FEC Talkshow: Episode 001 — Massi Genta

June 19, 2020 (San Francisco)

This past Monday, on June 15, Harmony Plus kicked off our Future Entrepreneur Challenge (FEC) talkshow. For our first episode, we interviewed Massi Genta, a serial entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley, who got his first venture capital funding at the age of 18.

Now he’s an Entrepreneur in Residence at NEC X as the CEO of Metabob, the AI-powered visualization, and coding tool, as well as Clyste, a community-owned and AI-driven social media, and SensTek, a sensor company winning a government-funded startup competition in Korea. He is also one of our amazing FEC instructors, sharing his entrepreneurial expertise with the future generation of leaders.

When asked about how he started his first company, Massi discussed how he and his friend saw an opportunity with the rise of Facebook and social media, and wanted to find a way to help micro-influencers monetize their businesses. He also explained how he got funding for his startups and gave insight in the world of a serial entrepreneur.

Starting off his first company in Italy in 2010, the venture capital process was very different from the Silicon Valley process today. One of his business partners was able to schedule a meeting with a small angel investor. The investor was more excited about investing in Massi and his team, rather than the product itself. Although it wasn’t a lot of money, it was enough to focus on his startup full time and a great success to have someone believe in him at such a young age.

Being an entrepreneur gives you the freedom to be your own boss and have an impact on other people, which is why Massi was drawn to entrepreneurship from a young age. He was always very independent growing up and wanted to help other people, so entrepreneurship was the perfect career for him. He also loves to be able to work in the startup environment, collaborating with talented people and doing something valuable to make a difference in other’s lives.

If you are interested in learning more about Massi and his story, you can watch the full video here.

Tune in next Monday, June 22, for Episode 002, with David Fattal, CEO of Leia, Inc. You can sign up on our Eventbrite here.