Tuesday, October 30, 2007

First Generation Network: To Inspire Italian Technology Start Ups

The ANNOTICO Report

 

FGN is attempting to overcome the substantially accurate perception in Italy that you must come from a wealthy family or have high placed connections.  Americans do not perhaps realize that Europe is still rather stratified.

 

 

BlogNation Italy

Amanda Lorenzani

October 30, 2007

One of the sessions held at VentureCamp this month was given by three members of the First Generation Network - an organisation looking to unite and inspire Italian entrepreneurs through positive case studies and role models.

The panel was made up of Vitaminic Founder Gianluca Dettori, Marco Palombi who founded Splinder and Marco Rossi, Founder of Movenda. First Generation Network now has 15 members who give up their time to participate at events and give mentoring and advice to entrepreneurs. Its a fantastic, positive showcase that proves it is possible to buck the negative stereotypes surrounding starting up in Italy and the team wants to address the no risk culture that prevails with providing real life proof.

The messages they are promoting among entrepreneurs get straight to the point and were highlighted by Dettori at VentureCamp:

1) You can do it on your own - sometimes Italy suffers from the illusion that its impossible to start something on your own without backing from friends in high places or a powerful family. This is not the case and First Generation provides the evidence contrary to the idea.

2) Italy has home grown success stories - there are many highly successful web / technology companies that are based in Italy. Its not always easy to find them because, unlike in the US, entrepreneurs in this sector dont have the same celebrity status among the industry and wider public. First Generation aims to provide positive role models for Italians to get inspiration from.

3) Information and help is available - its easy to think that starting up in Italy is almost impossible. Unearthing information on anything: from how to set up, company admin, taxes etc to building a support network can seem daunting. But, information and help is out there and the First Generation team gives up their time to diffuse as much of their knowledge as possible.

They also highlighted a new project, Capturing Creativity, which is being run in conjunction with the American Embassy in Rome. This series of web chats with key players also provides a great showcase of Italian success stories and is well worth checking out.

One of the points made by Gianluca Dettori is something that has been coming up regularly at events in Italy - that Italian entrepreneurs who were successful during the first dot com boom are now looking to reinvest with early stage seed funding.

This is really encouraging news for the Italian internet sector so if you are considering a start up or just want more information to help you make decisions, First Generation is a good place to start.

I would also be interested in finding out about other schemes running like this one which could prove a good source of information for entrepreneurs. Please let us know if you are involved with anything similar.

 

The ANNOTICO Reports Can be Viewed (and are Archived) on:

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Italia Mia: http://www.ItaliaMia.com (3 years)

Annotico Email: annotico@earthlink.net