The entrepreneurial adventure begins
I’m Mariano Maggio, owner of MBM billiards.
The company was born spontaneously, almost by itself, surely through a curiosity. Because I didn’t play billiards. I approached a billiard room and after all very young, 23-24 years, the owner of a billiard factory told me: “But why don’t you help us in marketing?” I discovered this incredible world, I was so fascinated that as a representative today we are considered the leading technology company in the world and already 25 years ago, at the inauguration of our factory, the Americans, who visited us, defined us the highest technology company in the world.
So, as it was born, it was born with so much curiosity to know this fascinating world that is billiards and from there little by little, little by little, little by little we started to promote it, to study it, to create a right design of it and to bring it into television. So we are, by the way, as a company, I believe I am the pioneer of taking the game of billiards in the television’s world.
The money to start
Certainly, this company was born as a state availability, because it was born in the 1990s through the old “Cassa del Mezzogiorno”. Certainly, many of you do not know what the Cassa del Mezzogiorno is, also because it no longer exists. So it was an interesting promoter, very valid, I think there was a lost fund for those who built industrial plants equal to 40%, then of course another big part of 50% happened through the financing of the banks or maybe even a little less, the rest of 10% were a bit of a part of our savings, dictated by a whole sacrifice of 20 years of activity, because our company has about 50 years of activity and this has allowed us to be able to realize this dream, a little because the northerners, the northerners, the northern part of our country, when we went to propose our billiards, in the old company that we had, told us that we did not produce billiards, but bought billiards, then, we lost many sales. At this point we have decided or put the company in a place where everyone sees it, they cannot say that we do not produce billiards. So, the very important choice to put it at 30 meters from the highway, because the many millions of people that pass here during the year, can see it and they can’t tell, our competitors, that we didn’t produce billiards.
A negative and a positive event
The negative event is that when one passes from the artisan part, from a small artisan workshop with traditional machines and then enters the world of electronics, in the world of numerical control machines, one expects that he pushes a button and comes out the billiards. But no, we have taken so many, many months, I would say a few years to make the creation of billiards into programming.
Certainly then in our journey, at the level of experience, we had high moments, low moments like all entrepreneurs know perfectly well that: being an entrepreneur today is, as it were, a vocation, just as the friar is a friar, we entrepreneurs are how to say people of sacrifice, I do not say voted to …, but people of sacrifice, because it is innate in us to do business, risk, evaluate, expand, try to find new goals and new solutions. The part, let’s say, governmental and the banking part does not give us a great help, this is right to say it, and instead the great satisfactions of this company, because the prestigious position that has, indeed, echoes all over the world.
I’ll tell you a very special anecdote: I was from Las Vegas, stopped in New York for the small gifts for the family, and a friend of mine told me, I sold you a pool table. It was the first time that we approached the foreign world and I was intrigued. So I told him, but where, how? This friend of mine told me, look, I was in a shop in New York, where there was a commander of Alitalia and an Italian-American who had built a house and was telling it to this Alitalia commander. Then he told him, I also did the billiard room, of course the commander told him, well in this room will you put an American pool billiard? I said, no, no, you saw that factory that is on the highway, on the A1, there I want to go and buy billiards because I want a made in Italy.
And it is very, very important, today in the world all the entrepreneurs, a little bit those who save themselves, owe it to this magic word: made in Italy. The reference to our production, the destination of our production, yesterday we were saying 80% destined to produce for clubs, for clubs, but then the economic satisfactions did not arrive, because in Italy all these activities are with very little, very little yield and with a lot of risk. Instead, we turned to being a designer abroad, this helped us a lot and, among other things, through specialized and niche fairs, especially the Milan fair, to which we as a company owe a lot, because it has opened up a world for us international, which put us in a position to serve many great people. We are counting in Russia, starting from its president, to many others in the world of oil and more, and of course following all the presidents of Kazakistan, Azerbaijan, but not only of them in the east, but all that is also the Asian world. However, here thanks to these supplies we are in the world of design billiards and this has helped us and is making us survive, because, because otherwise in the Italian world, you all know, that it is very complicated to go on.
Doing business in Italy
I say, that we are in an exceptional country, where the God Almighty to compensate put the Italians, because sometimes we are not consistent, we are not good at aggregation, but we have a lot of inventiveness, lots of genius, so many things that for this reason the made in Italy, even if badly organized, rewards in the world. So, if your company is in Italy and with genius you create a right product, which gives you the chance to get yourself noticed in the world, Italy is the country of success. If, instead, you have no determination, you have no strength, you have no enthusiasm for doing what you want to do, certainly Italy is not the right place.
At this time, we said made in Italy is essential, it is clear that contacts in the world, but a very simple example, we produce some products for China and produce these products 4 times, 5 times, 6 times more the cost same buyer could find in China. However, the made in Italy helps us a lot, this wonderful, like saying, phrase, these wonderful words, which among other things I do not know if I will reach some pompous government, but organize the made in Italy in the world at a collective level, in community projects together, going around the world proposing the Italian level activities, together, so as not to let them disintegrate, because going to scattered delegations, instead of doing like other nations in a global way, see Germany, see France, the State proposes, not only the large companies, which are those that do not care about it, excuse the expression, of small and there should be a general aggregation, to bring everyone together, with projects together to succeed . Because I tell you this, I tell you why my experience of ten years of Confindustria in the field of internationalization, led me to evaluate that the union is strength and success is achieved together.
The key traits of an entrepreneur
The first thing we need is a great vocation, but besides having a great vocation, it takes so much luck that it never hurts in all things, but essentially so much of that enthusiasm as to bypass all the stakes that anyone puts on the road: both the bureaucratic part, both the political part, both the competitive and other part and more and others for which the secret is: to believe in it, to believe in it strongly and be led to do this, then what you do it must do with so much enthusiasm but so much to bypass all those that are the various problems that there are in the path because this is entrepreneurship.
In Italy today it is difficult to be an entrepreneur, but this does not mean that an entrepreneur, even a very young person, cannot succeed, we need ideas, we need design, we need technology, we need so much, lots of tenacity and a bit of luck.
The future for the new generations
The invitation for young people is that: if you have ideas, if you are brilliant in creating interesting things, Made in Italy helps you in an exceptional way. Because, as I remember, we produce for the countries where they produce things at a value of one, we almost the same things, but with a made in Italy and with a slightly different design, we sell them, out of necessity, for business costs, because we are in Italy and the cost is very high, at almost seven or eight times more, and they appreciate it. For which the invitation is this one: if you believe it, go fired that surely you will succeed!
IP Crew
