On March 2nd 2020, I closed a $1,47M contract. I was thrilled.
For five years, as CEO and founder of my consultancy agency, I've been desperately seeking for such an outstanding achievement. And if it weren't for COVID and my kick scooter, this journey would continue.
Yes, because on the same day I signed that contract, I resigned as CEO of my own company.
Why did I make this choice? I'll tell you in a moment. First, let me tell you a bit more about how I got to this place.
In 2014, I graduated as a computer engineer from the Polytechnic of Turin (Italy), and six months later, I launched my consultancy agency. This was my first experience as CEO, and I learnt by doing everything: how to find customers, how to send effective sales emails, cold calling, negotiating contracts, managing my team and my customers.
The PO of the contract I closed, €1.22M ($1.47M) with a company from Dubai
Revenue grew every year: $135k, $222k, $413k, $902k, $1.67M, and strangely, I'm not about to tell you a story of how COVID affected this positive financial progression.
In fact, we are still working at full capacity, and we're even generating more revenue than last year. But let me tell you the story of how COVID and a kick scooter, and some imaginary virtual friends, transformed my life forever.
For five year I had been going to my office, feel that chair under my legs, smell that room, listen to those too familiar greetings "Hi", "Hello", "How you doing?", with the same tone voice and cadence every day.
I'm talking about that too tight structure of company processes, routines, smells, colleagues, customers, sounds, and almost suffocating daily actions.
Then when COVID hit Italy, I started working from home, as most of you did. This pandemic and the subsequent quarantine detached me from my reality – that set of life's stable anchors and daily routines. It changed my biorhythms and all those "keep the status quo" forces that prevented me from making crazy choices in my life. I set myself in the cannon of change, loading the weapon with some social instability. The cannon exploded and catapulted me into a new business track.
In June, when quarantine had been suspended, I moved to another house. It's far from my company's studio, so I bought a kick scooter to reach my workplace.
Tunji is a friend of mine with insight into great entrepreneurial tools and communities. One day he called me, excited about a new community called Indie Hackers. "It's so incredible," he said. "Just listen to one of the Indie Hackers podcasts by Courtland Allan – you won't believe how insightful these interviews are."