Meeting the Right People Is the Key to Successful Projects
"I’ve always wanted to create my own company. As a student I had tried to launch a skincare brand as a side job. With the arrival of Covid, however, and managing it alone, the project didn’t get off the ground. This experience taught me that, for your projects to happen, it is essential to work hard and meet the right people: statistics show that companies founded in teams have a better chance of making it." For Chiara Airoldi, now COO of the startup Cloov, the decisive meeting was with Cofounder Olimpia Santella. Her path to entrepreneurship, however, had begun well before that. "After graduating with a Bachelor in Marketing, I decided to do a Master in Entrepreneurship and Business Management at SDA Bocconi, with the aim of fully understanding how companies are structured and acquiring the right tools to do it in the best possible way. I remember the first inkling of my project came to me when the founder of a technology consulting company came to speak. Listening to him, I was fascinated by the fact that doing business meant creating value from scratch, including jobs, partnerships and a market."
Her winning idea came from sharing a project with another young startupper who Chiara met more or less by chance when living in Amsterdam. "I was in the Netherlands because I was working in strategy and planning for a startup in the fashion-tech sector," Airoldi recalls. "I was surprised by the huge amount of unsold stock that brands considered waste. I wanted to find a solution to this problem, not only as a business opportunity, but also to make a real contribution to reducing the environmental impact of the fashion industry, today the second most polluting sector in the world. Cloov was born with a very strong ethical drive and then, in dialogue with brands in the sector, the best business model was also defined: to offer a B2B software solution to help companies integrate circular business models such as resale, repair and rental within their core business."
She also prioritized ethical principles by deciding to immediately transfer the startup to Italy. "The Dutch context I was in was more favorable for setting up a new company, both bureaucratically and fiscally," reflects the alumna. "But there are more fashion companies in Italy. As a matter of principle, it was important for us to create something new in our country. Our target markets, however, do not stop at Italy." Indeed, uncertainty is the bread and butter of startups and founders. "One of the first things I learned at Bocconi, but especially at Cloov, is to embrace risk more openly: this mental switch is an almost obligatory step for anyone who wants to work in startups. Challenges are part of everyday life and should not be associated with something negative, but rather with marathon sprints, which are essential for growth and continuous improvement. The goal over the next 10 years is for Cloov to become the market-leading solution in its field, but above all for the innovations we’re talking about today to become commonplace."
Other changes, such as those concerning the different forms of gender gaps, are expected in the next decade. "In corporate settings – both in Italy and the Netherlands – there is no doubt that there is a gender wage gap. I believe it’s important to create awareness in all companies, especially among managers, to create a culture in which salary and role growth is linked to performance, results achieved and the ability to create value. For example, it makes me happy to see venture capital focused on investing in startups founded by women. One of my deepest wishes would be to one day be able to give back what I have received to other women's new businesses."
