Veni, vidi, vici 💁🏻♂️
It's time for builders #40
Closing a hard deal with a quick in-person visit…
and then walking along the Fori Imperiali.
It’s a dangerous combination.
I couldn’t help the title.
A week on the road 🚄 🚙
On Monday, we got an early train to Turin, onboarded a new client, said hi to some friends at the OGR, and then took another train to Naples.
It was a day full of hick-ups: Matteo forgot his suitcase on the train, I had a stomachache, and we had to rent a car in a very sketchy place.
But we pushed through.
On Tuesday morning, I drove to Basilicata and closed our smallest client yet.
It was hard to build a rapport online, but in person, we found an agreement fast.
The owner imports from China, and his daughter is studying there - it was fun to talk about that too.
After that, I went back to Caserta, picked Matteo back up, and joined a client for lunch (pizza, of course!) and a company visit.
We then gave back the car and took a train to Rome, where we met for dinner with one of our investors.
On Wednesday, we got an early train to Monterotondo, north of the capital, to visit a client who is among our top users right now.
It took almost 3 months to agree on the contract, but boy, was it worth it.
The meeting was about us and the tender office bringing on board the sales people as users - only the directors were there, otherwise it would have been 50 people.
The tender manager said, “This is THE platform, we’re not going back”.
Matteo stayed there for lunch, while I went back to the city: I got another client to sign our contract, then took a metro line to the last stop, walked for half an hour, and met another company (we agreed on the price and then I sent the offer).
Finally, we got back to Milan.
Yesterday we were in the office.
Today, we have a few sales meetings in Brescia (one booked after a cold call yesterday!).
And we’re going to call it a week after a 6 pm meeting in Bergamo, with the CEO of our largest client so far.
Actually, we’re planning to go to the office tomorrow morning.
Do things that don’t scale 😉
Closing and onboarding clients in person can take up a lot of time and energy.
But it’s fun.
And at this stage, it’s the best approach.
Momentum feeds on itself.
There will be time to:
create processes
optimise resources
qualify who we work with based on adoption readiness
Now, it’s about going forward as fast as possible.
So every deal matters.
Every piece of user feedback matters.
Ship and sell, every day.
Finally, our growth roadmap 🌍
Just a sneak peek.
Remember that Rome took like 3 centuries to defeat its initial rival, Veii.
A settlement 16 kilometres from the heart of the eternal city.
Just 16!
Then, 2 centuries to take over most of Italy.
And even less to conquer the Mediterranean.
Sometimes momentum takes a while, but then it’s unstoppable.