Materializing Innovation

Startup. Why, How, What?

Startup Courses by PublicFebruary 18th 2014

Dimitris TsigosFounder & CEO

StartTechVentures

dtsigos@starttech.eu | http://twitter.com/tsigos | http://www.linkedin.com/in/tsigos

The vtrip journey

2000

Dot-com bubble

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble

The dot-com bubble (also referred to as the Internet bubble and the Information Technology Bubble) was a speculative

bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 (with a climax on March 10, 2000, with the NASDAQ peaking at 5132.52 in intraday trading before closing at 5048.62) during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the Internet sector and related fields. While the latter part was a boom and bust

cycle, the Internet boom is sometimes meant to refer to the steady commercial growth of the Internet with the advent

of the world wide web, as exemplified by the first release of the Mosaic web browser in 1993, and continuing through

the 1990s.

Everything in Greece comes with some delay

dotcom bubble, too!

Academic Environment

• US educated professors– Talking about dotcom bubble– Without knowing it was a bubble

• Atlantis Group– The competitors!

• “Pointer-Soft!”– CS256 “s/w engineering lab”

It all started as a joke

• A very serious one!• We decided to “start a company” in

July 2000– “Milon tis Eridos” café, Heraklion

• The best four programmers at CSD and myself – akritid, hargikas,mvasilak,venturas

Which were our objectives?

• To be our own bosses• To have a stake to the value of our

labor• To have flexible working hours

• Do something interesting• Not taking orders by idiots

Critical Publics

• Email August 2000:– Looking for Python programmers to work

with Zope

• Reply tsigos@csd.uoc.gr– Why you guys want to pay social

security?– Are you interested in outsourcing?

Projects

• www.mod.mil.gr• www.hnms.gr• www.emporiki.gr• www.yme.gov.gr• www.zenon.gr• www.criticalpublics.com• a.s.o.

Products???

• WebSecure™

• VoteSecure™– http://www.springerlink.com/content/

y6cfc0jn4g12k9dc/?MUD=MP

• AuctionSecure™

• Totally unrealistic

Looking for partners

An inspired idea!

• We don’t aim to becoming a 500-persons company

• We dream of starting 10 companies of 50 persons each

Divorces

• December 2002, Critical Publics

• March 2003, Vtrip team– akritid stayed as a freelancer for 6

months– venturas stayed as a permanent

freelancer for 2 years– hargikas stayed as occasional freelancer– mvasilak did not stay at all

“Hey buddy, if you don’t trust your own company why

should we trust it?”Attica Bank business loans

officer

Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrepreneurial_ecosystem

“An entrepreneurial ecosystem is a group of non-competing companies, including start-ups, established companies and

one or more coordination entities, which share the same vision, values, culture, strategy and business processes and

decide to form an organization in order to explore economies of scale in business functions such as business

development, financing, market analysis, marketing communications, IT / MIS infrastructure, human capital

management, legal support, financial & accounting management”

© Dimitris Tsigos | Virtual Trip, November 29th 2009

StartTech Incubator

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Incubator - Financing - Business Development - Financial & Account Management - Business Administration - Talent ManagementServices: - Strategy - MIS & IT Infrastructure - Marketing Communications - Legal Advisory - Facilities

Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

StartTech Ventures

This journey has resulted to the first prototype implementation of the “Entrepreneurial Ecosystem” concept

coLabWorkspace

Materializing Innovation Group

AntennaOffices

Publisher

DistributorsServices Vendors

M.I. Spain

M.I. Hungary

M.I. Brussels

StartTech Angels

The new hype

Suddenly, everyone is starting up

Why?

• Maximize income, wealth

• Catch the wave (ride the bubble?)

• Create an organization larger than & independent from you

• A way of living

I wanna be cool.

What makes you cool?

To be sexy?

To be successful?

To be the best on earth?

Not really.

Being cool actually is to be

happy.

Who’s the happiest person on earth?

Solon before Croesus

Kleobis & Biton!

The happiest persons on earth

“In the legend, Kleobis and Biton were Argives, the sons of Cydippe, a priestess of Hera. Cydippe was travelling

from Argos to a festival in honor of Argive Hera. The oxen which were to pull her cart were overdue and her sons,

Kleobis and Biton, pulled the cart the entire way (45 stadia, or 8.3 km/5.1 miles). Cydippe was impressed with their

devotion to her and her goddess and she prayed to Hera, asking her to give her children the best gift a god could

give to a mortal. Hera ordained that the brothers would die in their sleep, and after the feast the youths lay down in the

temple of Hera, slept and never woke. Herodotus, who relates the story, says that the citizens of Argos donated a

pair of statues to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi.”

«Μηδένα προ του τέλους μακάριζε»

Entrepreneurship is about happiness

Why so many people unhappy?

Do we follow the right model?

From Pyramids to Pancakes

• Josephine Green: “From command and control to a truly flat world of collaboration!”

• No we do NOT!

• “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” -Albert Einstein

Are YOU insane?

• If not insane, then we need to follow the pancake model versus the pyramid one

• In other words:– It’s NOT about domination, but it is

about sustainability

Who could be Kleobis and Biton in Greece, today?

YOU!

A very usual misunderstanding

Entrepreneurship Vs Business

Easy Vs Doable

• Is it gonna be easy?

• Absolutely no!

• Is it gonna be fun?

•YES it certainly will!

The ultimate goal

• Entrepreneurship is about being useful to another person. Something so simple that makes you happy.

• It’s simple: Be useful!

• …in an economically sustainable way

What?

• “I want to startup, I just don’t know what to do”

• It doesn’t really matter!

• Prerequisite is simply to like it

Startup Compass

• Think of real problem that many people have

• Find an innovative way to solve it• Get a team that shares the passion to do

it• Making sure that the proposed solution is

sustainable

•As simple as that!

Must-have Vs Nice-to-have

Sustainability is built on a ground of needs, not wishes.

Creative copying

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least

something different.”

― T.S. Eliot, The Sacred Woodhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot

How?

• Here’s where the great misunderstanding is

• The “garage s/w” model does not really work

• Thin & lean is the way to go

• Management should be in the startup’s DNA

Reasons to fail

• Most of the failed startups lacked management skills and capacity

• Founders should never underestimate the necessity for management skills & processes

• Founders often hesitate to add management skills to the team

The management leap

• Many startups fail to make the leap from 1M to 5M in revenues

• Failure to introduce management structure

• The most difficult change a company has to manage in its early years

A startup is …

• …an innovative, creating, dynamic, aiming-to-grow…

….BUSINESS!

Thus, it should ALWAYS been run as such.

Managing a Startup

• Tools • Techniques• Methodologies• As lean as possible

– ….but not more

Thank you