#oneclick-support

[vsandera]

year 2013 : made 1 million CZK in turnover, still lost the bet

1 064 650 CZK to be exact (cca 38,000 EUR). We've got 242 % of revenue compared to 2012. For those who don't know, we are in remote tech support business.

Anyway, I decided I should write another article for my blog, since the last one is from 6 months ago (not that I didn’t have time to write, it’s just good old procrastination). Since it’s 2014 now, probably would be a good idea to sum up what happened to me businesswise in 2013.

When I look back on 2013, I have to say what we did in 2012 was just child's play compared to the stuff that's hapening now. (I hope I will be able to say the same with 2014) What I see as our most important milestone is launch of cooperation with Alza.cz, the biggest retailer in Czech Republic. From what I have seen and heard, it's close to impossible to get in touch with someone in Alza, let alone cooperate with them. But once you get in, things start moving pretty fast. Well actually, I would like to move even faster. But honestly, compared to speed of innovation at other Czech established companies, Alza is super fast. From first meeting to complete support launch it took only few weeks. With other large companies it takes us months just to get a decision whether they want to cooperate (sometimes I have to squeeze it out of them).

How did we actually get in Alza? Thanks to nice guys from Intel. How did we get into Intel? Article on iHNed.cz. How did we get article on iHNed.cz? Thanks to the nice guys from South Moravian Innovation center, where we are incubated. This reminds me of famous Steve Jobs quote "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

We launched cooperation with Ringier Axel Springer. That is an interesting project. We have cloned our web servisnaklik.cz to servispocitace.cz, which is owned by Ringier and operated by us (the contract is a mess). Ringier than runs PPC advertising and prints our "how to" PC articles for dummies on blesk.cz. Yes, we actually run articles on Blesk.cz, the biggest Czech "gossip newspaper" (whatever the right deifintion is). I feel so guilty and excited at the same time. In the end Ringier gets a percentage share from all revenue that comes through servispocitace.cz website.

We tried to expand to Germany. We ran PPC advertising on Google.de on keywords like "PC Hilfe" etc. It was a total fail, but good experience. Conversion price was around 100 EUR and revenue from one conversion was 30 EUR. So the financials weren't really making sense. After a month we burned like 600 EUR and shut the PPC advertising down. On the bright side, we got like 10 German customers who actually paid us and were happy with the support. Some of them come back from time to time. This tells me our service is meeting expectations of western europe customers. We just have to find different sales channel. Luckily I already have a plan.

We started outsourcing complete customer support of teXet (texet.cz). It's a Russian company that is expading to Czech and European markets with their range of products, mainly tablets, phones etc. They are sitting in offices on the same floor as we do. Which is kind of the reason why they outsource to us. It's basically in-house support for them. I found out that sometimes the location of your company is the biggest competitive advantage. We outsource one other company from JIC incubator. Not a sustainable plan for global expansion though.

So that's it I guess. And the bet? I made a bet my friend about who of us will surpass 1 million in CZK in turnover for 2013. Unfortunately for me, he surpassed it too and did beat me by 7 000 CZK (250 EUR). Bummer.

[vsandera]

How I got discovered by angels in Vienna

So here it goes. My first article, which was also the reason why I decided to start my own blog. (Thanks to Frantisek Chury for the push)

Two weeks ago (6th of June) I had an elevator pitch in Vienna at networking event “Today’s innovation is tomorrow’s enterprise”. There were several interesting things about the event which I think are worth talking about, hence this article.

Invitation out of the blue …or was it really?

  The event went (AFAIK) unnoticed by Czech startup media, about 50 people were there. I’ve got invited by angel investment fund Speed Invest, which organized the event together with Constantia Industries AG. The invitation came out of the blue. I’ve got an email from Speed Invest that I have been selected by their angel investors, though I didn’t apply anywhere. That boosted my ego a bit - I was thinking “someone in Vienna is interested in our startup? Nice!” Later at the event I found out I’ve got invited because I have signed up for Vienna Pioneers festival. I didn’t make it into the TOP 50, but apparently Speed Invest is cooperating with Pioneers, having access to list of signed startups. They were going through the list and my startup caught their attention, so they invited me to their event in Vienna. So here comes the first interesting thing, which leads to following conclusion - when you are trying to expand with your startup to foreign markets, sign up for any startup competition in those markets, even if you don’t get selected, you never know who have access to the list of startups, that has applied.

Czech pitches comparable to CEE startups

  As this was my first elevator pitch outside Czech borders, I was curious about level of other startups and quality of their pitches. There was 10 startups in total pitching, everyone had 10 minutes (or longer, they didn’t enforce time limit that much) and the room was packed with investors with expensive-looking suites, who were asking lot of stuff after every pitch. The questions were regarding similar things startups get asked in Brno, so no surprises there, at least for me. I was the only one from Czech. Several startups were from Austria, then some from Croatia, Germany and few other southeast Europe countries. Quality of pitches varied a lot, some startups had a lot of text on the slides and I didn’t really get what is the product about. But there was also bunch of guys with enthusiastic and comprehensive pitches and one serial entrepreneur over 40 years old (that’s my guess :), who was pitching his third or so startup - respect! All in all, if I compare the quality of pitches with startups in Czech, for example Starcube or StartupYard, I think we have pitches that are comparable or outperforming those I have seen in Vienna.

Connecting the old economy and the new economy

  What also is an interesting fact is that Constantia Industries, one of the organizers, is an industrial holding making plastic and other stuff, not really connected to startups at all. They represent the “old economy” (that was even official purpose of the event – to connect old and new economy). So why is Constantia organizing event for startups? By talking with few suit-and-tie guys from Constantia Industries, I found out they decided to enter the area of investing in startups, because they want to drive more innovation into their current portfolio of companies, which are in established markets. Smart thing, isn’t it? I haven’t seen any Czech companies from the “old economy” doing this kind of move. I hope this mentality will come to Czech too.

On the other hand is Speed Invest, angel investment fund focusing on investing in tech startups in CEE. They invest amounts from 100k € to 1 mil €. What quite surprised me is there is no startup incubator or accelerator in Vienna. Which is probably why Speed Invest is organizing such events as I have attended, to connect with Austrian and CEE startups.

European enterprise mentality averse to risk and startups (it’s not just Czech issue)

  

  During the event there was a discussion panel which included guy from Speed Invest, guy from 3TS capital (they invested in Roman Stanek’s Systinet), serial entrepreneur from Bulgaria (yes, they don’t have only call centers) and a woman from technology transfer unit under Vienna Technical University (I think it was that one). Two things that came out of the panel discussion and were most interesting for me:

- to this date 125 projects went through the technology transfer at Vienna University and transformed into standalone companies. A hundred of those companies are still operating. The technology transfer program is already running for 15 years. That seems like a fantasy compared to Czech Universities. I am not an expert on technology transfer, but I think it’s almost nonexistent and very painful in Czech.

- Austria (and more or less the whole Europe) has same problem as Czech Republic - the big companies from old economy are very reluctant to cooperate with startups or to acquire them. Guy from the 3TS capital said they had several talks about exits with European companies, but it was always painful and never really worked out. So they almost always made exits to US, where the interest of large companies to acquire startups was much higher. Since I was doing sales only in Czech thus far, I sometimes thought that this risk-averse mentality of large companies, which I have experienced first-hand in meetings with retailers, was an issue specific to Czech and Eastern Europe. But it seems to be everywhere, at least everywhere in Europe.

Dipping a toe in Austria

  I talked with guys from Speed Invest whether they would be interested in investing in OneClick Support (my startup). Though they said they mainly invest in “black box” style startups, which we not really are, they didn’t rule it out, so maybe our conversation will lead to a future meeting with them. I also exchanged few words and a business card with a woman from Austria Telecom, talking about offering our remote support to their customers.

In summary, I got several interesting contacts and although I didn’t make any business right away, I got a bit embedded in Austrian startup and investor network, which might lead to some interesting things in the future. …oh and the food was pretty good :)