Wednesday, June 18, 2025 – Day 3
Milan's skies were clearer that morning, the storm clouds from earlier in the week traded for sunlight glinting off steel and glass.
Inside Officina22, even though it is a bar that doubled as a student study haven, Leonardo Venturi was anything but serene.
"Still no reply from DeBellis Inox," he muttered, refreshing his inbox for the seventh time in ten minutes.
Sofia was cross-legged on a beanbag nearby, chewing the end of a pen. "Give it time. We sent the demo barely 14 hours ago. These people don't run on startup adrenaline—they run on espresso, paperwork, and cautious optimism."
He grunted. "Cautious optimism doesn't get us to ten suppliers by Day 30."
"We have three interested. That's progress."
"But not commitment," he said.
Sofia's eyes narrowed playfully. "You need breakfast."
"I need a signed MoU."
"Yeah, and I need stable Wi-Fi. But we play the hand we're dealt." Sophia tried to lighten the mood.
Leonardo stood up and paced. The supplier dashboard was stable. The part catalog upload tool worked, even if it crashed occasionally when large CSVs were involved. The search logic was still primitive—just tag-matching and some rough similarity algorithms. But it ran.
What they needed now were real, live humans on the other side of the platform. Not cold leads. Not polite emails. Real users, with real feedback.
Leonardo froze mid-step. "Let's go to Modena."
Sofia blinked. "What?"
"You said face sells. We're wasting time with emails and cold calls. There's a CNC wholesaler in Modena I cited in my thesis—a small team, but significant turnover. They'd be the perfect early adopter." said Leo seriously.
"You want to just show up?"
"Yes."
She glanced at the clock. 8:11 AM.
He grabbed his laptop, power bank, and a folder of printed UI screenshots.
"You coming?" he asked.
Sofia looked at her planner, groaned, then stood up. "Fine. But you're buying the train tickets."
Leonardo smirked. "I only have €3.20."
She rolled her eyes and waved her phone. "It's fine. I'll expense it to our imaginary company."
11:07 AM – Regional Train to Modena
The rhythmic clatter of tracks filled the silence between them. Sofia was sketching refinements to the buyer-side part request page. Leonardo, meanwhile, was typing up a mini pitch deck with bullet points, graphs, and fake-luxury mockups.
Midway through, he paused.
"Why are you helping me?" he asked suddenly.
Sofia didn't look up. "You needed help."
"That's it?"
Now she met his eyes. "You're serious, focused. You care more about building something than tweeting about it. And..." She smiled. "You didn't make a move when I leaned over your shoulder and practically sat on your lap."
Leonardo laughed, a little too loudly.
"Relax," she added. "You're not my type. Yet."
That "yet" hung in the air like a loaded variable, for some reason, Leo's heart almost jumped from his chest. He found her charming, but was that it or not?
Either way, he needed to focus on the pitch, so he cleared his mind.
1:03 PM – Outside Baldini Meccanica, Modena
They stood under a cracked awning. The industrial building was plain—whitewashed brick and a big blue garage door. A modest sign read: Officine Baldini – Ricambi & CNC Solutions.
"Last chance to chicken out," Sophia said.
Leonardo squared his shoulders and said with determination, "Let's go."
"Yes! Let's do it!" Sophia yelled with her usual positivity.
Inside, they were greeted by the unmistakable scent of machine oil, heated metal, and old espresso. The front office was quiet, just a single woman at a desk typing invoices.
They introduced themselves. Then waited. And waited.
Eventually, a tall, balding man in his fifties walked out from the back. His name was Giorgio Baldini, or at least that's what was written in his badge.
"You want me to upload my inventory to your platform?" Giorgio asked, arms crossed.
"Yes," Leonardo said. "With real-time visibility. Your catalogue will be browsable by industrial buyers across Italy. And if we aggregate demand, you sell in larger volumes, faster, with less back-and-forth."
"And what if my competitors see my prices?"
"We'll anonymize sensitive data by default. You control visibility. We're focused on making procurement smarter, not disruptive. You keep relationships—we just give you more channels."
Giorgio considered that.
Sofia tapped her iPad, spun it toward him. The redesigned supplier interface looked slick. Professional. Not bad for three days of work.
Giorgio stared. "This… doesn't look like a student project."
Leonardo smiled. "It's not. It's the future of industrial sourcing."
Giorgio scratched his chin.
Then: "Come back next week. If your demo works with 100 SKUs, I'll give you a try. Small batch. No risk."
Leonardo's heart skipped. "Deal."
6:02 PM – Train Back to Milan
Leonardo stared out the window, exhausted but wired.
"That was huge," he whispered. "That's our first real lead. He didn't slam the door."
Sofia leaned her head on the window. "He liked you. You spoke his language. Most kids your age can't even spell 'supply chain'."
Leonardo chuckled, looked into the eyes of Sophia, " Thank you!", This caused a little bit of tension, to ease it Leonardo checked his phone. A new email blinked in his inbox.
Subject: Let's schedule a call – DeBellis Inox
He almost shouted.
"We have another one!"
Sofia pumped her fist.
Then paused. "Wait... look at this." She showed him a Reddit thread on her screen.
"New platform for industrial parts? Just got pitched by someone else."
The username matched a small firm in Verona.
"They're calling it 'PartBridge'. Sounds a lot like what we're doing," Sofia said slowly.
Leonardo's stomach sank. A rival. Already.
"They even mentioned Lorenzo Vitale. Someone's trying to game his network."
He read the post again. The rival team wasn't as far along technically—but they were two weeks ahead on outreach. And they had more funding.
"They're not serious," he muttered.
Sofia gave him a look. "Don't underestimate fast followers. We need a real moat."
Leonardo tapped his laptop screen.
"We will. Supplier-side AI. Predictive bulk ordering. Multi-buyer aggregations. No one's doing that yet."
"And brand," Sofia added. "We make this platform human. You. Me. Not just software."
Leonardo nodded.
"Tomorrow," he said, "we redesign the buyer journey."
11:59 PM – Officina22
The two returned to their corner of the co-working space, dragging their feet and buzzing from espresso.
On the whiteboard, Leonardo updated the tally.
Leads: 5
Confirmed: 1
Demo Pending: 1
Competitors: 1
Sofia grabbed her bag.
"Before I go," she said, "check the communal fridge."
He frowned, opened it, and found a small Tupperware with a note: "Startup Fuel – Tiramisù. Don't eat all at once. —S"
Leonardo looked up, stunned.
"You made tiramisù?"
"Told you I bribe with dessert."
"You… you made it just for me?"
Sofia gave him a crooked grin. "Don't get soft on me, Venturi."
He watched her walk away. A different kind of fire kindled in his chest.
For the first time in this journey, it wasn't just about surviving or winning.
It was about building with someone, which made him find a little bit of happiness, even though deep down he knew it was just last Sunday that he was at his father funeral, all this work was also a type of coping mechanism and he didn't know if he's going to break before in this 30 days that Lorenzo he gave him.