A Teenage Racer Who Wanted Photos Faster Built a Business Printing Them
With a $90 printer and a loan from his friend's grandmother, he was making thousands of dollars in a day.
Joys of Compounding · Matteo Franceschetti - The Sleep Maestro - [Joys of Compounding, EP.32]On race weekends in Italy, Matteo Franceschetti showed up with more than a helmet and a go-kart. He and his best friend hauled a cheap printer to the track, set it up beside the pits, and started selling drivers the one thing they all wanted and could never get on time: pictures of themselves racing.
Franceschetti, now the co-founder and chief executive of the sleep technology company Eight Sleep, was then a teenage kart racer who competed against future Formula 1 drivers. He had noticed that the photo system was broken. Photographers shot the races on film, mailed prints to drivers weeks later in an envelope, and the rule was take everything or take nothing. If you wanted the photos, you paid. If not, you mailed them back.
Digital cameras had just arrived, and with them a simple workaround. Buy a basic Epson printer, shoot the race, and print on the spot. His friend, the more technical of the two, became what Franceschetti called the chief technology officer of the operation. They bought the printer for about $90, borrowed a basic camera owned by his friend's father, and started working the tracks on weekends.
It worked immediately. Drivers who had waited weeks for photos for sponsors and for their own pride could now walk away with prints the same day. The pair made $5,000 to $10,000 in a day.
The catch was getting a better camera of their own, which cost about $1,000. Franceschetti asked his parents for $500. They said no, told him to stop with his foolish ideas, and told him to study and become a lawyer. His friend got the same answer at home. Their last shot was his friend's grandmother.
She agreed to sign the financing papers, with payments stretched over the better part of a year. The boys took the camera to the track that weekend and returned five days later with the full amount in hand. The loan that was supposed to last a year was gone in less than a week.
The business, which they called Imago, kept making money until life split it apart. Franceschetti used his share to pay for a trip to San Diego to learn English, which he did not speak until he was 22 or 23, and that English later helped him win a job at a major law firm. His friend left for China. His parents, who could not have afforded to send him to America, did not have to.
Questions people ask
Why did drivers have to wait weeks for their photos?
Before digital cameras and affordable photo printers, race photographers shot on film that had to be developed, printed, and mailed. In Italy, drivers would receive an envelope weeks later and had to buy the whole set or return it, so there was no way to get a single image quickly for a sponsor proposal or personal use.
Why did they need a grandmother to finance a camera?
They were teenagers with no credit or income, so a lender wanted an adult to guarantee the payments. The grandmother agreed to sign, making her legally responsible for the roughly $90 monthly payments if the boys failed to pay.
What did learning English have to do with becoming a lawyer?
In Italy at the time, top corporate law firms required strong grades and fluent English to handle cross-border deals. Franceschetti studied in San Diego to learn the language, then used it to qualify for interviews and win an offer.