Diary
Founder's Diary
What building play2match is really like, doing startups in Bologna and keeping a community alive. The real days and the LinkedIn posts worth rereading, properly rewritten. The diary of a normal founder (which doesn't mean easy, mind you).
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Latest article
Latest article · StartupsThe team makes the numbers, not the campaign3 a.m. after our second launch event in Rome, and we were still there talking about the future. A look back at our strongest quarter ever, and at who actually made it happen.23 October 20262 minfrom LinkedInReadAll articles
- StartupsEstimates are always wrong (and that's fine)We thought two events would be enough to open Rome. We got the math wrong, luckily in the right direction.#forecasts#launch21 October 20262 minfrom LinkedIn
- Mindset and methodEither you're on vacation or you're workingBack from two weeks spent doing both things badly. Then days of real focus: systems that work on their own, the Rome launch, and an obsession with tracking everything.#focus#ai#method12–14 August 20263 min
- StartupsWhen sign-ups don't grow, but the game doesIn the second quarter new sign-ups stayed flat, bookings didn't. The number that tells you whether a community works isn't the one everyone looks at.#retention#growth10 July 20262 minfrom LinkedIn
- Mindset and methodIf you don't call it “great”, you're doing something wrongTwo days at the WMF fair with the whole team. Tired, sweaty, and sure of one thing: if you do startups and you don't find it great, there's a problem.#events#motivation7 July 20262 min
- CommunicationGift-wrapped stuff doesn't get anyone hookedThe behind-the-scenes of our crowdfunding video is awful. We published it anyway, because people get hooked on real things, not perfect ones.#communication#sport11 June 20262 minfrom LinkedIn
- StartupsA crowdfunding campaign is won before it opens€83,000 in one evening, overfunding in June, a quarter of a million in August. The credit doesn't go to the campaign video: it goes to months of emails nobody had asked us for.#crowdfunding#trustApril–August 20263 minfrom LinkedIn
- BolognaWhy I do startups in Bologna (and not in Milan)There are places you choose and places that, at some point, choose you. Why I decided to build play2match between the two towers, and what you find here that's missing elsewhere.#bologna#ecosystem10 April 20262 minfrom LinkedIn
- Mindset and methodBuilding the system while plugging the holesThe day after HYROX Bologna, legs still wrecked: a new system for content, a small crisis in Turin and a whole day spent plugging holes.#systems#crisis7–9 April 20262 min
- CommunityA community that depends on you is just a serviceThe uncomfortable question behind my chapter for CommunityLand: if you disappeared for three months, would your community survive?#community#legacyMarch–August 20262 minfrom LinkedIn
- StartupsBeing an entrepreneur is a calling, not a bragOur first birthday, more than a thousand matches between strangers, a dinner among partners. And two things I want to say to anyone building a company.#entrepreneurship#people6 March 20262 minfrom LinkedIn
- BolognaBologna was missing a place to meet up without the hypeAbout fifty people, no stage, a pitch done with a random object. How the Bologna Startup Network was born and what it taught us.#community#eventsMarch–June 20262 minfrom LinkedIn
- Mindset and methodFeeling uncomfortable is the path, not a bugA year as a founder taught me that feeling out of place doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. That's where the Normal Founder's Diary came from.#mindset#founder6 February 20262 minfrom LinkedIn
- Mindset and methodA week without fireworksA Monday with no plan, a Tuesday that started badly, a Wednesday of vision, a Thursday that lit me up and a decision made by taking the emotion out of it.#method#decisions19–23 January 20263 min
- CommunityForgetting we're friendsOn direct feedback in a team born among friends, and on the moment a community has to start walking on its own.#partners#community7 December 20252 min
- StartupsBefore you run, pick your leagueB2B or B2C, gazillions or slow, steady growth? At some point every startup has to decide what game it wants to play. Like when you have to choose who takes the last shot.#strategy#pressure17 July 20252 minfrom LinkedIn
- StartupsThe day it became realThe day we signed the play2match articles of association. I thought I was signing a piece of paper. I was signing a life change.#beginnings22 February 20252 min
- Mindset and methodThe letter I write myself every yearEvery year I write myself a letter to open twelve months later. How my annual review works, and why I publish my resolutions at the end of January.#habits#reflection29 January 20252 minfrom LinkedIn
- CommunityYour network is people who travel a hundred kilometers for youA matchmaking event between greentech startups, put together just by writing, one by one, to the people in my network. And something I never take for granted.#network#relationships4 October 20242 minfrom LinkedIn
- CommunicationYour personal brand is (almost never) a prioritySays a guy who works on personal branding. The product comes first. Then, if you have a why, six rules for doing it without wasting time.#personal-brand#marketing5 June 20242 minfrom LinkedIn
- Mindset and methodWhy not? Sixteen reasons to jump inI was asked why I'd gone all the way to Courmayeur for a Climathon. The honest answer was “why not”. Then I tried to come up with a better one.#experiences#growth17 November 20232 minfrom LinkedIn
Topics
#ai#beginnings#bologna#communication#community#crisis#crowdfunding#decisions#ecosystem#entrepreneurship#events#experiences#focus#forecasts#founder#growth#habits#launch#legacy#marketing#method#mindset#motivation#network#partners#people#personal-brand#pressure#reflection#relationships#retention#sport#strategy#systems#team#trust
FAQ
What is the Founder's Diary?
It is the blog of Simone Tabellini, co-founder and CMO of play2match: decisions, setbacks and lessons from real days, told without heroics and without drama. The articles are rewritten from his daily notes and his most-read LinkedIn posts, on startups, community, Bologna, communication and method.
Does the diary include play2match's numbers?
Only the ones that are already public, such as sign-ups or the crowdfunding. Revenue, acquisition costs and other internal numbers are left out by choice, and so are the names of the team: the diary is about how decisions get made, not about financial results.
Who is a founder's diary useful for?
For anyone who is building a startup or thinking about it, and wants to see what a founder's day is really like: the things that go wrong, the ones that get put off and how you get back on track.