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

“I read it somewhere once (I’m not so smart to make it up), but I can’t remember where. After these few years of startup life this is the truth. How does a brain of an entrepreneur work dealing with something so dispersed and chaotic as startup? The brain works like this:

1. Defines goal – with a burst of energy, faith in oneself, hallucinations and delusion it makes up a purpose. Damn right. I’ll do it, no matter what! Brain thinks out a goal because there is no adrenaline without it.

2. He gets up in the morning and pursues this goal. Startup man with a wording “Made of steel” engraved on his shoulder follows the dream drinking his own adrenaline. He is motivated!

3. He picks up the phone, let’s say from the president of a big advertising agency and he hears – you have some company with some program or application, don’t you? I would like to use your application to conduct action X”

SURPRISE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Startup man has a purpose situated at Y and then there is this damn CEO wanting to do X! F$%#…… it is not the way he wanted it. There is a question growing like a mushroom:

Do it or screw it !

After all these years I can see big DO IT if only this action brings a few cents of startup’s value. Press it, model it, but don’t give up. Startup man travels from island to island, does not follow a goal on a straight path because he can’t afford it. Corporate people can afford acquisitions worth billions of dollars to straighten up the line to the goal. Startup man strives in a twisted way. He jumps from an island to an island not to drown. So gather your scattered deals, but straighten them into your visions. Cling to a subject and push it towards your vision. Unless you feel that an island is distant from the other island by gallons of energy drinks. Between leaps from island to island the fuel is burned (the wealthy’s money, VCs, BAs). This consciousness sharpens sense of choice of what is valuable. So take it easy, don’t worry, under stress of burning money your brain will choose right islands for you. Automatically, ha! Therefore negotiate, talk, ask and try to use your chance if it’s a boletus !!!????

Get hold of a boletus, pass by a toadstool

There are less boletuses than toadstools in the forest. Startup man with a vision searches for people sharing vision with him. Coca Cola does not search for them for it sucks in tons of golden bars. Startup man searches for people sharing vision with him. Islands, which he can cling to offering them value. He develops this island and then he jumps to another one. From one man sharing vision with him he follows to another one. He searches for allies. Boletuses don’t occur as often as toadstools. Toadstools should not be picked up. They should be passed by and moved away. 

Google products started to make me crazy and broke my thinking process which is correct. It flip up my status quo.

1. iPhone, iPad, iPod

My iPhone experience is great. I had all iPhone phones, 3G, 3GS, 4 and I will get 5 for sure. The same time I got Android tablet and I was hit by something amazing. All these sharing features, contacts update, pause in making movies, all share options with Samsung TVs. Damn this is cool. All of these make me think warmly about Android. Limits and narrow options implemented by Steve Jobs are annoying and make me feel a little “prisoner”. Moreover Kindle example or NYT fee rules, these 2 examples give motivation to move into freedom zone which is Android.

2. Google +

This is a first day when I thought about moving out of Facebook. There is only one THING (capitals purposely) keeps me there – friends. A lot of them I met f2f, a lot are net friends. All I know is that Facebook doesn’t have any specific feature which is cool. I know I am hard on them and shouldn’t be, but I think Google plus gave us fresh air. Somehow Facebook is old school stuff. Somehow. The most important thing is that Google plus is deeply drowned into Google ecosystem: google contacts, gmail, you tube, picassa….like that !

3. Summing up

I am watching my brain floating into google fields….. will it be google fields forever?

This is guest post made by Rokas Tamošiūnas, Managing Director of accelerator based in Vilnius.

The StartupHighway program is a great opportunity for startups to get up to quick start . The program will take place in Vilnius (Lithuania), a city which has all the necessary infrastructure for tech-businesses and is a fairly cheap place to live in (with 500EUR/month you can sustain a good living). Teams selected to participate in StartupHighway will also receive a lot of help with relocating to Lithuania and with all visa issues.

StartupHighway is 13 week business acceleration program for businesses that want to expand globally. All participants will receive up to 14.000 EUR in funding, business advice from an international network of over 70 international mentors and access to essential resources for starting up (such as office space, hosting, legal advice, etc.). Applicants can vary from a very early stage start-up to a profitable business. StartupHighway will end with two investor days (one in Lithuania, another one in one of Europe’s VC capitals), where teams would present their start-ups to some of the most prominent early-stage start-up investors in Europe.

No business plan is needed to apply to the program, startups just need to fill in a 20 question online questionnaire (http://startuphighway.com/en/apply). The deadline for applications is August 15. If you have any questions, the founders of StartupHighway are ready to answer them via email (team@stratuphighway.com).

Mentors are listed at http://startuphighway.com/en/mentors. Among the program’s mentors there are people such as investor Allan Martinson (founder and former CEO of Baltic News Service, DELFI, MicroLink, SAF Technika among others), serial entrepreneur Jochen Dopelhaimer (former CEO of Simyo Spain and now CEO & Founder of Yuilop mobile service) or Goncalo Saudade (Founder of several internet startups, including the largest Portuguese e-commerce platform ClubeFashion.com and the first global online 3D arts gallery ArtChezMoi.com).

StartupHighway is co-founded and run by experienced business professionals and has a board of advisors composed of very experienced professionals (http://startuphighway.com/en/team). “I do witness an immense potential for new innovative business ideas in Central and Eastern Europe. I have seen many interesting startups and very competent teams applying to various accelerator programs in Western Europe I have been involved in. I am glad to see that StartupHighway has concentrated the resources required for unleashing this potential of multiple success stories,” said John Bradford, the founder of several European top accelerator programs and advisor of StartupHighway

I was participating startup conference, in London. It was maybe a year ago. I can’t remember. There were about 100 VCs participating in this event. What got my attention,was that, after Dave McClure, Morten Lund speech, time for startup pitches came. And…. most of the VCs disappeared, where? They went out of conference aula for coffee.

Startup pitch sucks if there is no coffee networking afterwards.

I think (didn’t check it with calculator), that VCs don’t care about pitches, they have enough. They participate in pitches but deeply in their hearts they don’t care. Most of the ideas that are on the pitching stage are known. Nobody discovers anything amazing or incredibly new. All ideas have been implemented already.  There is one thing which is so important: personality and team. If startup has 200 000 000 users, VCs know it and they know how to contact founders. If startup doesn’t have solid base of users, founders’ personality can be partially presented during pitch but real “flipping hamburgers” job is to be done during coffee break.

Coffee networking.

Being talkative matters but asking questions is what matters the most. During coffee break is good to open mouth and talk (enthusiasm can’t be expressed with closed mouth), but the most important is to ask questions. I don’t want to give golden formula here (like 23 rules of good naping time or something like that) but what matters the most is founder(s)’ personality. Being authentic or honest is obvious. Is good to be aware that our personality influences others the most. It influences others better if we do what we love to do. If our job sucks, we don’t care about the company we work for, it is impossible (not hard, but impossible) to express enthusiasm because our brain suffers and is squeezed by dark power. If you are unhappy ,people will feel it, if you are rough but cover your face with smile, people will find it out anyway. “What you are screams louder than you think”, Stephen Covey words.

I don’t want your money dear VC.

It’s the best when you’re selling your car when you don’t have to.  It’s best when you are raising money for your startup when you don’t have to. Being relaxed and easy during VCs conversation is crucial and very valuable for our comfort zone. My experience: during conference I mentioned the the beginning of this post, I opened conversation with one of VC (managing director). He had cool leather jacket what got my attention. Anyway, I asked him, how are you? And he replied I am fine. We talked about weather and then he asked me “do you have your startup?” I answered “yeah”. Afterwards his willingness to talk reached really low level. Fortunately he asked me a question “Are u raising money?”, I said “No”. He had his smiled back on his face and he carried conversation. VCs are tired of pitching. We are in touch now and we don’t talk about weather, if you know what I mean.

Enthusiasm can’t be expressed with closed mouth.

If you put heat detectors on your face, it will heat up during enthusiasm expression. For sure. Opening mouth, facial expressions, smiling, ears movement, all of this heat up our face. This temperature jump onto other people and heat them up too. They feel great when somebody express enthusiasm.

Coffee networking, asking questions and relaxed mind, these are very important things when you go to startup conferences. If your goals is to raise money, it is not important what happens inside conference room.

Why SaveUp

SaveUp is not price scanning product, is an application which enables users to buy things based on impulse. What does it mean?

- if you are underground, waiting for train to come and you see big poster with new Graham’s book, you grab your phone, take picture and you buy book. Simple and easy (currently in Poland, but we’re fighting for some money to build product and be available abroad)

- if you are at friends party and they have cool DVD, you take picture with your smartphone and buy it. Simple and easy. Bought and forgot.

- if you driving your car and you’ve heard on the radio about new Stones CD, you take your phone, type cd name in SaveUp. Bought.

Buy what you see, by taking picture.

Empik (Polish bookstore chain) and myself

So, I was in big mall in Warsaw (Poland). There is an Empik store. I looked at the shelf and there was a book which got my attention. I wanna have it. I don’t buy books in Empik, so I took out my phone, take picture of this book. I clicked BUY button and….. security appeared. Why do you take picture? I answered: why not? He said: because no. I said what is the punishment. He said, go to the one of the Directors and ask. I said so you want me to go and ask how strong you are going to kick me? …. that’s it.

I love Poland (sarcasm) for trying to stop free market rules. Instead of fall in love with capitalism and its advantages, Poland tries to stop it. Afterwards I realized all shops in this specific mall are under “don’t take photo” restriction. So I believe they have something to hide. If they have I am more than motivated to go and take photos.

Freedom is not free!

I am trying to tell here that many VCs forgot about Poland and they shouldn’t. I was visiting several conferences in UK, Germany and States of course and still there is no Poland attention. So Why Poland should be on your list Mr VC!

Great people with big brains

I can’t find as great developers and engineers as we have here in Poland. Maybe Valley rocks here, but Germany or UK, doesn’t. One part of the case is students experience, their intelligence and hacking / coding focus but other side of the coin is their ability to work in modest environment. For VC it means cheap, for Polish engineers it means “I am not lingerer, I don’t complain. I take this old crap computer and start working cause I am motivated by my ability to survive”. (part of this flows straight from our history)

Market still didn’t do homework

Poland is still a little bit behind western countries when it comes to technology adoption. This is great as you VCs can work on this market to be leaders in the future. I mean, companies you invest in, they will be leaders as the wave will come. If you wait with your investments you will be out of the game.

Market is not Poland, is World.

I don’t want to say you should invest in Poland and stay in Poland. Polish ecommerce market grows 20%, yearly (according to Kelkoo.co.uk). So you should consider investing here and finding good teams to build web / mobile app, offer it here in Poland but have global ambitions. Why? Because it will be cheaper for you to conquer global market, starting in Poland. Why cheaper? Because Great Polish people with big brains don’t expect fancy computers or offices. They can start with crap. Why? I answered this above in Great people with big brains section.

to be continued…….