Do you want to know how an investor thinks? What are the things you think are important when choosing startups to invest in? What is the factor that can make the difference? A good way to do this is to read Giancarlo Rocchietti’s book entitled The Eye of the Tiger and published by Egea (210 pages, 24 euros in the paper version). Giancarlo Rocchietti is president and founder of the Investors Club, one of the leading groups of business angels in Italy and Europe, and in his book he tackles innovation, understood as the creation of startups, from numerous points of view. He begins by recounting his experience as an entrepreneur first and then as an investor, he does so by taking as an example the Stories that he knows closely: those of the companies he has created and those of the companies in which he has invested, it is therefore, the author’s vision, very specific, does not want to be a book that offers an overview of the Italian startup ecosystem, but focuses on the way in which the investor sees the issue with his own eyes. And so the author illustrates what are the elements that he considers important when deciding whether to invest in a startup, certainly what he calls ‘the eye of the tiger’, the deep desire to seize and win the challenge on the part of the entrepreneur but also the fundamentals: experience, knowledge, academic curriculum. The Investors Club has its main headquarters in Turin where Rocchietti was born and also lives and works in Turin so many of the stories that populate the book have developed having the Savoy city as a point of reference, whether they are companies and startups born in the city, or companies that perhaps even from abroad have chosen the Piedmontese capital to put down roots and this also applies to others Activities that are part of the ecosystem and that the author mentions, always taking the Turin sphere as an example. Of course, many things happen in Turin in the startup field and Rocchietti mentions most of them but, despite being an important pivot of the national ecosystem, he is not the only one and, as mentioned, the author focuses on his personal and direct experiences and therefore does not want to offer the reader an all-round panorama, but considerations and reflections that derive from his daily professional activity.
Culture and technology
Not only does Rocchietti go on to illustrate what are the elements that an entrepreneur must have to become interesting for investors, not only does he go into detail about his method of analysis to understand if the entrepreneur and his business idea are valid, but also It broadens the scope by delving into both the social and cultural issues of the startup phenomenon referring to the importance of education, STEM subjects, knowledge of the fundamentals of finance; both the technological trends that it considers most promising and also those that it considers less interesting, and offers, again through the eyes of the investor, a reasoned point of view on the because our country can hardly become a ‘startup nation’, but also because it cannot afford to neglect startups On the contrary, it has the opportunity to play a leading role in both the European and global scenarios, much more significant than what has happened so far. Rocchietti’s book is very enjoyable, you can read it almost in one breath and it is a Beautiful in-depth example of how investors who support startups think about and look at the ecosystem, of course is the author’s point of view, it would be nice if other investors also wrote books like this to share the way they see things and, thinking about this, we cannot fail to mention the book by the progenitor of Italian venture capital, Elserino Piol . Piol’s book has recently been reprinted, almost 20 years after the first edition by the will of his children, entitled ‘The Dream of a Business’ it is a real journey that starts from Olivetti to arrive at the first real and consistent venture capital experiences in Italy (Marsilio, 370 pages, 25 euros). It is therefore good to remember the entrepreneur who has marked the history of the IT industry in Italy, also on the occasion of the launch of the activities of the Foundation that takes its name from him and which aims to finance the birth of startups and which will be based in Valmorel, Piol’s hometown, in order to encourage the development of innovation even in areas that are further away from large urban centers such as the mountains of Belluno.
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