BEST TIME TO BE ENTREPRENEUR

Great entrepreneurial talent can be found everywhere

VC money has found its way into CEE

Explosion of Internet gives entrepreneurs from anywhere

ability to scale everywhere, mobile gives speed & B-user

app stores quick monetization

Where you come from suddenly matters much less

than where you are scaling into

ANNA HEJKA

Global Leader for Tomorrow by World Economic Forum in Davos for being serial entrepreneur on global scale

Business Angel of the Year 2009 by European Business Angel Association

12 years of PE/VC: Founder & Managing Partner Poland Growth Fund I, II, III,

MCI, Global Visions Fund

25 years of serial entrepreneurship: HCM, CEF, PGF, Five Dreams, GVF

27 years of investment banking: Founder & CEO Heyka Capital Markets

Group, Salomon Brothers/Citigroup, Security Pacific

3 years of commercial banking & credit analysis: Banking Officer JPMorgan

Chase

UNICORN NEST

GLOBAL ECO-SYSTEM

American Managing Partners, mentors, trusted VC funds & co-investors, corporations & investors

French & German Venture Partners

Polish investors, IC & board members, mentors & operating partners

Pan-European & transatlantic partners& mentors, IFC & World Bank

American / Polish business angels &

crowdsourcing

Israeli trusted VC funds and co-

investors

Global corporate network Technology incubatorsService organizations

Polish Managing Partner & financial institutions

GUARDING THE BIG IDEA

MARGINAL NICHE OR DERIVATIVE IDEA

Large/ Easy ValueBoring/ Difficult Benefit

• Change target group• Refresh image• Add funtions or• Sell IP

Large/ Easy ValueSerious Benefit

• Get financing• Build company• Go to market

Insufficient ValueBoring/ Difficult Benefit

• Delay development• Listen to beta testers or• Sell IP

Insufficient ValueSerious Benefit

• Add funtions• Change target group• Find partner

Medicine

NOT/PROTECTING INTELECTUAL PROPERTY

NOT INCORPORATING EARLY

NOT HAVING THE RIGHT CO-FOUNDER

POOR HIRING

EXCESSIVE PERFECTIONISM VS. SIMPLICITY

Portfolio of publicly traded companies in global top 10 brandshas beaten average global stock index by 214% since 2009

TOO MANY APPS VS. MVP

NOT LISTENING TO CUSTOMERS

GETTING DISTRACTED BY FEEDBACK

LAUNCH DELARYED OR PREMATURE

RAISING TOO LITTLE MONEY/SPENDING TOO MUCH

OBSESSING ABOUT FUNDING

TRYING TO WIN OVER EVERYONE

RAISING TOO MUCH MONEY

NOT UNDERSTANDING THEMSELVES OR

… INVESTORS OR

… CHEMISTRY REQUIRED BETWEEN THEM

NOT DOING DUE DILIGENCE OF INVESTORS

POOR INVESTOR MANAGEMENT

NOT EMBRACING AGILITY

PREMATURE OR DELAYED SCALING

ASSUMING VIRALITY

SACRIFICING USERS FOR SUPPOSED PROFIT

LOSING FOCUS

HALF-HEARTED EFFORT

OBSTINACY

CHOOSING WRONG PLATFORM

BAD LOCATION

LESSONS LEARNT → MARKET

Timing is critical, now also due to hiper-competition

Size of potential market, perception of problem there &

number of potential competitors are critical

Disruption is always met with skepticism (competitors),

users opened, investors mixed

Speed of global growth requires greater funding: Cos with

B$ status founded b. 2003-2008 raised median of $168M,

after 2009, $248M

LESSONS LEARNT → PRODUCT & TEAM

“...fall in love with problem you are solving, not solution you

are proposing.” Uri Levine, Waze (Israel)

Your basic idea has to be strong enough to see you

through early versions of product not being good enough

Be deeply & intimately passionate & creative

Build great entrepreneurial teams, including local teams to

transcend local differences & tastes; motivate them

LESSONS LEARNT → PROCESS

Best ideas are often in front of you, ideas that people think

are too simple or too obvious to work (Spotify)

Invest your own money

Launch domestically to demonstrate that product works,

then internationalize & go global

Differentiate from competition, build scale & barriers to entry

Focus on getting users & revenues but remember that

problems are compounded by rate of change

LESSONS LEARNT → MANAGEMENT

Solve problems quickly

Give your local teams power to control as much as possible

Avoid cash shortages to make sure you can make land grab

for early market share

If you can prove you can deploy capital well, it will work out

Talk to inspiring leaders

People need heroes

Source: Victor Haghani