And in the end, I turned a corner when I realized I didn't care about succeeding. In fact, if I thought about it carefully, because I've always been a good boy and I always listened to everyone who had something to tell me, I'd say, they're probably right, but what I want to do is right. And so I did it not because I was sure I could succeed, but I found a way to keep doing it almost knowing I wouldn't succeed.
Welcome to Actually, the podcast that talks about change that seems to arrive slowly and then suddenly overwhelms everything. We talk about change and today we're doing it live, you can probably hear me with a bit of an echo, from home. We're in Turin, at OGR for the launch of Enter Academy. I have a guest with whom I believe we'll have a lot of fun. His name is Marco Boglione, an entrepreneur for quite a few years. Welcome, Marco. Let's give a round of applause for Marco Boglione.
Marco, you built this group called BasicNet, which is known, let's say, certainly by people who know a bit about business in Italy, but let's say you're particularly recognizable because you started with those two little figures sitting opposite each other, Kappa, Robe di Kappa, Jesus Jeans, Superga, Kiway, Sebago, and recently Kappa Vurric, and the fact that you're very much in the minds of many people who have used your products. It's a long story, because when exactly did you start with Kappa?
A long story because unfortunately this year I turn 70, my dear friend, and so I started working as a young boy, because I didn't go to university, I tried, I didn't make it, and under the heading 'when you don't succeed, change,' as someone once said, I changed right away.
You changed right away. Can you tell me what led you to change that path?
It's not just that one time that I changed. I change every time I stop dreaming, when I can no longer imagine I'm standing still and singing my own song and playing my own tune. At a certain point a countdown starts, so eventually I change. And so at university I was in that situation, it no longer inspired me, I was studying a completely different field from what I would have wanted, which would have led me to a completely different profession from what I would have wanted.
Did you already know what to do at that age?
I didn't know I wanted to be an entrepreneur at that time, but I understood it later. But anyway, I was already tending, without knowing it, toward being an entrepreneur. Also because being an entrepreneur in those years, the first thing they told you was, 'Watch out, you'll go bankrupt.' If you go bankrupt you're ruined, do you know that if you go bankrupt you'll never do anything again? So it was like that.
Did you come close a few times? Did you wobble?
Yes, I came close. I even surpassed bankruptcy because once I remember it was an epic line from my top accountant, who came and I said, 'Are we bankrupt?' He said, 'No, you went bankrupt a year and a half ago.' No, don't worry.
What do you mean, doctor? What do you mean he's bankrupt? He's been bankrupt for a couple of years. You didn't know, but you're bankrupt. Did you lose a smile over the years?
No, no, no, no. I never went bankrupt. I always paid everyone down to the last lira. I don't owe a cent to anyone.
But were you able to maintain a positive spirit, I ask you, or were there moments when you said to yourself, 'Why did I do this?'
No, no, why did I do this? No. And look, there was a moment, now we're getting into pure psychology here. We should call someone in because we entrepreneurs question ourselves beyond what people think. When I had been operating and being an entrepreneur for a long time, having first been an employee, then a manager, at a certain point I started being an entrepreneur and I had a very clear vision. And then I changed everything again, but still being an entrepreneur, and BasicNet was born. And BasicNet for me was perfect, I was sure, 100% sure, as Bezos probably was that Amazon would succeed. But everyone told you, you won't succeed, you'll go bankrupt, you don't have a penny, you're starting from zero, you didn't study. They threw everything at me. And in the end, I turned a corner when I realized I didn't care about succeeding. In fact, if I thought about it carefully, because I've always been a good boy and I always listened to everyone who had something to tell me, I'd say, they're probably right, but what I want to do is right. And so I did it not because I was sure I could succeed, but I found a way to keep doing it almost knowing I wouldn't succeed. It had no importance for me at that moment.
But you were convinced of what you were doing.
You have the face of someone who always had fun. Did you enjoy doing the work?
I had fun in life because I always see the glass as half full, always, always. Also because I'm convinced that if the glass is completely full there's a problem, so it's never completely full, and so you always have to see it as half empty, half full. So even in very difficult moments I was able to find hope, so to speak, maybe in 2002.
You're very far from... Recently I listened to this very long interview on a podcast, naturally, called Acquired, which I recommend to all of you because it's worth like five NBAs, an extraordinary podcast for telling you the story of a business. They take four and a half hours, it gets extraordinary numbers. And in this case they had a long conversation with Jensen Wang, the most successful entrepreneur in the world, I'd say. Well, today by the numbers, by market capitalization. Exactly, at least by market capitalization, perhaps the most transformative in this moment. And he answers a question I wasn't expecting: they ask him, 'Would you do it again?' And he says, 'I personally would not do it again.' Which is an impressive thing, because it's sometimes something that's forgotten. And this is also right to say for those who want to start this path and want to access Enter Academy. There's also a lot of loneliness in being an entrepreneur, he talks about this a lot. And his answer struck me a lot: 'Would you do it again?' 'All my life.'
I would do it all over again, not just the entrepreneur, my whole life, I would do it 100 times over.
We chose the right person, it was right. We needed him to do this spot for entrepreneurship. You're the perfect person to give the speech here.
No, I'm an entrepreneur. It always annoys me a bit when someone says I'm a particular kind of entrepreneur. Because it seems to take something away from someone else. We're, I believe, all the same. I believe there's a common matrix underneath, and unfortunately I have to say that entrepreneurs are born. You don't become one. There hasn't been a university yet that could seriously say, 'I teach how to be entrepreneurs.' It's a genetico-somatic question, as I've defined it. Yes, in the sense that you have it inside you, and the environment can help or block you.
So, here if we enter into Italian culture, it's not exactly the place where a few years ago, now it's very different also thanks to you, if a young person said 'I want to be an entrepreneur' everyone would jump on them to say 'bravo.' So if it's not aspirational, it means you have an unfavorable environment. The opposite of America.
Here in Italy they do a demographic survey every year, practically every 2-3 years ISTAT used to do it and they asked kids under 16 what they wanted to do when they grew up. And in Italy the vast majority said what everyone could have expected a few years ago: the footballer, now the blogger, then the influencer. There's a good percentage, double digits, of professionals, magistrates, but entrepreneurs? 0.8%. And in America it was 25%. So you understand this isn't a technical, scientific, statistical fact, but it's a completely different environment that fosters that spirit that either exists or doesn't, in my opinion.
Tell me, what's the hardest thing and what are you most proud of in the years you built this incredible group?
Look, I believe in the end what I was saying before, continuing to do what I was doing even in the dark, difficult moments, knowing that very probably I wouldn't make it. Instead I kept going and there I believe I really put a bit of myself into it.
