👋🏼 hello, I’m fabri
The first entrepreneurial adventure of my family was the deli we opened in London with mum and big sis. It was my idea, the youngest and by far least qualified in a family of doctors, engineers and professionals.
Since then it's been a decade of working with small businesses and startups across industries and varying degrees of success. About a year ago I retired from the hustle and joined Square. Working for one of the OG silicon valley unicorns felt like a dream come true.
Like for many, Square was a vocational choice. A way for people like me to pay it forward to their younger self. Squares are talented professionals aligned to the same moral compass.
My favorite routine when welcoming guests at HQ was to walk them by union, our board room. On the wall subtly embossed stands bold and powerful the Square purpose. Economic Empowerment.
Like with most successful brands, it’s really hard to grasp from the outside what's truly required to innovate at scale.
Ten years in, Square may not be the freshest of startups. But it's still a yuppie compared to 136 years old National Cash Registers Inc.
NCR, unlike Square, is ubiquitous. If it's got a barcode they can ring you up.
As a child I wondered, who made these things? They looked expensive, reliable, official and most importantly essential for commerce. Who knew one day I would end up working on the next generation of merchant tools.
Wether in supermarkets or at farmers markets, I believe innovation is the only way for our society to level inequalities. It is our duty as a species to keep innovating and challenge our context to improve the collective status quo.
Reading this I'm sure you understand why I really joined this team. Square is a company I wanted to learn from and at the same time take part building.
March 2020. I find focus in moments of crisis. I wish I knew how to trigger this at will. Unfortunately it is instinctive and something that's been part of me since as long as I can remember.
The day it became clear COVID-19 was going to trigger a global pandemic my mind entered the 'eye of the storm'. I was still clocking-in my formal duties at Square but prioritized every other waking moment to explore the answer to the question that kept buzzing in my head.
What now?
The global reset felt like a once in a generation chance to make a difference in what I believe matters the most.
My core belief is that the ability to pursue a passion should not be reserved for the wealthy or the well-connected.
The information age has the potential to fuel a lift in upward social mobility more impactful than the one we’ve witnessed during the industrial revolution. In part we should thank the internet but more importantly I think we should focus on its content.
Media, is the stuff the internet is made of. The bundle of formats and distribution mediums on which ideas are nowadays expressed and delivered to audiences.
Recording, curating and distributing information, gives us the ability to pass it from one generation to the next. This process is what allows our species to evolve exponentially faster than our competition. It’s what makes us human.
My fascination with media started at a young age. Nobody in my family seems to knows why nor how.
In second grade I was the founding editor of the class news paper. Using MS Word we wrote, edited and formatted a single fold student magazine. We printed one color copy with expensive ink-jet and ask our parents to photocopy 50 more at their offices. We ran monthly and I remember we had a sticker price and sponsors.
Obviously, we never collected any money. That was never our motivation. We did it for the fun, and the fun never run out.
I’ve kept exploring ways to professionally engage with audiences throughout my life. Keeping updated with the latest trends and much later even starting a business, a growth agency, that eventually evolved my career from entrepreneurship and small business to tech and venture capital.
April 2020. What we thought would take decades has instead unfolded in a matter of weeks. Society is obviously not ready for what's about to come, but it's not all bad news.
For one, unlike any other point in history we can now transact information at a larger scale, and lower cost, than ever possible before.
Leveraging the combination of internet and media we can empower millions to find purpose while persuing their passions.
Long story short. I’m coming out of ‘corporate retirement’ and joining the startup ranks for one last dance.
Brendan and I are continuing to follow on the same the same path that brought us to Square. Rather than focusing on the tools, we want to take a stab at providing the means (ie. knowledge) we wish we had when we first got started.
As we’ll get busy building you can follow along @fabritravels 🏗