In this article a brief interview with Andrea Giannangelo CEO and Head of Product of iubenda, an all-Italian company that has had the ability to focus on a niche market and generate a great user experience.
I have always said that there are two key elements to winning in the marketplace: focus and offering the best experience to our customers.
iubenda, the company I want to tell you about today, is an outstanding and emblematic example of this.
Ever heard of privacy? Unfortunately, I think I have.
iubenda has created a service that can simplify regulatory compliance, avoiding the need to hire an expensive legal professional.
One of the few entities that had the ability to choose a market niche (focus) and build a fantastic user experience, what we call in the jargon user experience.
So many companies are born with a great business idea: the product or service that did not yet exist in the market.
In a short period they become the leader, then they begin to de-focus. They expand the product range until they deplete the value of the Brand.
They go from being focused to being all-focused. The brand inevitably loses value and consequently the company loses market share.
iubenda‘s management, on the other hand, had the ability, willingness, and determination to stick to their initial company idea and mission, as Andrea Giannangelo, CEO and Head of Product at Iubenda, will tell us in a moment.
This has enabled the company, to turn a great insight, into a great international company in less than a decade. Congratulations.
Not only that. They have made, user experience, their own mantra. The key focus on which to base their strategy and every business activity.
From marketing and communication strategies, to business activities to technical and after-sales support. Nothing is left to chance.
It is not branding. I say and write this because I have been using iubenda‘s services for years. We could call them FIVE: easy, intuitive, fast and inexpensive.
But mostly problem solving.
They solve a crazy problem in a few clicks. A tangle of regulations, provisions and legalisms that complicate life for all of us.
So viva iubenda.
I have always been fascinated by “how an entrepreneurial idea is born.”
What is the spark, thought or randomness that leads us every day to do. To build companies, to invent new products and services to build new business models.
Let’s face it. Italy with all its rules, laws, regulations and contradictions is definitely not the ideal soil in which to “plant” the sprout of a new company.
Yet there are companies like iubenda that not only succeed, but invent, build and spread a new business model and service egg. And they do it divinely.
For this reason, I had the pleasure of meeting Andrea Giannangelo and understanding when and how iubenda was born.
Andrea how did the idea of iubenda come about?
The idea dates back to 2010 and arose from the realization that major international legislation obliges anyone who creates a website to set up a privacy policy. At the time there was still no entity offering such a service, and the intuition was to develop software that would allow anyone to easily comply with this obligation. The idea was then realized in 2011 when, after months dedicated to finding the right people and careful planning, with the support of some investors we founded iubenda.
To date, iubenda offers several software solutions for compliance with national and international privacy legislation such as GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive. In addition to the Privacy and Cookie Policy Generator, our products include the Cookie Solution (compatible with the IAB’s Transparency and Consent Framework), the Consent Solution, Internal Privacy Management, and the Terms and Conditions Generator.
What is your goal?
Our main goal has not changed: to create software that can simplify regulatory compliance and avoid the need to go to an expensive legal professional. The idea was always to create a service that we would enjoy using.
What strategy do you adopt?
Our strategy is to provide solutions that can be applied internationally, so that anyone using our services to comply with European laws such as GDPR can also comply with U.S. laws such as CCPA and CalOPPA, and vice versa.
To achieve this, the legal texts of our solutions are drafted and monitored by our international team of lawyers and translated into 8 languages (more will be added shortly). In a nutshell, I would say that what makes us special is that we combine the skills of highly qualified developers and lawyers to provide compliance solutions to businesses of all sizes.
Plans for the future?
We have recently launched a service for generating Terms and Conditions, which are critical – among others – for e-commerce. A highly effective solution, which we plan to expand in the months to come. Beyond that, we continuously monitor the legislative landscape and update our solutions accordingly, as evidenced by the functionality added to existing products as the CCPA comes into effect.
Why should users choose iubenda?
Our more than 60,000 clients include businesses of all sizes, from individual bloggers to startups to companies of the caliber of RAI, Mediaset, and Mondadori, as well as agencies and web professionals.
But beyond such a diverse audience, what differentiates us is our 360-degree approach.
In fact, on the one hand our solutions comply with the strictest directives, are designed and monitored by our international legal team, available in multiple languages, fully customizable, and update automatically. On the other, we do not limit ourselves to a specific legislative compliance (such as the Cookie Law), but support our clients along their compliance path, a path we make simple and intuitive thanks to a complete set of solutions offered with the convenience that only software can provide.
I would like to thank Andrea Giannangelo, CEO and Head of Product at iubenda, for his availability.
If you are having problems managing the privacy of your sites, blogs and e-commerce, you now know how to solve this long-standing problem quickly, efficiently and effectively.
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