Four very young people had already created and marketed a watch. They contacted Speed Mi Up because they wanted to give continuity and coherence to a promising business.

When they joined Speed Mi Up, the four young entrepreneurs of D1 had much more than an idea: in February 2013 during Milan Fashion Week, they had already launched their watch on the market through an unconventional network of 30 fashion stores and the operation had been successful in terms of sales and of visibility. Dario and Alessia Spallone, Mattia Bodini and Alessandro Pedersoli are 20-21 years old and are all mad about watches. Inspired by the business models of other manufacturers, they worked on the concept of “perceived luxury” to produce a watch that reinterprets the design details of cult brands in the sector, made with high quality materials and Swiss-standard technology, but sold at a mid-range price and distributed through fashion stores, rather than jewellers. “But our problem”, they explained, “was to give continuity to the operation, with strong, convincing positioning”. That wasn’t all. They also had to cut costs and try to learn from their first market experiences. The process of cost cutting is still ongoing and is being done by outsourcing some steps. The learning process is and must be continuous, thanks to the method of their tutor “who lets us make our own mistakes, then discusses how to correct them, in a great relationship on equal terms” and to suggestions arising from their training. Now the entrepreneurs feel they have created a value proposition that is valid for the long term – “a product idea that really expresses who we are”. It is dynamic and magical in its conception (they prefer to keep the material expression of the idea confidential, but it is strongly based on these two concepts). The next models are scheduled to come out for Christmas and Valentine’s Day. Sessions with the tutor and with other trainers from Speed Mi Up have also helped them redistribute roles within their business group, which comprises a manager who has studied economics (Dario Spallone), someone with distribution expertise (Bodini), someone with design experience (Pedersoli) and a communicator (Alessia Spallone).