Be Sure to Have the Right Time Horizon
Shortly after getting his Bocconi MSc in Finance, Mattia D'Alessandra was a young man who had done experience abroad (and more precisely in Chicago) and held a job with excellent prospects at Deutsche Bank. A position that many would hold onto dearly, but which he did not hesitate to leave to build his own startup: "I just felt I had to do it," he explains now. "It is like you have to answer this call: you see the opportunity and not the hurdles".
The «call» appeared in the guise of a digital platform based on blockchain technology, hence the name for his start-up: LoanXchain, the first multilateral marketplace dedicated to the secondary market for loans.
It is a system connecting European credit institutions (both traditional players and digital lenders) and institutional investors (primarily private debt funds) in a direct and digital way. Finance on the one hand, therefore, and technology on the other: "The right intuition was to bet on blockchain technology, study it and contribute to improving it, to the point that when we went to the world blockchain convention in London we discovered that we all knew each other». A good injection of confidence, especially for a company that envisaged a lengthy development phase: «The first year was about team building, fundraising and creating the network of partners and subject-matter experts in order to improve on the business idea. The subsequent year was devoted to programming and extending the network. Now we are at the start of the commercial phase".
But Mattia's ambitions go beyond LoanXchain: «Since I'm a young person, I would like to help change my country and revive it. I'm not thinking of grand gestures, but simply to give my best in what I do and convince others to do the same ». An objective which can be an example for many. "May I give a piece of advice?" says Mattia and answers his own question: «Study how to launch a start-up and the steps you need to follow. And give yourself at least a two-year time horizon to understand whether the business idea makes sense or not. Then you have to fight. And if it doesn't work this time... it will the next!».