From Zero to 1,000 Customers Using Their Own AI Sales Tool
Founders Espresso Shots: featuring shot-size inspiring stories, key lessons, and practical tips from Hidden Champion Founders to boost their entrepreneurial journey.
🚀 Growth Hack
Turning Users into Product Architects
Crono’s growth has been powered by a relentless focus on user feedback. Marco and his team engage deeply with customers through interviews, support channels, and even direct tech-user sessions. This hands-on approach has helped them build features people actually need—shaped in real time, not assumptions. Their philosophy? Customer success is product success.
“Only by talking with users do you truly understand what isn’t working.”
Advice: Prioritize tight feedback loops. Empower your tech team to speak directly with customers and treat feedback like a product compass.
💡 Founder Spotlight
Four Crazy Italians and the AI Dream
Crono was born from a shared spark between four ambitious Italians who met through the Startup Builder incubator. With zero external funding in the beginning, Marco built the MVP solo while his co-founders handled sales and marketing. They avoided premature scaling, focusing instead on product-market fit, especially in the competitive world of sales engagement tools.
“We’re competing with companies that raised €100M while we raised less than €1M—but ambition and resilience can beat budgets.”
Advice: Don’t rush to scale. Invest in the foundation first—feedback, product, and team synergy.
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🗝 Founder Tips
Push, Adapt, and Stay Smart
Marco’s founding journey is built on three pillars: perseverance, adaptability, and hard work. He avoids rigid frameworks in decision-making, opting for daily syncs with co-founders and short-term experiments to gather data quickly. When facing hard days?
“One thing at a time. You can’t solve everything at once—focus is survival.”
Advice: Make decisions through team dialogue, be willing to experiment, and protect your energy with routines like early gym sessions or reading time.
🛠 Startup Tools
Using Crono to Sell Crono (Literally)
Crono’s own sales team uses the platform daily, making their internal feedback loop lightning fast. Their winning moment? A Product Hunt launch that landed them #1 Product of the Day, unlocking new traction in the U.S.
On the learning side, Marco recommends The Lean Startup and follows blogs like Paul Graham’s. His own blog, “Becoming Chrono,” offers an insider look at the startup journey from a technical lens.
“Start simple. Iterate fast. And learn in public.”
Advice: Dogfood your own product, leverage the right growth platforms at the right time, and document your journey to refine your thinking.
☕ Cup of Founders Wisdom
Hire Fast. Fire Faster. Learn Always.
One of Marco’s hardest lessons? Delayed decisions in hiring. Misalignment with early hires slowed them down. Now, he trusts his gut—and data—faster.
“You realize it in the first week. If it’s not working, fix it now.”
Advice: Early-stage hiring is high stakes. Act quickly when something doesn’t fit. And don’t fear mistakes—they’re part of the map.
🔋 Boost of Inspiration
A Startup Born from Passion and Festival Potatoes
Marco’s proudest moment? Seeing Crono grow from nothing into a living, evolving platform. Their first founders’ photo? Snapped at a Potato Festival in the Tuscan mountains—a symbol of their humble and hilarious beginnings.
“We don’t have millions of users yet—but every one we help makes it worth it.”
His deeper "why"? A need to build, innovate, and contribute—whether with Crono or future startups still brewing in his head.
Advice: Anchor yourself to creation, not just success. Your impact starts with solving one person’s problem well.
Sip up, and Scale up!
Stay tuned for more startup stories and actionable insights in the next edition of Founders Espresso.
Andrea Marino
Founders Espresso
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