Sergiu Nagailic

Also known as: Nikro

What will I talk about

1. What's a Startup?
2. Startup vs Business
3. Tools for us
4. Moldovan mentality
5. How to grow (all domains)

A startup is a company working to solve a problem where the solution is not obvious and success is not guaranteed

Startup is a state of mind

A company five years old can still be a startup

A startup is a temporary organization used to search for a repeatable and scalable business model

Our expectations

Expectations

vs

Reality

Reality: tons of problems

• Wrong co-founder
• Bad MVP
• Wrong Business Model
• Poor Team Management
• No Cash
• Problems with the Product
• Mentality & Motivation

• Tons of other...

We're lucky there are tools!

Getting a Co-founder

• Business Networking Events (like speed-dating)
• Startup Weekends
• Hackathons
• Social Innovation Camp
• Other code-related events (camps)
• Local Developers Meetups
• Someone from your own domain
• Someone you have already worked with

MVP

• Prototypes w/ Twitter Bootstrap / Foundation
• Landings
• Mailchimp subscriptions
• Focus Groups
• Surveys
• Social Media

Business Model Canvas

Team Management

that's a pain

• PM Tools: Asana, RedMine, PivotalTracker, etc.
• A certain structure in your team
• A strong synced team
• * Minimal Team

No cash?

• Use coffee shops
• Friends & Family (& Fools)
• Coworking Spaces
• Open Source, duh!
• Travel, people like you are everywhere.

What about the Product?

• Use MVP
• Validate your Product
• Research the Market
• Use Agile / Scrum, etc.
• Pivot, pivot, pivot! (learn to let go)

Mentality & Motivation

* This is just 1 fly ticket away (and 13h of flying)

So, how do we grow?

Lean Startup: BML

the BIG picture

Inception

• Startup Weekend (any)
• Generator
• Hackathon
• Social Innovation Camp

Grow

• Accelerators
• Incubators
• Alone

Shine

• On-your-own
• Investors: angels & VCs
• Grants (?)
• Expenssion 

Exit

• Sell
• IPO
• Merge & Acquisition
• Cash Cow
• Close

Tips

• Don't focus on Moldova (or any other country)
• You are not locked, it's an open world
• Learn, never stop learning, whether it's IT, design, concepts, ideas, non-technical stuff, news
• Stay informed (techcrunch, venturebeat, etc.)
• Be active & experiment
• You are your only limit
• Never settle (stay "hungry")

Questions?