“It is one thing to study war and another to live the warrior’s life” Telamon of Arcadia
Or better say, more than a human battlefield, the entrepreneurial world can resemble to a “God made” natural ocean; In the open sea, you never know what comes next…
This is what I realized during my EYE experience.

Talking about entrepreneurship and being an actual entrepreneur is the difference between reading a book about the ocean and being in the ocean myself. Going with the flow of the real waves and negotiating or partnering with the real “sharks” out there, while fishing for partners and customers.
And while the last years the startup mania has taken the proportions of the rock ‘n roll movement and the famous startuppers of the American coasts are todays rock stars, few people talk about for the real drama. The EYE has been a real life school for me.
o put myself into the shoes of a long time entrepreneur and that experience: risk free.

A “guy” who is where I WANT to be.
The difference of perspectives, the different entrepreneurial ecosystems, the way to deal with problems and step outside of my personality to deal with the challenges, has been a major lesson to take home.
Parallel to my participation to the EYE, I was also doing fundraising for my startup and my communication with the HE gave me a clear perspective of my situation and what to expect. I learned about the importance of “trusting your own instinct and not the degrees of another person” and data literacy in the entrepreneurial world. But beyond accounting, a good business deal takes more than what it looks in the beginning as good financial data.
As my start up is into the suffering post industrial media business, where bright and viable entrepreneurial solutions hardly come from Europe, my stay in the HE’s city empowered me more than I thought. It made me believe more in my “changing self”.
Made me conscious: “If I want to be a successful entrepreneur, i need to become the kind of person that can do that.” To commit. Ambition is not enough. Today, I am more sure of myself and that what seems hopelessly confusing for me these days, it will be tomorrow’s new normal for my startup.
My participation to the EYE, also gave me the necessary time to meet with my “competitors” and live with them for a while in the same city and strangely enough, proceed to new common projects and test a symbiotic relationship with each other.
It made me stop having fear of competition, and get persuaded that is one of the best things that would happen for the progress of our industry.

Before EYE, I was clearly missing business mentors and I couldn’t realize the need to step outside the media landscape to seek solutions, because the way journalism institutions are dealing with business rationale, is totally different. The approach to risk and funding is different. Overall, I stopped having the internal conflicts of whether it worths pursuing a business, instead, I became more committed and I feel ready to do what is required to attain my goals despite waves and waves of adversities.

DURATION: 4 months