Category: Me

I miss how the web used to be

Some days, I wake up to the Internet and wish it were still 2010.

I feel like I’ve had enough of the influencers, the everything-coaches, and the constant content creation pressure for every person and business. And yes, I miss people on the internet helping you or commenting your content because they care and want to help. I miss forums a lot and everything they somehow represented. Every single place on the internet became a way to show off, sell you something, or get your likes. It used to be a lot different than that. When I started my first website (it was actually called p2pzone) or later on when we started HostingTalk people loved to contribute and help.

And still, I know I have to face another LinkedIn wall that tells me everything I do wrong and that person does right. I know their amazing product link is in the first comment, and I know their company is not doing as well as they say. There are more people lined up there to answer and contribute to the conversation, just to get a bit of visibility too.

The sad part about all of this is that I somehow need to play with this like every other person running a business online.

I know I’ve said this already; is there a way back to 2010?

Stefano

Leaving Cloud Academy

After 10 years I am leaving Cloud Academy. It feels strange to write it but I am getting used to the idea by now and it’s time to get back to writing.

We started Cloud Academy in 2013, even if we really started working on it in 2012. I was 24 back then and if I look back there are a few things that come back to mind: in 2012 I was running another company in Italy, I did not know much about the US, I did not speak English (not well, at least) and the only way I thought you could build a company was bootstrapping it.

Back then Cloud Academy was a bit more than idea and we were trying to understand what it could have been a few years later. I felt confused about it, not sure it was the right idea but the more we worked on it the more passionate we became about it. Everything changed a lot in 10 years, our product did, our vision improved and evolved and we matured as founders. Reading my emails of 10 years ago is a fantastic experience!

Cloud Academy has been an incredible journey for me and for everyone that has been a part of it. From day we obsessed on creating something unique and I feel we achieved it. I can’t use a post to describe what I’ve learned and how it changed me, but I am planning to write a few more to remember all the lessons we have learned.

When you build a business like Cloud Academy and scale it to millions in revenues and hundreds of people, the most important thing you remember when you leave are people. Not the product features, not the contracts, not what you have done in that business trip. Your thoughts and memories are full of people and I am planning to talk a lot about what I have learned about people and companies. The idea is to share lessons for new founders, executives, managers and anyone else is involved in building a new company.

This is it for now 🙂

If you are wondering: I am good, Cloud Academy was my life for 10 years so losing it meant losing a part of me but I am fine!

Stefano

Back to blogging

Many years ago I used to write a lot. I used to write every day, sometimes multiple articles, that’s how I started p2pzone, hostingtalk and later on also Cloud Academy. I was young and with that I did not have much fear of what people what have thought about my writing, which I think is a strong advantage.

I miss writing and now that I have a lot to think about (more in the upcoming posts), I will try my best to go back to writing!

Looking back

2018 has been a tough one. I learned a lot, not always in the gentle way I would have loved to 🙂 It looks like 2019 will be as challenging as 2018, hopefully in new ways. I am not a huge fan of this kind of posts, but I have been thinking about what I learned in the last months.

The ability to trust my gut, to follow my will even when everyone told me I was going in the wrong direction. This way of looking at things has always been part of me, for some reason I lost that a bit in 2018, at times I felt I had to stay within the limits, for something, for someone at times.

Looking back, I can feel how much I missed that. It’s been a great lesson, 2018.

English

I struggled with English for several years. In middle school I studied French and in high school I hated my English teacher so much that I spent more time trying to rebel against her than studying the language. While I don’t regret rebelling against her bizarre teaching methods (I was quite good at that!)…I did regret not understanding how powerful English was earlier in my life. Continue reading “English”

Influences and open-mindedness

You are the product of your environment. Ultimately, the people around you are the ones who shape you. I was thinking about it yesterday: I changed my perspectives a lot in the last 6-7 years.

You are the product of your environment. Ultimately, the people around you are the ones who shape you. I was thinking about it yesterday: I changed my perspectives a lot in the last 6-7 years. Continue reading “Influences and open-mindedness”

This doesn’t feel new at all!

worried_cat

Several years ago I started a service called IlBlog.it – it was around 2004/2005. I was fascinated by blogs and fell in love with the idea of many platforms like Splinder and Blogger of allowing people to create a blog without technical skills. No hosting, no FTP, no WordPress. Nothing, just a very clear interface, a domain, and your blog ready to be filled with thoughts, images, videos. How did it go? Well that’s a great story for another post!

I wanted to open a blog for a long time, in 2015 it’s not a cool thing anymore (maybe the opposite?!) but who cares! I wanted to try WordPress.com for a long time, I never lost that passion for this kind of online product. I must say it’s beautiful, well designed, simple enough to use and incredibly beautiful in the way it’s organized. I love company’s mission too.

So, yes, this is a blog. My blog. I couldn’t come up with a better name than Bellasios. It’s not the first time I use it (yes, another post as well). I’ll use it to talk about me and what I love in my work and in my life. Entrepreneurship and tech will just be a big part of this blog. I’ll use it also to comment that thousands of articles I save every day in my Instapaper that I’ll never read……

Talk soon!

Stefano