Is it possible to innovate in an environment where tradition is the basis of everything?

 

I think so.

And I already thought so when, as a young boy, I started helping my father in his work, following him around the province repairing classic billiard tables in bars and meeting places.

 

After all, my grandfather had founded the company in the 1950s by doing a frightening renovation on himself: having abandoned the grocery shop, he had founded a company that repaired and built gaming tables, especially billiard tables.

Yet this desire to innovate seemed to have left with my grandfather. Perhaps that is why I never got totally involved with the family business.

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Of the five brothers, only my father was willing to try new things. The company in general preferred to continue doing what had always been done, even though things were starting to change, and it was objectively difficult to deny that. So I stayed on the sidelines, helped where I could, learned, and in the meantime I harboured a desire for “new and different”, even if I didn't yet know how I would achieve it.

 

Then there was the pandemic.

Who knows what Grandpa would have thought of this terrible shake-up of “it's always been done this way”.
Who knows what changes he would have tried. Sometimes the biggest changes happen subtly. You think you are doing one thing... and then, only later, you realise that you were in fact doing another. You were building a new reality, which you may have wished for but didn't think you could actually create.

At the time I thought: if we can't go around selling our billiards anymore, let's do it from the web. There is no alternative. And maybe there was an alternative, but that long-dormant desire of mine for change saw the opportunity and didn't let it slip away.

 

I set up an e-commerce where the products of the family business were sold online, but managed by me. This allowed me to freely experiment and observe.

 

And gradually I observed that although I initially sold the entire catalogue, some products were more successful. 
Some “unusual” products, which combined tradition and innovation. One of these was the billiard table that turns into a dining table.

And I was passionate about the idea. Imagine offering the possibility of having a billiard table even in a house where you cannot dedicate a room exclusively to the game. Imagine gathering around the billiard table not only to play, but also to have lunch, extending the possibility of being together, and using it more often. Maybe every day.

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Imagine making it a beautiful product that not only adheres to tradition, but is also innovatively beautiful. A design product that enriches a home even when it is not “used”. That idea started knocking around in my brain and wouldn't go away.

But in the company they were not as enthusiastic.

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Too strange an idea. Too different. And too small a market. I told myself, it doesn't matter. I want to do one thing very well, rather than do everything properly. I want to invest all my energy, my ideas, my aspirations in something I really believe in. Is it different? It doesn't matter. It's the right idea. 

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But only my father and my brother understood me. The rest of the family told me, it's too risky. If you want to do it, do it alone. Was it a leap of faith? Undoubtedly. But was I convinced it was the right path? Yes. So I jumped into the dark. 

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I founded my own company, followed by my father and brother.

A company that only produces billiard tables that turn into dining tables. Innovative objects not only in concept, but also in design. I wanted to create a company that, while building on my father's tradition and knowledge, looked to the future. 

Experimenting is our credo, whether it is a new app or a new design.

 

Looking to the future is our guiding star, whether it is to achieve zero-impact production within a few years, or to give people who love billiards the chance to experience their passion in a new way.

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Today, Biliarditaly is a prosperous company, yet it does not rest on its laurels. We are constantly looking for new ways, in production, in communication, in optimising resources.

Perhaps you too are someone who looks to the future and is not afraid to experiment with new solutions.

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I am delighted that you have found us in the vast sea of the web.

Take a look at our catalogue. Or better still, contact us, because we may be working right now on the best solution for you.