startup – my passion for startup and my experience in Poland vs USA

Fear – I cannot see any words I would have to write here. People in Poland ask me if I’m not afraid that:

- allegro exists and it is the competition,

- nokaut exists and it is the competition,

- google googles exists and it is the competition,

- something else exists and it is a threat to me,

- people don’t use iPhone,

- iPad is pointless ……..

damn……. I’m scared, of course I’m scared. The patron (Maria Curie-Skłodowska) of my high school once said:

“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood”

A team can make a great progress or delay issues. With the best team you can turn poor things into the best. It is worth being afraid with a good team.

I’ve been receiving phone calls (I have no idea where these people got my number from ), emails, tweets from many wonderful people who ask me for evaluation of their business ideas, advice or thought. It’s a distinction for me because it is a nice feeling if someone wants a piece of advice from me. My lips are smiling.
I’m still sailing on enterprise assessment. I started my expedition in 2003 establishing my first company DVC Partners (ha… dvcpartners.com is still working). It’s been 8 years since that moment when together with Bober, Sławek and Dżokonda we were setting up BIPs (Public Information Bulletins) for public administration units, we were creating document circulation tools etc. Beautiful time it was, in a flat on 2nd floor in a block of flats, housing estate of Strzeszyn Grecki in Poznań we would fill up our printer with a medical syringe. We could not afford the ink. We took a public bus on our first visit to our client – town council of Szamotuły. On the way back Bober said: “Aras, maybe we should buy little fiat (maluch) for 100 USD so we would travel faster than using this damn public bus”.
Therefore I’m still sailing on boundless waters of entrepreneurship. I still haven’t learned a lot but I’ll share my thoughts. Write to me. Due to a lack of time I might not respond at once. Sometimes I have to read and think to answer you. If you want to drop by for a cup of coffee my doors are open for you in Poznań and in Warsaw as well.

I’m not sure why I got to writing such post but I felt somehow that somewhere among you there is a man who can use this information. Working with VC – it means someone gives you money; you make use of it to build startup. What did I notice?

1.  These people are really busy.During conferences, meetings, lazy coffee drinking – entrepreneurs sometimes ask me: What is your investment fund like? Is it worth to have VC back you, etc.? So let me tell you this: These guys are extremely busy. Every VC consists of people flying to conferences, travelling by cars from one meeting to another. These folks are really busy and you have to try hard to get their attention. You have to permanently knock on their door and ask questions. Use Twitter, FB, Beluga and all possible communication channels, to be in contact with them.

2. Do not care about NDA (non-disclosure agreement).During my last chat with Arek Hajduk (@ahajdukorg) in London we talked about this issue. Entrepreneurs are afraid to talk with VC about their ideas. They aim at signing the NDA. I understand this but let me tell you I am one of the examples of people who didn’t sign NDA while starting and continuing talks with VC. However, I humbly recommend: don’t worry about NDA. The idea without the author (yourself) is not worth too much. It might be executed in the short run but the vision you have in your head is not possible to execute without you. It cannot be copied.

3. Get ready for finance, papers and digging into the numbers.Just get ready for this. If you are more of a dealmaker, salesman, marketing specialist be prepared to acquire new ability – financial engineering.

4. Be quick, damn quick at working with VC.Expose progress. Talk about failures. Be frank about being depressed and your strategic dilemmas. This tightens cooperation. This shows faces of people who move around dark nooks of startup experience.

5. Partners – that’s how I would call it.You and your partner (VC guy) are partners. Everyone of us (you) is wrong, wanders around, searches in their own way. I don’t want to play a wise guy but I would like to emphasize one thing. Relation entrepreneur – VC is a partner relation which means you have to discuss issues, be open-ended, negotiate, talk, look at problems from different points of view. I must admit it is a fascinating experience. I think everyone involved in this relationship gets smarter, grows up, polishes their brain. This is a challenge – how many times I turned out to be mediocre in talks and negotiations, how many times I let myself down … I can’t even describe this. However it’s nice that after a certain time it is pure experience.

Damn, I guess I was kinda to imperative in this post. Otherwise somehow, I couldn’t collect my thoughts.