Silvia Wang, Co-Fouder of ProntoPro and Serenis (Masterclass Edition)

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The theme of today’s masterclass is: how to launch a startup 101, and to cover this topic we have invited Silvia Wang.

Silvia, is co-founder of Serenis, a tech company with the aim of making mental wellbeing more accessible, offering quality online psychological support.

Silvia is what we call a second time founder with an exit under her belt, in 2015, at only 28 years old, she co-founded with her husband ProntoPro, the number one services marketplace in Italy. In 2021, Silvia exited ProntoPro and founded Serenis.

Prior to launching her startups Silvia worked in South East Asia for several rocket internet companies.

TRASCRIZIONE EPISODIO

Inès Makula (00:00:02) - Welcome to MadeIT podcast. You're hearing our voices in English because we worked with a group called Italians VC to produce a series of masterclasses with some of the most influential Italian investors and entrepreneurs on a series of topics that we think will be invaluable for any startup founder. These sessions were conducted live for a select group of Italy based startup founders, but now we can all listen to them on mated podcast. So let's go. This masterclass was powered by BCG. Unlocking the potential of those who advanced the world is crucial for BCG, and this purpose has been leading the firm for 60 years now. Over that time, BCG has supported companies and organizations in their process of growth and strategic transformation. BCG supports startups with the same care to help them develop sustainably and innovate. If you're a founder and are interested in working with them, you can email Emil the Seeds at BCG, all the details in the show notes. The theme of today's Masterclass is how to launch a Startup 101. And to cover this topic, we have invited Sylvia Wang.

Inès Makula (00:01:10) - Sylvia is the co-founder of Serenis, a tech company with the aim of making mental wellbeing more accessible, offering quality online psychological support. Sylvia is what we call a second time founder with an exit under her belt In 2015, at only 28 years old, she co-founded with her husband Pronto Pro, the number one services marketplace in Italy in 2021. Sylvia exited Pronto Pro and founded Serenis, and prior to launching her startup, Sylvia worked in Southeast Asia for several rocket Internet companies. This masterclass was actually recorded in the BCG offices in Milan. So during the Q&A at the end, you will hear questions from the audience. All right, let's get started. Sylvia, once you had the idea for Pronto Pro and then Serenis, how did you know it was the idea that you were going to pursue? Like, did you do things to validate the idea? Had potential? In both cases, I didn't.

Silvia Wang (00:02:04) - Know I had the right idea. And it's quite different. The story behind Pronto Pro and Serenis, so Pronto Pro started kind of like a game, so we just wanted to come back to Italy.

Silvia Wang (00:02:18) - And so we did what a normal consultant would do. So we just studied the best startups in us and we just picked the one that we like the most without much thinking. While for Serenis's as a second time founder, I was much more picky. So I wanted something I was really passionate about. So that's a that just narrowed down a lot. And the other thing is that, as I said, I just exited. I didn't want to, to launch another startup, but it was just during Covid time. So we just saw the opportunity in Sydney because we saw that a lot of people were suffering from mental health issues. It's something that I went through and I know how therapy could help. And so again, we saw the opportunity and we started the market. So we so we started the is the timing correct? Because you can have the best idea in the world, but maybe it's too early or too late. And then how big is the market? So we wanted something that potentially could become a unicorn.

Silvia Wang (00:03:19) - And so we really carefully try to understand if our idea with the was ready to potentially have a huge market. And so based on those three factors, so something I'm passionate about timing and then and the potential market we decided that that was actually the idea I was going to pursue.

Inès Makula (00:03:42) - And in terms of market size, like what did you do? You just go online and see if there's a market opportunity here, like in terms of just concrete steps to size the market and see if there is really a demand for your offering. What some of the things that you did that people can kind of take home.

Silvia Wang (00:03:59) - So was quite easy because you actually had already demoed. Well, it was I mean, it is offline and we just brought it online, but we already had numbers. So actual number you can validate your idea on. So for therapy, for example, you have that many therapists in Italy and we and we know how many transactions they actually have. So it was quite easy for assessing the market for Pronto Pro is a little bit more difficult because it was a complete new idea.

Silvia Wang (00:04:30) - So what we did is we benchmarked against us against the rest of Europe and then we made the assumptions.

Inès Makula (00:04:38) - What would you say are some of the most important steps that an early stage startup should take when launching a new product or service? Some of the things that you need after the things that you've just mentioned, but some really important things to do at the beginning. You always start.

Silvia Wang (00:04:49) - From the knee. Like you have to make sure that there is a demand for the service that you're launching. And so the first thing, it's always service interviews. So for, for both Toronto Pro and Sydney's Pronto Pro, I interviewed my own the person that was taking care of my garden, the plumber, the electrician, like all people that we knew doing construction work services, a professional services and facilities. I interviewed 20 therapists and 50 patients to make sure that actually there was a need for what we were doing. And it's funny because even if the market was there, like a lot of therapists like before Covid were telling us now like you cannot do therapy online.

Silvia Wang (00:05:38) - Like it's impossible, completely impossible because you don't have the setting and everything is complicated. And then during Covid, everyone moved online like the sessions and suddenly it's actually the same, the same efficacy. So you from the interviews, you cannot just take what they say, but you need to elaborate them to make sure that, okay, is it truly or it's just something like. An actual opportunity.

Inès Makula (00:06:04) - Yeah, that's a really good actually point because your customer might tell you something, but actually in the end, you know, it might be the opposite of to what they say. So you testing as well and showing them that it can be done. And how do you sort of measure success when launching a startup, particularly in the early stages? How do you measure that you have the right traction to keep going with that idea?

Silvia Wang (00:06:24) - That's a good question because that's one of the most difficult parts like in in a in start in startups, you usually speak about the North Star metric. So the one metric, the key metric that in that period of time you need to follow no matter what and you need to, to, to every day you need to check how it's going.

Silvia Wang (00:06:46) - So at the very beginning for Celanese, for example, we looked at, okay, can we actually acquire patients because we had no brand, we had no real money like to invest in marketing And so how can we how can we start now? So it was like getting, getting the first patients to, to try. And the other thing is, okay, once you have the first clients or patients, you need to make sure that they actually use your product. It's not like, okay, they come and they go, but they actually their retention. So they actually stay. They stick with the product because you need to find the first ambassador. So the ones that really love your product and they talk about your product. So that's for us, it was like the key metric for the first year. And then of course when you start growing, then it becomes okay, not actually it's  a you keep track of the number of session in our case that that you have up now is still number of sessions.

Inès Makula (00:07:42) - Okay. And what lessons would you say that you learned from that you used when launching ceremonies? You know are there things that you know, you obviously you had the experience. So did you use any you know, for sure you use a lot of it.

Silvia Wang (00:07:56) - But yeah, a lot. So about product like the first one is so, so pronto pro we took a lot of time to, to launch the first MVP ceremonies we like it took us three months. So it was like super fast because we knew the steps. Yeah, we need to step up. We really learned how to cut all the unnecessary thing and then iterate like fast. And then the other thing that we learned, it's okay with Pronto Pro, we were just, okay, let's launch it and see Serenis. Like not actually you need to have you need to spend money on legal unfortunately like it's one of the things that usually people don't think about but it's a I was I would say one of the most important thing.

Inès Makula (00:08:42) - In your particular case In general.

Silvia Wang (00:08:44) - No, in general, because you have to make sure that the legal part of the very adversaries is correct. Even when you raise money like the actual contract that you're going to do with the other partners, like you have to make sure that that are correct. Because when everything is fine, like everyone is happy. But when you have issues like the legal practice, what can kill you accurately? You can have the best product, you can be the best funder. But if the legal part is not set up correctly, you can just pay the startup and then I would say team definitely. So we had to learn how to hire people the very beginning because we did not have that much experience. So like we the second time, we knew exactly what type of people you want in the team which like you always think, okay, I need you. When you try to find someone, you have a job description in mind and usually say, I need a product manager or I need a sales people.

Silvia Wang (00:09:41) - But when you have nothing and you start from blank, it's very difficult to say what are the three four figures that I need? Like, do I actually need a salesperson or do I need a person that has not only is doing a little bit in Africa, how senior do I want this person? Like it's like those kind of questions that seem easy. Actually, not not easy. So you have a very tight budget and you need to pick very carefully and maybe you cannot have a PM because you need to developers. So definitely hiring is something that the second time was much easier. And then of course raising money because you have a network and.

Inès Makula (00:10:23) - A track record which helps.

Silvia Wang (00:10:25) - But what.

Inès Makula (00:10:26) - Was it.

Silvia Wang (00:10:26) - Like? What I always say always amazed me is how fast we got the second one or we like the first time. It took us eight months, the second one week. So it's like a different planet.

Inès Makula (00:10:39) - I totally. And how soon do you recommend actually incorporating the company? Because sometimes, you know, you start working on a project you need to test out to see if there's traction.

Inès Makula (00:10:47) - And obviously in Italy or not, the easiest place to incorporate a company and it's not like the UK where £12 30 minutes you've incorporated the company here, it takes a lot more money. Time So did you incorporate from the get go, especially because, of course it was maybe a different experience, but. How soon do you recommend and what are the key things that need to be done before going to that?

Silvia Wang (00:11:08) - Well, if you if you haven't incorporated, you cannot hire because

Inès Makula (00:11:15) - Yeah, of.

Silvia Wang (00:11:15) - Course you're going to hire them. You cannot have a contract. So as soon as possible you need to incorporate. And I would say the things that you have to make sure is that you have a talk with a really good CPA like the commercial instance or and you make sure that you, you incorporate in the right place like sometimes you have some benefits in incorporating the north or in the south because of government policies that that maybe can help you according to the to the industry that you are in.

Silvia Wang (00:11:48) - So for example for certain is actually a medical center. So for medical center for example in Lombardy compared to other regions is much faster. So you want to find a medical center that it's in Lombardy. So those kind of thing of course can change radically your startup from the very beginning because it takes a lot of money also to get the, the right place. You have a contract which is a multi-year contract. So if you incorporate in the wrong place. So but apart from those things so like where and what kind of entity you need to, to, to incorporate then I would say the as soon as possible you should do it.

Inès Makula (00:12:31) - Okay. Let's talk about actually equity and co-founders because it's  an interesting topic and we've heard a lot of advices from different people. No, actually, we've heard over and over that splitting equity equally between co-founders can be really dangerous because then if something happens or something where you have to make a really tough decision, you need at least one person that can make that decision.

Inès Makula (00:12:50) - And because in both Toronto Pro and C.R.A., you had co-founders, What's your view on splitting equity between co-founders?

Silvia Wang (00:12:57) - So, yes, they totally agree that it would be best if one of the two has the majority. You can balance actual when you're stuck. But I have a much more romantic view. So I would say that if you if you don't I mean, if you have to make sure that the person that you are, you are starting the business with, you have to make sure that even in the hard times, like you know how to handle those kind of thing. Because if you have to leverage the power of the shares like you are already done. I mean I don't think that's a that's a good way to solve those kind of issues. So the best thing for me is to actually be sure beforehand that the person that you are starting the business with is the one that you can actually rely on, on the hard times. And the way to do that is, for example, there are many different reasons why you would like to start a startup like one of the one of the most common is just okay, I can become very, very rich now.

Silvia Wang (00:14:05) - So I want to, to, to, to make a lot of money. And that's a good reason like all the others. But if you are doing something because of I don't know, because you want to like for a mission like you don't you like it's exactly like for a purpose and you are not looking to, to, to monetize your company. Then of course it's going to be like in a short time, in three, 4 or 5 years, there's going to be a clash of intense. So, so the best thing is, is really like if you don't know this person beforehand to be very, very open, very transparent, because at the end those kind of questions will still arise. So to make sure like what? What are the reason why you want to do that? Like what are, what are your expectations and, and try to solve everything beforehand.

Inès Makula (00:14:54) - Because it can be hard because a lot of a lot of people who start a business together might be friends or like in your case, you started with your partner, your first startup, and you know, when things go well, everyone's happy, right? When things started going a little bit like that, then it's when you see the worst of people that you wouldn't have imagine maybe.

Inès Makula (00:15:09) - And a lot of startup fail because co-founders don't get along and there's issues. So do you also recommend that there should be like contracts between co-founders saying like, you know, in the event that you decide that this is, you know, you want to go and work for another project or another company, what happens like a sort of prenup in a marriage, but like between, you know, founders.

Silvia Wang (00:15:27) - I'm not a big fan of prenup, okay? But so actually, it's quite normal now in all contracts that you have the bad leaver clause. So I think it's already pretty covered. I don't think there will be need also because it's very difficult to foresee like all the issues that you might have. So it's just best to, you know, it's a kind of leap of faith. It's like marriage like you cannot beat 100% even prenups, like it's not always work, you know. So, okay.

Inès Makula (00:15:58) - There's a little bit of luck then in the in what happens and. Can you discuss a little bit about your approach to hiring? You were saying, you know how important it is to decide exactly which key hires at the beginning, but obviously when you're at the beginning of a startup, you don't have a lot of money, you're bootstrapping, you don't have a lot of budget, and the team is the most important part, obviously, of your startup.

Inès Makula (00:16:18) - That's what that's what investors invest in at the beginning. The question is how do you get on board? Like top talent? Of course, with Theranos it's different because you have track record, but when you're first startup, how do you get top people on board without being able to maybe pay the salaries that they could get in other company?

Silvia Wang (00:16:35) - Its track record definitely helps. Money definitely helps when you don't have a track record or money, it's super hard, so you have to rely on very junior people because you don't have any other way. So you basically hire for smartness. So how smart and how fast this person shares. He could learn. So that's what the only thing that matters. And usually you need to coach them and train them. So like, I mean, if they can, if they're fast learner, you can get this in in one month, otherwise it takes forever. So you really need to, to hire for the very basic like can they learn fast and are they willing to do that.

Silvia Wang (00:17:19) - Are they committed enough? When you hire junior people is the only thing that matters to me. I never target specific university or specific. I mean, I look at the CV as well because when you're junior, I mean, the only thing that you can you can you can see on the CBS like what they studied but it doesn't really matter because if you studied I don't know language or whatever but you're smart for me it's fine and you have to make sure that you can put this person in the right condition to learn. So you either have a lot of time with them or you find advisors. They can, they can, they can teach them in in. And even then, like even in Salinas nowadays we have this day with this event that we call demolition days in which we invite top class professionals, I top class people for a specific field and they, they just do a demolition day about that specific topic and how we are doing it. And we grasp all the inputs and then we try and retest.

Silvia Wang (00:18:24) - And so that's the thing. That's great. But if you can try always to like if you really see that there is a rock star like someone that really can change and impact strongly, then you might think of giving, giving equity and bring this person on board.

Inès Makula (00:18:43) - And actually, a follow up question to that is how much equity do you give to certain, you know, like the first hires that are not like super senior maybe writes, are we talking like 1%, 7% like because I feel like some people are lost into how much they should give because you just kind of give an idea.

Silvia Wang (00:19:00) - It really depends on the role. But usually like, for example, the first stock option pool. So you have like the percentage of, of, of, of shares that you, you allocate to, to, to the team. It's around 5% for the first for the first round. And so it also depends on the number of shares when you do round. But let's say like really like the top, the sea level, you give 1 to 2%.

Inès Makula (00:19:31) - It's good to have an idea because I feel like it's a question that we get. We get asked a lot and what do you what advice do you have for early stage founders? Where can I.

Silvia Wang (00:19:38) - Just that you get one wanted to because then like I mean it's a retaining the shares are for retaining so it's not like so that's something important. It's not like you gave the stock option and you're done. You actually need to give again later on.

Inès Makula (00:19:53) - They're vested. Is that what you.

Silvia Wang (00:19:54) - Have to divest?

Inès Makula (00:19:55) - Yeah.

Silvia Wang (00:19:56) - So you have to make sure that you have another pool of stock that you can give in two to four years.

Inès Makula (00:20:01) - Okay. Okay. And what advice would you give to early stage founders who are bootstrapping their startups and they don't have to access to a lot of significant funding at the beginning to get started? You've mentioned a few things. Is there anything else that comes to mind?

Silvia Wang (00:20:13) - My view is that the actual ecosystem now changed, so the risk money can find money, even if you if you start from scratch, you don't have network and anything if you have a good idea, even with a power point, which is what we did like ten years ago.

Silvia Wang (00:20:29) - So now it's even easier. You can find money. So if really nobody wants to give you money, I would be I mean, I would be a little bit concerned about my idea. Um, but then still, if you really if you really feel strong about your idea, you can you can always start with, you know, some debt or just asking money to friends or family. And once you have a little bit of traction, then you can come back because what all the investors want. And to see is that you actually have a market now, then it can be bigger or smaller. But if you have traction, you should find some money. So I'm not that I mean, I'm to.

Inès Makula (00:21:15) - Get that initial traction, basically get as little as you can to get a little bit of those numbers like.

Silvia Wang (00:21:19) - Ask. Actually, it's quite important not to ask the investor that actually said no. Ask them what do I need to prove in order for you to invest and then target those with a with the.

Inès Makula (00:21:32) - Initial activities and what's like one thing you wish you had known before getting started on your entrepreneurial journey?

Silvia Wang (00:21:40) - Personally, how important is that to the network? So I'm a very anti people person, let's say. So I'm not I don't like to be in in networking events. And so to me, it was always, okay, I just concentrate on business and I can prove by just building my thing. But actually it's, it's just so much easier when you actually have some a little bit of network because hiring is much easier. Like we see now that whenever we have an opening, if you post it, then you have like from, from your network a lot of referrals and referrals usually are the best candidates out there because if you refer me that I have a high opinion about you, I know that the person that you're referring is also like quite good. So network helps on that. It helps on also just getting more people to know your brand. So like so many things. So even if you're not a network person, you should a little bit for yourselves yourself.

Inès Makula (00:22:50) - Yeah. To get out there. Yeah definitely. We've spoken about this a lot on the podcast that networking. It is obviously super important and contacts, especially when you get started, they can then introduce you to certain people and just kind of change the course of your business. So definitely push yourself. So now we are moving on to some rapid fire question Before opening up the question to the audience, what's the best advice you've ever been given to concentrate.

Silvia Wang (00:23:11) - On my strengths so I'm kind of personal. Oh, I need to do that. I need to learn it, but maybe it takes me three months to learn it while. Okay, maybe it's better if I just focus on that and I leave this to to some other people.

Inès Makula (00:23:23) - So. And what's the best business book that you've ever read?

Silvia Wang (00:23:26) - High output management, by far.

Inès Makula (00:23:28) - What motivates you?

Silvia Wang (00:23:29) - Well, I learned that what motivates me because it's such a long journey to do start ups is to know that actually my work is helping and having an impact on society because it just gives me a purpose, even if I'm going to fail tomorrow.

Silvia Wang (00:23:45) - I know. Okay. But I did something that I can be proud of.

Inès Makula (00:23:48) - And what do you want people to remember you for? Oh, that's fantastic. Okay, that was it from me. And all the questions that we're now going to take, questions from the audience and from Streamyard. So does anybody have a question? Guys, don't be shy.

Speaker 3 (00:24:04) - Hi everyone. Filippo from Angelina Ventures actually an investor of.

Silvia Wang (00:24:09) - Exactly. That's why I started.

Speaker 3 (00:24:10) - My I'm trying to break the ice as a second time founder. What is the most important thing that helped you within launching your second venture?

Silvia Wang (00:24:19) - Like all the experience that I gather, like I mentioned, like the way we can handle the team, the hiring, the legal part, like to know how to set up things in the right way, like what to look after. It's not that easy. Like especially for me, that when I see a contract, it's like, okay, I'm lost. Like to know what you should look for.

Silvia Wang (00:24:40) - It totally helped me and also the like, just the framework and the tools. For example, we use OKRs like to align the team and that's something that I had to learn in the previous startup and now I could just replicate it. So it's like on every level I would say it helps.

Speaker 4 (00:24:57) - So from Founders Factory, I have a question around how do you feel when people say, if you can do it in Italy, you can do it anywhere? How different has it been doing starting a company in Italy, maybe from other friends or founders you've met around the world?

Silvia Wang (00:25:10) - I wouldn't say that. It's you have pros and cons, definitely. In Italy it is harder because like the because of the of the investments that you can get. So in a in the rest of Europe France, Germany, Spain and US of course is so much easier and you have competition of investors. So the investors are competing to get to get you. While in Italy it's the opposite now like there are very few investors.

Silvia Wang (00:25:41) - So you need to fight to actually get the attention of the investors so that completely changes. And the way you can you can fundraise. But there are also pros because once you make it like there is less competition, because there is less people starting to do to the startups. And there are some businesses that can actually you can leverage the Italian system. So for example, what we did with both Toronto President is we wanted something that could work in Italy. And so for example, Toronto Pro, it worked because we have so many small medium businesses in Italy, while in Germany, for example, you have big conglomerates. So for example, Italy could work in Germany. It doesn't it doesn't work. And for like, again, in Italy, our business model works because we have a lot of demand and a lot of. While the rest of Europe doesn't have the supply. So it's much, much more difficult to have this kind of marketplace like in the in the in the traditional terms of, okay, you have demand and supply.

Inès Makula (00:26:45) - Sasha is asking, how did you evolve your team culture building the second startup? What advice can you give to first or second time founders about team culture?

Silvia Wang (00:26:54) - So team culture is one of the most important thing, not really for the business, but for the for the for the journey. So as I said, it's a super long journey. So you want to make sure that the people around you are the ones that you like to work with, basically, you know, to have a right environment, a good environment for everyone. So sadness. We started from the very beginning in actually explicitly in our values. And we hire based on those values like Netflix or Amazon. So we have values that we follow when we hire. And we have to make sure that everyone that gets into science is like we are very proud to say that we are all patient. So you need to be motivated by the fact that we have a mission and you need to believe in this mission. And so that's like one of the first thing that we that we evaluate in people.

Silvia Wang (00:27:45) - But yes, like all the companies have values. Maybe they are not stated, but every company has values. And you need to make sure to understand what kind of company you want to build and try to really write down the those values.

Speaker 5 (00:28:03) - Hi, Sylvia. It's Jovani from BCG. I just have a question on whether you would recommend founders to join accelerators and if yes, which stage of your journey you should you should join.

Silvia Wang (00:28:17) - That's a tricky question. I'm not against accelerator, but it's all about it's all about how good this excellent accelerator is. Now. It's like everything now if you really find. So I found a lot of accelerators that are full of people that never had a startup, never been founders. I mean, they can help, of course, but maybe not in the way that you might need it because they never did it. So maybe they are very specific. They can help you in a very specific way. For example, they have the legal counsellor. Okay.

Silvia Wang (00:28:47) - But it's a it's a like I mean, when you when you start a startup like what you really need is someone that can help you in the, in the, in the daily in, in in your also in your in the way you do your product you do you take care of your of your people and that's something that only the founders could tell you. So it all depends on the people that you have in this in this accelerator in general. I'm not against but I saw very few accelerator that can actually help you in a concrete way. And usually those that takes equity are not the good ones.

Inès Makula (00:29:25) - There's another question on online that I'll take and then we'll take it again from the audience. Agostino Trapani is asking, You have lived all over the world. Is Italy all over.

Silvia Wang (00:29:36) - In that.

Inès Makula (00:29:37) - In Asia, more in Asia? You've lived in Asia. It's a good place to start a business. Is it improving? What is missing for it to be best in class?

Silvia Wang (00:29:44) - No, it's just ecosystem.

Silvia Wang (00:29:46) - I mean, as I said, not the more you have founders, the more you have startups. Even in front of Pro after Pronto Pro, we have at least five new founders that worked in Toronto Pro started their own startup also, and that helps. So you can start by putting a lot of money so you can have many new startups and those are actually increasing the number of hundreds and startups or and I think that's what France actually did, but it's just the ecosystem that is missing in Italy. And to give to give you an example, when we were looking for a PM in Toronto in 2015, there were no PMS in Italy because there were no digital products. So I mean, you just cannot, couldn't hire. And now it's actually an established job description.

Inès Makula (00:30:34) - So it's evolving. It's going in the right direction.

Silvia Wang (00:30:37) - No, it's definitely going in the right direction.

Inès Makula (00:30:39) - We need a few more years to catch up.

Speaker 6 (00:30:41) - I'm Andrea from you mentioned at the beginning it was quite challenging to define straightforward job description to find the right roles.

Speaker 6 (00:30:49) - But eventually when companies get bigger and bigger, I mean, it starts to be felt some need of for structure. So I would like to know what you felt like was really key to structure the beginning and what was the challenge, the challenges in providing more structure in your company.

Silvia Wang (00:31:12) - So I always like the very beginning of startups because of what I say previously. No, I'm not. I'm not very good in, in with people. Can I be very honest?

Inès Makula (00:31:24) - Yeah.

Silvia Wang (00:31:25) - So at the very beginning you just hire everyone is like everyone every day pushing for the business and. You don't really think about a progressive career path. And after a certain time, usually around 40 to 50 people, you need to hire an nature manager. And that's the moment in which you need to start to have a org chart, career paths, performance reviews, those kind of things which are super useful. Don't take it wrong. But yes, also when you when you when you hit a certain numbers of people, you definitely need to start making a like for example like the reporting clear and if you need to scale it has to be very clear now who can take who is the owner, who can take the last decision, How can I improve the talents that I have, what type of expectation that they have? And when you are 50, they cannot just go to you.

Silvia Wang (00:32:27) - So you need to have a structure.

Speaker 3 (00:32:30) - Hi, Sylvia. I'm Luca from BCG. Actually, I have two questions for you and I think they are more related to Pronto Pro. So going back at the beginning when you were about to launch your startup, the first question is what do you think is better between getting debt versus equity? So giving the equity to shareholders. And the second is at the beginning, which were the levers you played on to get the best deal out of the market with investors about the shares you were.

Silvia Wang (00:32:59) - So the second one, I just tell you, because there were no investor, we had eight months, 80 pitches, 79 no's. So definitely we didn't have much power left in Italy is a very few, few times you asked because it's not common and it's also very risky. So that means that necessarily at a certain time you need to pay back, while for investors you can always ask for a bridge or you can ask for, you know, they need to exit in three years.

Silvia Wang (00:33:29) - You maybe can delayed it for some for some years. So it depends on how reliable your plan is and how you are confident that you can pay back. So if you have if you're sure, like, for example, let's say that you opened a bar and this bar makes X number of revenues and you did this already ten times and you need to do 100, but you already have a really good track record and you know that you can take that because it's quite foreseeable what the other bars are going to give you. But if you have to do something completely innovative like a bet, then maybe it's better equity because otherwise you risk like to lose everything.

Inès Makula (00:34:06) - There's another question from Streamyard that I'll take, which is from Matteo Galetti. He's asking, Can you please tell us about a moment in Toronto Pro's journey when you were about to give up and how you overcame it.

Silvia Wang (00:34:17) - But that's my daily situation. No, like, of course, like the worst moments are when you are going to end the money, of course.

Silvia Wang (00:34:28) - And so you have to think, okay, do I need do I give up or do I keep pushing? But that's why it's so important to have a co-founder, because it's so stressful that in those times to have someone that can actually you can rely on, it just changes everything. So so yeah, I would say, how do you recover? You recover with a good co-founder and at the end you have to be quite rational. Sometimes the founders are just in love with their idea. Maybe this idea is just wrong. So you also need to be quite structured in saying, okay, I have this idea what are the, the actual three, four things that I test and I want to to deliver. Because if those and you say to yourself, you give you a timeline and you say, okay, I have those three four things that I want to test before giving up, you test those three, four things and then it's done. I mean, it's not always done in terms of you need to close, but you need to pivot.

Silvia Wang (00:35:29) - And sometimes if you if you keep like just, you know, working on, on, on, on one idea that it's not getting you anything, it just it just very easily going to take the whole thing down. So sometimes and I saw very successful pivoting so it's more about maybe try to do those kind of exercise when you're not like really not in a stressful situation but more like at the very beginning you have an idea, you have a plan and you and you tell yourself your co-founder can have a brainstorming and say, okay, we have this idea. How can we prove it? And you have at least usually a roadmap now of things that you want to test. Hey, I. Silvia.

Speaker 7 (00:36:10) - I'm Francesco. I've previously been an employee at Punto Pro and I'm now a founder at Parc, a startup in the energy industry. Coming out of the latest best batch of Venture Builder. You previously said that they say you're not a natural networker and I'm not either. And do you have any advice on how to overcome this limitation?

Silvia Wang (00:36:32) - That's very difficult.

Silvia Wang (00:36:34) - What I do is that I try to. I work with with Google calendar. Like, if it's not there, it it doesn't exist in my, in my life. Like, so I have like specific slots that I have in my calendar where I allocate my time for that. So I make sure that I forced myself to do so. And, and for example, like the, the events that you are invited to, I usually would say no, that makes sure that you can say no only three times per month, for example. So yeah, you just find ways to to force yourself.

Inès Makula (00:37:13) - Thank you. I think that was the final question. We're wrapping up this masterclass. Thank you so much, Sylvia. That was. Thank you. Thank you.

Silvia Wang (00:37:20) - Very happy. It was useful.

Speaker 8 (00:37:26) - To discover the podcast.

Inès Makula (00:37:31) - So Spotify, Apple podcast, second YouTube podcast. And we made it.

Speaker 8 (00:37:44) - My colleague, apparently she put it to Instagram at Made it Punto podcast or LinkedIn. She made it podcast.

Speaker 8 (00:37:53) - Tanti contenuti Exclusive.

Inès Makula (00:37:56) - Nostro. Sound Editor. Cosmo Belotti Nostro Editor Continuity.