Knowing How to Listen
(Part 1: The Origins)
When I decided to open my own agency, FiloBlu (at the time I didn't yet know what I would call it), I started collecting feedback from friends, entrepreneurs, university professors, and family to see if my idea was worthwhile.
Most of them told me it wasn't that special, that there were already so many great agencies out there and they didn't understand why: FiloBlu would be just another agency offering websites and digital services. This got me thinking and, on the other hand, reinforced my decision to continue, without paying too much attention to other people's opinions or even looking too closely at the market, except for inspiration. I admired some local companies like CLAIM, HANGAR, and even E-TREE (which later became H-ART), which I had gotten to know through consulting on software and website development processes. I admired them above all for the charm and #magic I found in their way of being and appearing.
Here's the first aspect of "Knowing How to Listen" to emphasize. At this juncture, it's clear I wasn't listening to anyone, but rather, I was listening to my own instincts : I believe it's important to know how to listen to your own feelings and try to help others seize opportunities they don't see (perhaps I explained it poorly at the time, or perhaps the people I was talking to simply didn't believe in me enough, or I want to see it that way; they loved me too much, fearing I'd crash, who knows!).
As I began developing the team, I began to engage with differing perspectives from my partner Marco, a software expert (I understand very little about it), and from the first collaborators, almost all nerds. I was considered the marketing guy, almost a necessary component for procuring projects, but ultimately useless for code development and external to the team. I made them understand that Tech actually needed a serious organizational model to scale. As the company grew, I continued to gather information and testimonials about my reference model for the organization: Google , a company made up of engineers (like me, but definitely better). I read and took notes continuously to understand the leadership and delegation model they adopted.
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Listen to your instincts
Studying who has succeeded
This is where we find the second chapter, if we want, of this Thought: “Knowing How to Listen” also means #studying those who have been better than us at achieving something, immersing ourselves, so to speak, in their “habitat”.
Visiting the companies that inspired me at the time, talking to the founders, I tried to sense the corporate climate, grasp the aspects that made that place a bit magical for me ; to understand what motivated their staff to feel so encouraged to be part of the project, the dream; I tried to listen, I would even say absorb as much as possible, and then pass those feelings on to my staff in the office... I remember that our first office was truly ugly, the first floor of a condominium, created by joining two apartments. Apart from a very large terrace that was used mostly by smokers rather than for Facebook-style parties and startups in general, it was a place that, all things considered, had very little magic other than our thoughts, the free coffee made strictly with a Bialetti moka pot, and our great desire to create something extraordinary.
As the company grew, I began to need many new skills beyond tech: financial skills, project management, creative and design, marketing, data analysis, and retail.
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Listen to the market
I would say that a new chapter opened here: knowing how to "listen" to the market and knowing how to grasp the key elements to create something unique.
At the time, I realized, looking at the best in the industry, the guys at YOOX with whom we collaborated, that there were aspects we weren't considering that in reality, in a short time, would change our business model forever: we hadn't understood that e-commerce was the oldest profession in the world and that the real difference was made by those who managed the store and not, ultimately, the #userexperience or the technology (a dedicated chapter could be opened here, because I don't want my words to be misunderstood: Tech and UX must be top-notch, but they aren't enough to truly make a difference if you don't integrate a valid product proposition, communication and impeccable customer service). I remember one anecdote in particular, a meeting with the YOOX staff (which I happened to walk into by chance, as it was my habit to show up unannounced in meeting rooms). I realized that a retail figure (whose name I didn't even know...) had to manage the online store. Marketing didn't know why down jackets weren't selling in Germany, while those familiar with the product immediately realized that the weight, size, and color weren't the best fit for that audience. I was almost struck by that observation... we were doing it all wrong!
From there, I immediately began asking questions to those who worked in the retail world to try to understand what was the best system to rethink e-commerce management and make it grow out of scale, subsequently integrating a whole series of elements that YOOX had not introduced (due to their customer approach also due to the technology adopted at the time, a thing well known to those in the industry).
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Act quickly
I hired a first person from the fashion world (offline, obviously, because online retail didn't exist) who had already managed showrooms and stores for important brands, and with her I began to try to understand what the best system was to create a new corporate division that would become strategic in the management of e-commerce, more than tech and marketing (I won't tell you about the clashes within the company and how difficult it was to make people understand what this new division did... phrases like: " Tech is the only division that matters... these people don't understand anything about project and platform management, they're goats, don't we seriously want to be guided by their stupid requests?" or "What the f*** are all these women for?"
Well, “Knowing How to Listen” also means understanding where the business is going and being able to move accordingly extremely quickly, perhaps by introducing something new and trying to surpass the best available models, which thus suddenly become outdated (the famous blue sea of the Blue Ocean Strategy that has inspired me so much in my choices... another topic I will discuss later).
Author - Christian Nucibella