology and left. He was a great developer and as, the technical co-founder at a startup, had full control of the code behind the product. Also, as Chatty Insights was yet to be an official company, his move was legal but unethical.?

Meanwhile, Pietro is confident that he and Valentino are a great co-founder pair. Introduced through a mutual friend Giacomo Zivieri, Pietro remembers Valentino’s impressive grip on AI knowledge, as well as how he had the methodical and number-driven skills that were complimentary to Pietro’s. Pietro notes that his decision to join forces with Valentino was also driven by a gut feeling, something many seem to do to find their co-founders.

The two of them, with the help of a talented developer from Pietro’s previous startup named Adytia, quickly built back their product from the ground up, now with the understanding that while trust is important to have amongst co-founders, it is always best to verify and ensure code-transparency.?

How to evaluate your startup idea

As a three-time founder, Pietro has gone through the idea to startup process many times. I asked him how he filters through the myriad of ideas he has to find one that is worth spending time and effort building. His golden rules are based on entrepreneur Alex Hormozi’s best-selling book, $100M Offers.

<How to evaluate businesses>

1. It should be in a growing market. The people who you’re helping to solve a problem should be a big and growing number of people.
2. It should solve a massive pain. Instead of providing a solution that is “nice to have”, provide a solution that people NEED.
3. The people you’re helping should have purchasing power. At the end of the day, we live in capitalism, and if you aren’t paid, you won’t last.
4. Reachable targets. Aiming for the individual living in an off-grid hut in the mountains is not promising.?

Figuring out product-market fit

Another key factor in the success of a startup is finding product-market fit. Pietro describes it as an amazing thing everyone wants and not all startups have. Marc Andreessen defines it as “being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.” Essentially it is a situation when you find the right solution to the right problem, and as a result, you are flooded with requests and customers. This is PMF, and it is an essential component of building a successful startup.?

One thing that Pietro would change about his journey at Chatty Insights is the following. Instead of building a product and then proceeding to marketing, he now believes that a wiser order of building is the reverse, and first test if you can direct the demand towards your hypothetical solution.?

First, test if there is even a potential customer base. This can be done through a landing page where you get your first adopters. By connecting with your potential customers, they can follow your journey to building the perfect product.

Second, once you know there is a demand, build a minimum viable product (MVP). This is the first version of the product with the most basic features needed to function.

Finally, test your product and validate your concept. Release, get feedback, and improve the product.

A startup that used this process was a sustainable travel apparel brand, Tropicfeel. They attracted potential customers through online advertising on their landing page, where customers could prepay for their unreleased products. Six years later, they sell their products worldwide.??

What is your strength?

“The ability to convince other humans that it makes sense to jump on the same train with me. It boils down to attracting the right people and then scaling through their support. I’ve accomplished so much more in a team than I would have ever accomplished alone.”

Thank you Pietro for your interview!