# Enrico Icardi
Development, Management and Strategy for Digital and Physical Products.[^update]

:information_source: **LAST UPDATE:** 14 September 2022

[^update]: :information_source: **LAST UPDATE:** 14 September 2022


### Personal Information
- **Date of birth**: 02 October 1984
- **Nationality**: Italian
- **Hometown**: [Alba (CN) Italy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alba,_Piedmont)
- **Spoken Languages**:
- Italiano (10/10) - Professional Proficiency
- English (8.5/10) - Professional Proficiency
- Español (6/10) - Understood 8/10 and spoken at a basic level
- Deutsch (4/10) - Understood 5/10 and spoken at elementary level
- Français (3/10) - Understood 5/10 and spoken at elementary level

### Contact Information
- **Current Address**: Donaustrasse 68, 12043 - Berlin, Germany
- **Phone**: [phone]
- **E-Mail**: [e-mail]
- **Book a 30min Meeting:** https://calendly.com/enrico-icardi

### Social Contacts

- **LinkedIn**: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/enricoicardi/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/enricoicardi/)
- **GitHub**: [https://github.com/ricricucit/](https://github.com/ricricucit/)
- **Twitter**: [https://twitter.com/ricricucit](https://twitter.com/ricricucit)
- **Skype**: ricricucit

---

# Summary

My job is about helping businesses to build or improve their digital products (from scratch, simple ideas or existing projects) working at the intersection of people, technology, design and new medias.

I've started with Development in 2006 in Torino, Italy.

Over the past 17 years I've been working (mostly as a consultant) with perfectionist –Type B– designers, complicated –Type A– developers, and spent a countless amount of hours writing e-mails and attending meetings with small-to-big companies, mainly in Europe, USA and Canada.

I enjoy teamwork, I am capable of handling stressful tasks and I'm usually very intrigued by any new venture that i get to know or work at.

[...read more](http://aboutme.it)

---

# Full career overview

###### 2022 (Present)
- **Welance Ventures UG** (Berlin, Germany)
- Co-founder / Management
- **Welance Ventures Italia SRL** (Lequio Berria, Italy)
- Co-founder / Management / Consultant
- Rural Development and digitalisation
- **Doi Fagnan**
- Co-founder of Countryside Residence
###### 2017 (Present)
- **Welance Ventures UG** (Berlin, Germany)
- Co-founder / Product Management
- Full-stack development with focus on Front-End
- **ShareDesk/Optix AppQii Technology Inc.** (Vancouver, CA - San Francisco, USA)
- Co-Founder, advisor and shareholder
- **Stood.it** (Berlin, Germany - Torino, Italy)
- Co-founder
- Sales, marketing, product (design and development) and operations
- **Independent Contractor** (Europe)
- Startup advisor and shareholder (AppQii, Tillairplant)
- Mixed tech projects for SMEs (Web Apps, Websites, E-Commerce)

###### Year 2016
- **Welance GbR** (Berlin, Germany)
- Full-stack development with focus on front-end
- Advisor
- **Stood.it** (Berlin, Germany - Torino, Italy)
- Co-founder
- Sales, marketing, product (design and development) and operations
- **Independent Contractor** (Europe)
- Mixed tech projects for SMEs (Web Apps, Websites, E-Commerce)
- Startup Advisor and shareholder (AppQii, Tillairplant)

###### Year 2015
- **Welance GbR** (Berlin, Germany)
- Full-stack development with focus on Front-End
- **ShareDesk/Optix AppQii Technology Inc.** (Vancouver, CA - San Francisco, USA)
- Co-founder and CPO
- Full-stack development with focus on front-end
- **Digital Nomad Survey** (Berlin, Germany - worldwide)
- Co-founder
- **Stood.it** (Berlin, Germany - Torino, Italy)
- Co-founder
- Sales, marketing, product (design and development) and operations
- **Independent Contractor** (Europe)
- Mixed tech projects for SMEs (Web Apps, Websites, E-Commerce)
- Startup Advisor and shareholder (Tillairplant)

###### Year 2013-2014
- **ShareDesk/Optix AppQii Technology Inc.** (Vancouver, CA - San Francisco, USA)
- Co-founder and CPO
- Full-stack development with focus on front-end
- **Stood.it** (Berlin, Germany - Torino, Italy)
- Co-founder
- Sales, marketing, product and operations
- **Independent Contractor** (Europe)
- Mixed tech projects for SMEs (Web Apps, Websites, E-Commerce)

###### Year 2011-2012
- **ShareDesk/Optix AppQii Technology Inc.** (Vancouver, CA - San Francisco, USA)
- Co-founder and CPO
- Full-stack development with focus on front-end
- **Brand-Catcher** (Berlin, Germany – remote)
- Full-stack developer, analyst and advisor
- **Maxema** (Berlin, Germany)
- Full-stack developer, analyst and advisor
- **Independent Contractor** (Europe)
- Mixed tech projects for SMEs (Web Apps, Websites, E-Commerce)

###### Year 2010-2011
- **ShareDesk/Optix AppQii Technology Inc.** (Vancouver, CA - San Francisco, USA)
- Co-founder and CPO
- Full-stack development with focus on front-end
- **Brand-Catcher** (Berlin, Germany – remote)
- Full-stack developer, analyst and advisor
- **Independent Contractor** (Europe)
- Mixed tech projects for SMEs (Web Apps, Websites, E-Commerce)

###### Year 2009-2010
- **ShareDesk/Optix AppQii Technology Inc.** (Vancouver, CA - San Francisco, USA)
- Co-founder and CPO
- Full-stack development with focus on front-end
- **Bakeca.it** (Torino, Italy)
- Full-stack developer and analyst
- **Easybit** (Torino, Italy)
- Full-stack developer and analyst
- **Independent Contractor** (Torino, Italy)
- Mixed tech projects for SMEs (Web Apps, Websites, E-Commerce)

###### Year 2006-2009
- **Independent Contractor** (Torino, Italy)
- Full-stack web developer (ASP, HTML, JS) and software developer (Visual Basic)

###### Year 2004-2005
- **IT Department for unieuro** (Alba, Italy)
- Servers, computers and network maintenance for [unieuro](https://www.unieuro.it/)'s main head quarter (~500 employees in the building)
- **Store Manager for GameStop** (Alba, Italy)
- Responsible for a team of 5 employees, I managed the daily business of a small videogames store

---

# Education
- **High School**: Technical Programming school (1997-2003)
- Istituto Tecnico Industriale Statale (_G. Vallauri, Fossano, Italy_)

- **Additional Education / Internships**:
- _CISCO Systems_ Level 1 System Administration and System Architecture Design (_2004-2005 – Fossano, Italy_)
- Design, print and multimedia internships (print/web/multimedia) at "_Il Tipografo_" and "[L'artigiana](http://www.artigianaweb.it/)" (_2005 – Alba, Italy_)
- Simple Independent software/web development (Visual Basic / ASP) and print design (Corporate Identities) for small companies and associations (_2005-2006 – Alba, Italy_)
- Self-thought / online courses about Products Design, Development and Promotion for the physical and the digital world (2002-present)
- Self-thought / online courses about teams management, resources/budget allocation and business modelling (2010-present)
- Constantly studying and organising events on new techniques and practices in the fields of management, strategy and technology

---

# Career Highlights

> **NOTE:** This section follows a reverse chronological order to better understand the career steps involved each year. A reverse chronological ordered career overview can be found under the "_Career Overview_" section.

__

## Welance Ventures UG (DEU) + Welance Ventures Italia SRL (ITA)
###### 2017 to present (Berlin, Germany - Lequio Berria, Italia) – [website](https://welance.com)

**Acquired Skills**: complex budget management and resources allocation (40+ people), common standard processes and guidelines generation, PR, customers acquisition and relationships management, company's software Dashboards, cashflow management, multiple projects and teams management

**Tools**: IDEs, Sketch, Invision, Adobe Suite, GitHub, BitBucket, Gitlab, Active Collab, Jira, Trello, Slack (BOT), GitBook, Meetup.org, Holvi, CraftCMS (and any other classic CMS), Headless CMS (contentful/directus), Docker, Continuous Integration, AWS Services, Rancher

**Technologies/Languages**: GIT, MySQL, PHP, Apache, Nginx, NodeJS+NPM, REST-API, HTML, SCSS, Design System, CSS, JS, AngularJS, VueJS (and more others), JS module bundlers/task automators, AWS, CloudFlare

> These are, respectively, my third and fourth ventures, which I started together with other 3 german co-founders. The idea (started by Philipp Hentschel) has already been proven viable by its history (started in 2001) and my role here it's about restructuring and maintaining the internal development and strategy of the freelancers collective itself, and its derived digital products, for the collective, and its clients. I've started in March 2017 by creating a basic design system and initial development guidelines onto which the community would be able to streamline (if not automate) common workflows and repeating scenarios. In 2021, we've enlarged our tech offer and tech stack, and today, this structure empowers any welance member to further develop the company's framework.

> In 2022, welance Ventures also moved to Italy, starting to work with italian rural municipalities, by implementing digital solution to improve rural life and avoid its decay, while becoming one of the first rural digital hubs.

--

## Independent Contractor
###### 2006 to 2021

**Roles**: many :slightly_smiling_face:

**Acquired Skills**: design, development, PR, customers' management, team work

**Tools**: IDE, Adobe Suite

**Technologies/Languages**: SVN, SQL, PHP, HTML, CSS, JS, Flash

> Right after my studies I've started working as an independent contractor for web-development projects. Over the years I've learned how to find my own clients, collaborate with small to large teams (external agencies) and generally improved my skills related to public relations, development, design and self-employment daily business.

__

## Aeternity Blockchain (w/ Ape Unit - Unit8)
###### 2018 to 2020 (Berlin, Germany) – [website](https://aeternity.com/)

**Roles**: Open Source Sr. JS devevelopment, SDK development, Documentation

**Acquired Skills**: Blockchain, SDK development, Developer Tools and Technical Documentation, Functional Programming

**Tools**: Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD w/ Jenkins, AWS

**Technologies/Languages**: GIT, JS, VueJS, JS module bundlers/task automators, JS ES6

> This an independent tech-consultancy job with the aim of building the Aeternity Blockchain SDK, its Developer Tools and Documentation, to facilitate onboarding of new developers interested in diving into the Aeternity Blockchain world.

__

## AppQii Technology Inc. ([OptixApp](https://www.optixapp.com/))
###### 2009 to present -as shareholder (Vancouver, CA - San Francisco, USA)

**Roles**: Founder, CPO, COO

**Acquired Skills**: idea-generation (USP and KPI detection), PR, public speaking, talents hunting, creative & tech team creation and lead, budget management, design, development, UX, strategic vision and planning, customer support, product timeline management, tasks allocation, management of investors expectations

**Tools**: IDE, Sketch, GitHub, Jira, Trello, Yammer, Cordova, Mixpanel

**Technologies/Languages**: GIT, MySQL, PHP, Nginx, REST-API, HTML, SCSS, Design System, CSS, JS, AngularJS, JS module bundlers/task automators, iOS, Android, bluetooth

> This is my first venture, internationally described by Forbes as the "airbnb for flexible space", it successfully received seed funding from renowned Silicon Valley investors and after almost 8 years of team work has reached a leading position in its industry. I've been following the full lifecycle of the 2 products that AppQii is currently still promoting which are a) ShareDesk, the airbnb for flexible workplaces, and b) Optix, a customised solution (web/iOS/Android) for the management of office space internal communication and utilisation (using devices tracking).

__

## Digital Nomad Survey
###### 2015 (Berlin, Germany - worldwide)

**Roles**: Founder

**Acquired Skills**: users survey, sponsorship aquisition, promotion

**Tools**: IDE, Sketch, Typeform, (woocommerce+WPML), CRM, Facebook ads, AdWords, GitHub, Bootstrap

**Technologies/Languages**: GIT, JSON, HTML, SASS, Design System, CSS, JS, AngularJS

> A successful personal experiment trying to promote the idea of open survey (open data) based on a trending topic of the moment. I've generated the idea and coordinated the whole project until completion. The survey collected over 700 responses (to 40 questions) where more than 95% of participants left their e-mail and commented with enthusiasm. The survey attracted ~1400 unique visitors, meaning that its conversion rate reached 50%.

__

## Stood.it Wood Crafting
###### 2014 to present (Berlin, Germany - Torino, Italy)

**Roles**: Founder

**Acquired Skills**: branding, B2B and B2C strategy creation and implementation (online and offline),

**Tools**: IDE, Sketch, Wordpress CMS (woocommerce+WPML), CRM, Facebook ads, AdWords, laboratory for wood

**Technologies/Languages**: GIT, MySQL, PHP, Apache, XML, HTML, SASS, CSS, JS, basic CNC programming, wood

> Stood is a personal experiment in applying my full skillset, which quickly became a viable side business, manageable aside of my career. It's a B2C and B2B company that sells wooden office accessories. I'm involved in any of the phases of this project: from ordering material, to creating the objects, from customers aquisition, to shipping and logistics. The physical creation of this object happens in Torino (Italy), thanks to the help of a lutist friend.

__

## Brand-Catcher / [Maxema](http://maxema.com) / More
###### 2010 to 2012 (Berlin, Germany – remote)

**Acquired Skills**: higher development level, team work, customers' management, online-retail and B2B common workflows and techniques, importance of design in software implementation, branding positioning

**Tools**: IDE, Adobe Suite

**Technologies/Languages**: SVN, MySQL, PHP, Apache, XML, HTML, LESS, CSS, JS

> I've been part of a team (put together by a renowend [design studio](http://undesign.it/)) dedicated to the creation of the online presence of these 2 brands from the ground up. This required me to build 2 customised software solutions (NO CMS/frameworks have used), for companies that operated in a very different way (Retail Startup vs. Traditional B2B). Building these systems, not only improved my development skills, but also gave me the opportunity to look closely at the process behind the creation of complex UI and UX that are capable of keeping the relation with a branding strategy. This is where my development skills shifted towards the importance of design in software implementation, and therefore: front-end. Fact: unfortunately [one of the companies](https://www.gruenderszene.de/allgemein/brandcatcher-insolvent) failed after some years.

__

## [Bakeca.it](http://www.bakeca.it/) + **Easybit**
###### 2009 to 2011 (Torino, Italy)

**Acquired Skills**: development, team work, understanding of complex architecture and workflows considering website high traffic and complex/big data management

**Tools**: IDE, Adobe Suite, CRM, internal custom software and code generators

**Technologies/Languages**: SVN, SQL, PHP, Apache, Apache Solr, XML, HTML, CSS, JS, Flash

> Easybit is the web-agency behind the birth of a self-sufficient company called bakeca which quickly became the leader of classified ads in Italy. I have worked for both companies mainly developing website and helping maintain bakeca. Here I have experimented with technologies and situations that I have never encoutered before: high traffic and large (constantly-growing) databases. I've mainly been working as a back-end developer for bakeca (optimizing complex DB queries and fixing/expanding core functionalities of their OOP PHP application) and as a full-stack developer for Easybit (creating websites for small-to-big enterprises using an XML based Java application to automatically create dynamic PHP websites).

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## Future and Current Improvements
###### present to future (anywhere)

**Wanted skills**: AI tools development

**Missing tools I'm working on**: (freelance) workforce and project management software for freelancers collective

**Technologies/Languages I'd like to learn more**: DevOps, AI, BOTs development, nodejs, golang, Rust, System Development, Cloud Computing

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# Current personal interests related to work

Apart from classic personal interests like sustainable tourism, good food and wine, cats and cats animated GIFs, I do enjoy participating to events and hearing news about:
- Freelancers rights and organisations
- Solutions for a more flexible work
- Work/life balance
- Blockchain and crypto currencies
- Business strategies that foster any of the above ;)