Mintlayer Expert Interview Series #2 

Welcome to the second installment of the Mintlayer Expert Interview Series, where we speak with influential leaders shaping the intersection of finance, technology, and innovation.

Early-stage B2B investing often looks like unpredictable and indiscriminate capital allocation, spreading bets wide with little conviction or strategy. But what if the model itself needs rethinking so that investing looks less like gambling and more like craft, where patience and deep pattern recognition guide decisions rather than volume and luck?

Our guest, Alberto Giusti, has spent over 20 years building, investing in, and advising B2B startups across e-commerce, crowdfunding, IoT, AI, and enterprise software. As General Partner at P3Ventures, Alberto brings a philosophy rooted in what he calls the "Exponential Renaissance" and the "bottega mindset": innovation must be co-created with buyers, not pre-packaged in isolation.

Alberto is also an accomplished author of nine books on digital transformation and AI, a keynote speaker at venture capital events, and a lecturer at universities and business schools. His work spans strategy, execution, and education, giving him a rare perspective on what separates founders who scale from those who don't.

Early-Stage B2B Investing

You've been investing in B2B startups for years across different technologies. What common mistakes do you see early-stage founders make when trying to balance innovation with building something enterprises will actually buy?

One recurring mistake is believing that technological sophistication automatically creates enterprise demand. It doesn't. Enterprises buy risk reduction, reliability, and integration, not just innovation.

Early-stage founders often fall in love with the "art" of the technology but forget the "craft" of making it usable within an organization's existing workflows. As for the Exponential Renaissance I speak about the rebirth of the "bottega mindset": innovation must be co-created with the buyer, not pre-packaged inside a lab.

The best founders iterate with customers from day zero; the worst build in isolation and discover too late that enterprises don't buy concepts, they buy outcomes.

Every startup today claims they're using AI. When evaluating early-stage companies, how do you tell the difference between real innovation and marketing hype?

When everything is labeled "AI", the actual differentiators become:

• Data advantage: Do they have real access to proprietary, hard-to-collect data?
• Workflow depth: Does AI solve a painful, high-frequency enterprise process?
• Model stewardship: Do they understand limitations, risks, and governance?
• Productization: Is AI embedded into a repeatable, scalable product?

Most hype collapses under two questions:
Why does AI matter here?
What becomes possible that was impossible before?

Real innovators answer with clarity, not adjectives.

At the earliest stages, founders have limited resources and unproven products. What early signals tell you a company has the potential to scale, even when there's not much data yet?

At the earliest stage, I don't look for metrics, I look for vectors:

• Founder learning velocity: How fast do they turn conversations into product improvements?
• Narrative coherence: Can they articulate the problem and their insight better than anyone else in the market?
• Early customer intimacy: Even a handful of deeply engaged users is more valuable than dozens of shallow pilots.
• Ecosystem resonance: When partners, advisors, or early adopters say, "We needed this," it's a strong signal.

Scaling potential is visible in the team's ability to build a repeatable motion, not in early revenue.

Enterprise sales cycles can take over a year, but investors expect faster progress. How should early-stage investors think about timing and patience when backing B2B companies?

Enterprise sales cycles are long because enterprises are complex organisms. Early-stage investors need to internalize this reality instead of denying it.

The right mindset is: 

• Short-term validation, long-term sales.

Founders should focus early on signals like pilot willingness, budget ownership, technical approvals, while investors should accept that revenue follows later.

Patience is not passive; it's understanding which milestones actually de-risk a B2B business.

Investment Philosophy and Approach

There's ongoing debate about whether investors should provide hands-on help (introductions, hiring, strategy) or just focus on writing checks. What's your view on what early-stage investors should actually be doing for founders?

Money is a commodity; context is not. The investor’s role is to bring:

• domain insight,
  
• ecosystem access,
  
• strategic clarity,
  
  without stepping into operational control.
  

The best investors behave like the Renaissance mentors of the “bottega”: they create the environment where talent grows, without painting the picture themselves.

Most investment firms keep their decision-making processes private. What's the argument for being more transparent about how you evaluate companies and make investment decisions?

Transparency accelerates alignment.
When founders understand how decisions are made, two things happen:

1. They bring the right information to the conversation.
   
2. They self-select better—only those aligned with the thesis stay.

Opacity wastes time on both sides. Transparency is a form of respect and creates a healthier ecosystem.

Founders often say they want honest feedback and quick decisions more than anything else. What does genuine involvement look like at the earliest stages without becoming too controlling?

Real involvement is proactive availability, not micromanagement. It means:

• Asking the uncomfortable questions when needed
• Helping identify blind spots
• Providing a curated network, not random introductions
• Giving clear, constructive feedback

The founder runs the company; the investor helps them see around corners.
Anything beyond that becomes interference.

Managing incoming pitches and opportunities is one of the biggest challenges in early-stage investing. How do you stay open to discovering great companies while avoiding information overload?

Curation is more important than volume. I rely on:

• Trusted nodes in my ecosystem who signal truly exceptional founders
• Recommendations from other founders (on my Linkedin profile too)
• Patterns refined over decades to quickly filter noise
• Structured channels (forms, thematic theses, referral paths) to avoid chaos

Openness doesn’t mean reading everything; it means ensuring that the extraordinary can reach you.

Building for the Long Term

Early-stage investing has a reputation for being hit-or-miss with unpredictable returns. What needs to improve about how investors approach the earliest funding stages to make it more sustainable as a business?

The model becomes sustainable when:

• Investors specialize deeply instead of being generalists
• They adopt structured “exponential bottega” models —repeatable frameworks for supporting founders (startup studios…)
• They reduce spray-and-pray behavior and increase conviction-led investments
• They integrate education, community, and capability-building into the investment practice

Early-stage investing should feel less like gambling and more like craft: disciplined, iterative, and anchored in long-term capability building.

You've seen multiple technology waves over 20+ years, from e-commerce to crowdfunding to AI. What's changed about how you evaluate whether a new trend is worth investing in versus just hype?

Twenty years ago, trends were slower and more localized. Today, exponential technologies move in waves—fast, global, and interconnected.
To judge whether a trend is investable, I ask:

• Is this a genuine technological discontinuity?
• Does it create new “arts” and “crafts” in the digital bottega?
• Are there real early proofs of value, not just adoption curves?
• Does it enable new business models, not just new tools?

Hype is loud; real revolutions are quiet at the beginning.
Experience teaches you to listen for the second kind.

Closing Thoughts

Alberto's philosophy is clear: early-stage B2B investing should be a craft, not a lottery. His approach offers a powerful framework for how founders, investors, and enterprises should collaborate.

Three core themes emerge from this conversation. Enterprises buy outcomes, not concepts. Technological sophistication alone doesn't create demand when enterprises need risk reduction and integration. The best founders iterate with customers from day zero, co-creating solutions rather than building in isolation.

Transparency accelerates alignment. When founders understand how investment decisions are made, ecosystems become healthier. This principle extends beyond venture capital to any sector where enterprises need auditable systems they can trust.

Real involvement means providing strategic clarity without micromanagement. The investor's role is to create environments where talent grows, not to paint the picture themselves.

Alberto's approach to evaluating AI hype offers a useful lens for any emerging technology. The real differentiators aren't found in marketing adjectives but in specifics like data advantage, workflow depth, and productization.

Thanks for joining us for our second Expert Interview. Stay tuned for more conversations with the leaders shaping the future of finance and technology.

About the Guest: Alberto Giusti

Alberto Giusti is General Partner at P3Ventures, investing in Italian B2B startups in SaaS, IoT, and DeepTech. With over 20 years as Strategy Manager and CEO of internet companies, Alberto has worked as a business angel across IoT, additive manufacturing, and crowdfunding.

Alberto is author of nine books including works on e-commerce, crowdfunding, digital transformation, and AI in HR and legal sectors. He is a keynote speaker at venture capital and AI events and a lecturer at universities and business schools.

Where to find Alberto:

• LinkedIn
• P3Ventures

‍