Any achievement without hard work often seems to have a limited life. Giacomo Pastore strongly believes in and follows the philosophy of hard work and confidence. “Hard work always pays off. It is just a matter of time.” As CEO of FrescoFrigo—a health food company, Giacomo is driven by challenge to transform the retail realm. An Italian startup, FrescoFrigo was born with the idea of ​​developing a new retail concept: small, technological, intelligent, proximity and accessible 24/7 to distribute only healthy food.

Traditionally, all innovations in food retail were based on the same rules and processes. Old ways of doing things and small innovations with imperceptible incremental value. “With FrescoFrigo, we have rewritten the core process. The product that is already in the proximity of the customer. A domestic experience that is combined with a digital environment and together becomes commonplace,” explains Giacomo.

Creating a Single Tech-ecosystem

Retail is one of the industries that most influences the daily habits of all people. However, one of the great challenges of retail tech market is to predict and anticipate customers’ needs. Technologies like AI and machine learning has been transforming the market like never before. Retailers are seeing optimization in cost, enhanced decision-making, and process automation. ML has also been helping companies to generate tangible insights from data collected across multiple channels, creating actionable predictions and recommendations.

“My view on innovation in retail is that all available technologies ought to integrate with each other, forming a single tech-ecosystem. This will not only be able to understand and predict customer needs, but will also offer automatically the best possible solutions. In fact, FrescoFrigo is not just a smart fridge with fresh and quality products, it is a predictive technology that looks into the future, ” Giacomo states.

Fearlessly Thriving

It is often expected from business leaders to have fear of competition and failures in their respective business environments. For Giacomo, failures are only practical lessons in how limits can be overcome. “If the whole experience is read in this way, it will only be up to the social context not to give a negative judgement to those who dared to go beyond the limits,” he affirms.

Moreover, there are no industries that are too competitive for you to enter. And there are no companies so strong that they can’t be beaten. “There are only opportunities and a mountain of work to climb. And don’t be afraid to test things out.”

Power of People

Apart from the deep knowledge of leadership theories which is necessary to perform in front of very challenging targets, Giacomo believes in the power of people and the overwhelming value of teamwork. “Choose people first, then skills. And if you find these two things together, do everything you can to keep them there and with them you can build an empire,” he claims.

Abiding by his success mantras, Giacomo today strives to change the future of the FrescoFrigo. “If I look ahead, I think a memorable moment will be seeing FrescoFrigo, its technological infrastructure, its intelligent model, and the right make-up of the team which will lead to amazing results.” he ends.

A Thought written by Enrico Pandian, Founder of several startups (including FrescoFrigo)

“[…] The other day talking with Ottavio, the “headhunter”, it was interesting to fix the distinctive elements of the next members that will come on board, but will they be Pirates or Officers? The Officers are the Managers, the “Chief of …” people who execute, well, certainly better than I do, who have a single purpose, excellence, the challenge for them is to outdo themselves and grow in the corporate hierarchy, even if they are only one level away, from the top of the pyramid.

But in reality, I want someone undercover, I want a Pirate, disguised as an Officer, because I want someone who has broken with the corporate life, someone who will sooner or later steal my ship and make it run its course”.

Pirates on the prowl!