BAIAblog

A Call for Energetic Optimism

Today, and in the months ahead, we must think and act with keen optimism and determination.

While I was traveling back home during the holidays, in my native Torino – which is also the 2008 World Design Capital – I witnessed the usual warmth and cheerfulness of familiar faces in an atmosphere fueled by the holiday spirit.

At the same time, I had the chance to browse through some of that more casual and disparate holiday reading material, ranging from the history book found at home, to the arts catalogs in the bookstore of the Civic Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art to some mundane magazines which tend to materialize in your laps at the airport or at the hair dresser’s. Among tales of beauty, technology gadgets (I especially like the 500-shaped USB I received from my Dad), and daily happenings, a common theme was surfacing across the press:  the need for optimism.

Usually, when a state of mind is summoned by multiple parties, it means there has been a lack of it, or lackluster presence at least.  So I sniffed around for supporting data.

An article I came across in one of my “holiday magazines”, (A) by Giancarlo Bruno, manager of Banking and Capital Marketing for the World Economic Forum, was reporting data about Italy’s classification among the world economies, based on overall competitiveness (World Economic Forum competitiveness index). The current ranking: 46; down from 42 and 38 in the previous years.  By digging in a little deeper, it shows business competitiveness (ranking: 42) is more favorable in terms of “Sophistication of company operations and strategy”(32) rather than “Quality of the national business environment” (45) (link).

Given that Italy should be among the top five or six world economies, a 46th overall place sounds very much like the C series.  Or, with a different cultural metaphor, if you are an A student it is a shame to get anything less than a B, just because you can so easily do better. Two years ago, I attended a business breakfast where an economist from BNP Paribas stated: “Italy is dying” (he also mentioned oil prices were not going to rise ...). At the end of the presentation I raised my proud Italian hand and clarified that, thank you for the concern, but Italy was alive and well, despite aggressive competition in certain sectors, from high-growth emerging economies.  A few weeks later I flew to Torino to witness first-hand the sparkling beauty of the Olympic Torch and the rebirth on the world stage of the first capitol of Italy.  My country still looked very much alive.  Today we should not be in 46th place and, most important, we should be competitive, jostling for the top 5, top 10 positions.  Not for sake of the ranking per se, but because that’s a sign of the dreams, work and achievements that lie beneath the digits.  Hence my urge to blog on the topic.

Two weeks ago a business delegation with the Partnership for Growth program, accompanied by US Ambassador Ronald Spogli, visited the Bay Area.  There was much enthusiasm and no shortness of energy among the Italian visitors, eager to absorb information and to interact constructively, to build on their ideas.  Matteo Fabiano of BAIA opened his introductory note on BAIA, during a lunch session at Stanford (sponsored by YourTrumanShow), exactly on the topic of optimism, and on how it pervades the business climate of Silicon Valley. It was nice to see the light shining in the eyes of the audience, they grasped the message!

So, let’s capitalize on our talent, passion for quality, business acumen and scientific skills, to invigorate our country’s competitiveness and to keep our ability to dream alive. Dreams become reality when you believe in them and work hard toward their achievement. Optimism is not just a word, but the positive attitude and energetic drive required to move forward in spite of temporary obstacles and challenging circumstances.

Lucia Panini

A Silicon Mind

Following an extensive trip in California and other parts of the country, LA7, a major Italian television broadcaster, has produced a reportage that is now available online. A sweeping view of the opportunities, challenges and motivations of Italian entrepreneurs and professionals in Silicon Valley, including startups, BAIA, SVIEC, Google, Stanford, Tim Draper, John Hennessy,… Interviews and reportage by Frediano Finucci and Damiano Ficoneri, LA7 News.

Matteo Fabiano

An Interview with Massimo Scognamiglio, CEO of D-Helix

Massimo Scognamiglio is the founder and CEO of D-Helix a new biotech company based in San Francisco with strong roots in Italy. Massimo is approaching business with an angle that is quite unusual in Italy: he is trying to combine the best academic resources with a solid business structure and plan. While Silicon Valley success is based on this kind of connection, in the Italian business landscape Massimo is still an exception. In order to learn more about Massimo's entrepreneurial adventure I invited him for an interview. Enjoy!

Massimo, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company?

In my opinion the most important part of life is curiosity. When it doesn't kill the cat. It is an extraordinary source of knowledge that you first learn as a little kid. And if you can retain that curiosity, it can become the most important source of knowledge. Obviously that's not enough - you also need to study and have some luck. My curiosity led me to try to understand the mechanism that governs the world around us. I guess "curiosity" it's part of my DNA. However, what explains my actions best is the concept of multitasking: my life is multitasking. Everybody knows that you have only one life that has to be shared with your friends, your love, your society and your professional life... so for this reason you can't sleep too much and you have to live your life to the fullest. And the most important part of that life is to maintain your integrity.
Talking about my company, it's difficult to start a biotech company, but it's possible if you can see the business opportunity. I have this opportunity and I turned it into reality, much the same way as my first venture. In 1996 I founded a multimedia company in Italy at a time when the market was not quite ready even for the concept of the internet. However, I was successful in convincing the market. It also gave me the opportunity to grow as entrepreneur. I understood that you have to risk your own money, your stable job, the most precious years of your life, and all your passion. In 2000 I sold my first company (xmedia) to the most important media group in Italy. Years later, here I am in California. D-Helix, my company, was incorporated in San Francisco in April, 2006: It is the project that builds the bridge between academic discoveries and the industry. You don't realize how many great discoveries never see daylight because they are hiding in the university. Our main business is to fill this gap by sponsoring early stage research in many biotech areas. Even thought the risk is greater, so is the payoff. At the same time, we think that we are on an important mission for society: transforming these groundbreaking technologies for the real world.

With your company you are building a business bridge between Italy and California. Can you explain the reason behind this choice?

Italy is so beautiful, the perfect place to live but it's not the right place to be an entrepreneur. California is the perfect place to start up a global company based on a global network between universities and research labs all around the world, between United States, Spain and Japan.

San Francisco, the Silicon Valley, and the Bay Area are becoming key places for the biotech industry. How favorable is the business environment in Italy for biotech startups?

As I said before, Italy, today, is not a simple place to work like entrepreneur, and the university research environment is even worst: we have some great university and great scientists but absolutely no entrepreneurial culture... for too many years (and probably also today) research has been considered a loss of money and not a gasoline for new companies and for the Country.

Starting up a company is a difficult job. Based on your experience what are the most common errors new entrepreneurs should avoid?

The one billion dollar question... the first answer that comes to mind is avoid arriving too soon: you risk being not understood, and you must have a "marketable idea." The second error is to choose bad associates: do not trust from the very beginning, build the trust day by day... You must remember that even the greatest idea needs a great team and great marketing to reach the market. For these reason I believe that D-Helix could be a winner: biotechnology is becoming mature, from the business and scientific side, and, at the same time, our associates are strongly committed to the company. When I present my company to an audience, I emphasize not only the business/scientific side but also my spirit, my vision, my very personal way of seeing the world, and my commitment.

You are a strong supporter of the connection between academia and business. How do you manage the bureaucracy of the Italian academia in a way that makes sense from the business point of view?

We are currently working in the United States. D-Helix is active in scouting, acquiring, developing, and commercializing groundbreaking intellectual property licensed from a number of universities and research institutes in particular areas of biotechnology (with current focus on environmental stress plant tolerance, biofuels, and antiviral treatment possibilities.) The company’s business model is represented by an independent innovative platform (made of a strong research world wide network of leading scientists with a deep pipeline of development), able to accelerate the research value creation time to market and reduce related direct costs. We will soon begin collaborating with some Italian universities, so wish us good luck! The bureaucracy is awful and it's still one of the most important difficulties when working with universities. You can't manage bureaucracy. If you are a very lucky boy, you can just survive bureaucracy!

Fundraising is one of the most critical steps for new entrepreneurs. Any recommendations?

A very good Business Plan, a short Time to Market, and a clear competitive advantage. Then great imagination and luck.

BAIA has plans to promote on Italian land the Silicon Valley open approach to business network. What will Italians have to change in order to fully benefit from those types of social relationships?

The network is the most important issue, more than the money. In Italy the network is always a closed network, you can't talk directly to anybody. The Californian way is the opposite: it's not a matter of friendship, it's just business.

I would like to thank Massimo Scognamiglio for taking the time to speak with me today. If you have any questions for Massimo or for BAIA, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

An Interview with Francesco Lemmi, Director at innovalight

2007 is the International Heliophysical Year, celebrated at a time when businesses and individuals around the world are compelled to look at solar energy and other renewable energy sources to fuel a cleaner, sustainable future. In an aura of hope and ongoing progress, BAIA is looking at both American and Italian companies, offering the spotlight to innovative businesses and entrepreneurs who are making the promise of renewables become concrete on both sides of the ocean. With this goal in mind, BAIA has just hosted an event on renewable energy “From Galileo to Arnold: Redefining the Center of the Energy Universe” (pictures on Flickr), with six prestigious panelists from Innovalight, PG&E, the San Francisco Department of Environment, Solar Ventures and SRI International.

As a follow up to the insights we have learned from our panelists, we are continuing our process of discovery and promotion of these clean energy champions and I have interviewed Dr. Francesco Lemmi of Innovalight, one of the Red Herring top 100 innovators of 2007.

Francesco, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company?
I came to Silicon Valley from the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, to work on amorphous silicon devices and physics at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) after my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. Most of the research activity was focused on the development of high-resolution X-ray medical imaging. After two years in Rome working as an Assistant Professor (“Ricercatore Universitario”) in Electrical Engineering, I returned to Silicon Valley. I have, then since held engineering and management positions at FlexICs, Inc. and Nanosys, Inc., working on ultra-low temperature polysilicon thin-film transistors and on Silicon nanowires, both in the area of device and process development. During this last year I have been heading the solar cell device development at Innovalight, using a proprietary “Silicon Ink” technology. In my career I have been author of 9 US patents and several more pending patent applications, as well as more than 40 publications on international scientific journals.

How would you explain to non-experts, the way Innovalight’s technology differs from the current, most common photovoltaic technology used in today’s commercial solar cells?
In a nutshell, Innovalight uses nanotechnology as a vehicle to cut the costs by a factor of 10 when compared to today’s conventional solar technology. Our product, while still in development, will look not much different to today’s solar cells. We have employed nanotechnology as a vehicle to create the product from scratch. This approach cuts out all of the very expensive processes used to manufacture solar cells today. We have chosen to develop our technology platform based on Silicon, which we believe to be the safest, most abundant and reliable material for photovoltaic applications.

What will be the benefits, in terms of cost and/or efficiency, of applying this technology to the mass production of solar cells and possibly other light-powered devices?
The key metric inhibiting the global adoption of solar cell technology is the cost to produce a watt of electricity. Solar cells today are still too expensive and cannot compete with conventional fossil fuel electricity generation. Today, solar modules cost about $5.00 per watt. For solar energy to takeoff worldwide, it must get to below $1.00 per watt. We believe we can reduce that to well below $1.00 per watt with our technology.

There seem to exist different generations of solar cells;  which generation does Innovalight belong to, or are you creating a whole new breed of nanocrystal solar cells?
Generation I is the “classical” Silicon wafer based solar cell. I guess we belong to Generation II of solar cell technologies, sometimes characterized as thin-films. In the end, customers who buy solar cells will not care what technology is used or if it contains nano-crystalline technology. Decisions will be made on how much it will cost. We are focused on that and making solar energy affordable. Generation III is about future multi-junction solar cells, and holds the promise of delivering extremely high conversion efficiencies. While we believe that our Silicon Ink technology could be used in such applications, we acknowledge that the time-to-market for Gen III devices is very likely to be well above a decade. Hence, we focus on Gen II type of devices for our first product, while maintaining a possible long-term R&D interest in Gen III.

Innovalight appears to be currently focused on grid-connected solutions;  is it possible that once your technology goes to market, there will be room to adapt it to autonomous energy systems, cost-effectively?
We are focused exclusively on grid-connected applications because that is where the multi billion dollar market is currently. Other markets will continue to emerge, such as portable power, but these are still very small markets with very different requirements. We see ourselves staying focused on grid applications (rooftop) for the foreseeable future.

Some of your competitors have been also performing research in nanotechnology, some on silicon thin-film solar cells, and some of them have an established network of integrators as well as the marketing and financial muscle to quickly bring their solutions to market.  Do you see Innovalight compete head-to-head with them, or do you believe your technology is unique or it applies to a specific niche?
We will be competing of course. At least for the next couple of years there will be plenty of opportunities for existing and new-entrants in the market, irrespective of the technologies employed. With solar energy only representing 0.01 percent of the electrical energy market today, there will be plenty of growth opportunity for many companies. If the cost per Watt of solar energy is brought well below one dollar, the market becomes virtually endless.

Your extensive research background is partly from Italy;  do you believe it is possible to adopt Innovalight’s technology now in the Italian market, and if so, do you see Innovalight establishing a presence overseas, or rather license its technology to Italian companies and/or work through local partners?
Italy, and the whole of the European continent are very important markets – in fact being the largest market today, they will factor importantly into our plans. It is not inconceivable that we will have our own operations in Europe, perhaps including Italy, in the future. As for licensing, that is something we will look at long-term. In the near to mid-term instead, as we grow, we plan on retaining a tight grip on our technology.

Do you see a fairly rapid trend developing, in the adoption of advanced solar solutions in Italy, or a more conservative approach, possibly diluted over time until proven solutions come to market?
At the present stage, and for all markets including Italy, the adoption of solar power is bound to governmental incentives, due to the still-too-high cost. A good example of how a country can expand vigorously its solar power component is given by Germany. In Germany, the extremely advantageous governmental incentives have boosted the solar energy sector to the first place worldwide. Germany has very aggressive plans to convert a sizeable portion of its total energy needs to solar in one and a half decades. Such governmental incentives have also prompted the growth of a very strong solar industry constellation of companies, including supporting businesses such as solar cell production tool makers, etc. This is ultimately the reason why Germany is going to be able to keep on their plans, over the years. Italy does have governmental incentives in place as well for solar energy, but the extent they can go to and the ease of obtaining them could be perhaps improved to boost the sector more efficiently. Over time, the cost of solar modules will be reduced and countries which have now a leading edge will still be in the best conditions to maintain it and push it further.

I would like to thank Francesco Lemmi for taking the time to speak with me today. If you have any questions for Francesco or for BAIA, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Lucia Panini

An Interview with the Fulbright-BEST Team in Silicon Valley

The Fulbright-BEST: Silicon Valley Immersion Program has been promoted by the US ambassador in Italy Ronald Spogli and is aimed to stimulate a new enterpreneurial spirit among young Italian PhD students. With the support of business organizations such as BAIA, the first team of five lucky Italians arrived in Silicon Valley a few months ago (see their blog.) The famous and promising pioneers of the BEST (Business Exchange and Student Training) program are Abramo Barbaresi, Elisabetta Capezio, Valentina Coccoli, Micol Macellari, and Emanuele Orgiu. In Italy they are quite popular and are getting a lot of of media coverage: l'Espresso, TG5, TG3, Corriere della Sera, Il Sole 24 Ore, Il Giornale, etc. After meeting the BEST team on a few occasions, I asked them for a collective interview to share their American experience with us. Here is that interview.

Abramo, Elisabetta, Valentina, Micol, and Emanuele: thanks to the BEST program, you are the pioneers of a stream of young Italian researchers and aspiring entrepreneurs coming to California to be trained and to bring back to Italy a little bit of the Silicon Valley success. Having been through this program, do you have any suggestions for the ones that will follow you?
Do your “BEST” in taking advantage of every single experience in the Silicon Valley.
Life here never stops! Don’t loose any chance to build your network among the important local entrepreneurs and VCs. Join as many events as possible, such as seminars, conferences and networking meetings hosted by universities (Santa Clara, Stanford, and Berkeley) and US-Italy business associations such as BAIA. Last but not the least: enjoys yourself in California!

Abramo, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?
My name is Abramo Barbaresi; I received a degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano University in 2000 with a thesis focused in measurement without contacts based on vision systems. After working briefly, I continued my research in the field of 3D measurement without contact at the Politecnico di Milano University, obtaining my Ph D in 2004.
Afterwards I decided to continue my research privately, sponsoring it through obtaining private grants. In this period I invented a new methodology that I patented. This technique allows the making of measures of the surface of 3D moving objects.
At the end of 2006 I applied to the BEST-Fulbright Silicon Valley Immersion program with the aim to acquire entrepreneurial skills and also with the expectation to find a partnership and/or alliance with other companies here in US.
Actually I am currently studying at Santa Clara University and working at Digital Persona, a company involved with the security field. I am also involved with an intense networking activity.

Abramo, what differences between the entrepreneurial environment in California and that of Italy impressed you the most?
For sure, the several possibilities that an entrepreneur has to access funding once he has a good idea. In Italy, if you have a good idea you are considered a poor dreamer. In the United States you are simply an entrepreneur who needs money to realize his dream. In other words you are a benefit for the society. There’s a big difference!
Another fundamental difference is the possibility to fail. This is something that impressed me most. In Italy if an entrepreneur fails he will never have a second chance. No bank or any other institution will trust him for rest of his professional life. Here it is different no one want to fail; however, if it happens, it’s seen like experience. It is part of his background, and it’s seen positively because obviously no one wants to make an error twice. For a VC that entrepreneur is preferable to who has never failed since he has more experience and more probability of success in the next venture.
This is a very important lesson for me to learn. I obviously don’t want to fail, but working with in this state of mind helps a lot because it gives you more freedom from worrying about the risks I may take and this allow you to concentrate in trying to mitigate them, facing and overcoming all the problems that your business present every day.

Elisabetta, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?
Hello everybody! My name's Elisabetta Capezio and I come from a small town in the South of Italy, Venosa, but before coming here I had been living in Milan, where I attended University. Last November I got my Master Degree in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at University Vita-Salute San Raffaele. There I performed my Master Thesis working in the research department of BioXell, a biotech company born as a Roche spin-off. In October I applied for the Fulbright-BEST program, presenting an innovative treatment for cancer therapy developed at San Raffaele Science Park by Professor Blasi.
So far, I have really appreciated this experience because if you wanna enjoy the business side of biotech context, here in Silicon Valley you are in the right place!
[Elisabetta is currently working at Comentis, a biotech company in South San Francisco, CA.]

You are working in an area that requires large capital, skilled management, and top notch researchers. Elisabetta, how do you plan to combine everything together into a new company?
Italian researchers are well known all over the world for their skills and their excellent activities, so I think it will be proportionally easy to get the right scientific support in my project. Moreover I come from a scientific institute, the San Raffaele Science Park which is one of the largest scientific park in Europe with a definitively top notch scientists team. Italy, in addition, has a strong tradition in pharmaceutical industry and this has provided a skilled management class, which can be possibly involved into the creation of new start up companies. For sure, the most challenging issue will be capital raising, but the increasing number of european VCs investing in US companies demonstrates that innovative and competitive projects are just what they are looking for!

Emanuele, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?
I received the M.S. degree in electronic engineering from the University of Cagliari in 2004 and immediately afterwards I enrolled on the PhD program of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (DIEE), University of Cagliari, as Ph.D. student. Currently, my research is focused on innovative electronic devices, in particular Organic semiconductors based devices. From January to May 2006, I worked as a researcher in Konarka Austria (Forschungs und Entwicklungs) GmbH (based in Linz, Austria)  a company leader in the world for research on organic solar cells. Its chief scientist and co-founder is Dr. Alan J. Heeger, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2000. I'm defending my PhD dissertation on February 2008. I work on a new generation of sensoristic systems in the field of Biotechnologies, Biomedicine and environmental monitoring using organic materials (polymers and plastic) because they are low cost and permit to achieve better performances (if compared to those ones of the silicon). I applied for the BEST-Fulbright Silicon Valley Immersion program, sponsored by the Italy-US Embassy, a program focused on the acquiring of entrepreneurial skills and principles to create a spin-off company along with my research team. The spin-off will be focused on the development of  organic sensors.
[Emanuele is currently working at BioIdent, a biotech company in Menlopark, CA.]

Before coming to California we all have our own image of the Silicon Valley. Emanuele, what favorable or disappointing impressions did you have after living here a few months?
Well, I guess in a few months I could not have gone deep into American culture but anyway I think that everything and everybody rushes! This point have either positive and negative implications. First of all everything works: at work everything works well, at the supermarket everything is very efficient, everybody is kind, everybody helps you. This is what you see at the top whereas at the bottom... it's difficult to create friendship with people, everybody is continuously competing with you... Nobody seems to be interested in you as you are.. but if you are interesting because you're a good manager, a brilliant researcher or whatever then they are. After asking you your name then the second question is “what you do”? A short story: I invited a classmate to go for a drink and his reply was... “well, I'll be booked over the next weeks but...if you have a myspace.com account, add me”.

Micol, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?
I come from Voghera, a small town in the countryside near Milan and I took my Master Degree in Medical and Molecular Biotechnology at the San Raffaele Univesity in Milan. I applied for the Fulbright-BEST program because my professional objective is to integrate my scientific skills with experiences that allow me to effort my entrepreneurial spirit. What’s a better place than the Silicon Valley for achieving my goal! This is not my first time in the US, because I came here before for study tour but is my first time away from home for such a long time! Arrive here with the other Italian guys, make everything easier! Moreover thanks to the US Embassy and the Fulbright Association we got in touch with a lot of people living here and that helped us so much in familiarizing with one’s surrounding!
[Micol is currently working at Panomics, a biotech company in Fremont, CA.]

After enjoying the exciting business environment of the Silicon Valley you will be headed back to Italy. Micol, have you considered the possibility of coming back after you are done with your PhD? Does Italy still provide opportunities for people like you?
The final aim of this Fulbright-BEST program is to give the chance to young people to try to discover the secret of the Silicon Valley business environment for bringing back home as much as possible of this powerful know-how. We cannot deny that the Italian reality is very different from here, as many countries in the world are, but I think that even if we cannot think to chance the world, once in Italy we can try to share with other people and students the insightful experience we are having in this unique reality. This could be a first step in trying to change people mindset and way of thinking!

Valentina, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?
I received my Master Degree in Materials Engineering from the University of Naples "Federico II" in July 2004. In November 2004 I won a PhD Program scholarship in Materials and Structural Engineering, focused on Biomaterials at the Department of Materials and Production Engineering of the University of Naples "Federico II". I am scheduled to finish my PhD Program in November 2007. For my doctoral studies I was mainly interested on the development and manufacture of tissue regeneration scaffolds. The main goal of my project is to obtain products that provide surgeons with a practical, reproducible and adaptable means of improving the outcome of existing surgical procedures for the regenerative repair of tissues and organs. I applied for the BEST-Fulbright Silicon Valley Immersion Program to acquire entrepreneurial skills and principles to create a spin-off company from my university research group. My challenge is to find funds to create a tissue and organ substitutes company in Italy. This company would be a leading global provider of TE scaffolds that allow patients to continue living healthy and active lifestyles.
[Valentina is currently working at FivePrime, a biotech company in San Francisco, CA.]

In Silicon Valley the social and business network is a crucial factor for success. Valentina, how do you compare the Italian and Silicon Valley attitudes toward social networking? How do you think your experience here in the US will impact your approach to networking?
When I arrived in the Silicon Valley, I didn’t have any idea of the social and business networking value and influence. Since the beginning of this experience, we have been involved in a lot of networking events sponsored by US-Italy associations such as BAIA, SVIEC, Urania, etc. During this kind of events, people have the opportunity to meet and share opinions with very important businessmen. In the Silicon Valley, networking has become almost as natural as breathing, probably because it’s simply an extension of being friendly, outgoing, and active in the communities and professional groups. In Italy, I don’t think there are a lot of professional networking events, or at least, they are not common and mainly not opened to young people!
However, to me networking is all about building relationships and it’s absolutely a two-way street: “You might know someone who can help someone else”. This is the right way to build a good network that can help you for everything such as finding the right job, the best physician as well as a good deal. When I go back to Italy, I don’t want to loose the networking skills I am learning here and, absolutely, I will go on to build and strengthen my network.

I would like to thank Abramo, Elisabetta, Valentina, Micol, and Emanuele for taking the time to speak with me today. I also wish all of them the best for their new professional future once they will be back to Italy. If you have any questions for them or for BAIA, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

An Interview with Diego Ventura, Founder and CEO of noHold

Diego Ventura is the CEO of noHold, a company that provides services based on Artificial Intelligence. Diego is a well-known and highly respected member of the Italian community in Silicon Valley. I thought that it would be of interest to our readers to have Diego share his experiences as an Italian entrepreneur in the US. Here is the interview:

Diego, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company, noHold?
I was born in Trento, Italy, but I consider my hometown to be Pordenone where my parents a brother and a sister still live.  Pordenone is about one hour away from Venice. I attended high school there at the Liceo Scientifico and then got a degree in Computer Science with the University of Maryland. I met my wife, Tammy who is from California, in Aviano where she was stationed with the U.S. Air Force. We have a son, Francesco (20) and a daughter, Stephany (18).  I founded noHold in 2000, raised about $15M and created an expert system, we call InstantSupport™ that helps big companies reduce support cost, by providing technical support automatically without human intervention. The solution manages millions of sessions per year for customers like Microsoft, Cisco, Acer, etc.

Artificial Intelligence has been promising exceptional results for many years. Only now, when it’s not anymore the coolest area of Computer science, AI is starting to deliver interesting results. Why now and not before?
I agree with your comment, but just to be specific, I will limit my answer to the area of AI we work with, Expert Systems. A solution like ours needs several ingredients to work well:  Smart algorithms, easy connectivity and fast execution.  The smart algorithms may have also been available in the 80s, although things improve all the time, but ease of connectivity and fast execution were definitely lacking back then.  There was no Internet, so creating a scenario where millions of people could easily connect to a single computer system was unthinkable.  Processor speeds were order of magnitude slower than what we have today, so even if the main algorithms to mimic inference did exist, they could not be executed fast enough from the machine of that time. In my opinion AI is still cool, but with the added bonus of being practical.

In competitive environments, it is becoming more important that companies communicate effectively with their customers by not only providing the right answers to their inquiries but also by recognizing and empathizing with their emotions. How well can software applications handle the emotional level of communication?
We found that it is absolutely key to be straightforward with end users to create a constructive experience.  We refrain from using avatars or smiley faces for our user interface, because it is important to set the proper expectations for the customer.  We tell them that we are an automatic tool and that we will try to get them as fast as possible to the right solution for them. If we are not successful, we will promptly escalate them to an agent via live chat, email or phone.  One way to think about it is to consider what happened with Banking.  Banks have trained us in using ATMs and now for certain operations, like just getting cash, people prefer ATMs, they don’t want to walk into a branch and spend some time in line. I think the same can be achieved with solutions like ours. However, the key is to choose the right battles, situations were the emotional component is predominant should be handled by humans.

The interaction between a service and its users is quickly spreading over several media: phone, IM, webpage, etc. How is your company addressing this proliferation of channels?
The name of the game here is “Interconnectivity”. noHold is and wants to continue to be a point solution that is best of breed in its space, but we recognize the importance of other communication channels. Therefore, our strategy is to connect and integrate with applications that take advantage of other communication channels. We can currently connect with the most popular Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. We can escalate our virtual agent sessions to live chat systems or email and we are considering partnerships with companies that provide voice recognition functionality, so that the whole solution can be used over the phone.

The dot-com collapse ended up destroying not only poorly conceived startups but also several companies based on solid business models. How did your company manage not only to survive but also to grow during those times?
We got our first round of financing in the summer of 2000, right after the burst of the “Bubble”. A really bad time because investors expectations were still pretty high, but the market had crashed.  We were lucky enough to recognize the change and adjust for it; we knew we were in for a marathon, not a sprint.  I think a lot of companies ignored the signs and kept spending like there was no tomorrow. I actually believe that the Italian background here helped quite a bit.  Let’s not forget that my generation was raised by wonderful people who saw the Second World War and knew the meaning of saving and being resourceful, so thank you mamma e babbo! The other element that helped us was the character of the people my team is made of. I am talking about resilient, battle-tested professionals who never gave up even in the toughest situations.

Would it be possible for a business like noHold to be based in Italy?
Yes! We are a software company, so all you need are smart dedicated people to make things happen. I have to say that however, there is nothing like the fertile grounds of the Silicon Valley for a young startup. Ultimately the ideal scenario is a company with a presence both in Italy and the U.S.

The Silicon Valley and the Bay Area continue to attract young entrepreneurs from Italy. Based on your experience do you have any recommendations for them?
Here is what worked for me:

• Work hard and smart
• Try to get to know as many people as possible and be nice to all of them.  It really is a small world
• Stay true to your roots.  At first I was concerned about my accent when making a presentation for example. Now I see it has an advantage, all the ladies say it is cute and the guys remember it!

I would like to thank Diego Ventura for taking the time to speak with me today. If you have any questions for Diego or for BAIA, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

The Funambol model: US capital and Italian heart

I'm very happy to post this interesting contribution from Fabrizio Capobianco (blog), an Italian entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. Fabrizio is a friend of BAIA who has been participating in our activities. Last August he was involved as a speaker at the Mobile Platforms event in San Francisco (pictures on Flickr). Our plan is to open this blog to external contributions from invited speakers such as Francesco, and to make the BAIAblog a meeting point for the entire Italian and American business community. Thank you Fabrizio. Franco Folini

Life as an emigrant is tough... You look back at your native country and you struggle between love and hate. Emigrants flee home because they go looking for something they could not find where they were born. They leave their heart in their home country, hoping to come back one day to find that everything has changed.

I left Italy for California in '99 and I go back home quite often. Not that much has changed, but I am not planning to give up that fast...

After founding a couple of companies in Italy and working for a public US company, I founded Funambol in 2002. Funambol is the mobile open source company, bringing BlackBerry-like capabilities to the masses. A Red Herring 100 company and the largest open source project in mobile with almost one million of downloads, Funambol has been funded mainly by US Venture Capitalist. The headquarter is in Silicon Valley, but the R&D is in Italy. In Pavia, close to the local university.

US capital and Italian heart.

Italy is a beautiful country, but in a state of crisis. The economy is suffering. Globalization is killing our small manufacturing companies. Competing with China in these markets is simply not doable. Protectionism attempt will fail. We need to move on.

Italy can compete on high tech and software in particular. Our labor cost in this sector is highly competitive. It might sound strange to many, but Italy has the lowest cost of software in Europe (35K/year Euro per engineer). That's extremely competitive with respect to Silicon Valley (the weather is still better here, sorry) and also with India or China, where wages keep appreciating every year.

In particular, if you compare the Intellectual Property protection Italy enjoys. I know of a few examples of outsourcing companies in India, where a group of employees took a product they were developing for a third party and started a new company... Outsourcing saves money and it is necessary, but can be risky in a country where the legal system does not support you. On top of it, Italy is the best with respect to loyalty of the employees (a key element in software, which is all about people)

When it comes to education, Italy ranks high. In my experience, the competence of Italian engineers is comparable if not better than American peers. Italy is the country of creativity. It is in our DNA. Software is creativity. Add some rigorous engineering and you have Ferrari, the most beautiful car on the planet, but also a technological jewel.

Software is great for Italy. It requires limited capital to start. If you use open source as a distribution model, it is even better. You can take advantage of globalization and reach markets anywhere on the planet.

When you are ready to go to the next step, however, risk capital is missing in Italy. The ability to manage risks of Silicon Valley VCs is unrivalled. All your connections are here, if you want to grow your company or find an exit via M&A. This is the place to be if you want to go big. Not just for cash, but for the mentality. Things move at a different speed in the Valley. And I do not believe it is going to change any time soon.

For now, I see a great opportunity for Italy to be a center of excellence for software outsourcing. Becoming a new Silicon Valley is the next step. We are not ready for that yet, but the Funambol model is a start. US capital and Italian heart. I hope many more companies will follow. It is simply the best of both worlds.

Fabrizio Capobianco