From online publisher to global tech company, how the virus gave birth to Contents.com.

We talked to Massimiliano Squillace, CEO and Founder, Contents.com.

How are you and your family?

Massimiliano Squillace : My family and I are doing well, they have given me the strength and motivation to carry on with the Contents project, a project which is growing every day not only in this country, but also internationally.

Can you tell us about yourself, your career and how Contents.com was born?

Massimiliano Squillace : During my first year of university, I founded my first startup which three years later would become my first sale. I have sold 4 other companies which I founded, one of which was in the world of digital publishing: Nano Publishing, which was sold to Excite Populis. I am one of the few Italians to have appeared on Forbes and Fortune, I have always been a promoter of various companies related to the world of startups, to date I have invested in over 50 companies. I am also the author of several books in the fields of communication, society and economics including the successful bestseller Startup, published in 2014. I am currently CEO & Founder of Contents, a global tech company that creates an interaction cycle between data analysis systems and machine learning to find and predict trends and create and disseminate content.

How does Contents.com innovate?

Massimiliano Squillace : Our vision is to scale up by facilitating access to data and information for anyone, at the right price. The Contents platform is designed in a simple and intuitive way, the technology must be accessible to everyone: the data allows us to discover trends and generate related contents thanks to machine learning. We offer users the ability to use a variety of tools and services all on a single platform, to facilitate the work of each business.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected Contents.com and how are you coping with this crisis?

Massimiliano Squillace : We are experiencing one of the most critical moments in history, COVID-19 has had an impact on everyone’s life. That’s why we at Contents are doing our part to ensure the safety of our customers and employees.

Everyone who is in contact with us – not just employees, but also suppliers and consumers – must be safe and secure. The health of our team is paramount to us, which is why we have sanitized and implemented additional cleaning routines for all offices, strengthening hygiene and exposure guidelines with our employees. Furthermore, Contents encourages remote working: based on orders from government officials in each country in the world where it is based, Contents asked all employees in the office to work remotely from their homes in order to comply with the distance directive. and avoid possible gatherings.

Have you had to make difficult decisions? And what are the lessons learned?

Massimiliano Squillace : During the first lockdown our media business was in great difficulty, given the precarious moment almost nobody wanted to invest in communication and advertising anymore, so we rolled up our sleeves and decided to invest in ourselves to accelerate our transformation process into a pure tech company that sells its services in SAAS. Fortunately our strategy and investment worked, today we are one of the sexiest companies on the planet thanks to our proprietary technology.

How do you manage stress and anxiety in this time of health emergency and how do you project yourself and Contents.com into the future?

Massimiliano Squillace : We try to manage stress as best we can and take every possible opportunity out of this situation. Despite the difficult times, Contents has a plan to grow by over 100% in 2021 with new employees already hired and new figures who will join and strengthen the Italian office, especially in the tech, sales and marketing departments.

Who are your competitors and how do you plan to outdo the competition?

Massimiliano Squillace : Given the numerous tools and services we offer, there are competitors in different fields. We have identified four main competitors in content sales, translation services, website performance monitoring and analytics for social media – Contentful, Contently, Froomle and Ax Semantics. What makes Contents unique is the ability to provide different tools on a single platform, to make the customer’s user experience unique, to facilitate access to data and to optimize timing.

Your website ?

Massimiliano Squillace : https://contents.com/en

Your final thoughts on this emergency?

Massimiliano Squillace : What this emergency has taught us is that opportunities can always be seized, even from crises. I believe that one of the positive consequences of this virus is that it is forcing us to speed up processes that, in normal times, would have taken much longer. We are one of those businesses that has never stopped, we have experimented, we have innovated and we have had truly surprising results, which have not affected our productivity and growth in the slightest.