“I focused on services and the desire for revenge and became an entrepreneur”. Giovanni Marinaccio is the founder of Sintesi Sud, a company from Ariano Irpino, in the province of Avellino, which sells 3D printers.
“In 2013 we had a turnover of just over 300 thousand euros, we closed 2016 with 1.8 million”, begins Giovanni Marinaccio, 38 years old from Avellino. “I started in 2000 as a manual turner in a mechanical workshop in Lanciano. Then a stroke of luck. A boy who worked on a computerized machine leaves the company and finds himself with a 200,000 euro 3D printer standing still. They ask me if I want to learn how to use it. I say yes and I am passionate from the first rehearsals ».
By training, Giovanni is a CAD draftsman and starts drawing with the machine. “It was amazing to see how it was possible to produce something in such a short time. Meanwhile, the company was offering me more and more tasks and responsibilities. After five years, I have decided to leave. I saw an opportunity and I wanted to ride it “.
Giovanni returns home to Ariano and offers himself as a seller of 3D printers for a company in Turin, Sintesi Srl: “They did not have a sales network in the South. I started with a telephone directory of companies in the area. I called them one by one, explained who I was, what the machine was and what it could do. I did everything myself, sales, bills, invoices, with a sole proprietorship that I had opened ». Giovanni meets Angelo Salamini, engineer. She talks to him about his project. Both identify a niche of opportunity. “Roland, another market leader, wanted to enter the dental industry. We helped them. Today we offer a complete solution in dental digital ». Thus was born Sintesi Sud.
It is 2008. The Turin Synthesis feels the crisis. The managers of the company called Giovanni and asked him to buy 55% of the shares. He accepts: «We were small but we had learned a great lesson: service is everything. We weren’t just offering a car. We wanted to follow the customer at 360 degrees, teach them how to use it, how to train employees and take care of maintenance. Without the customization of the offer, we would never have made progress. ”
The difficulties were not lacking. «There were times when I also thought about selling. But we gritted our teeth and asked for a bank loan of half a million euros “.
Today Sintesi Sud has 10 employees and about thirty salespeople. It supports startups and the NaStartup community. It has also been noticed by multinationals. Some of these companies flew to Ariano to get to know the company: “After all, Steve Jobs created an empire in a” desert “in Cupertino.”
Problems continue to be on the agenda, but Giovanni has found a way to address them: “I have banned the use of the word” problem “in the company, replacing it with” solution “. The guys come to me and say “we need a solution”, instead of “we have a problem”. It’s all a matter of perception. “