What it Takes | Tommaso Di Bartolo

Great. I was really impressed, Christina, what your pre-work you did, huh? Great. I'm very excited to be here again. How are you guys? Good. One session, one after the other, right? And it's actually amazing what you guys are doing. Always when I prepare to come here to speak with Draper University and students and current batches, what, you know, what motivates me and what makes me think what an awesome step you guys do is the fact that you come here and you learn what other entrepreneurs have done good or not good, right? Because this is going to shape your journey, right? To impact your journey that you have positively, right? And this was not the case when I started my first startup 15 years ago, right? It was just, hey, I have an idea. I want to do a product. Let's get there and just learn it and learning by doing, right? So I want to start again by giving you actually a big round of applause. And join me on that. Awesome what you are doing, guys. Awesome. Really good. So today I've been asked to— what's your name? Jace. Jace. Awesome what you are doing. I saw that you are— you need even more rewards than others, right? So I've been asked today to present something around the topic of what it takes, the topic about my lessons learned. And I've prepared a couple of slides to that. Because we are always on, feel free to take your smartphone. And this is now my Twitter handle. It's Todiba, T-O-D-I-B-A. And the topic is what it takes, hashtag what it takes. So it's time to take the first pictures. Exactly, right? So what qualifies me to be here? I mean, I've had, Christine, an amazing intro already, so I have not really a lot to add. I started my first 3 companies were cloud computing enterprise companies and a bit all over the world. So I'm an Italian citizen. I lived 17 years in Germany. I, over 11 years, I had 2 startups in enterprise business, in cloud computing enterprise business, and then I had a pit stop in London. And from London, I moved over here to the Bay Area. Well, the reason why I moved to the Bay Area is because, you know, I'm a dreamer too, right? And the Bay Area and Silicon Valley is unique. So who is actually from Silicon Valley, born and raised here? And who is not? Cool. A couple of nationalities. Where are you guys from? Where are you? Toscana. Hey. Germany. Germany. Hi, Birgit. Good. Where comes to? Aus Hamburg. Venezuela. ¿Qué tal? India. India. Hey, hi. Yeah, I don't do the English thing. I said I do just six. I just do six languages. India. Hey, welcome. Yeah, I mean, the reason why we are all here is because Silicon Valley is unique, right? I mean, next to my startups, what I do is I love sharing my lessons learned. Right. In terms of what have you— how have you broken startups? How have you rebuilt startups? How have you started startups? How have you exited startups? Right. So basically, I plug into accelerators or startups directly and add value as much as I can in terms of what I can and where I can basically help you guys in doing your startups. Right. Let me start on the topic, what's founder's journey like? Okay. And I want to have a very pragmatic guy, very execution-oriented guy. I want to go through a couple of slides with you so that I can give you at the end, you know, learnings on how you can start out and then eventually, you know, be successful in what you're doing. And before I start out, let me tell you the story what motivated me because the majority is actually not from Silicon Valley, right? What motivated me to come to Silicon Valley because I think who actually is here and wants to live here or has already plans to live here? Okay. Awesome. Awesome. So I mean, this is I think an interesting part of the story because one thing is being here and learning, the other thing is really making the step here, right? Which is a challenge on its own. So when I was about to exit my second company and build my third company, CloudPlace, my first 2 companies only grew organically, my business. And I will tell you about in a bit how I was doing it. In Europe, it's pretty common— here, yeah, Europe. In Europe, it's pretty common not to raise funds, or at least a couple of years ago it was not. Now it's getting more and more. And once I started my third company, Somebody introduced me to a VC and I had my first VC meetings. And this guy, this partner, I pitched my idea, first VC that I met, and he said, well, I don't know if you're going to make it. I don't really believe it. Right. So, and after having had to exit, I said, okay, I don't want to feel limited in what I'm doing, or I don't want others saying, you are not going to make it. And that's where I booked a flight, came to San Francisco. Right. And back then, 5 years ago, acceleration and bridge-building companies and entities were not really common. So I came completely on my own, just booked a plane, booked a room or a hotel room, and started hustling. Started calling around, started meeting people, which works pretty great here, right? And after 36 hours, I was sitting at Girardelli Place. Girardelli is down on Fisherman's Wharf. Who knows where Jollibee place is? Okay. So I was sitting there after 36 hours of being here, doing my initial meetings and initial calls, and I called my wife. And I'm married, by the way. I have 2 kids, age of 14 and 9, and I will tell you also a bit story about that. The reason why I'm emphasizing that is because I have 15 years of entrepreneurship and in parallel being also a dad. Who has kids? Me. So you know what it means, the double efforts that you have if you have one venture and the other venture, right? And so I call my wife and I say, I have to tell you 2 things. And she says, so how is it going? I said, it's actually going pretty good. I incorporated. Okay. And wise as she is, and she knows the crazy guy I am, she said, what does that mean? I said, well, you know, I founded a company here. Well, you know, no problem, Tommaso. Calm down. Kids are waiting for you. Come back. Everything is fine. And I said, no, no, because I knew that she'd answer like that. I have to tell you the second thing. So what is the second thing? I booked again a round trip from Europe here to Silicon Valley. And the reason why, and this is my first message to you guys, is I wanted to force myself Out of the comfort zone, right? So whatever you have as a challenge right now, either it's geographically or a visa issue or whatever, right? So my first message here to you is force yourself out of your comfort zone. So comfort zone is not just geographically. Comfort zone is always a zone that doesn't really lead you into the next step, right? So even if you are here, you get to tend into comfort zone. You join accelerators and then you are way too long with this accelerator, right? And it doesn't really move you and bring you into the next phase. When we start a startup, it's all about pushing it in time and making it step by step. So force yourself out of your comfort zone. So take a picture now and hashtag it, #statusquosucks. Yeah, exactly. Cool. So this is step number 1. Step number 2, I've been doing businesses in In Europe and here. And it's not a coincidence where you start your business. And it's actually key to what kind of business you want to grow. Do you want to have a lifestyle business or do you want to really scale globally? In other terms, what I'm saying here is, you know, do you want to have just a rose bush and be happy with something small or do you want to grow a redwood tree, a huge one? And what it means to you and interpreted from an entrepreneurial perspective, from a startup perspective, once you plant your seed of your startup seed, plant it wisely. Because during the period of time that you are executing, you can either get backwind or front wind, right? And especially for those who are not locals, It is very important to have a plan and saying, okay, I want to start out something. And I want to start out something and make it big. So, what is actually during this path, during this journey helping me on making it big, right? So, I have here, you know, I always talk about different market and segments. If you have— if you are, you know, in a coffee business, right? Then you better start out in Colombia or in Brazil because the ecosystem is for the coffee business there, right? Yes. If you are in automotive business, then it's Detroit. Or Europe, it's Germany, right? But boy, if you are in tech business, the best ecosystem, the ecosystem where you learn the fastest, where you can fail the fastest, where you have a lot of impulses, is here in Silicon Valley. And I break it down in 5 pillars. You can have access to the best talents. You have access to the best universities so that eventually they can join your startup, depending on how sexy and appealing it is, right? You have inspiration from the best innovators, right? So you have entrepreneurs that might join your advisory board and help you on that, right? And of course you have the venture arm that is helping you, you know, funding your venture. Thank you.