Gennaro Cuofano (Italy) writes about digital business models, platforms, blockchain business models, and new ways of doing business, all the while managing the growth of a high-tech startup and a small sales team. In this interview: Decentralization, Scaling, and Building Your Own Platform.
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1. Which 2020 Noonie have you been nominated for?
2. Tell us a bit about yourself.
I'm the founder of FourWeekMBA, a leading source of insights on business model innovation, business strategy and digital business models.
I'm also Head of Business Development for WordLift.io, a high-tech startup creating knowledge graphs ("semantic sitemaps" adaptable for voice search and dynamic chatbots) from websites.
3. Tell us about the things you make / write / manage / build.
Creator of the "100 Business Models Book," I write on FourWeekMBA about business models (digital business models, platforms, blockchain business models) and new ways of doing business. I manage the growth of a high-tech startup and a small sales team.
4. What are you most excited about right now?
Decentralization, potential new business models from the blockchain, how platform business models are evolving, how AI business models work and the difference with traditional models.
Obsessed by how scaling changes companies.
5. What are you worried about right now?
Reduced competition in a world where consolidated tech giants have "locked-in" the digital pipelines (what I like to call the "gatekeeping hypothesis").
6. What's the most useful advice you've ever given somebody?
Build your own platform (initially not intended as a tech platform, but as a place were you control the communication flow), brand and audience, even if that is more expensive in the short-term. I argue that is among the most effective long-term defence strategies.
7. How has the pandemic changed your life and/or career?
Accelerated processes that for me had began already years back. Like remote working, and digitization.
8. If we gave you $10 million to invest in one thing right now, where would you put it?
Building an educational platform, to offer up to date, higher-level business education, available to millions of people.
9. What's an opinion you have that most people don't agree with?
Effective decisions can be taken with a few simple heuristics which in most cases work better than "data-driven decisions."
10. What are you currently learning?
Evolution of modern tech history: reviewing the history of tech companies, from several sources (financials, old interviews, archived files).
VOTE for Gennaro Cuofano as Hacker Noon Contributor of the Year - BUSINESS before voting closes on 12 October, 2020! 🚀
With gratitude to Hacker Noon's 2020 Noonies Partners: Sustany Capital, .TECH Domains, Grant for the Web, Skillsoft, Flipside Crypto, Udacity, and Beyondskills!