My beloved iPrice(rs),
It is with a heavy heart full of gratitude that I am writing these last words to all of you, thanking you for making my journey in iPrice nothing short of extraordinary.
Thank you for allowing me to do, here, some of the best work of my life. Probably the best.
What makes me the proudest is realising how much of that work has been invested in coaching and nurturing some of the most talented, driven and caring people I have ever encountered in my professional life. Witnessing your personal and professional growth has been the biggest blessing I could have ever asked for. You know who you are. What you might not know, is how proud I am of all of you.
Thank you to three master minds behind the birth and success of iPrice, which made this journey possible for me – Heinrich, David, Tim. I am beyond grateful to you for having given me a chance to be part of all this. Early enough. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Fabian, Stefan, Dmitry, June and all our other investors, thank you for believing in us, for the great support provided throughout my time in iPrice and for showing me what great investors look like. I am sure we will also make you proud 🙂
Beyond thanking all of you, I wanted to share a few last thoughts to all the people that I haven’t had the chance to work directly with during my time in iPrice, especially the younger ones and the many who will join the iPrice rocketship in the months to come.
Allow me to share some reflections on what I’ve learned in the first 10 years of my career and especially during my time here. I hope they might be of use to you in the future and further contribute to iPrice success.
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First, be curious.
Try to understand all aspects of our business. Sit down with Tom and ask him how our product sprints work, have a chat with Mattia to learn more about our traffic metrics or with Shahram to better grasp the basics of our affiliate tracking mechanism. Connect the dots. The moment you will fully understand how our business truly works, your work will become much more rewarding and you will be able to do an exponentially better job.
Second, don’t wait for permission.
Don’t passively wait for someone to assign you a task to work on. Take the initiative. Organise company events or research for example other websites and propose to our Product and UX teams new features you believe our users need. If you want to accelerate your career, own something no one is currently owning and push it forward. You will be rewarded.
Third, don’t tolerate bad management.
If your manager is not able to provide you the guidance and coaching you are expecting from him, let him know. Expect him to improve. You deserve it. If he doesn’t, look for someone else in the company who can inspire you more. Change team. There are countless stories in iPrice of people who changed team and started doing phenomenal job right after. Life is too short for not having a good manager. It is your career at the end of the day and you are the one calling the shots.
Fourth, improve your English.
For most of you English is not your primary language. Most of you underestimate how limiting it is for your career to have a sub optimal English. Invest energy and time in improving it. Leverage the free courses the company is offering you. We created them just for you. Don’t waste the opportunity. It will pay off big dividends throughout your career. Trust me.
Fifth, don’t do boring work.
There is no such thing as a boring job, at least not in a business like iPrice. If your job is boring and repetitive, you have no one to blame but yourself. Find new ways to automate your manual tasks and focus on more added value activities, expand the current scope of what you are doing or propose to your manager new approaches on how to best spend your time. But don’t settle in accepting boring work as part of your “daily work routine”. If you want to do boring job, look for less ambitious and innovative companies.
Sixth, become a self-learner.
Don’t limit your professional learnings to office hours. Complement what you learn from your peers and manager with afterwork sessions. Read books (the company is paying for it!). Then put in practice what you learn from the outside world in your daily iPrice tasks. Help iPrice become the repository of all the best company practices of around the world (especially within the region).
Especially when it comes to management, don’t expect to learn everything from your direct manager. Some of the best coaching and most transformational learnings in my managerial career came from books and discussions I had outside the office. All the knowledge of the world is accessible to you, mostly for free. The sooner you will become disciplined around your self-learning, the faster you will accelerate your career. Warren Buffet famously said – “Knowledge builds up, like compound interest.” Think about it.
Finally, develop a culture of high standards.
Borrowing here the words from Amazon’s CEO:
A culture of high standards is protective of all the “invisible” but crucial work that goes on in every company. I’m talking about the work that no one sees. The work that gets done when no one is watching. In a high standards culture, doing that work well is its own reward – it’s part of what it means to be a professional.
Jeff Bezos
Develop such culture first and foremost with regards to your own work. The moment you still start living it, you will start expecting it also from your peers, your direct reports and everyone you interact with. Similarly to the habit of self-learning, a culture of high standards also builds up, like compound interest. Plus, once you’ve tasted high standards, there is no going back.
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Looking into the future, there has never been a better time to be part of iPrice and write together with David, Heinrich and the extended iPrice family the next exciting chapters of iPrice’s Growth Story.
Although I won’t be any more in the office to do great work alongside all of you, I will keep rooting for you from the sidelines. Sometimes probably secretly wishing I was still there pushing forward with all of you.
Good luck and enjoy the ride.
With Love,
Matteo