Startup Grind Journal

Startup studios are interchangeably known around the globe as venture studios, venture builders, or company builders. These venture builders are getting a lot of attention these days. If ten years ago, there were fewer than a handful, today, there are more than 500.

Studios are incredibly effective in building early-stage startups. These unique companies go beyond financial capital and the usual 3-month of acceleration to provide founders with full support throughout the lifetime of the venture. So the founders can focus on scaling the business: design, engineering, finance, marketing, HR, IT, and recruiting.

Venture building studios will begin to outpace traditional venture returns as asset classes in the next 5 to 10 years. But the capital needed to get up to speed is high, and they are often overlooked by investors who continue to invest in traditional VC funds.

So, why should investors start considering backing the startup studio model?

Listen to this fireside chat and find out more from out panel of experts.

Change in the business world is happening faster than ever. Key trends are shaping how we work, where we work and the skills we need to work.

As we are looking ahead to 2021, we started to think about how we move from business as usual to future business.

The panel discussion features:

Enjoy the conversation and let’s explore how innovation can be applied intelligently in a time of crisis to help us recharge the CEE economy leveraging the region’s key advantage - its strong talent pool.

Startup Grind Local features incredible talks with entrepreneurs from Startup Grind’s worldwide network. Startup Grind is a global startup community designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs.

We host monthly events in more than 100 cities and 40 countries featuring successful local founders, innovators, educators, and investors who share personal stories and lessons learned on the road to building great companies. Our monthly fireside chat interviews, startup mixers and annual conferences provide ample opportunities to connect with amazing startups and the people behind them, tap into a strong support network, form meaningful connections and gain inspiration for the startup journey ahead.

Sergiu Biriș a fost invitatul din Octombrie la Startup Grind. Ne-a povestit despre startup-uri, ecosistemul românesc și cel mai important - cum arată un startup de succes care atrage finanțare de la investitori.

Și-a început parcursul antreprenorial de pe băncile facultății, când a fondat Trilulilu împreună cu niște prieteni.

Trilulilu a devenit primul nume românesc ușor de recunoscut în online, cu cifre de afaceri de milioane de euro și un exit de succes.

După Trilulilu, Sergiu și Andrei Dunca au fondat LiveRail, o platformă de monetizare a conținutului video, platforma care a devenit încet-încet populară. Pentru că a fost un produs calitativ, LiveRail a obținut până la urma un exit către Facebook de câteva sute de milioane de dolari.

După LiveRail, Sergiu și-a început și cariera de investitor. A susținut proiecte cunoscute precum Seedblink și Revolut, eforturi care l-au învățat și cum gândesc investitorii. A continuat cu Zonga, un start-up de streaming de muzică.

Acum, Sergiu se ocupa de Eventmix, o platformă prin care organizatorii de evenimente își pot continua activitatea și în timpul pandemiei.

A învățat foarte multe din tot ce a făcut și își dorește să dea mai departe altor fondatori ceea ce știe azi.

George Roth’s story is fascinating.

He was a part of the first generation that graduated from the Cluj High School for Informatics. In 1980, he graduated from the University Babeș Bolyai in Cluj, the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, and then he moved to the US in 1991, to work as a software architect for a company that was building software solutions for investment companies.

That’s when he had his first breakthrough. He built a financial data “cleaner” (SUMS - Securities Universe Management System), which was implemented in multiple investment companies in the US and Europe.

In 1999 he started Recognos in Cluj, a company that develops software for investment processes. Up until 2018, they were working on a system that extracts data from unformatted documents using AI and NLP.

People started to take notice, so in May 2018 UiPath bought the technology along with a few employees, including George, who started working as a Senior Manager for the successful startup.

George is also very involved in the community, since the 90s. Building, offering support and being the co-founder of Romanian-American Business Network Silicon Valley. This is an organization with hundreds of members, that helps Romanian businesses get in touch with US-based companies.

Eusebiu este pasionat de domeniul antreprenoriatului și aduce lumină asupra nevoii de a trece de la angajat la antreprenor. Este experimentat în coaching financiar, consultanță financiară și e speaker la nenumărate evenimente offline și online.

Este fondatorul Burcash - primul program independent de educaţie financiară din România, a cărui scop e bunăstarea ta, pe termen lung.

Adoră natura pentru că poartă semnătura divinității. Iubește oamenii pentru că își pot reconstrui măreția primită de la Dumnezeu. Și îi place să citească pentru că este ceea ce îl crește.

Ascultând episodul, vei afla:

Enjoy!

Special Guest: Eusebiu Burcas.

Our inspiring guest is Ștefan Koritar and our courageous interviewer - Mădălina Vasiu, our Team Coordinator.

Stefan is an entrepreneur, an experienced product development and business management professional with an enormous passion for technology and also Chapter Director at Startup Grind Cluj-Napoca.

He is skilled in building strategies from the ground up, has strong analytical skills, is a true hard-working man always shooting for the moon.

Stefan honestly believes in the yet unreached potential of Eastern Europeans. This is mirrored in his actions, for example the TechTalk - a podcast dedicated to bringing the Eastern European ecosystem together.

He is also working on developing a different way of building, launching and growing companies in Romania.

So we sat down, get something to drink and enjoy this interview.

Imagine this journey:

Born in Bucharest, Romania, relocated to London for 14 years, the last 8 year working in investing…

And last year joining the Silicon Valley Bank as a SVP of Early Stage Investment.

That’s Flavia’s story.

Flavia Richardson is the SVP on Early Stage Investment at the Silicon Valley Bank. She helps early stage startups grow, and that’s especially important in these hard times.

So we sat down with her to pick her brain and get some idea of how to navigate the seemingly horror situation we’re in.

What you'll learn about in this episode:

Enjoy and don't forget to subscribe!

Experimentată în turism, HoReCa, dar și în mediul ONG, Nina Moldovan, una dintre cele mai de succes femei de afaceri din Cluj vine la Startup Grind Cluj Napoca să împărtășească din cunoștințele și experiența ei în afaceri și în viață.

Te-ai gândit vreodată cum pui pe picioare o afacere?

Cum faci să găsești oamenii potriviți?

Cum ieși în evidență în piață?

*Dacă da, n-ai voie să ratezi acest eveniment! *

Nina e una din cele mai de succes femei de afaceri din Cluj. Și astea nu sunt doar vorbe.

Azi Nina lucrează din greu să aducă Radisson Blu în Cluj, ca și President of The Board la Winners S.A.

Dar Nina Moldovan n-a lucrat doar pentru ea.

Totuși, nicio poveste nu e plină doar de reușite.

Dacă vrei peisajul complet, ascultă acest episod.

Despre Ce O Să Afli În Episod:

Florin Pop is a seasoned business angel.

He’s a member on a lot of boards of directors.

He invested in famous Romanian startups while they were in the early stage.

And he’s a fun guy to be around.

But it’s more than just work and great times.

Florin Pop understands what it takes to build a community. And he works hard to give back what he learned, and that’s why he took some time to share his story with us.

Because he wasn’t always an entrepreneurial veteran.

So let’s dig deeper and find out his story.

What you'll learn about in this episode:

Paul Brie is the CEO of Teleport, he's an experienced UX engineer, he's a partner to the Romanian School of IT...

But above all, he's a dreamer.

He buit his company in hopes of a future where holograms are a daily routine and landscapes can be digitally transformed into color palletes and elements with nothing more than a picture and his smart software. He's worked hard to build this dream, starting when he was 17 and discovered the world of programming, and he took a break from building our future to have this fireside chat with us and lend us some of his knowledge.

What you'll learn about: