english, minutes

Open Coffee Athens XIV – meeting notes

No Comments

Last Tuesday the 14th OpenCoffee meeting took place at the usual place in Bios. There were 4 talks and in this post I’ll put down some of the things I noticed in them – mostly stuff that never made it to the slides. The presentations themselves and videos of the talks will follow in separate posts for the more visual types of people.

First talk was by Alexis Mpallas of Cytopia.org, a website that does online music distribution for psychedelic trance (psytrance) and progressive labels. They cover an impressive (for the genre) tally of 50 labels while their site features an online radio station and brings in about 1000 euros a month in sales. One thing to take away from Alexis’ talk is that the reason they can survive in a market otherwise dominated by big players like iTunes and Amazon is the fact they aim in the niche market of their particular genre and even their website design aims to fit in with their particular audience. Their best promotion is – probably as expected – from online marketing, mainly in forums – compared to physical world efforts like fliers and promos. Main sales come from countries like the US, UK, Brasil and so on – but not Greece.

The second talk was by V.Trip‘s Dimitris Tsigkos who parted with his life’s wisdom for someone who would like to startup in Greece. Even before the business plans start a life plan is necessary – and the various alternatives one has right after finishing school are limited. A significant amount of risk-taking is required – but that’s made even worse by the fact that in essence no high-risk VC’s operate in Greece. Those that are here realise their limitations and decide not to invest in our kind of startups (early stage and high-risk). That alone but also the presence of a magnitudes’ larger market abroad means that to find success you most probably need to look outside the local markets. He made it clear that if you manage to come up with a product (and not just services!) that demonstrates the necessary volume (and as such value) for a foreign VC, they will not hesitate to invest – even on a Greek-based startup.

V. Trip’s course in particular included initially some subcontracting in public portals and then some subsidised research work. Presently, they still base their income on services and grants and subsidies while they also sell products on a global scale such as e-front, open source e-learning package, video streaming apps, etc.

The third talk was by Andreas Konstantinou by VisionMobile a small team of mobile market analysts spread all over Europe and working from home. Although the company started for the sake of teamwork it has evolved in the sales of a wide range of products including consulting, reports, market-how maps and seminars among others. Andreas underlined that a good business environment as the one offered in the UK (where good startup infrastructure, transparency and market information is available) is a plus but what’s really important is to get together a good team that share the same values and can bring knowledge, passion and innovation in the startup. An interesting approach he stressed is the need to answer 3 questions before implementing your idea:

  • What exactly is the problem you are solving?
  • Who pays to solve this problem?
  • Is there another way to solve this problem (that would make yours irrelevant)?

Finally, it was the turn of Anna Diamantopoulou, State Secretary of Development to take the stage. She also stressed how important it is for ideas and businesses to become competitive beyond the strict confines of Greece’s borders. Her main premise is that for that to happen three factors are required:

  1. an idea accompanied by an advantage
  2. a high level of technological infrastructure
  3. a helpful environment in terms of institutions

She gave a few examples from her book of how this happened both abroad and here. Perhaps the most descriptive was about how Sweden managed to turn a province known for its steel-making industry which was however decaying into the best location in the world to test cars against problems resulting from low temperatures. The cold (exploiting the idea of the low temperatures as an advantage) aided by top-notch scientific research on the matter and the relevant infrastructure managed to transform the province within 10 years with the help of everyone: the workers, the unions and the government.

Greece according to AD needs to work towards extending internet access, increasing public spending in research, improving the banking system to encourage investments and strengthening small enterprises, to increase the number of patents produced and to actually reward the best businesses to provide further incentives for growth.

Continue Reading

open-thread

Open Coffee Athens XIV – Open Thread

31 Comments

Εδώ μπορείτε να υποβάλλετε τη γνώμη και τα σχόλιά σας για την αθηναϊκή συνάντηση του Open Coffee για τον μήνα Σεπτέμβριο. Παρακαλώ τα σχόλια να γίνονται στη γλώσσα της καταχώρησης, παρατήρηση που ισχύει για όλες τις αναρτήσεις στο παρών ιστολόγιο (σε κάθε περίπτωση όχι greeklish).

Continue Reading

meetings

Open Coffee Athens XIV – Η ανακοίνωση & οι ομιλητές

38 Comments

Η νέα σαιζόν ξεκινά με ότι καλύτερο μας άφησε η προηγούμενη: Ναι, Open Coffee φυσικά. Δύο μήνες μετά το τελευταίο event, το ραντεβού ανανεώνεται για το απόγευμα της Τρίτης, 2 Σεπτεμβρίου, στις 7 το απόγευμα. Και αυτή τη φορά επιστρέφουμε στα οικεία και αγαπημένα εδάφη του Bios (και στην ταράτσα με θέα την Ακρόπολη για το ‘after’), με ανανεωμένη διάθεση, νέες ιδέες και το καλύτερο δυνατό line-up για μία παραγωγική χρονιά.

Οι σύντομες ομιλίες που θα πραγματοποιηθούν έχουν ως εξής:

  • Ο Αλέξης Μπάλλας, δημιουργός της Cytopia, ενός μουσικού download shop, και αριστούχος απόφοιτος του LSE με ειδίκευση στην ηλεκτρονική διανομή μουσικής, θα μας μιλήσει για την πενταετή εμπειρία του με τη Cytopia σε Ολλανδία, Βρετανία και Ελλάδα, επίσης περί αποδοτικής διανομής περιεχομένου.
  • Ο Δημήτρης Τσίγκος θα παρουσιάσει το V.Trip Group, ως ιδρυτής & CEO του. Το group 6 εταιρειών ΙΤ έχει επιτύχει, ύστερα από 7 χρόνια παρουσίας, ετήσιο τζίρο 4,5 εκ. € με δραστηριοποίηση σε Ευρώπη, Ασία & Μέση Ανατολή, με οποιοδήποτε άλλο σχόλιο να μοιάζει μάλλον περιττό.
  •  Ο Ανδρέας Κωνσταντίνου, research director της Vision Mobile με έδρα το Λονδίνο και εξαιρετικό πελατολόγιο σε μόλις 2,5 έτη ζωής, θα αναπτύξει την προσωπική του οπτική περί καλών πρακτικών ανάπτυξης μιας start-up, συνεισφέροντας επίσης πολύτιμη γνώση και εμπειρία περί αγορών κινητής και wireless και μοιράζοντας αρκετά αντίτυπα του Mobile Industry Atlas.
  • Τέλος, θα έχουμε την χαρά και την τιμή να φιλοξενήσουμε την -μεταξύ άλλων- τέως επίτροπο απασχόλησης της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης, υφυπουργό Ανάπτυξης και συγγραφέα του ‘Η Έξυπνη Ελλάδα‘, κυρία Άννα Διαμαντοπούλου, σε μία απολιτίκ ομιλία περί επιχειρηματικότητας.

Οι υπόλοιπες λεπτομέρειες:

  • Πού: Στο Bios, Πειραιώς 84 downtown, πλησίον μετρό Θησείου και Κεραμεικού (βλέπε και χάρτη). Στο bar για τα προκαταρκτικά ποτά ή την ταράτσα για τις μεθεόρτιες κουβέντες, στο θέατρο για τις ομιλίες. 


View Larger Map

  • Πότε: Την ερχόμενη Τρίτη, 2 Σεπτεμβρίου. Το πρόγραμμα έχει ως εξής:
    • 19.00 – 20.00: Προσέλευση και πρώτες συστάσεις, καφέδες και warm-up drinks, ως την είσοδο στα ενδότερα
    • 20.00 – 21.00: Σύντομες παρουσιάσεις / ομιλίες / performances, με αντικείμενο νέες ιδέες, δραστήριους υποστηρικτές τους και success stories, με άξονα και υπό το πρίσμα των νέων τεχνολογιών και των start-up
    • 21.00 – …: Κυρίως μέρος, γνωριμίες, επαφές, networking, brainstorming, … όλα αυτά εν μέσω ποτών και καφέδων, σε ύφος φιλικό, κλίμα δυναμικό και τρόπο ανεπίσημο
  • Πώς: Το μόνο που χρειάζεται, είναι να έλθετε. Τίποτα περισσότερο, και τίποτα λιγότερο. Η συμμετοχή στις συναντήσεις του Open Coffee είναι εξ’ ορισμού ελεύθερη, ανοικτή, δωρεάν. Αν θέλετε να επαληθεύσετε την παρουσία σας, αφήνετε ένα σχόλιο εδώ, αν επιθυμείτε να παρουσιάσετε, στέλνετε ένα email στο opencoffee.gr(παπί)gmail.com. Τόσο απλά.
  • Γιατί: Ο καθένας από τον τριψήφιο αριθμό των παρευρισκομένων στις τελευταίες συναντήσεις έχει τον δικό του λόγο για να δώσει το παρών. Ένας από τους λόγους αυτούς, μάλλον περισσότεροι, να είστε σίγουροι πως θα δώσουν νόημα και στη δική σας παρουσία. Ως τότε, να ξέρετε πως το πιο cool και ψαγμένο κοινό της πόλης, τα πιο ανοικτά και δραστήρια μυαλά, σας περιμένουν για να τους γνωρίσετε και να σας γνωρίσουν, να ανταλλάξετε ιδέες και εμπειρίες, προτάσεις και επαφές, χωρίς απροσπέλαστες γραβάτες ή περιττά δήθεν. Μεταξύ εσάς και άλλων, nerds και marketers, bloggers και δημοσιογράφοι, venture capitalists και developers, νέοι επιχειρηματίες και πεπειραμένοι PRs, θα είμαστε όλοι εκεί, στο ανεπίσημο και διαδραστικό social network που δημιουργήθηκε για να είναι πρωτίστως χειροπιαστό και real world. Τι άλλο χρειάζεται;
    • Ραντεβού την Τρίτη λοιπόν…
    Continue Reading

    english, επιχειρείν, start-up

    To get funded or not?

    2 Comments

    One of the most interesting debates taking place recently in the start-up scene regards -maybe somehow expectably- the arguably most critical of dilemmas an entrepreneur faces: Should I get funded or not?
    In and between the frenziness of meeting and pitching to VCs, raising the biggest amount of money at the least time possible, then getting really big and acquired or just sell out to retire young, a different -less opportunistic and literally closer to reality- school of thought has lately emerged: You typically do not need any external funding to get a simple working version of your idea, you’d better bootstrap from friends and family and then try convincing some real customers to actually pay for your product and keep you going, developing ang growing, instead of selecting speculators as partners in your company.
    And the story goes on, you may take a look at the arguments of Paul Graham and the 37signals guys from Chicago (disclaimer: I’m a fan of both), or watch the by now infamous speech of David Heinemeer Hansson at the start-up school 08. The various opinions and experiences may be controversial on the topic, however I believe that a contribution of value is the one of Adam from Heroku (great platform for deploying a Rails app by the way), who has interestingly tried in practice both of scenarios and converged to the following insight:

    It’s hard to separate out the variables {of comparing the two approaches}, but off the cuff, I’d have to say that being investment-backed is a lot better.

    Adam points out two main reasons for that, being able to focus on your product development instead of being distracted by client-work and surviving a sanity check, this time by your VC. It seems apparent that, if you are able to raise some money, you should go for it. However, and expectably, David strikes back, “trust customers over VCs, you don’t need outside bets to launch a web business”, it keeps going.

    To me, the bottom line of this running debate is just simple and it goes like that:

    Not being funded is not a reason not to start-up.

    In other words, managed to being funded or not, in either ways, go start-up. If people who do have the tangible opportunity of raising external funding do seem skeptical about it, then you do not have to be skeptical about starting up, even in a nearly VC-agnostic environment, like the one of the local greek market. Turn your idea into a prototype, find a couple of interested customers and keep working on that, your very own road to ithaca might end up at something sustainable by itself or -who knows- some actual VC backing…

     

    PS: David made lately another interesting quote, at least to some of us who feel desperate of not being in the valley:

    There’s not a huge start-up culture, not a lot of tech parties all the time that you can go to, no ton of VCs just walking over to have lunch with you. I think those are all pluses, net positives, {…} you just get down to work.

    Continue Reading

    english, start-up

    The greek and turkish internet markets: Parallel lives?

    6 Comments

    Over at The Next Web*, Sekip Can Gökalp posted a more than interesting introduction and update on the status of the turkish web scene (you may also check the recent Techcrunch* Istanbul meet-up to find out more). The term start-up is mostly a newborn baby, investors are few but there are a lot of events and passion for the web, plus a big and yet unshaped market to target at.

    The scale might be slightly different (probably less different than our actual demographics), however the story seems to be the same at both sides of the Aegean and I do think that opportunity lies ahead. Yes, speaking of expansion and growth, why not start from our neighbors first (and vice versa), after all our cultural differences and everyday habits are less different than  what we’ve been taught to, plus the tools to help us are now available.

    What’s more, I’d really interested in meeting in person our fellow entrepreneurs from Turkey (or our other neighbors, too; from Italy to Cyprus and the Balkans to put it very roughly), creating a strong local network of entrepreneurs and cultivating relationships for synergies to grow – among others. An initial idea is to organize a common event, somewhere in between; but what do you really think on all these actually?

     

    * We mention them really often but it seems that the guys we hosted during the last year in greek Open Coffee meetings (aka The Next Web and Techcrunch UK) have really matured into the primary sources of information about the european web start-up scene — go grab their rss feeds if you haven’t yet.

    Continue Reading