It’s been almost a year since we started working on the current version of Stamplay. At the beginning of 2012, we were working on a catalog of applications for online marketing and loyalty programs. One day we asked ourselves: what if, instead of developing many different apps, we invent a tool to create these apps? A real visual programming language that everyone can use to create any web applications?
At first, it was a drawing on the blackboard in the office, then became a mock-up (the one in the video), then I convinced my father to put some money in the adventure, then I convinced Lorenzo Barbantini to invest, then we decided that we had to go abroad and convinced Seedcamp to invest, then we convinced our first customers to work with us. And now we are ready to open the beta to the public.
It seemed a crazy idea, one of those ideas that inspire reactions like: «you can not do, it’s too hard, you’re a fool, it’s too risky». And, when we told people that we were going to do it with a handful of graduates, they looked at us with an air of pity, like we were embarking on a desperate mission.
Yeah! It is technologically difficult, but after almost a year of work, we can testify that it could be done and that we did. And that all thanks to the ambition and to the boldness of Giuliano Iacobelli, the determination and talent of Alessandro Oliveri, Cristian Roselli, Mirko Di Serafino, Claudio Petrini, my madness and the support of many people starting from our investors who have given us the resources to work, our advisor (Carlo Fornaro and Alessandro Santo) and not forgetting who is ready to sustain a brave entrepreneur in times of discouragement (like my spouse Patrizia).
Now that we have proved that we were able to do it and that we are able to sell it, our challenge for 2014 is to make it big project exploring all the opportunities. Stamplay is not only what you see in this video, but much more: it is a platform for creating web applications without knowing how to code. Any type of web application: to do marketing campaigns, automate business activities, for home automation, for personal life and – perhaps – even for entertainment.
The «software is eating the world», says Marc Andreessen and this means that we will increasingly need software to do anything. But we do not need to become programmers. Instead, we need a new Basic designed for the web: a simple language that can be used with minimal training, yet powerful enough to enable complex and useful applications.
The mission of Stamplay will be this: to become for the Web what Basic has been for personal computing. I, Giuliano and the guys who work with us know how to do it and we will do it. Obviously, we will continue to arouse the skepticism of many… But honestly, who cares 😀
Happy New Year to all, especially to those who think that things can be realized!