Turning Crisis into Opportunity: A Bootstrapped Startup’s Quest to Sustainability, with Giuseppe Milazzo, Founder of Contapp [Podcast #75]
By News & Articles, The SOL Podcast

The beginning of 2020 brought many changes, especially to how we do things now; the old ways that we were doing things stopped meeting our current needs. The reason for this is not just the pandemic, but that more and more people are looking for more sustainable alternatives these days. Contapp is one of the companies that offer innovative solutions to perhaps one of the most traditional parts of doing business: business cards. We are happy to welcome Giuseppe Milazzo, Founder of Contapp to our podcast this week. In this episode, we discuss how Giuseppe was able to launch a business just before the pandemic hit, as well as how the company seeks to improve the lives of entrepreneurs while also being more environmentally sustainable as well.

Contapp is designed to be rather handy for businesspeople by allowing them to manage their business cards digitally, making working life much more streamlined for them. It is a personal business hub in which you can securely store, share, and use business card data sustainably by reducing paper waste.  

Listen to “Turning Crisis into Opportunity: A Bootstrapped Startup’s Quest to Sustainability, with Giuseppe Milazzo, Founder of Contapp” on Spreaker.

We, now, live in a world where we have less face to face contact. So, we initiated our conversation on this topic. How did Giuseppe’s business handle this time of transition and crisis? Then, we asked Guiseppe to introduce us to the product in more detail, the business and the tech aspects of it.

You know sometimes an entrepreneur’s background makes all the difference, thus, we asked Giuseppe about his before starting Contapp. How does his marketing experience tie to his business idea? How does what he knew then compare with what he currently knows? We also asked what he would say to his younger self. We walked down memory lane and talked about the key things about doing business being a founder teaches.

Contapp is aiming for a more sustainable business interaction

Research is one of the most important components of starting a business. How do you decide there is a need for the product? How do you validate it? What methods did Giuseppe utilise whilst doing his market research? What kind of resources do you need to be willing to put to use to gather the right data?

We also emphasised how the understanding of entrepreneurship transformed over the years and how it affected the entrepreneurs themselves. Sometimes a business’s success depends more on the execution and decision-making ability rather than the ideas. We discussed the changes Giuseppe is planning for Contapp as well as how he takes decisions within the company. We inquired about the upcoming milestones for the business. What kind of a transformation does Contapp offer to the business world and what kind of innovations they are planning to introduce to the market?

Lastly, we had the chance to discuss something we usually don’t have a chance to, which is the differences between the US and UK startup ecosystems. Are you curious about what kind of a journey bootstrapped startups experience in the US compared to the UK? Where do people stand on fundraising and investment? The scepticism for the startup culture entrepreneurs face: is it productive or counterproductive? If you are interested in learning more about the journey of a bootstrapped startup you can check out our episode with Giuseppe above.