Before telling you about our chat, I will briefly summarize “what's Tightrope walker?” – Answer: “Leading mobile open source project and provider of open source mobile cloud sync and push email solutions for billions of phones.”. Funambol is the world's largest open source project in the wireless market, it develops software for mobile phones. To date it has been downloaded via the Internet by more than three million people. Funambol brings e-mail to mobile phones, together with the synchronization of the address book, the agenda and now also one's photos. Funambol is also a company with registered office in Silicon Valley, and with operational headquarters in Italy, it has American capital and Italian brains, as the development and research center is in Italy, in Pavia. It is a company of more than 80 people, with customers all over the world, mainly mobile operators and portals, such as America Online. Funambol is the company of Fabrizio Capobianco and with him I discussed a couple of hours about Silicon Valley, business, dreams and how sometimes they come true.
“Dear Fabrizio, the honor is all mine…” – he will immediately put you at ease. Informal appearance, decisive gaze, gift of synthesis and attitude towards business in typical Silicon Valley style.
This morning. Southwest flight from Los Angeles to San Jose. Taxi to Redwood City in Silicon Valley. It's a Friday, precisely August 13th and after having contacted Fabrizio from Italy and having announced my visit to him, here I am at 643 Bair Island Road in Redwood City in California at the US HQ of Funambol. First of all, I'm here in California on vacation but I couldn't miss out on some work "escape" and among the people I would have liked to meet there has been Fabrizio for some time, whom I had tagged in my Omnifocus and LinkedIn. At the time he told me about Funambol Paul Rizzardini who worked there and who we hosted about a year ago at a “Introduce Yourself” in MilanIN. Soon after, we used his software at the company to synchronize our groupware with our notebooks and smartphones. And now here I am at the entrance to his California offices.
The door is open :), I enter. A girl and a boy play foosball. Alongside the mythical table football there's a tool and at first glance it looks like a rope for training tightrope walkers. 
No matters, it's not for me. I greet them. She, I imagine the general secretary, approaches. She greets me. I remind her of my name and the appointment. She asks me for my business card. Amazing. She thanks me and takes me to the meeting room. I wait for Fabrizio and in the meantime I look out the window. Expanses of motor boats. We are near a small lake port. Some houses on the sides. A light wind blows and moves the tops of columns of trees grown around. “…what peace I tell myself! yet this is Silicon Valley.” – Two minutes and Fabrizio arrives.
“Hi Luca, thanks for coming!”.
"Dear Fabrizio, the honor is all mine… – thank you for confirming the appointment – I wanted to meet you and I didn't hope to be able to combine things.".
“Next week I will be on vacation with my wife and children. Today is a quiet day, I have a dinner tonight…”.
“Well, sometimes you need to relax and catch your breath. It helps gather energy and find new ideas. Although I've read around that the best ones come home with Donald's slippers! 🙂“.
“Here we are in California. This is Silicon Valley."
Our meeting began with this last statement. “But how did you end up here!?… how did you do it?”. Yes. Because the question is neither rhetorical nor hypocritical, nor does it hide that accursed Italian envy. She is sincere and full of compliments. “How did you manage to realize your dream of creating a successful company in Silicon Valley? that Apple's MobileMe has as its only competitor? because I'm here to understand the dynamics, the randomness, the skills, the coincidences that make up this life of modern adventurers looking for gold." – and Fabrizio succeeded. And as he can tell you in person, he has come a long way from Internet Graffiti to Funambol and the lighthouse was not always pointed in the right direction. Fabrizio had to believe it. As he himself says, he often has the right intuitions in advance. Then life puts some of him and between coincidences, fortunes and chances he is often happy to offer his opportunities to those who are able to seize them. And so one day Funambol was born.
While I was looking for ideas to write this post, I realized that there are so many stories of Fabrizio and interviews online and they all tell the same things. The numbers and results of a long journey full of surprises. Instead, I'm here to understand and scrutinize in his words the tricks and trades of a successful entrepreneur who has managed with foreign capital to create a company whose human capital is Italian, starting with research and development. And among the various speeches made I caught these little rules, obviously so to speak.
1. So… first of all believe in yourself and in your own ideas.
Fundamental, he will tell you! “The first person who needs to be convinced of your own ideas is you.” – your determination, your will and your desire to go far are the foundations for building a winning mentality capable of achieving important goals.
2. Be clear about your goals.
“Turning dreams into goals!” – it seems trivial but it is not. Creativity is the main food of a mind determined to achieve its goals. But that's not enough! ideas must be implemented. Let's define the objectives to have a lighthouse pointing far away but let's not worry if over time we will be forced to review the initial ideas. The important thing is to have a goal to achieve. Convince yourself of this.
3. Have a winning idea.
“Not all the ideas we make will go far!” – in Italy, a business failure is equivalent to an almost “mortal” defeat. In the USA they think that an entrepreneur is mature after at least two bankruptcies behind him. Is it about points of view? NO! but mentality. Failure is part of the growth process. The important thing is not to persevere in your mistakes. If we believe in an idea and want to make it happen, we shouldn't be afraid to try because it could be the "right" time.
4. A Lifestyle Company or a Google Company.
“Do you know what you want? do you want to create a global company or a business that you will then hand over to your children?” - good question. If I think about success, money and power, I answer “… a global company… but how is it achieved? what's the difference'? Google is a global company I guess!”. If you want to create a global company here you can, obviously if you have what it takes. If you have in mind to create a company that develops its business without many pretensions, that maintains you and your children even with a good standard of living to afford the car you want, a couple of houses and worldwide holidays “… well , you can stay in Italy and avoid the hassle of coming here!”.
5. What is the magic formula for getting money from Venture Capital?
“…first of all it takes a lot of patience… despite having everything else!” – a good curriculum, at least one experience as a manager for a US company, a good team, the right idea, the company already started with some clients and a business plan that develops important revenues “…if you don't guarantee him a 100 million business dollars in the third year… forget it! they don't listen to you, they are looking for the new Google!”. Then there are at least three rounds, each with different protagonists and above all the possibility of finding very different investors. Aspects, in some ways, not very different from ours apart from the fact that Venture Capital does not exist here. The details change which, as always, make the difference but these will remain "buried" in my notes because they are pearls that I have decided I will need soon for IDEOL.
6. Does an Italian company have hopes of being able to interest a Venture Capital?
No! our market is too small. Our companies "are modest" in terms of capitalization, market, revenues and market share. Here the numbers have “a few” extra zeros! But if there's the right idea, the numbers and the magic formula is complete, then there's a chance. And from here we moved on to talking about Mind the Bridge Fabrizio collaborates on the board. MTB is a non-profit association that aims to help managers and companies develop business plans and find interested partners around the world, including here in Silicon Valley. Among the most interesting recent activities Fabrizio tells me about High School preparation, a sort of trainer and incubator to help develop an ecosystem made up of Italian companies in Silicon Valley. The last "Business Plan Competition" ended last July and the results are very interesting. The 5-6 November will be held in Milan on Venture Camp 10.
It's been about two hours. We're back to talking about the foosball table in the entrance, for Fabrizio the symbol of that informal and determined spirit that has always animated him. Of the tool for tightrope walkers "... you know it's not that simple, you need balance!" – And I was wondering if he had asked me to prove it? I wear balance power on my wrist though! but in the end I didn't even pretend to be curious.
“Hi Fabrizio, thank you. It was a pleasure. I'll wait for you in Italy as a guest of MilanIN for a Present Yourself.” – the notes are full of first and last names, brands and tags.
“Hi Luca, think carefully but I think we'll see you here soon! “.
"You can count on it.".
I take the taxi. Half an hour and I'm already in San Jose. Check in. I see a wine bar. I take my notes. It's time to start telling something. I'll have a Pinot Gris from Napa. I turn on the mac. I access the obviously free wifi at the airport. I open wordpress and start my story. The first from Silicon Valley.
