Interview with Simone Lini

On the 24th of April the class 4A PCU at IIS P. Sraffa and the Romanian students met online the young entrepreneur Simone Lini.

This is what Simone writes about himself:

I'm very passionate about travel, tech and... travel tech. Private pilot in training, former (and likely future) entrepreneur, I sold my first company to Lastminute.com Group, where I worked as Chief Commercial and Product Officer for their metasearch business (Jetcost and Hotelscan). I then joined Google Travel at the end of '19, focusing on tours and activities.

I'm experienced in flights, hotels and tours & activities, on the business development, revenue management and (for the first two categories) the product management side.

My favourite quote: "If you're the smartest guy in the room, you're in the wrong room". 

Simone had the idea of creating a start-up when he was still a university student. He founded it when he was 23 with a group of partners. His start-up was called Waynaut and it is now part of Lastminute.com: 

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/waynaut#section-overview

Waynaut provides Multimodal Travel solutions by combining all means of transport.

Waynaut is a B2B Multimodal Travel platform that enables people worldwide to travel seamlessly, by combining every means of transport.

Waynaut designs innovative technologies for GDS/OTA/Meta/Accommodation Booking sites to trade-off flights, trains, buses, ferries, transfers and carpooling into optimal and purchasable itineraries.

Waynaut empowers travellers to compare and purchase the smartest, fastest and cheapest routes to their final destinations.

Wayfinder®, our RESTful JSON API, is easily integrated into customer platforms.

Alternatively, Waypack®, our white label product, allows our customers to brand the front-end user interface. Waypack® has a responsive layout and is mobile ready.

The students who met him were very interested in hearing about his experience and he has really been a good example that if you are well determined, you can achieve your goals and obtain great results.

Here are the questions the students from 4A PCU prepared for the interview:

V. Alex

1- If you could sum up the virtues necessary to start up a business, what three words would you use?

S. Beatrice

2 - What characteristics should a project have to be interesting and attract possible investors?

A. Sara

3 - What is meant by start up? What features should it have and above all is it true that it must bring novelty on the market or is it enough if it improves something that is already there?

C. Alessandro

4 - How can education (school) boost our skills so that we may be better equipped when we enter the labour market?

E. K. Karim

5 - We will probably face difficulties when we start looking for a job and someone may tell us we are not good enough and may not trust us. Has it ever happened to you and, if so, how did you react?

M. Sara

6 - There may be an economic crisis after the COVID emergency, what hopes may we have for our future after we finish secondary school? Can an entrepreneurial spirit help us?

L. Deybis

7 - Is it right to have ambitions and even set high goals or is it better to limit our expectations not to be disappointed?

Further information about him can be found at:

https://www.facebook.com/wnaut

https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonelini/?originalSubdomain=ch