Ciao 👋
I’m Leonardo, a iOS Developer working at Blinkist📚.I co-founded Sunlitt ☀️ which is continuing to grow and evolve thanks to the continuous effort of an amazing team of co-founders..I graduated from Apple Developer Academy where I led a small team to build and publish two apps on the App Store.Check out my app Dotillism 🟣 if you want to have a relaxing gaming experience!
Before switching my career into tech I worked as a Product Manager for an indie tabletop games studio, developing games and raising more than $1.4 million on Kickstarter.My diverse background in startups, product, and as a creative professional gives me a 360° view of the whole product development process, allowing me to understand tech, business, and design perspectives.
Apps
Apps and prototypes I've created or co-founded.
Projects
Some examples of side-projects I founded and other things I've been involved with.
About me
Hello!
I'm Leonardo ✌️
I'm Leonardo, a creative individual passionate about technology.I have professional experience as iOS Developer and Product Manager, but my academic background is in marketing and the creative field.My curiosity and hunger to learn something new made me delve into many different things in my life, interacting with tech, entrepreneurship, and coding.My diverse background shaped profoundly the person that I am and the way I approach my work. My personality is built on three main pillars: I'm a creative individual passionate about visual media and creativity as a process. I'm a nerd passionate about tech and coding. I have an entrepreneurial spirit and I always try to create and build new things.
Honors & awards
Winner of the Apple WWDC22 Swift Challenge.
Apple Developer Academy Alumnus.
Winner of "The Big Hack 2021" organized by Maker Faire & Codemotion.
Winner (second place🥈) of "Innovate the way we work" organized by Codemotion, Acea and Citrix.
Winner of "HACK 4 CHANGE" organized by Codemotion, Angelini Industries and Fameccanica.
Winner of "The Big Hack 2022" organized by Maker Faire & Codemotion.
Summa Cum Laude bachelors
Bio (TLDR short version)
Who has time to read this looong page? Here's the highlights, then you can skip to my skills or portfolio, or read more about my journey.
A degree in Communications and Media Studies (summa cum laude).
Co-founded a startup at 23 and many other projects and initiatives after that.
Professional experience in marketing at some startups.
Worked as Product Manager bringing 4 products to market raising more than €1 million with crowdfunding.
Always passionate about tinkering with code, I fell in love with software development at Apple Developer Academy.
Built many app prototypes and brought two apps to App Store.
Personal Interests
My curiosity brought me to try many different things in life, some of those become lifelong passions.
Photography and photo-editing (some of my pics).
PC gaming (I love indie titles).
Tech and startups.
Tabletop RPGs.
Martial arts (Muay Thai! 🥊).
Collecting nice books about photography, art or games (Bitmap Books for example).
Reading!
Most kinds of visual media.
Skip to Skills or to Portfolio, or continue reading my story.
Tech
Swift
SwiftUI
UIKit
MVVM
XCTest
Networking (RESTful APIs)
Combine
StoreKit
ARKit, RealityKit
Swift On Server, Vapor (Basic)
Docker (Basic)
Git / GitHub
Xcode
App Store Connect, TestFlight
Photoshop, Lightroom
Figma (Basic)
Product
Product Management
Product Strategy
Agile
Lean Development
MoSCoW
UX Research Methodology
User-centered development
Design Thinking
Marketing Strategies & best practices
Business Model Strategies
Crowdfunding Strategy
Copywriting
Soft skills
Leadership and experience as team lead
Result-driven, I care about creating something I can be proud of
Lifelong learner
Negotiation with stakeholders, business, design and tech
Diplomatic character
Extreme curiosity. Always asking why
I always look for the wider vision and purpose
Presentation & storytelling skills
Extended Bio 💬
In the beginning
While studying Communications and Media studies at a university, I decided to co-found a tech startup with some friends to develop an app, and exited a year later selling my shares to an investor after some major disagreements with other founders. At the same time, I founded the biggest Italian fan community for Starbound (the award winning indie game). An adventure that continued for three years and gathered all the Italian players of the title.After these entrepreneurial adventures, I came back to university and was ready to finish my degree, but the universe had other plans for me and after a while I was contacted by another startup, one too exciting to turn down.
Product Manager @ Tabula Games
After the first year spent working in marketing and learning the ropes of this crowdfunded-based business model, I became product manager for the next projects. The company was small and I worked closely to the founders, meaning that I was able to approach many different aspects of the business and take business critical decisions that impacted our business and all of our users.Developing projects for crowdfunding meant being always under the spotlight of enthusiastic, but hard to please fans. For this reason, user-centered development was our mantra. All our decisions stemmed from a deep understanding of what our users wanted and expected from our products.
The market for crowdfunded games is really competitive, with many big companies pushing the bar higher each month. As an indie studio, we always had to be really creative in how we developed our products.At Tabula I achieved many great results: I built products loved by their users and learned many different things in the hustle and bustle of a small studio that had limited resources and a great vision.
Apple Developer Academy
After finishing my degree and a brief pandemic-driven hiatus of freelance marketer work, I decided to join Apple Developer Academy to translate my product management expertise into the tech field.The Academy truly was a great place to improve and grow my product skills. In each of the projects I participated in, I naturally started leading the team toward a common goal and vision that would get us excited. The "Challenge Based Learning" model used at the Academy allowed me to apply many principles like design thinking, agile methodologies, product discovery, UX research. I also had many opportunities to develop my soft skills like leadership, presentation, public speaking, negotiation, you name it.I wanted to get as much as possible out of this experience, which is why I also decided to approach coding seriously. While coming from a vastly different background, I’ve always been passionate about technology and computers. Over the years I always found ways to tinker with code and I decided to take this opportunity to get serious as a developer.At the Academy, my result-driven nature showed itself up. I wanted to make the best of every opportunity I was handed and I ended up developing many prototypes.
I managed to have my team launch an app on App Store in the mid of the course, being the first team of the year to reach App Store.Our final project, Sunlitt, has been selected to be showcased on stage at our graduation ceremony in front of hundreds of people including Apple executives and the press.During the development of Sunlitt, we also decided to release our library as an open source package: SunKit. The app is still in active development by me and the team of co-founders, all eager to implement our roadmap packed with many features.
Now
After graduating from Apple Developer Academy I started to work as a freelance iOS Developer while also continuing to work on projects like Sunlitt and others in stealth mode.In march 2023 i joined Blinkist as an iOS Developer.
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Hackathons
I participated in the following hackathons about product ideation and development.
Winner of "The Big Hack 2021" organized by Maker Faire & Codemotion.
Winner (second place🥈) of "Innovate the way we work" organized by Codemotion, Acea and Citrix.
Winner of "HACK 4 CHANGE" organized by Codemotion, Angelini Industries and Fameccanica.
Winner of "The Big Hack 2022" organized by Maker Faire & Codemotion.
Crowdfunded Games
As a product manager for Tabula Games I developed the company's most successful product line to date, acting also as the creative director to ensure the artistic vision of the games would be shared among the titles.Being in the spotlight of a Kickstarter campaign, with many eager fans waiting for your work, is an incredible experience that taught me many important things about product development and management with a user-centered approach.These projects taught me a lot about working under pressure in a lean environment where everything changes quickly. Being a small lean indie studio also taught me how to interact, influence, listen and negotiate with creative professionals, users, founders, and other stakeholders.
Highligts
Four new games in the market.
$1,4 million raised on Kickstarter with a minimal marketing budget.
20,000+ backers who supported our vision.
Kickstarter's Staff Pick for two times.
Critically Acclaimed titles from industry media.
Creative direction and ideation of the game setting, that has also been licensed to another publisher.
Pictures