Vladimir Sandera @vsandera - Tumblr Blog

London business trip : Intercom event and raising money

I just came back from a one week business trip in London and thought it would be good to share a few brief takeaways.

Reason I went to London was to visit Inside Intercom event which is part of the Intercom world tour. I decided I might as well use this opportunity to set up meetings with investors as we plan to raise money in 3Q of this year, and also do a bit of networking in London.

My naive plan was to cold email selected investors in London and set up meetings for the week I am in London. I contacted 5 investors in London a week ahead and offered a meet. 4 investors through cold email / cold Linkedin connect and 1 investor through a person we both know. Great plan, but V funds are apparently not so eager to meet with unknown startups based on a cold mail (who would have guessed). The investor through common connection responded right away. From the 4 cold emails I got one response ( = one meeting). The others didn’t respond so far. The meeting I had was with Notion Capital, very friendly and informal meeting with a positive output (they want to be informed when we start raising).

On the Intercom event I talked to Des Traynor, one of the cofounders, who said they would be happy to feature Smartlook integration on their store (it was my secret goal). So all in all it was quite a successful trip.

So here are the takeaways:

- Good place to find networking events is meetup.com. There is a lot of startup/tech stuff happening in London. Found 3 networking events just during the week I was there.

- investors don’t respond so good to cold emails. Getting to them through a person you both know is hundred times better.

- idea that you will plan a week long trip to city XYZ and schedule meetings with selected investors is fairy tale. Even if investors do respond they usually don’t have time to meet when YOU want. In other words you don’t have any control over the scheduling here.

- Google is operating a free coworking space on it’s London campus (it’s actually just one building). All you need to do is register on their site. Great if you look for a place to work for a few days. They also do a networking events and workshops there. It’s good to show up in the morning as the 200 seats place fills is quite packed. There is a cafe where you can buy drinks.

- if you actually have some budget for coworking space, try WeWork. Definitely the nicest coworking place I have ever seen (sorry Impact Hub, you just got bumped to 2nd best on my list). I wanted to try it since CzechCrunch writes about it like all the time. So I splurged and worked in WeWork in City of London for a day. WeWork has about 10 locations in London (and some in Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin). There is free kitchen with big selection of tea, coffee and milks for free (they even have their own draught beer!). The space design looks absolutely amazing, only downside is it costs 28 GBP per day. Hot desk for a month is 350 GBP. Office for 6 people with window view is 4 000 GBP per month. Have to say the view of City is worth it, if your company makes that kind of money.

- my shortlist of SaaS investors in London: (based on deals made and website feel)

indexventures.com accel.com notioncapital.com hoxtonventures.com balderton.com octopusventures.com connectventures.co.uk

Working from Asia : volume 2

So my plan to write an article every week didn't really work out. After spending 1 month in Kaohsiung I moved to HCMC (Ho Chi Minh City) two days ago. The city is super crazy, I have never seen such a chaotic, overcrowded and dirty place before. Even Hong Kong and Bangkok can't match level of HCMC in my experience so far. But it has it's magic (as long as you stay in District 1, the tourist area. You don't want stay elsewhere, trust me on this :) Anyhow, before we delve into the fear and loathing of HCMC, I will summarize my work stay in Kaohsiung, the cornerstone of which was Inbetween coworking space, picture above. The guys there helped me with so much stuff.

Digital nomading in Kaohsiung

If I should sum up my feeling of Kaohsiung in terms of living there, I would say it's very safe and orderly place compared to rest of Asia. If there is one word that summarizes Taiwanese people in my eyes, it's "by the book". People don't tip and some business owners will not take a tip even if you insist on giving one. If you buy a ticket for 70 TWD (3 EUR) from a bus driver and he doesn't have change for a 100 TWD bill, he will actually find you later in the bus to give you back the change, even you told him it's fine. There are basically no petty thefts here, which is nice and even unusual for a Czech person. E.g. all people leave their helmets on the scooters when they park and it never gets stolen. I even forgot my bag with a MacBook in Pizza Hut and the waitress went looking for me in a mall to give me back the bag. Amazing. (I should mention that all I am describing applies to the south of Taiwan, which has a bit different mentality than the north. People told me in some parts of Taipei helmets left on scooters actually do get stolen) The south of Taiwan is very traditional, people are in general conservative and live according to the old ways. For example rich people don't show off their wealth, several generations of a family live in the same house etc.

People have the same standard of living as in Czech Republic. The average salary is basically the same from what I have been told. According to Wikipedia their GDP per capita is actually 30 % higher than in Czech. As a consequence of this good financial standard there is no bargaining, scams, thefts or other things so typical for most of Asia. Taiwanese people are quite close to Japan in terms of mentality I would say.

Kaohsiung is also relatively clean for Asia standards. What bugged me a bit was an occasional super bad smell from a "stinky tofu", something they apparently make and eat very often as a local street food. Also sewer outlets and big trash cans in the street don't exactly smell good, because the weather is generally hot (20-28 degrees in December). What is also quite bad in Kaohsiung is air pollution, because Kaohsiung is the most industrial city in Taiwan and there is a big industrial zone around the city. In the city center the pollution is not in the streets themselves, but you never see a blue sky. It's always kind of blueish, mixed with white. At first you think it's just foggy weather, but after a few days you start realizing it's not fog :) People on scooters often wear a veil, like a cover, on their nose and mouth. But all in all nothing you couldn't survive, I don't think it impacts your health if you live here for a month. Even with the pollution the weather is really good, warm climate with not much rainy days. People from rest of Taiwan actually move here or travel here because of the weather (Taipei is more cold and much more rainy I heard).

Internet connection

Taiwan has democracy and there is no Chinese firewall, so there are no obstacles for remote work in this area. There is a 4G mobile high speed internet coverage basically anywhere I went. There might be 3G if you go outside the city. The internet at our coworking center was supposed to be 100/60 Mbps, but connection was a bit flaky sometimes. But when you get 4G mobile data from Chungwa Telecom as a backup, you are good. That's what I did on second week. The internet connection is definitely one of the upsides of Taiwan if you evaluate where to go as Digital nomad. South-east Asia mostly has nation-wide coverage of 3G, but it's not as fast and stable as in Taiwan. Some places accept credit cards but I had issues to use their contactless payment terminals. My mastercard often got denied. It's better to pay in cash everywhere in my experience. ATMs are basically everywhere, every 7-eleven has one. They usually charge 4 EUR fee for withdrawal. No issues there. Also Taiwan doesn't require a visa (for Czech Republic residents) for up to 90-day stay, as long as you officially just travel, which is also convenient.

Financial side

Because of all mentioned above, Taiwan is relatively expensive to rest of Asia. I didn't count my expenses exactly. But in my opinion it's good to reserve 1300 EUR a month for living there. You can get lower by searching for accommodation locally after arrival. I booked cheapest apartment on AirBnB, it was basically a hotel room, and it cost me 540 EUR for a month. After I have arrived I found out from local people that AirBnB is illegal in Taiwan (it still operates though, so you wouldn't notice from the website), and therefore is more expensive and has few listings. The coworking space I have worked at offered accommodation for 220 EUR per month per room with semi-shared bathroom and common area. Much better deal. But they don't advertise it anywhere. Nick, who runs the coworking space, told me 220 EUR a month is a normal price per room in Kaohsiung. In terms of food you are somewhere between 2-3 EUR per meal on a street market (food is ok but the place might seem a bit dirty and smelly to some European people) and 4-6 EUR for Asian fast food in a shopping mall food court, which is really tasty, good-quality food, clean, air-conditioned with huge selection. We had a shopping mall close to the coworking space, so I was actually eating there most of the time. You can also find some proper and very good restaurants where meals get to 6-15 EUR, I can especially recommend Ootoya Japanese restaurant. Taiwanese apartments generally don't have kitchens because local street food is everywhere and super cheap, so cooking at home is not really not option. Then you also have 7-eleven, which is cheap and the cashier heats your food up in the microwave, you can buy noodles and some fast food there, but it's a bit of a junk food, not suitable for everyday eating in my opinion. In terms of transportation, Kaohsiung has two subway lines, very convenient to use. One ride costs around 1 EUR, never checked the monthly price. There is also Uber. 10 minute ride across the city center will costs you around 3 EUR. Pretty cheap. Local trains are also cheap. I paid 7 EUR for a return ticket to Tainan, other big city 50 km from Kaohsiung. Ride took one hour. You can take express train which takes 30 minutes and would costs maybe double. What gets expensive is using the Taiwan high-speed train. One way ticket to Taipei will costs you 40 EUR (travel time 2 hours). There is also a bus for 15 EUR (travel time 6 hours). Infrastructure is even better than in Czech I would say. Travel accommodation was quite expensive in my experience, cheapest hotel room in Tainan on booking.com was like 40 EUR per room per night. After searching on the spot directly I found one for 30 EUR. Hostel I have seen was 15 EUR for a bed in a 6 bed dorm. Maybe it's because I don't speak Chinese, it seemed to me lot of business here don't advertise in English because majority of tourists are from Taiwan and China (yes, China. Despite the political tension, I found out Chinese are the biggest tourist group and are also lately buying significant amount of real estate in Taiwan. So even if China doesn't take over Taiwan by force, it seems to me they will soon simply own it economically. This feeling was actually shared with me by a few local people and expats).

If you are on a budget, do a bit of searching on the spot to get local apartment, eat at the street market all the time and focus on spending as little money as possible, I think you could push down the expenses to 750 EUR for the first month (you always have some extra expenses when you move to a new place) and consequently maybe 600 EUR. Having 1 000 - 1 500 EUR you can live pretty comfortably in Kaohsiung.

Expat community and English

In South of Taiwan expat community is not very big, but a few foreigners live there. There is a weekly Couchsurfing meetup at Central park, where you can usually find around 15 foreigners, same people come each week more or less. I would say the expat community is so small that after two meetups you know all of them. Taiwanese people don't speak much English, but some places have one person who would speak at least basic English (restaurants, scooter rental places, telecom branch, a bank etc.). Restaurants often have a secondary menu in English upon request (= if they see you are white) so with a bit of effort you can (almost) always buy food you want. Local people are friendly and polite and try to help even when they don't speak much English. Subway has all signs in English, which is really helpful. If you need to take a local bus, that might be more of a challenge, but if you live in a center or close by, you should be covered with just subway and walking. Because of the generally good order of things, moving around and finding stuff doesn't take much effort. But the 4G mobile data in your phone is vital for that. Inbetween coworking space is the best place to go to for meeting foreigners, embedding yourself in the local expat community and just makes your stay so much more pleasant and easier. Without finding that place my integration in Kaohsiung would be way slower.

Travel experience

As some unexpected stuff came up at work in start of December, I got a bit overloaded with work and worked 10-12 hours a day during the week. But I did a few trips on the weekends. Kaohsiung itself has several things to offer. There is a Tuntex tower skyscraper with a view point on the whole city, former British consulate now turned into a really nice tourist site, huge Buddha monastery 40 minutes outside the city (a must see), a Cijin island with a beach (didn't actually find time to go to go there in 30 days :P), the industrial harbor (biggest in Taiwan) offers a few nice view itself.

There are several options where to go in the region. I visited Tainan, very historical and nice city close to Kaohsiung, a former capital I believe. Definitely worth a visit. In the southern tip of Taiwan there is a famous beach resort Kenting, where you can sign up for surfing classes. And there is a small island called Lambai (Xiaoliuqiu in Chinese) with coral reefs and sea turtles 2 hours outside the city. The picture shows the famous Vase rock there. I bought a snorkel with glasses and found sea turtles on my first stop, You can just swim around them in the sea. Super amazing. I went there during Christmas because it was the only place offering sunny weather at the time and I can definitely recommend. It's just good to go with someone local or join some local travellers there, because nobody on the island speaks English so it's a bit hard to move around without knowledge of Chinese.

To sum up, I really enjoyed my stay in Kaohsiung. The biggest upside of a digital nomad stay is fast internet, amazing food, high safety and diverse travel opportunities for the weekends. Also the weather is in my opinion more convenient for everyday life than south-east Asia, where it's so hot it's actually a bit hard to do creative work :)

Oh and btw, happy new year!

#Kaohsiung #Taiwan #digital nomad #remote work

Working from Asia

Earlier this year I have decided to go to Asia and work from here for a few months. A little digital nomad adventure. I will try to document my experience in a few blog post as I am on the go. This is the first one. Besides documenting my super-awesome-nomad-trip I will try to include useful tips every now and then, so my shared experience can help (or inspire) anyone who plans our would like to work from Asia.

After another 3 hour flight to Taipei (flight to Beijing is 10 hours overnight. And no, I didn't get any sleep. Does anyone in economy class?), I finally got to Taiwan. While being so happy about catching my flight, I didn't really stopped to think "did my luggage actually made it to the second flight?". It didn't. After hypnotizing the luggage carousel in Taipei arrival area with my gaze for 10 minutes, I started paying attention to a big sign circling on the carousel. As I came closer, I saw there was a list of luggage that didn't make it to Taipei....aaaand mr. Sandera is listed as one of the five lucky winners! So I started looking for Air China booth in the airport. There wasn't one (another surprise) after going back to check the sign, I read another message in small letters saying I should go to China Airways booth (not the same airline as Air China, go figure). They told me my luggage will arrive on flight at 17:05, but the flight will be probably late (as all of them in China, obviously), so I should expect it like 18:00. It was 13:00 local time. So I filled protocol and started strolling sleepily around the airport. I checked prices and booths of all 3 mobile operators in Taiwan for mobile data offerings - 30 day unlimited 4G data costs 30 EUR (includes also 12 EUR of call credit. From what I’ve been told Chunghwa Telecom is the best choice). I realized I don't have a second phone where to put the SIM card, so I decided not to buy it for now. After reaching a sleep crisis, I crashed for a few hours in the chairs at the arrivals waiting area like a bum. After two hours of not-so-good-sleep I finally got my luggage and took a transfer to the high speed train which took me to Kaohsiung. Costs 40 EUR one way, not the cheapest way of travel, but at my point of exhaustion I didn't care and just bought it. It takes one hour and twenty minutes to get to Kaohsiung with the high speed train. Distance from Taipei to Kaohsiung is roughly 350 km and train reaches speeds up to 290 km/h, which is kind of cool.

#digital nomad #Asia #Taiwan #Kaohsiung #work from abroad #Inbetween

Smartsupp received an investment and reached 2 000 paid users

I have originally planed this article to sum up 1st half of 2016, but I kind of missed my own deadline. Anyhow, interesting stuff is happening in Smartsupp. We have reached 2 000 paid users, 52 % of them is outside CZ/SK, managed to raise seed capital and our revenue hit 40 000 EUR per month.

2 000 paid users

We hit the milestone in August. At the time of writing this article we had 2050 paid users and 18 931 active users. To celebrate this sexy number, I took the liberty of creating a small infographic, which shows a breakdown of our paid users by language and acquisiton channel.

Create pie charts

I did this breakdown also a year ago for 1 000 paid users and there is a nice trend coming out of the data. Share of our direct traffic grew by 5% at the expense of Google PPC. We are becoming less dependent on paid marketing to atract new users, our brand does the work for us free of charge.

Growth of paid users is connected to another thing. In August we have reached 40 700 EUR in monthly revenue. (that's more than 1 million CZK, so it's kind of a big deal for us). We have started this year with 24 000 EUR in monthly revenue in January. That means 8 % MoM growth in revenue. Not bad for a Czech startup, I think. And we have finally tipped the scale in favor of foreign users in ratio of 48 % CZ/SK users vs 52 % abroad. Hurray! We have also expanded our team to 11 full-time guys, that's us below at a paintball teambuilding. Unfortunately still no girls, but we started to do a bit of office cleaning ourselves, so I think we will survive.

Investment

In August we have successfully closed a seed investment round and raised 370 000 EUR from Webnode and Spread Capital for 15 % share of the company. We have received half of the money right away and another half is in a form of a tranche, which gets unlocked if we reach 110 000 EUR in monthly revenue by July 2017.

I feel there is not too much supportive information for startups fundraising in Czech, so I decided to write down a few key points I took from the whole experience. We were lucky to successfully raise money with really great investors, in my opinion one of the most experienced in Czech. But the raising process was no walk in the park. We have traction, profitable product, cash, good team, successful expansion in progress and we approached only a small circle of investors which I know personally and have good relationship with. So I assumed raising would be an easy process that would take 2 months max. Well, I have to say, we got schooled. From 1st meetings with investors to money in the bank it took us 7 months. Only much later I have realised that raising money is a skill of its own and we were only a bunch of rookies in this game.

The valuation maze

There are no clear guidelines on valuation. I have done a bit of my own research before we started raising money and there is nothing to hold on to. There are startups in Czech with 550 thousand EUR in yearly revenue and valuation 3,7 mil EUR. And then startups with zero revenue that get invested at 7,4 mil EUR valuation. It's a jungle. From what I heard, in Silicon Valley valuations are more or less streamlined and 10 000 USD in recurring revenue gets you a 4 mil USD valuation. At the time of raising we had 30 000 USD, so by SV metrics I should ask for something around 12 mil USD valuation, right? Well, Czech Republic is not Silicon Valley. In Czech currency it is 300 million, which sounds a bit crazy when you say it out loud, and investors will tell you the same (unless you have sales skills of Steve Jobs). So don't get carried away by looking at US valuations and rather check some local startup investment numbers on Czechcrunch. More on that below.

Timing and presentation skills

Raising money is not just about the product, but also about how good can you pitch it, present your vision (and uphold it in follow up argumentation) and also timing is important. Most of the time, the investor is a busy guy, who doesn’t know about you or your product. So your ability at how good can you pitch your startup to him in 15 minutes on a personal meeting mostly determines your success (and valuation).

Timing is important both from a product point of view (pitching something sexy at the moment makes things easier for you) and from investor-cash-flow point of view. For people outside the “raising money game”, which was my case too, it seems investors are people who are continuously watching out and investing in new interesting projects. There is one important variable here - how much cash does the investor actually has on hand. Investors usually become investors at point they obtain some notable sum of money, e.g. from a recent exit. This is the best time to pitch to them, because they are in the “looking for projects to put money into” mode. If the investor already used his "risk money stash” on other projects, he is probably not going to sell his house no matter how good your project is. Same goes if his mind is preoccupied with other big deal. Best way how to avoid bad timing is to talk to as many investors as possible, so you increase your chance of finding the one who has both time and money on his hand.

Another thing influencing the deal, and in my opinion the most important, is how you click with the investor personally. Luckily for us we clicked with Webnode and they are not a typical investor. They are product guys like us. Since we have a lot of synergies, the deal was primarily about smart money for us. And a good thing with good investors is that they know other good investors. And Webnode knows Spread Capital. So here we are with two top investors.

Where to look for info when raising money

I found out it’s quite tricky to get some useful info if you are raising money in Czech. Investment tips from Czech investor are scarce and often vague. A good article on valuation calculation is written by Adam Kurzok on his blog. When you look for valuations or sizes of investment rounds in Czech, you find out that most articles don’t mention any concrete numbers, because startups and investors don’t publish them. Also most Czech private companies or startups don’t have their financial results available in the Czech public business registry (justice.cz). The only SaaS startup I can think of who published both their investment size and financial results is Shoptet (thanks guys). You can check the article and look up their latest financial results on justice.cz.

You will find plenty of fundraising articles in English. Problem with those is that most of them is from the US and thus not applicable here. What I did and would recommend is to read articles that explain basic investment terms, because they will come up at the meeting and you will look like an amateur if you don’t know them. Especially read in detail what is a tranched investment and convertible note. Both of those are commonly used by Czech investors for startup investments (the same English terms are used in Czech). Overall the best sources for any startup fundraising advice are Fred Wilson’s blog (famous american investor) and Quora. Also feel free to email me at [email protected] and ask any questions.

#smartsupp #webnode #spread capital #investment #startup investing #tips #tranche

Review of year 2015

This is a repost of my older article I posted on Smartsupp blog in January 2016. Written in Czech language. It’s a review of what we did at Smartsupp in 2015. Hopefully I will find some time to translate it to Eng.

Šestinásobný růst, expanze do zahraničí, nové funkce a zdvojnásobení teamu. Za rok 2015 se ve Smartsupp událo spoustu věcí. Musíme si přiznat, že z hlediska komunikace na blogu nejsme úplně nejaktivnější. Tak přinášíme aspoň malé shrnutí, kde najdete nejdůležitější čísla a události loňského roku. Abyste měli přehled, co ve Smartsupp vlastně celý ten rok děláme.

Čísla

Smartsupp se k 1.1.2016 vyšplhal na 6300 AU (active users), z toho 1 470 PU (paid users). Pro srovnání, na začátku 2015 jsme byli na cca 1 000 AU a 400 PU. Obrat za 2015 se dostal na 4,8 milionu Kč, za 2014 byl 800 tisíc Kč. Tedy celkem pěkný nárůst user base i obratu o cca 600 %.

I když jsme celý loňský rok úspěšně expandovali do zahraničí, podařilo se českému a slovenskému trhu udržet nadpoloviční většinu – 51 % uživatelů je CZ/SK versus 49 % zahraničí. Ze zahraničních jazyků je největší polština (630 AU), španelština (500 AU) a francouzština (200 AU). Na země to zatím neměříme. Zároveň na webu přibyly jazyky jako Rumunština, Norština, Turečtina, Tradiční Čínština a dokonce i Slovenština ( ! :). Jazyky nám přeložili zdarma uživatelé, kteří se sami ozvali a nabídli pomoc s lokalizací. Web je nyní celkem v 17 jazycích, aplikace samotná má 13 jazyků.

Nové funkce

Z funkcí, které jsme loni spustili, stojí za zmínku:

nahrávání návštěvníků (visitor recording), což je nejvíce přelomová funkce za celou historii Smartsupp, jejíž vývoj trval přibližně rok (cca půl roku samotný vývoj a následně půl roku testování a dolaďování s uživateli)

identifikaci firem a la Leady.cz – máme vlastní databázi, ale je znatelně menší databáze Leady.

přepracované statistiky - přidání nových pěkných grafů plus zjednodušení stávajících metrik

rozšířenou API, kde je nyní export chat konverzací, statistik, office hours a další možnosti

platební bránu Braintree, kde lze platit kreditní kartou a přes PayPal přímo na našem webu bez redirektu na externí bránu. Všechny platební údaje jsou zpracovávány přes Braintree pomocí API (brána je PCI compliant – Smartsupp k platebním údajům nemá přístup). Musím říct, že user experience Braintree je excelentní. Celý proces platby máte na vašem frontendu, takže si ho můžete nadesignovat kompletně podle vašich představ. Odpadnou tak problémy s redirektem, lokalizací a vše se výrazně zjednoduší.

Všechny zmíněné funkce jsme zahrnuli do existujících balíčků za stejnou cenu. Za celý rok tedy jen přibývalo, ale nic se nezdražilo. Kromě zmíněných funkcí byl rok 2015 hlavně ve znamení bug fixingu a ladění stávajících features.

Noví zákazníci

Neubráním se a musím se pochlubit pár většími firmami, co loni nasadili Smartsupp. Za zmínku stojí:

Seznam.cz + Zboží.cz

Česká Pojišťovna + Generali

AXA

RWE Energetika

Student Agency (testovali na letenky.cz, snad časem rozšíří na další weby)

Okay Elektro + Jena nábytek

Kasa.cz

Kytary.cz

Comfor.cz

Gigacomputer.cz

aaapoptavka.cz

Miamicityballet.org (dodnes nechápu, že je neodradil nákup v Eurech :)

třešničkou na dortu je ruzovyslon.cz

Z 2014 s námi nadále drží Skypicker, Alza, Ferratum Bank a Škoda Auto.

Noví členové teamu

Samozřejmě bychom tohle všechno nezvládli sami. Zatímco ještě před rokem jsme v kanceláři seděli čtyři, nyní je nás devět. Za loňský rok přibyl nový developer, support technik a marketér. Nyní v lednu jsme rozšířili kanceláře na 66 metrů čtverečních a přibrali dva nové členy týmu – dalšího developera a support technika. Nyní tedy jedeme ve složení 4 developeři, 2 support technici, 1 marketér, 1 CEO a já občas uklidím ledničku a nosím všem kafe.

Co bude dál?

V roce 2016 se můžete těšit na:

nativní Android aplikaci

kompletně nový dashboard v react.js – hlavní přínosy z pohledu uživatele budou zjednodušení rozhraní a vylepšení user experience. Přechod na react.js nám umožní zajistit responzivní design na tabletech a přinese mnoho interních výhod z hlediska rychlosti vývoje a jednoduchosti architektury.

vylepšování stability – i když tato práce není vidět, na backendu se u nás děje spoustu věcí. Vlastně je to ještě více práce než celý frontend a expanze. Letos zmigrujeme na zbrusu nový managed server u VShostingu. Refaktorujeme celý kód serveru, kde se nadále držíme node.js. Pilně skriptujeme, abychom dokázali rychleji spouštět nové instance serveru (čti efektivněji škálovat) a u toho všeho ještě přesouváme některé Smartsupp komponenty na CDN77 a Digital Ocean (čti cloud). To vše pro zlepšení stability a zrychlení aplikace.

Takže vzhůru do roku 2016, kde bude vše mobilnější, jednodušší a stabilnější.

#smartsupp

Berlin business trip notes

I just came back from a one week business trip in Berlin, where I have went to do some networking, look for new opportunities and spread the word about our company Smartsupp.com. We do live chat with visitor recording.

I decided to not write a standard article, but rather a list of short notes about my thoughts and experiences in Berlin. I was writing the notes on my return bus journey from Berlin, so they are kind of random and not chronological. The short notes format is an inspiration from Rastislav Turek’s blog post on SxSW from few years ago, which was really addictive to read. I do some comparisons of Berlin startup scene to Brno in Czech Republic. I will be happy if someone provides comparison of Berlin startup scene to his home country in comments.

I would like to thank Dusan and Tomas from Portadi.com (app for managing access to cloud apps in teams. It basically replaces all passwords for work accounts with a single key) for accommodating me for the whole week for free and giving me advice regarding Berlin startup scene.

So here we go:

- arrival to Berlin by bus is not the best UX. On bus station, there is no free (working) wifi, no sign how to get to the metro and it’s far from city center.

- when you look around Berlin bus station, you realize immediately how small Czech Republic is, as Student Agency (best bus company in Czech, give it a try if you ever go there) has like one bus there out of 50 and it's probably the only bus company that doesn’t have a ticket booth there or any street sign.

- it’s absolutely no problem to speak (only) English everywhere you go. There is a huge number of people from all over world who speak English and German guys have no problem with it as well

- English is no problem not only at business and startup events. Even people at grocery stores and Kebab places speak at least some elementary level of English. I really haven’t had a single experience for the whole week where I would get stuck because of language barrier.

- metro stinks as in most European capitals

- the networking and global reach of Berlin is on a totally different level than in Czech. You meet international people everywhere, different vibe compared to Czech, where you basically meet only Czech guys

- there is big number of foreign guys working in every startup. Interesting thing is, the description “immigrants” or “expats” somehow doesn’t feel right here. Berlin is just one big melting pot of nationalities. It somehow feels completely natural meeting foreign people everywhere. I have met guys from Ukraine, Turkey, Poland, Serbia but also from UK, USA, Italy, Spain and other countries east and west of Germany. You hear english almost everywhere - in Metro, in the streets, in workplaces. I would say English is present fifty fifty with German, and that goes same for non-tourist areas. Some events are actually organized by foreign people

- there is a huge number of startup and networking events. There is literally a startup event EVERY DAY. I chose a date for my trip more or less random, not focused on any particular event, and I still found a startup event for almost every day of the week.

- events I attended in Berlin in one week :

Monday : G-Force : idea evaluation (cca 15 attendees, free entry)

Tuesday : Silicon Allee breakfast meetup (cca 30 attendees, free entry)

Tuesday : Startupgrind Berlin (cca 70 attendees, 30 EUR, free food and drinks)

Thursday : Berlin Tech Meetup (cca 100 attendees, free entry, free drinks)

Friday : Idea challenge at Betahaus (free entry, wasn’t actually there)

Friday : Silicon Drinkabout (cca 100 attendees, free entry, free drinks and finger food)

- lot of the mentioned events is done frequently. IMHO the best for networking was Startupgrind and Berlin Tech Meetup

- all presentations were in English except for Startupgrind. Networking in English wasn’t a problem anywhere

- at lot of events there is free food and alcohol, even the entry is for free. At Startupgrind, which costs 30 EUR, the buffet was really high-society with bar selection as Ron Zacapa, Ciroq Vodka and other smooth drinks for free

- if you want to visit Berlin to do some networking, here is a list where to look for events. Some events in Berlin are paid or limit number of attendees and you need to buy a ticket, so it’s good to look for events ahead of time.

https://www.startupdigest.com/digests/berlin

www.meetup.com (you will find most startup events here)

http://www.betahaus.com/berlin/program/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/159595270791268/?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/groups/176959035703574/?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/berlinstartup.events.page?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/SiliconDrinkaboutBerlin?fref=ts

websites of Axel Springer and Hub:Raum accelerators

http://startupberlin.org/

- off-topic : almost no one knows Ron Zacapa rum in Berlin (?!)

- if you want to do advertising focused on Berlin to promote your startup, it’s good to sponsor Silicon Drinkabout event. It’s basically a party/networking event every Friday, where every event is sponsored by a different company/startup. Tim Lydford told me it’s good to have a budget of cca 2 000 EUR for the event sponsorship and it gets you bigger reach for your bucks compared to Google PPC or other advertising channels, if you want to reach solely Berlin audience (of course it’s suitable only for targeting startups or young people in general).

- the guys who were sponsoring this week’s event - Roundhere - had it really worked out. In order to get free shot or a beer, you had to download their application. The target group for them was perfect as they are an application, kind of a “local social network” built around places instead of people. The party was hosted in their office with all employees present. They had a projector in the main room where they were streaming images from their app (imagine Twitter wall, but in this case “Roundhere wall”). In the bathroom they had printed A4 job offers sticked on the mirror (clever !). I was also surprised how much alcohol they had prepared. Cca 30 cases with beer, each case holding 20 beers, coolers for the beer, and a Jagermeister machine (!) (really cool, had like 4 shots).

- ok, I will stop talking about the Silicon Drinkabout now. But it was really smooth party execution

- even there is a lot of buzz around Berlin becoming the Silicon Valley of Europe, no one has a magic stick for making money. No startup I have met is actually cash flow positive, lot of them make no money at all, being in Beta. But from what I have seen I am confident they will really become a technology hub in Europe.

- I met guys from startup named VoiceDrop, recording mouse movement and voice through Javascript. They told me it’s not a problem to get up to 100k EUR in funding if you are a startup without revenue, but that it’s nearly impossible to get VC grade funding of 500k EUR or more if you don’t have any revenues

- almost every startup in Berlin is hiring developers. If I was a developer in IBM or Redhat in Brno (they have big development/support centers here), I would be on my way to Berlin right now (permanently). Monthly salary for a senior developer in Berlin is 3 000 - 5 000 EUR and 2 000 - 3 000 EUR for a junior guy. In Czech Republic the salary is approximately half of that.

- some startups are hiring business guys too. Even though its in smaller numbers than developers and in business job position German language might be necessary, I think even for business guys looking to join a startup it can be a could call to try their chances in Berlin.

- not so many people are bootstrapping compared to Czech Republic. Most startups I have met either have funding or are trying to raise funding. I think in Czech bootstrapping is caused partially by more difficult access to capital and disbelieve of some entrepreneurs in added value of having an investor. In Berlin I could see the investment process is more streamlined an it’s a usual thing to have funding

- most of the week I was sitting with guys from Portadi in Microsoft Ventures offices, where they are accelerated. There are on Unter den Linden street in Microsoft building. One of the most prestigious addresses in Berlin you can have (downside is it’s quite difficult to find startup-style-priced lunch around there, as it’s mostly 5 star hotels and guys driving Porsche cars everywhere you look). The office are on top floor with rooftop terrace (yes, they have barbecues there) and several balconies. One of the best office spaces I have seen so far. Comparable to Google offices in Prague.

- Microsoft Ventures is currently running a 3rd batch while running two to three batches per year, 4 months each. What’s interesting, they don’t take any equity (also they don’t give you any funding). From what I know they provide consulting, free office space and good external network.

- other accelerators in Berlin are Hub:raum, ran by Deutsche Telekom, and Axel Springer. I heard a rumor that Axel Springer will close down since it has had no successful startups from their existing batches. There will be an opening of new accelerator in GTEC campus (Berlin Academy) which is part of a university and it will focus on connecting commercial sector and Academia. Also I heard Deutsche Bahn (or Deutsche Post…it was Deutsche something for sure) wants to open a new accelerator in Berlin.

- if you ever want to establish an office in Berlin or just want to freelance here, I can recommend Betahaus coworking space. It’s just 160 EUR for a chair per month, plus you can get a mailbox and other services there for a little extra money. For comparison, Impact Hub coworking in Brno is 90 EUR per month.

- one week ticket for Metro and buses costs 30 EUR

- guys from Portadi are renting a fully furnished apartment for 2 people for 1 100 EUR per month in Kreuzberg with all services (internet, cable TV, electricity, heating, water etc.) included

- Kreuzberg is 15 minutes to the city centre with good metro connection. It’s one of the cheaper neighbourhoods. There is a lot people from Turkey and middle-east.

- although Kreuzberg is kind of an “immigrant neighbourhood”, I had much better feel there than in London or other european capitals, where you pay like double for rent and you kind of feel on the outskirt of the society. Here it just somehow felt much better, like you are more embedded in the society. I could actually imagine living there. From my experience the neighbourhood is safe and completely ok.

- data SIM card with 500 MB data limit costs 10 EUR. I bought O2 Sim card and the connectivity was quite poor. There was just Edge everywhere I went, on bus from Berlin to Prague the connection was not working at all. T-mobile has also data for 10 EUR, I don’t know how is the connectivity, gonna try it next time in Berlin. Vodafone had cheapest data for 50 EUR.

- everything in Lidl is 10 to 50 % cheaper compared to Czech lidl (same tuna can, which costs 1.5 EUR in Brno, is for 70 cents. It almost makes you angry considering the Czech salaries :)

- eating out is relatively cheap. You can get Kebab for 3 EUR in Islamic part’s of town (that’s where you will live if you decide to move to Berlin). In the expensive part of town where Microsoft offices are you can find good restaurants where lunch is around 7 EUR (of course there are restaurants too where it’s 70 EUR). Berlin is really low cost compared to other western european capitals.

- idea of establishing an office in Berlin (renting a chair in Betahaus coworking space and moving there myself to represent Smartsupp) crossed my mind several times while I was there.

If you like my article, i will be happy if you give it a like or share it.

#Berlin #Smartsupp #Portadi #business trip #Microsoft ventures

Reakce na článek Jana Kalianka

Chci zde za Smartsupp zareagovat na článek Jana Kalianka a jeho reakci na Twitteru, která navazuje na článek od Michala Kubíčka.

Michala Kubíčka osobně neznám (ani nikdo další ze Smartsuppu). Smartsupp nasadil na jeho webu svetcukraru.cz. Rozhodnutí začít používat Smartsupp a napsat o nás case study přišlo z jeho vlastní iniciativy. Nebyl k tomu žádným způsobem vyzván ze strany Smartsuppu, ani s námi nekonzultoval obsah článku. Dokud článek nevydal, neznal jsem jeho background ani jeho blog.

Jana Kalianka jsme dříve oslovili ohledně napsání článku o Smartsuppu, protože jsem se s ním dříve setkal na Barcampu v Brně a bereme ho v ČR jako influencera. Jan Kalianko Smartsupp používá na jeho eshopu svetbot.cz, takže nám přišlo zajímavé, kdyby popsal jeho zkušenosti se Smartsuppem na blogu.

Jsem rád, že o Smartsuppu Michal Kubíček napsal a určitě budu v budoucnu rád za článek i od Jana Kalianka (nebo kohokoliv dalšího), ať už bude pozitivní nebo negativní.

#smartsupp #casestudy #reakce

100 paid users, no sales done

Another lazy Saturday. I intended to work today (as every Saturday. entrepreneur's life). I woke up at 12 o'clock. Strolled into my old office in JIC to pick up mail and headed to Smartsupp office. Then Franta called if I go for lunch, so I went with him. Then I headed back to office again. I went through my mail (found some letters from lawyer office, first thing that came to my mind - damn, someone is suing me! but it's just a voucher for free consultation. phew). Then I unpacked Forbes, which I got in the mail, thinking "I will just browse through it for a minute".... I spent like 30 minutes browsing through the pages. And now it's half past 4. So much for productive Saturday.

When I already got so off my schedule, I figured I might as well just write something for my blog. There is a milestone we've reached I wanted to write about for quite some time. 100 paid Smartsupp users (recurring subscriptions, which I hope will go on till eternity). Now it's actually 114 already. It's not exactly a milestone, since we didn't set it up. I just noticed in our admin interface that the number of paying users is closing in on a hundred and I thought "would be nice to mention it on the blog". First thing when I saw the number, I told Petr about it. But he didn't really share my excitement. He was like "it's a pretty small number, we shouldn't even be promoting it, it looks embarassing". Funny how different people see things from different perspective. So the number probably won't appear on our company blog, but I just want to share it here.

It's good to mention that these are just paying users, total number of Smartsupp users is shy of 2 000 now. (yeah, now I am giving away a lot of numbers from which you can derive our conversion rate, which a lot of people would advise against. don't really think competition can benefit from this. call it being optimistic) But this number doesn't interest me that much. Because some of those users don't even use Smartsupp. The 100 is the real thing, they make money.

I specifically mentioned "100 paying users" in the headline and not "customers". I was thinking about it and I see a customer as someone I have personal relationship with, meeting with him personally and doing some work specifically for him. Which we don't do with any of our users. There is a product, a website, and you can register and start using it. No need for a personal meeting, explaining of any kind or any specific product adjustments. Which is a thing I actually love about Smartsupp. It makes it scalable, global. E-shops, car manufacturers, car dealers, universities. They all came, they all registered, put Smartsupp on their website, upgraded to paid account without any assistance or sales from our side.

All we are pushing is online marketing. PPC, SEO, mentions on discussion forums, blogging, affiliate. No salesforce, no endless meetings, no customer training, no bullshit. We have just finished translations to French and German (also working on Polish and Russian). We are soon going to hit those markets with some PPC advertising and other marketing activity, so I hope we will add some zeros to that hundred.

#smartsupp #milestone #100 paid users

Jedna éra končí, nová éra začíná

1. kvetna jsem se prestehoval do Smartsupp kancelari na Sumavskou 35 v Brne a svatek prace jsem oslavil stehovanim a praci v nove kancelari. Na svatecni relaxaci nebo sentiment neni cas. Po roce a pul jsme ukoncili najem nasich kancelari v technologickem inkubatoru JIC, kde jsme byli od 1.11.2012.

Duvod? Osekani nakladu projektu Servis Na Klik na nezbytne minimum. Z 8 lidi se team smrskne na 4 a technici budou pracovat z domu. Rust a prijmy nebyly takove jak jsme ocekavali, takze bylo potreba riznout do ziveho a snizit personalni naklady. Co je pozitivni, Servis Na Klik generuje v teto chvili relativne stabilni prijmy, takze po osekani nakladu muze projekt bezet vesele dal. Zustala u nas i Alza a dale vyjednavame s HPtronic i CZC o partnerstvi. Z hlediska obchodu a marketingu projekt neni kam dal posouvat, jednani s retailery nejsou zrovna nejrychlejsi a interni procesy funguji bez nutnosti kazdodenniho dohledu. Zjistil jsem, ze vlastne v projektu uz nemam moc co resit. Stale si myslim, ze Servis Na Klik, je uzitecna sluzba, ktera dava smysl a ma pridanou hodnotu pro zakaznika. Cesky rybnicek je bud prilis maly, aby tu sluzba mohla ve vetsim fungovat, nebo jeste neprisel ten spravny cas a rust se dostavi az za par let. Uvidime.

Co dal? Smartsupp. Po nekolika rozhovorech s Petrem Janosikem jsem nabyl silneho presvedceni, ze Smartsupp je ten novy miliardovy projekt, a zapojil se do jejich teamu. Je tu excelentni programator, black box produkt, okouzlujici revenue model a neuveritelna trakce…a ted ja. Behem jednoho roku 1350 registrovanych uzivatelu s nulovymi naklady na marketing (pokud nepocitate drobne jako 1 000 Kc mesicne na PPC a par prispevku na webtrh), 56 platicich uzivatelu, akvizice zakazniku jako Alza, 123shop, Hypermedia a Renocar bez jedine minuty investovane na sales - vsichni prisli sami, proste zaregistrovali a koupili placeny balik, aniz by nim kdokoliv cokoliv vysvetloval. Az ted jsem zjistil, co je to trakce.

Dal budu resit i Servisnaklik.cz, ale od ted to bude sekundarni projekt. Priorita number one je ted Smartsupp.com. A bude to velky.

#Servisnaklik.cz #Smartsupp.com #Alza.cz #JIC

Czech e-commerce revenues in 2011

Few days ago I was searching for a list of biggest Czech e-commerce sites (online retailers that sell products or goods). To my surprise I couldn't find any comprehensive and accurate list. So I scoured justice.cz, the Czech Republic official company registry, dug out revenues of retailers and made a list of largest Czech e-commerce/retail companies. In graph below I give data for 2011 because that was the most recent year for which most of the companies already uploaded their financial statements. (Czech companies should publish their financial statements to the registry every year, but since the government is reluctant to fine those who fail to do so, the financial statements are quite outdated, some companies don't publish them for several years in a row)

This is the most accurate data I could get:

I also made a Czech version with Czech figures, which will be more comprehensive for my Czech friends:

In case you are wondering, no, the Tweet button doesn't work. I just don't want to pay Infogram 18 bucks a month, so I took a screenshot instead. I am so cheap, I know.

I have included several companies that are not purely online retailers - Datart, HPtronic, Mironet, TS Bohemia. Some of them probably make most of their revenues in brick-and-mortar stores. So they are not really e-commerce companies, but I included them to get a better picture of the Czech retail market. (AFAIK it's not possible to decode what share of a company's revenues comes from online vs offline channels)

HPtronic is a holding, that currently owns Kasa.cz, Euronics.cz, eproton.cz and many more brands. So their revenues are a summary of all companies in the holding, including Kasa.cz. I just put Kasa.cz in the graph separately as well, since it's quite big.

Mall.cz published higher figures in their official statement. They reported close to 160 million EUR (4 billion CZK) revenue for fiscal year 2011/2012. But I believe they publish revenues of their entire holding, which includes revenues from other countries where they operate. I assume revenue in their financial statement on justice.cz is for Czech Republic only, thus it is lower, as shown in my graph.

TSBohemia.cz recently acquired Alfa.cz, so these two retailers are now one company.

Some companies in Czech publish financial statements in fiscal years and some in calendar years. To not over-complicate things, I have just put the data in the same graph. So financially it's not 100 % accurate.

If you have any feedback regarding my data or want more details, email me at [email protected].

#czech #ecommerce #revenue #retail #Alza

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.

#servisnaklik #oneclick-support #einklick-pchilfe

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 :)

#oneclick-support #speedinvest #constantia

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Vladimir Sandera