Investing in Eastern European startups via SMOK Ventures. Previously co-founder of Filmaster (acquired by Samba TV), co-founder of ReaktorX accelerator and Startup Poland foundation.
This January together with Diana Koziarska I launched ReaktorX, a new idea stage startup accelerator in Warsaw, with the aim to help first-time founders launch their startup. I know what you’re thinking: it’s a crowded market, most of the programs suck and almost no one makes money. But that’s all right. We’re different! At least that’s what I was thought. Now that the first batch graduated it’s time to look back and see what worked and what… well… did not. Read the whole post on Medium: How To Mentor First-Time Founders?
There is more VC money on the table than Polish startups need. And it’s available for any EU-based founder to grab! If you are interested in grabbing some of that cas, read my post on 150sec: This Is Why Your Next Seed Investor Might Be a Polish Fund
A few years ago I met with a very nasty VC. I wrote a post about the meeting but never published. Recently I heard from a few startups who actually raised money with them. I decided to look back at that old post and write something to warn others. Read on Medium: How to Lose a Startup in 5 Simple Steps
I made a lot of mistakes when running my startup. I also meet hundreds of Polish entrepreneurs each year and listen to their stories. Based on those insights I wrote an article about why (Polish) startups fail.
As some of you know, I’ve been organizing tech meetups called OpenReaktor in the Warsaw-based startup mansion I co-founded since June 2011. It’s already become a tradition that in December I’m listing the top 5 talks of the year.
Call me a conspiracy theory maniac, but I always felt like everyone is watching me. I imagined people waiting for my failure, so that they can proclaim their personal little victory and say
“I knew it! His business never made sense! How did they even get funded in the first place?”
When we raised a seed round for Filmaster from a German fund HackFwd in Spring of 2011, we were one of the first Polish startups to work with a foreign investor. Traditionally, Web companies in Poland were focused on the local market of 40 million people, which seemed big enough to scale their business.
Big European and US-based VCs, however, were not impressed. They looked for startups with global ambitions, something the Polish ones lacked. Three years later and Poland has got a number of well-funded startups disrupting global markets. What the hell happened?
