Before is too late:
rethinking business
for a sustainable future

In recent years, the startup ecosystem, including in Italy, has seen a significant increase in incubation programmes designed to support young companies. However, not all programmes offer the same type of support, and one of the most debated questions is the relative effectiveness of a model based on mentorship versus one based on training.

Both approaches certainly have their merits, and combined approaches are undoubtedly the best, but some programmes lean decisively towards training while others rely mainly on mentorship. The evidence — Y Combinator’s success is one example — suggests that programmes with a greater emphasis on mentorship tend to produce better results. Let’s look at why.

1. Personalisation and Adaptability

Mentorship offers highly personalised support, tailored to the specific needs of the startup: every startup is unique and the challenges it faces vary considerably. According to a Techstars study, startups that receive mentorship show higher survival rates and raise more capital than those that don’t benefit from it.

2. Access to Networks

One of the biggest advantages of mentorship is access to a wide network of contacts — investors, strategic partners, potential customers — which makes it easier to enter difficult markets and helps raise the funding needed to scale.

3. Psychological Support and Resilience

Mentorship often includes important psychological support. Starting a startup is a stressful and uncertain journey: having a mentor who offers emotional support increases founders’ resilience, helping keep motivation high in difficult moments.

4. Immediate Feedback and Rapid Iteration

The continuous feedback that comes from mentorship allows founders to iterate quickly on the product, essential for finding product-market fit and adapting in real time to market needs.

5. From Theory to Practice

While training provides a solid theoretical foundation, mentorship focuses on practical application: mentors help founders put acquired skills into practice by tackling real problems with real solutions.

Conclusion

A mentorship-based incubation programme is more likely to succeed because it offers comprehensive support that goes beyond simple knowledge acquisition: personalisation, access to critical resources, psychological support and real-time feedback. While training is essential for building a base of skills, it is often mentorship that makes the difference between a startup that survives and one that thrives.

Impact investing has surged in popularity over recent years, offering a powerful way to combine financial returns with positive social and environmental outcomes. However, as this sector matures, a critical challenge is emerging that could shape its future: credibility.

The Professionalization of the Sector

In recent years, impact investing has made significant strides towards professionalization, with regulations like the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) and tools such as the Operating Principles for Impact Management (OPIM) promoting greater transparency. Despite these advances, standardization alone cannot guarantee authenticity — only a genuine commitment from investors can prevent impact investing from becoming just another marketing label.

The Critical Role of Data

A central element in building credibility is the use of reliable data — essential to ensuring investments not only promise positive impact but deliver it in reality. The major challenge lies in the lack of reliable data, especially in developing countries. Transparency in communicating results, including failures, is what sets credible investors apart from those who merely comply with regulations.

Criticisms and Opportunities

Some analysts argue impact investing may not generate returns beyond traditional markets, particularly for high-risk or early-stage investments — a perception that can limit capital flows to high-impact projects. Greater financial discipline and clear communication of risk/return trade-offs are necessary to overcome this.

Looking to the Future

The future of impact investing hinges on the ability of investors to go beyond mere regulatory compliance and embrace an authentic, transparent approach — sharing not only successes but also difficulties and lessons learned. The challenge is great, but so is the opportunity.

Ghana, a country rich in culture and natural beauty, is facing an increasingly severe environmental and social crisis linked to the fast fashion industry — fueled by the massive importation of second-hand clothing from Western countries.

The Importation of Used Clothing

Ghana is one of the largest recipients of used clothing from Europe and North America. The Kantamanto market in Accra is among the world’s largest second-hand clothing markets: about 40% of imported clothes do not find new owners and end up in landfills, rivers, and beaches.

A Firsthand View

Last year, I visited Ghana and saw with my own eyes the environmental disaster caused by fast fashion: beaches once beautiful now covered with textile waste and plastic, mountains of abandoned clothes creating a desolate scene.

Environmental and Social Impact

Synthetic materials such as polyester take hundreds of years to degrade and release microplastics into the environment. Uncontrolled disposal contributes to the solid waste crisis, putting additional pressure on already insufficient waste management infrastructure.

The Need for Responsible Policies

It is crucial to implement policies ensuring that waste which cannot be treated by the receiving country is returned to the originating country, where the capacity exists to recycle it properly — encouraging Western countries to reconsider their consumption model. Only a collective effort involving both producing and consuming countries can reverse this destructive trend.

In life, we inevitably face complex and sometimes difficult situations that can be perceived as problems or challenges. The distinction is crucial, as it deeply influences our approach and the results we achieve. Optimism emerges as a fundamental resource for turning adversity into an opportunity for growth — particularly important for aspiring entrepreneurs.

The Importance of Optimism

Being an entrepreneur means constantly dealing with uncertainty: managing cash flow, conquering new markets, motivating the team, navigating a changing competitive landscape. Successful entrepreneurs are not immune to difficulties, but their attitude toward challenges sets them apart.

Two Ways of Viewing Reality

Perceiving a situation as a problem risks focusing only on negative aspects, leading to decision paralysis. Seeing the same situation as a challenge makes an entrepreneur more inclined to innovate, improve processes, or discover new markets.

Optimism in Innovation and Growth

Innovation often arises from the ability to see beyond immediate problems to identify new opportunities. Optimistic entrepreneurs are more likely to experiment and take calculated risks, viewing failure as a step along the path to success rather than an endpoint.

In these days of Olympic medals, I found myself discussing why some nations succeed more than others. Although the Olympics and venture capital might seem distant worlds, they share several dynamics of success, competition, and investment strategy.

Strategic Investments and Talent Selection

Countries that strategically invest in sports infrastructure and training tend to win more medals, much like venture capitalists invest in startups through rigorous due diligence on team, market, and scalability potential.

Access to Resources and Continuous Support

Successful athletes access advanced training technologies and scientific support, just as funded startups receive mentorship, networking, and strategic resources beyond capital alone.

Competition, Measuring Success, and Resilience

Both fields reward excellence under intense competitive pressure — medals versus growth, valuation, and successful exits — and both require adaptability and resilience to overcome setbacks. Community support and networking, whether through federations or investor ecosystems, remain essential for progress in both worlds.

In today’s fast-paced world, resilience is often celebrated as a key trait for overcoming challenges. However, there’s an ancient Japanese art form that offers a compelling alternative: Kintsugi.

Understanding Resilience

Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, enduring hardships without letting them permanently affect us. While admirable, it sometimes means merely surviving rather than truly healing and growing.

The Philosophy of Kintsugi

Kintsugi, meaning “golden joinery,” is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. Instead of hiding the breaks, Kintsugi highlights them, embracing imperfection and making the object more beautiful and valuable.

The Case for Rebuilding

Embracing imperfection, growth through adversity, enhanced value, and authenticity: just as Kintsugi transforms broken pottery into unique works of art, our struggles and subsequent recovery can enhance our character, making us more resilient in a holistic sense.

Conclusion

While resilience helps us endure, Kintsugi teaches us the value of breaking and rebuilding — turning our past wounds into sources of strength and inspiration.

In the competitive landscape of the startup ecosystem, a unique approach known as the “stealth mode” startup has emerged, where companies operate under a veil of secrecy to develop their ideas away from the prying eyes of competitors and the public.

Types of Stealth Mode

Total Stealth Mode: the startup maintains complete secrecy about its existence, name, founders, and mission — often adopted when working on groundbreaking technology. In-Market Stealth Mode: the startup reveals its existence but keeps product details confidential, gathering market insight without disclosing its competitive edge.

Advantages

Competitive advantage, controlled narratives around launch, and focus on development without the distractions of marketing or competitive pressure.

Challenges and Risks

Funding difficulties, since investors often require substantial information; limited market feedback, since avoiding public exposure can lead to misaligned products; and operational secrecy, which strains internal communication and complicates partnerships.

Notable Examples

Apple famously developed the first iPhone under a veil of secrecy. Palantir Technologies operated in stealth mode for years while building sophisticated software for government and private sector clients.

That’s what Mr McGuire told a bewildered Ben (Dustin Hoffman) in the film The Graduate in 1967. A prediction that turned out to be true, but also dramatically problematic. Over the last 40 years, plastic has become one of the most widely used materials thanks to its versatility, durability and low production cost. Too late did we realise the other side of the coin: it lasts virtually forever, and until now it has been cheaper to produce new plastic than to reuse existing plastic.

Today new technologies are making plastic recycling more affordable, but there is still a long way to go, especially in two directions: reuse and packaging.

The first is essential: designing products that can be reused at the end of their life guarantees a complete reduction in waste — to do this, you can’t just think afterwards about what to do with products, you have to (re)design them from the outset with that purpose in mind.

The second is the market that today still produces the most waste, particularly low-quality plastics with little recycling value. Rethinking product packaging allows companies to save enormous production and transport costs, becoming more competitive.

If we don’t want to surf through waste once again, we need to start rethinking products, packaging and sales methods: only this way will we be more sustainable, both economically (lower costs) and, above all, for the environment.

Have you ever dreamed of being a superhero, but the cape doesn’t suit you and the idea of fighting crime at 3am doesn’t exactly thrill you? Good news: you can still do good in the world. How? By becoming a Business Angel.

You save startups (and maybe the world). With your investment you help entrepreneurs turn a brilliant idea into a solid business, contributing to innovation and economic growth.

You learn more than an encyclopaedia. Being surrounded by fresh ideas, young entrepreneurs and groundbreaking technologies is like an ongoing masterclass in innovation.

You build an incredible network. From the next generation of entrepreneurs to the best venture capitalists, your network becomes one of your most valuable resources.

You give a hand to those who deserve it. Investing isn’t just about capital, it’s also about mentorship: seeing a company grow partly thanks to your own advice is enormously satisfying.

If you have capital, curiosity and the desire to be part of the future of innovation — why not? It could be one of the most stimulating choices you’ll ever make.