Professional web developer CEO thrives in business field
During his studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Alexander Guizzetti came up with all sorts of ideas for successful business ventures.
Unlike some students who put good concepts in their “later” files and forget about them or talk themselves out of it, Alexander Guizzetti was ready to make these dreams a reality.
By the time he graduated with dual degrees in Business Management and Real Estate and Urban Economics, not only did he have a business plan in place but had already received seed funding to get started.
That initial company was a web development company that built and maintained websites for various business clients. Right away, many clients were delighted by the focus on UX/UI and experienced high visibility in searches (SEO) which led to strong sales.
Like other entrepreneurs, Guizzetti has also focused on other interesting projects and ways to grow his expertise in various industries.
He’s now president and founder of 9d Ventures, a privately-held company, where he offers his business acumen and capital to help companies grow and succeed.
Guizzetti has an active real estate license in Arizona. He also briefly worked at the Vanguard Group, where he passed the FINRA Series 7 and Series 63 licensing exams.
9d Ventures now has a presence all around the world – some days he’ll work a full day on U.S. time, take a break for a few hours in the evening to spend time with family and exercise, then go back to for “Part 2” which starts around 9 or 10 PM each night and work with international clients until early in the morning.
One of his projects in the works is DirectMessage.me, a communications platform that is intended to bring together celebrities, athletes, gamers, and influencers and allow them to connect with their fans via paid messaging. This is expected to be released to the public in Q2 of 2021.
Part of Guizzetti’s approach to working with clients is to look at what frustrates them and join them in figuring out how to remove their “pain points” to create something satisfying for them and their customers. He also looks at existing products on the market and what it takes to compete and eventually overtake them. In many cases, he’ll find that an agile startup can provide a similar product but with more efficiency and smarter use of resources.
He compares established businesses to cargo ships – they have an important function and are well-established but ultimately, they are slow-moving and focus more on momentum. In comparison, startups can be seen as personal watercraft, which have a lot of energy and are more agile so it’s easy to make pivots to get where they’re trying to go.
Guizzetti currently lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. He enjoys spending time with his dog, Scooter, and riding his bicycle or motorcycle. He’s recently taken up golf, and also enjoys weightlifting and high-intensity interval training workouts.
Staying organized is vital to a busy entrepreneur and Guizzetti is no exception, especially when his employees are in different time zones, so there’s always someone working.
He’s a big fan of making to-do lists, especially with higher-priority tasks. Writing them down on a legal pad also makes them more important and noticeable than a note on a computer document. He also has an extensive list on his phone of future projects to take on and how to get there. He and his team occasionally look at these ideas and think about how they could be further developed or if there isn’t viability for it at this time.
Overall, he encourages people to dig deep to find out what you’re passionate about, get creative, and connect with like-minded individuals.
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