Necessity is the mother of all invention. It’s been proven time and time again, and for blooming tech company Mashape (mash + shape, pronounced muh-shape), the story is no different.
The idea for a mass-market API store was born out of the work three young Italians had been doing for another tech company, in which they sold an “explosion” of APIs, in the words of CEO Augusto “Aghi” Marietti. Thus, the concept for a free marketplace for APIs, providing developers with much-needed middleware and accessible implementation tools, quickly took form.
Things moved quickly, and in startup terms, relatively smoothly. Augusto, along with co-founders Marco Palladino and Michele Zonca, spent the inception stages of Mashape looking for homegrown investors in Italy before scouring American tradeshows and tech fairs.
Within a couple years, Marietti was being featured in a video interview on Forbes.com, candidly estimating that the company had about $2k in the bank approximately three weeks prior to striking it out in California.
Luckily, their PR legwork gained the interest—and seed money—of some big Silicon Valley names such as Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Eric Schmidt (Innovation Endeavors) among others. Some weren’t impressed with the relatively modest $1.5 million, an amount the young men were sure burn through quickly, but the past two years have proven fruitful for Mashape, who is preparing for a big move next month to a former bank space in San Francisco’s FiDi.
Their current ‘office’ in SOMA, a two-story house, currently doubles both as work and living space for the employees, and Marietti candidly describes the environment as similar to a frat house, “Like Facebook in the early days.” The comment hints at the globalization, and perhaps ideation, of a new kind of California Dreamin,’ one in which young self-proclaimed hackers, techies, nerds and geeks have come flooding into San Francisco, Silicon Valley and everywhere in between to grab their piece of the West Coast’s most recent gold rush.
But Marietti is clear that the company is far from made—a term he altruistically reserves for the Bill Gates stratosphere, when “you have enough power, enough money to really impact the world … like help society.” Until then, the 10 staff members are making moving plans, which include turning one of the two vaults in the bank into a poker room. No word on whether the death star that adorns their offices now will also be making the trek.
In addition to new digs, ‘Mashapers,’ as they’re called on the company website enjoy a curious roster of professional titles, ranging from Business Magician to Jedi Scientist. When asked about his moniker, “Geek Sniper,” Marietti declines to cue the public in on what is clearly an inside joke, saying, “It’s a long story, I’ll tell you some other time.”
He is more forthcoming, however, about the benefits of working for Italians like himself and Palladino, which are promoted on the jobs page of the website as including, “Italian food cooked by the owners.” Marietti names carbonara as his own specialty. Perhaps even more ‘Italian’ is the ‘a la famiglia’ mantra of the company, which promises a built-in support network for whatever problems might arise in an employee’s life, personal or professional.
But to be clear, Marietti’s Roman origins have little impact on his life in San Francisco. He doesn’t hob-nob with other Italians, belong to Italian organizations or promote his Italian-ness in any other way. He’s here to build a company, explaining the draw to San Francisco as a natural marriage for his business in the tech industry.
If it had been finance, he explains, he would have chosen New York. He’s simply a young man with other like-minded friends, chasing a dream of Google proportions. Other than going to the gym three times a week, he rarely leaves the house, working continuously from mid-morning to 2 a.m. each day.
While his devotion and hours are unlikely to change, at just 25-years-old, Marietti appears to be maturing as his successes mount. He is candid about the lack of work-life balance in the present office setup, calling it “not maintainable” for the staff, and he’s in the midst of apartment hunting in San Francisco’s skyrocketing housing market.
He has a woman in his life, too, though there are some large bodies of water between them. Marietti also confirms being committed to private ownership of Mashape, which has reportedly already received some acquisition offers.
Although their API roster has yet to include crown jewels like Twitter, there is no doubt that with other immediately recognizable names (Bitcoin, Rapleaf, Best Buy, and don’t forget Yoda Speak), the APIs hits are sure to keep coming.
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