Alessandro Talks About His Startup, Using 20 Lines
"At the age of 70, those who don't read will have led only one life: their own! Those who read will have lived 5000 lives, because literature is backwards immortality." These words, by Umberto Eco, are on the homepage of the Italian version of 20lines, a collaborative writing web platform, where authors and readers both create short stories.
The project, created a year ago by twenty-six-year-old Alessandro Biggi, has recently acquired substantial funding from a venture capital firm, which is being used to expand its activities across Italy's borders.
He has a degree in Finance from Bocconi and a Master in International Management from ESADE in Barcelona. But Alessandro did not limit himself to academics during his studies: a big fan of music, he was the radio personality for 'Un mercoledì da Bocconi' at Bocconi - "one of the best experiences I had at university," he says. During his stay in Spain, he had his first entrepreneurial experience with iGreen, a non-profit organization he created with the objective of inspiring students on the issues of green business and sustainable development.
After a year at J.P. Morgan, Alessandro started working in the world of consulting, working at Boston Consulting. Then he quit in 2012 to dedicate himself entirely to the new startup. "The objective of 20lines," he explains, "is to offer anyone interested in writing, a place where they can express themselves and create original stories, calling on collective creativity." 20lines is not only for potential writers, but also readers, who are offered a free archive of stories that is increasing and constantly evolving, all which can also be used through an app.
How are stories from the 20lines community created? "We developed a creative writing format where anyone can write a beginning of at most 20 lines and let other users continue the story," says Alessandro, "to create a short story made up of at most 6 sections. Our web platform is rather advanced at a technological level, and it allows users to create multimedia stories with images, video, maps and links."
The most interesting aspect of this original creative process is that various alternatives can be written for each section, so that the same beginning can branch off into an infinite number of plots, "a sort of continuous sliding doors," says the founder. Readers then decide which plot is best, which will be published in an ebook.
Launched during the Turin International Book Fair in 2012, the startup attracted the attention of Treviso incubator H-Farm, which invested in the project. After one year, it has 7,000 writers and 35,000 readers on a monthly basis. Today the project boasts collaborations with professionals such as Giorgio Faletti, Paola Calvetti, Carmine Abate, Mimmo Gangemi and Wu Ming, as well as several large publishing houses. "During recent months," says Alessandro, "we have grown considerably, we've hired three people and raised more capital. An investment of €250 million from United Ventures will help us open to an international market, launching the website in English and trying to replicate our success in Italy."