Wibo

Making training a memorable experience

Alessandro Busso

Co-Founder & COO

Tommaso Seita

Co-Founder & CEO

In this issue, we have decided to take you on a discovery of a young and innovative reality in the Turin area in the field of corporate training, namely the start-up Wibo, born at the end of 2020 from the project of the two founders Tommaso Seita and Alessandro Busso. As we will see in the course of this article, the initial project has undergone numerous changes in the course of these three years, finally converging into the current concept, exclusively oriented towards the corporate world.

Training for future managers and leaders

In fact, Wibo is involved in corporate training through the Leadership Academy, a membership consisting of synchronous meetings and micro-learning that allows managers and future managers to improve their leadership skills by learning live from “professors” such as Oscar Farinetti, founder of Eataly, Alessandro Baricco, a famous writer, and other top executives from companies such as Google, Airbnb, TikTok and many others.

The whole training process takes place in a context in which the multidisciplinarity and heterogeneity of the participants’ skills are enhanced as much as possible, also with a view to mutual growth and enrichment.

Nel mese di aprile abbiamo avuto il piacere di intervistare Alessandro Busso il quale ha risposto alle nostre domande e soddisfatto le nostre curiosità attorno a un progetto che ci è sin da subito sembrato molto interessante e innovativo!

Hello Alessandro, thank you for your time, first of all tell us how the Wibo project was born and how it has evolved over the years.

Hello everyone, first of all I would like to say that the name is pronounced “Waibo” and has no particular meaning. In fact, its history is strange: at a trade fair in 2020 that Tommaso – the other co-founder – and I attended, we were asked to come up with a name for our project, which was still in its infancy at the time. Using a standard random word generator, we came up with the word “wibo” and decided to keep it for the years to come, given its incredible history. An unforgettable name to create unforgettable experiences!

In terms of its history, Wibo was born at the end of 2020 out of the two founders’ passion for the world of entrepreneurship and was developed as a mobile quiz game app, modelled on ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ and other game apps already in existence in the US. The idea was for users to log on every night at 8.30pm to take part in general knowledge tournaments, with a jackpot of Amazon vouchers for the first-place winner. We therefore decided to make a first change of direction: while retaining the quiz concept, we turned to the educational market, selling a free product to schools and universities for the training of students, which teachers could use for exercises and tests in the form of quizzes. With this new product, we also opened up to the corporate market and came into contact with the world of HR and management.

What was your motivation for investment in this project?

So I think I am in love with learning, and I am afraid of the idea of never knowing enough. I think these two main reasons have led me to believe in Wibo, although we all arrived at the current project somewhat by chance and a combination of various factors, as mentioned earlier. Being involved in the education and training of people is therefore a solution to my constant desire for knowledge and it is also a way of learning new things from people.

What is the link between Wibo and Turin?

First of all, Wibo would not exist if I had not met Tommaso, the co-founder: in fact, he and I were classmates at high school in Turin. Moreover, our first customers and supporters came from Turin. I think this city was an excellent starting point from which to expand our network of contacts into an international and European dimension, through a community of managers living under the Wibo umbrella.

Is Wibo in any way related to your school and/or university background?

I don’t think so, Wibo goes beyond the scope of my studies and shows that there are many different paths you can take, regardless of your university career.

What is the balance to date of Wibo?

I can say that in three years I have actually run three different companies, each change within our project could be like starting from scratch. It has been three years of learning, training and learning how to run a start-up. Three years ago we started very recklessly and now we have matured a lot, also thanks to the mistakes. At the beginning we didn’t think it would take so long to achieve these goals: we learned it on the field.

What are the goals for the future?

We have many goals: the one most on the horizon is definitely to consolidate our presence in the Italian market, increasing our network of customers and managers. Once we have a good presence in Italy, we will expand to other European countries: France and Germany first. Another objective will be to expand our pool of managers and tutors, with a particular focus on the European and international dimensions. Finally, we want to focus on fundraising, finding new investors and implementing the technological development of our platform.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to approach your company as both a customer and an employee?

When they come to us as clients, they can expect to learn a lot, to meet people from different professional and academic backgrounds and to acquire new skills. Finally, they need to be hungry for knowledge and eager to grow professionally.

As workers, however, they must see teaching as a means of enriching and filling their lives. I recommend it precisely because of the formative effect it can have on others.

This concludes our interview with Alessandro, whom we thank for his availability and for introducing us to the reality of Wibo, which we hope will receive the recognition it deserves in the future. It is an innovative reality with excellent growth prospects, offering the market a product that can be very useful.