[:en]What happens when the international quality of Eataly meets mixology? Mix Contest is born, a competition between some of the best Turin bartenders during which, for the first time, the public will decide the winner.
It will be held on Tuesday 25 July at the Sala dei Duecento at Eataly Lingotto and will involve ten bartenders, each of whom will prepare two freehand cocktails that will compete to win the first edition. The event was born within the recent publication of MT Magazine, the guide to the best Cocktail Bars and Hotel Bars in Turin and Milan, a project created by Laura Carello and created by the Communication and Events Agency To Be, former publisher of Menu à Porter, the magazine that collects the most interesting restaurants in Turin and the Langhe every four months.
The gastronomic selection that will accompany the event will be curated directly by Eataly, which will offer a series of tapas to match the cocktails offered.
The Turin bartenders who will compete with cocktails will be Michele Marzella of Affini, Carola Abrate of Artemisia Bistrot, Salvatore Romano and Lorenzo Scaglia of Barz8, Matteo Pavei and Francesco Russo of Central, Vanessa Vialardi and Simone Nervo of D.One, Marco Riccetti of Inside, Cristian Panetta and Christian Badalucco of Krimikal, Patrick Piazza and Emanuele Russo of Nat, Nicola Agricola and Lele Di Vita of Pulp, Marco Giuridio and Manuel Montalbano of Evho, the Turin bartendering school.
The format, which will also be replicated in Milan on the occasion of the promotion of MT Magazine, will crown two winners via popular verdict (one from Turin and one from Milan) who will compete, in a secret location, for the final victory.[:en] There are certain topics that even some of the smartest people I talk with who aren't startup oriented can't fully grok. One of them is whether profitability matters. It's common cocktail party chatter to hear people confidently pronounce that some well-known startup is sure to blow up.
Or you know the other one — the one where Snapchat lost $2 billion in just one quarter. Two-fucking-billion! What a disaster! Except that they didn't actually lose $2 billion in cash. It was a stock option incentive related “expense” but I bet you didn't know that because in an era where we only read the headlines — they must be a train wreck losing billions. (They actually lost about $175 million in cash in that quarter, FWIW. See appendix if you want to know more on this.)
“How could they succeed when they're not even profitable!”
If you hire 6 senior sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you've taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business for 6 months. Your profitability will go down for 2 quarters while your growth may increase dramatically in quarters 3–12.
I know this seems obvious but I promise you that even smart people forget this when talking about profitability. 70–80% of the costs of most startups are employee costs so what you're really talking about when a company is unprofitable is that they are growing their staff ahead of their revenue.[:]
