A thriving woman entrepreneur Giorgia Mondani, driven to dominate watch industry with her deep rooted knowledge and new age promotional approach. She is the Founder of Mondani Web, world’s most trusted network of watch dealers, Author of Mondani Books and a well recognised infuencer on social media. In this insightful Interview, Giorgia talks about her journey so far, the challenges she faced & overcame and the invaluable learnings that came along with every roadblock.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Thank you. Happy to be a part of this. I have always been fond of watches and as a child, I grew up with watches as a part of my habitual life. Taking this passion and interest of watches to another level, I am glad to have it as my business now. You can find it on Instagram.
After graduating in Foreign Languages, I completed my internship at Antiquorum and joined the family business ‘Modani Books’, the leading publishing house in the world of watches. Four years ago, with great support from my husband Daniele, love of my two little ones and my parents, I managed to build an entirely new way to share my passion for wristwatches with new people through Mondani Web and luckily it got so much love by its customers that it became the world’s most reliable network of Watch Dealers. One of the leading agencies helped me in elevating the promotion of these watches through social media and online presence.
As the Founder of Mondani Web and author of Mondani Books, what are the key areas you focus in terms of business development?
When I joined Mondani Books, my initial goal was to grow my family business and make the brand known in every corner of the world. And, thanks to a big network of contacts, a dedicated team to manage the online presence of the brand and great marketing analysis, which finally helped us in fetching what we aimed for. However, I wanted to explore more and thus saw scope in helping collectors and dealers of these watches which ultimately led us to create the Mondani Web. With a great response, we achieved 2 million followers on social media in no time. As an opportunity to utilize social media, we used all the available channels for promoting authentic dealers and saving the hassle of collectors and buyers to find the right place, endless variety and reasonable deals in a single place. Basically, the aim was to offer customers the right place to buy, and to dealers, the right place to sell through both the businesses. I am glad to work with a team of my trusted dealers who are constantly growing every day. We often receive requests, but it’s our policy to have a careful check about their reliability, seriousness and quality of their watches to build the team of best dealers.
As a female entrepreneur in a male dominated industry, what are the biggest challenges you faced in your journey so far?
Our new regular life is not made by travels and events. But before the virus hit the world, I used to attend many watch shows, horological events, auctions, fairs, etc and sometimes I was the only woman at these venues. I was always accompanied by my husband to these shows and was strongly supported and encouraged to stand upright between all the male entrepreneurs and professionals. I was usually cautious with my clientele too for only interacting under professional boundaries. I think, at the beginning of my career as a businesswoman, it was unusual for many to consider me as a women entrepreneur, however, the constant changes in the society and shift in mindset, thanks to social media for being the strongest influencer, it has comparatively made easier for women to open up and explore their true identities and talents.
Many entrepreneurs say that every crisis brings opportunities with itself. What positive contributions do you think today’s crisis may create for your industry?
With the current situations, it has become challenging to hope about the “light at the end of the tunnel”, however, like every crisis certainly brings opportunities, the best way to leverage the opportunities for any business is to utilize the digital channels available. It is a challenging time for everyone like adapting new ways to work, discovering new possibilities, interacting virtually with people etc., and the use of social media in such cases can help one discover huge possibilities towards growth and advancement. At least, we tried to do so, because watch sellers are unable to travel, most of them cannot open their stores and as a result, we decided to give them a platform to restore their businesses by becoming active and exclusive WhatsApp members of our groups to buy, sell, trade and advertise their watches. Well, this crisis is surely making us appreciate and value the freedom we enjoyed before.
We are aware of your social media influence, how do you utilise that to the benefit of your business?
We have a wide range of profiles on Instagram and Facebook, where all of them focus on the world of watches and all our followers are mostly watch lovers. We use these pages to give visibility to the sellers and brands who deserve the necessary exposure of their unique products. Instagram has become a new kind of television where millions start their day by scrolling through the Instagram feeds and in response to that, we try to offer engaging and authentic content to keep these users entertained and “move them to the jungle of watches” through the relevant platform. By the way, Instagram is one of my favourite social media platforms, I think it really changed the world.
What’s your single most important advice for young companies attempting to establish themselves in the watch industry?
Certainly, it is working hard. It is never easy to achieve our dreams and desires, it takes a lot of efforts, a strong will to overcome obstacles and strength to go beyond our limits.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
This is not easy to say now, as everything depends on how the global situation is going, but for sure my goal is to grow my network stronger and better. Hopefully, we will be able to travel again soon and develop new ideas. I am currently hoping and praying for my kids, who I wish can freely enjoy the beauty of this world as before.
