Diyala D’Aveni is the head of Venture Builder Vento, a company looking for talent.
What is your goal?
«The purpose of our Venture Builder, now an integral part of Exor Seeds, is to select people who could potentially become entrepreneurs in the future. We are not an incubator or an accelerator. We identify the entrepreneurs of the future in advance, when not even they know they have the talent of entrepreneurship ».
Future entrepreneurs without their knowledge. How do you know if a person has that future in destiny?
There are two types of future entrepreneurs. The business oriented ones and the tech savvy ones. The former are the classic Eskimo ice sellers. People who know how to enhance products, attract customers. They generally studied economics, they have that kind of training ».
And the technological ones?
“They are more difficult to spot. Those who are business oriented know that they will want to be an entrepreneur already very small, at 4-5 years old. It’s his passion. Tech entrepreneurs, on the other hand, don’t know this. We need to find them in the online forums of creatives ».
All young people with very high marks?
“Not necessarily. On the contrary. Our goal is to choose future talents regardless of the traditional criteria with which they are selected in the world of work. Therefore regardless of the marks obtained in their curriculum and age “.
Even from age?
“Our startuppers are between 19 and 45 years old”.
And in the rest of Europe?
«The age is lower. But there are other contexts and we are 4-5 years behind in countries like France ».
Why France?
“Because it has economic fundamentals comparable to ours. And with the same context, comparisons can be made better ».
What is the expected path in your selection?
«We have a form to fill out online for a first screening. Then the chosen ones have to pass an intellectual and a psychometric test. Only at this point does the individual interview take place. The last phase is a five-day training camp in which candidates are divided into groups and each must present a business idea ».
What opportunities for those who pass the selection?
“There is a five-month course that is paid for. At the end the meeting with potential investors ».
How do you evaluate the success of initiatives like yours?
«Based on the value of the start-ups we create. In Italy we are still behind but we will catch up. In our country we have only two unicorns ».
Who are the unicorns?
«They are the start-ups that have reached a value of more than one billion euros. In the world there are the decacorns, large listed start-ups that exceed ten billion in value ».
Your work, in summary?
“My job is hunting. Every morning I wake up and go in search of people who can change the world ».