Creating a book from your emails - An interview by Memeoirs

by Startacus Admin

Memeoirs is a webapp that allows anyone to create a physical book out of emails and is the first commercial project for Giacomo Miceli and startup Fitmemes. Giacomo self interviewed on Startacus to tell us all little more about Memeoirs and his opinions on being a self-starter full stop. 

How did you come up with the idea for Memeoirs?

Like so many startups before us, we started building Memeoirs because my co-founders and I wanted a service like that for ourselves. We knew each other a very long time, but living in different countries the chances to get in touch were limited to using various forms of digital media. So, having loads of things to share (and being very opinionated) we wrote to each other literally thousands of emails on every subject you can think of. Looking back at that huge pile of emails, the thought that they could be converted into a book actually arose very spontaneously.

If you could give one piece of advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, what would it be?

Be relentless. For many people it's so easy to lose motivation while attempting to solve a task, when realizing how easily huge companies can tackle the same problems effortlessly by pouring resources that are simply unattainable by a fresh and penniless startup. It boils down to remembering that determination is the greatest virtue, and that it's easier to reach it if you truly believe in your goal, both for the rewards and the personal satisfactions you get by pursuing it.

Being a self-starter, what is your favorite part about it?

The process of creating a product is for me simply exhilarating. It feels in many regards as if you are giving life to something inanimate and in the end it really is that way. By involving people in your project and gathering supporters, partners and collaborators around it, what was a simple idea in your head can be spread and shared among many people. And it's the abundance of those people that ultimately confirm to you that your idea has come to its fruition. Also, and perhaps more commonly so, I do share with many start-uppers a love for the freedom to overturn the future of my product from one day to another. Small is nimble and we need to use that to our advantage.

What do you think the future holds for email as a Communication medium?

Email has been declared dead multiple times in the past 15 years. And in part it's true, some of the functions that were once prerogative of email have now been absolved by numerous other mobile and web platforms, determining an overall decrease in its usage as a Communication medium. However, if it's true that textual communication is becoming more fragmented and more real time, one can't forget that for deeper, longer, personal streams of consciousness, email is still doing its job remarkably well, just like the paper letters from which it takes its name. And being lovers of the epistolary genre, it seemed more than natural for my co-founders and me to start our quest for bringing all the significant communication to an offline medium. However that is hardly the limits of Memeoirs.

What are the plans for the future of Memeoirs?

We are working to integrate a number of other providers into our platform. Facebook will be next and many other will follow. We are to become the reference service for "turn your xyz into a book". The future is bright!

Good luck to Giacomo and Memeoirs! If you want to self interview on Startacus, feel free to give us a shout! 

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Published on: 18th April 2013