"Sometimes I forget I'm 22 years
old," says business studies
student Matteo Achilli.
It is hardly surprising given that this
September, as well as taking exams
in law, technology and finance, he will
also be taking his online recruitment
company global.
He will be tying up partnerships with
Google and Microsoft, and servicing
blue chip clients such as Vodafone,
Bulgari, Generali and Ericsson.
Not bad really, considering he came
up with the idea for his company,
Egomnia, just three years ago in his
final year of high school.
No angels
"We received these rankings of
universities that we were applying
for," he says, "and I thought why not
give companies a ranking for
jobseekers depending on how
suitable they are for that company."
A simple idea but it was a long way to
go for a schoolboy with little access
to the kind of money he needed to
set up the business.
"Unfortunately in Italy there isn't an
ecosystem with venture capital and
incubators, so I started alone," he
says.
He approached professional coders
to build an algorithm but they wanted
100,000 euros (£80,000; $135,000) -
money he did not have, and the idea
could have died then.
Instead he asked some student
coders and they agreed to build the
algorithm for a tenth of the price,
money his father helped him find.
But what company would take a 19-
year-old with an algorithm seriously?
Bocconi
University has
one of the most
prestigious
business schools
in Europe and it
was in his first
year here that
Matteo first
received support
for Egomnia,
when another
student wrote
about it and the
idea was picked
up by national
websites.
On its launch day Egomnia had 1,000
students on its site and 20
companies.
Matteo points out that the careers
service at Bocconi University is
connected to about 100 companies.
But the big turn in fortunes came
when Italy's influential Panorama
magazine put Matteo on the cover,
dubbing him "Italian Zuckerberg" - a
reference to Facebook founder Mark
Zuckerberg.
The magazine cover came as
Facebook was being listed on the
New York Stock Exchange in one of
the biggest flotations in history.
Suddenly companies wanted to know
more about the "Italian Zuckerberg"
and what he could do for them,
including Microsoft which has taken
Matteo under its wing.
Two years later, Egomnia says it has
250,000 members and 700
companies using its service.
Anti-ageing
If Matteo first considered his youth to
be a stumbling block to the business,
his opinion has now changed.
"Now we are writing the history of the
internet," he says. "The real experts
are the young people, people who
don't have white hair."
"It's a very real innovation that a 22-
year-old is doing this. At the
beginning I thought my young age
was not good, now I understand that
my young age is my success."
His success is now reaching beyond
Italy. In just a few months he will
open his first office outside his home
country, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
He will also have an English language
and Portuguese version of the
website, while companies will start
paying for premium services on the
site.
A film about his life is in development
and the makers have asked him to
play himself, but he has refused.
Maybe that will give him time to
revise for his law, technology and
finance exams.
m.bbc.com/news/business-28211811

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