Giacomo Salvanelli of Mine Crime.
Tell us about yourself?
I work with Corporates as a Crime Analyst. In other words, I try to help clients at identifying crime prevention measures to put in place to protect their assets.
I do it thanks to 8+ years of experience in the field and thereafter as an entrepreneur gaining experience by supporting companies’ protection with crime analysis.
ACHIEVEMENTS 🏆 In 2021 I Co-Founded the innovative startup (and B-Corp) Mine Crime, the very first horizontal SaaS-crawler (and analyzer) in southern Europe for geo-coded data on crime and urban decay.
🏆 In 2018 I Co-Founded the Institute of Applied Research to Crime Prevention “MISAP”, whose focus was on conducting applied research to crime prevention (SMALL-EXIT)
🏆 Past experience as a researcher at: 1️⃣ University of Portsmouth (UK) 2️⃣ Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
🏆 Active Membership: 1️⃣ International Association of Crime Analysts (IACA) 2️⃣ AIPSA (Italian Association for Company Security Professionals)
What do you think is the single biggest misconception people have when it comes to startups?
They always think that having a startup is somehow easy and immediately profitable.
Adversely, running a company, especially a startup, literally means fighting (on a daily basis) with the world’s demons and misconceptions about your business and proving it that, at the end of the day, you business could easily be a game-changer!
If you could go back in time to any moment from your journey, and give yourself one tip, what would it be?
Choose carefully your team members and co-founders. Team is fundamental, something you will always have to deal with. Do it first and never regret about your choices!
What makes you stand out as an entrepreneur?
I do believe that perseverance is my biggest strength.
In the past I found myself into situations where, in a way or another, I was challenged and criticized for what I was trying to do.
I had to fight for pushing my company beyond the usual limit of “people misconception”; yeah, definitely perseverance.
What are some of the best working habits you’ve gained over the past couple of years?
For sure, in the couple of years, I have gained at least 3 very useful working habits:
1) Proactively learn new skills
2) Anticipate needs (coming from both people/employees and the market)
3) Admit mistakes – there is nothing better than learning from your errors and become a better professional/entrepreneur
Give us a bit of an insight into the influences behind the company?
Mine Crime is the social impacting project of the Innovative Startup (also recognised as a benefit corporation) SAFETECOM Srl SB, devoted to a clear vision: revolutionising the paradigm of urban security management.
More precisely, Mine Crime is a software (progressive web-app) that, thanks to a proprietary algorithm, collects and systematises geo-coded data on urban offences (by accessing both big data online and offline) within the first Italian thematic database accessible to corporates, citizens and any interested stakeholder.
This makes it possible to provide citizens, corporates and public administrations with the first digital observatory (interactive Web-GIS) on urban micro-crimes updated in real time.
In addition, thanks to our underneath analytical systems, Mine Crime is able to process and produce composite urban-risk indicators as predictors of criminogenic phenomena.
Where do you see your business in five years?
We want the become the very first data-provider for crime and urban decay data in Europe.
In other words, we look at that moment when every corporate operating in Europe, in order to make proper context analysis, will come to us to get access to our database and our risk indicators.
What do you think the biggest challenge will be for you in getting there?
The team. We know for sure that the market is ready but the team might be, in the distance, a potential challenge.
We are very ambitious but, at the same time, we need to pay attention to our team growth in order to make it effective and onboard only those professional who have the same amount of hunger and desire to change the world.
Talk to us about your biggest success story so far?
From a personal point of view, my biggest success story is strictly related with Mine Crime.
However, this story could not be real without the wonderful people who work within our team; they are the heart and the arm of the company, without them there would not be any success!
How do clients and customers find you? Are you much of a salesperson for yourself?
Customer normally find us online (inbound) and by referral.
These 2 channels are responsible, today, of approximately 80% of our revenues.
The last 20% depends on the activities of our sales department.
The latter is great and it is doing a great job!
What one tip would you give to fellow startup founders?
Never give up, keep pushing and learning. Not everyone is going to have your vision, do not stick to it but learn from that divergent thought.
And finally, what do you hope the future brings both you personally, and your business?
From a personal point of view I would like to become father.
I do believe that having a kid is like running a startup and, as an entrepreneur, that is the “business idea” that is literally popping up in my mind on a daily basis.
In terms of business, I hope that the future will give us more and more the possibility to change the world and the communities where we operate (but with a team like this, I’m sure that the future is even closer than we think!).
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