Most people are looking for as many A’s as possible in any rating score. I’m pretty happy here, in Timișoara, having a special triple B. True, it’s not a rating. It holds the initials of Bucharest, Belgrade and Budapest, the three capital cities, geographically speaking, most relevant to us.

Bucharest (560 km away, Romania’s capital city) is the place we primarily compare Timișoara to, as an IT entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Belgrade (Serbia, 160 km away) is a city where the Internet represents an instrument and an art of personal and community freedom, as a widely assumed means of expression, theorized and practised in events like the recently (April 26^th-28^th) held the second edition of Share Conference, attended by a considerable number of our Timișoara friends.

Budapest (Hungary, 290 km away) is the location where one (a lucky one, like me this Wednesday) can join a crowd of about 250 locals interested in entrepreneurship, in a two-hour celebration (plus the party afterwards) of the three most successful startups in Hungary. It was a storytelling happening featuring Prezi, the zooming presentation company (3 year old, 10M+ users, an impressive 1M+ new monthly users, and 15M USD investment), Ustream (6 year old, global leader in live and interactive video streaming, 60M USD investment) and LogMeIn (9 year old provider of SaaS remote access, support and collaboration solutions, connecting 11M active users to more than 125M devices, with a stock exchange capitalization close to 1 billion USD).

The co-founders of the 3 startups (Peter Arvai, Peter Halacsy, Adam Somlai-Fischer of Prezi, Gyula Fehér of Ustream and Marton Anka of LogMeIn) were joined on stage by Andrew Braccia – Accel Partners and Christian Jepsen – Sunstone Capitals, early stage investors in Prezi. The event was actually a no-powerpoint, but also a no-prezi discussion on the three featured startups’ odysseys, with the tough decisions, high hurdles and rewarding surprises occuring all along from day one – when the idea was born – up to the present, when transcontinental teams, multimillion budgets, VC-named boards, piles of servers and technology gear make the everyday life of the enthusiastic entrepreneurs.

I’ll let you take a look at the event video after I extract one sentence by Peter Arvai: „One of the things we should work on together is share the [success] stories with people, because, if we start doing that, I am convinced that everyone in the region will understand what an amazing potential there is here!”.

For those interested to start watching more closely the Budapest IT startup scene, I would like to recommend an interview in Startupeuvents.com by professor Peter Zaboji, an outstanding entrepreneurship expert I’ve got into contact with several years ago, via XING, and finally met at the event on Wednesday.

I think the best option for Timișoara is to act as a connecting piece between its surrounding B’s. Timisoara Software Business Incubator is currently planning specific activities in this direction. Stay connected, we’ll be announcing details soon!

Radu is a great supporter of entrepreneurship. He is currently the coordinator of ecabit Eastern European and Central Asian Business Incubators and Technology Parks Network and a certified trainer in business incubation at infoDev. He is the founder of Mobile Monday Timișoara, a curator at Startup Chart Romania, the founder and organizer of the Timișoara Mobile Development Group, the ambassador for Timișoara/West Romania at XING and the director of Timișoara Software Business Incubator.

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Related articles

• HTW2011 videos: Adam Fischer – Prezi, the language of writing in space (how-to-web.net)
• Interview with Adam Somlai-Fischer, Prezi founder (how-to-web.net)
• With A Talent War In The Valley, Perhaps Romania Has The Answers? (techcrunch.com)

Spring and the wind of change bring a bunch of events and happenings on the startup scene in Cluj. We had Arena Leilor, Startup Weekend Cluj and School for Startups – and more upcoming.

Beware of the lions

Arena Leilor Tour was in Cluj on March 6 at City Plaza and we had Peter Barta, Marius Ghenea and Dragos Atanasiu teaching us about entrepreneurial education, what’s important when pitching an investor and the expectations entrepreneurs and investors have, when being pitched with ideas and business plans and asked for funding. The tour was organised to select the best projects in the country to be showcased in the new season of Arena Leilor, which will air on TVR2.
The “Lions” concluded that people are inventive, talkative and they somehow lack a sense of reality when talking about business, but they are willing to listen and learn.

Out of love for startups

In February 17-19, we had Startup Weekend Cluj under the tagline: ‘We love startups. No talk, all action. Launch a startup in 54 hours.’

The numbers: 90 attendees, 24 ideas pitched, 11 teams formed, 6 sponsors, 12 mentors, 246 Red Bull’s, 9 kg of chocolate.

The winners:

• 1st Place: Use together – a club in which you can share, give away or swap personal possessions with other members for free;

• 2nd Place: Posy – an online POS/Menu System — “Point of Sales”;

• 3rd Place: Marmo Ad – Online marketplace for offline ad space.

A month after the event, we are glad to find out that the entrepreneurial flame is still burning.  We spoke with the teams and 8 out of the 11 teams are working to continue the project, 2 have the startup in backlog, and a project was killed.

We’ll follow up with the emerging teams and let you know about their evolution – and hope to showcase their future public launch.

Back to school

School for Startups, the only entrepreneurial school developed in Romania, will continue to educate entrepreneurs in 2012 in three cities: Bucharest, Cluj and Timisoara. Registrations are now closed and the Bootcamps are in progress; in Cluj we’ll have:

• Bootcamp: Social Media & E-Commerce, with Andrew Davis si James Dening, on April 23
• Bootcamp: Partnering, Channels and Human Resources, with David Roberts and Ken Richard, on May 28
• Bootcamp: Investment & Pitching, with Doug Richard, on November 19-20

If you’re on the way to becoming an entrepreneur, School for Startups is a must go. I’ll surely apply when I’ll cook my idea for a startup in my head. For next year, registration will open during this autumn, so stay tuned.

Coffee with Startups

Startup enthusiasts in Cluj meet weekly at Open Coffee, at La Margelatu’ Caffe, every Wednesday from 6 PM. Country managers, online and offline entrepreneurs, developers with pet projects, communications&marketing specialists and investors with entrepreneurial spirit share stories and ideas over a cup of coffee. If you’re visiting Cluj and would like to join, drop an email to Marius Mocian (marius@mocian.com). Anyone is welcome and if you’d like to meet, say, iPhone developers or gaming entrepreneurs, drop a line or a tweet to Marius and he can help you.

Startup Live in Cluj-Napoca

During the first weekend of April, JADE Romania with the support of Theory and Practice Consult and in collaboration with STARTeurope organized Startup Live Cluj-Napoca, the first Startup Live event in Romania.

The goal of the event was to bring together students and professionals, all of them young people with entrepreneurial vision, offer them the chance to work in a dynamic and creative environment and give them the opportunity to go from idea to launch in just one weekend.

The organizers hope that Startup Live Cluj-Napoca is one step forward in making people realize that their ideas have no value if they don’t try to implement them and that if those ideas are great, they will find the support needed in the local community.

Who says that nothing happens in Cluj?
Evidently, there’s room for more. And there are many hidden startup gems, too. You’ll surely find about them.

Oana has worked in the IT industry for the last 3 years, from marketing, customer care to operations management. During this time she addressed both B2B and B2C communications which gave her the opportunity to learn about management, fostering successful client relationships, professionalism and team work. She has also been involved in a few startups, both in online, mobile and offline. She is fascinated by the positive impact entrepreneurs have in the world and is passionate about growing the Romanian startups communities.

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Related articles

• Interview with Marius Ghenea – “The biggest mistake I have seen is not recognizing the importance of an excellent team.” (how-to-web.net)
• About Startup Weekend Cluj Napoca with Vlad Ciurca (eastist.com)

Developed by Florin Cornianu and Tudor Bastea, 123contactform isn’t exactly swimming in clear waters. With competitors like Google Forms or SurveyMonkey, it’s not easy to develop a new product and gain your share of the market. We believe 123ContactForm’s experience is full of valuable take-aways, so we had a chat with Florin Cornianu about how they made their way through the crowded market of web forms.

So how crowded is this crowded market?

123ContactForm was launched in 2008, a time when Google Forms and Survey Monkey were already on the market. Even Wufoo was launched about the same time as 123ContactForm.  The market for web forms is huge. Take only the fact that at the beginning of last year SurveyMonkey was acquiring WuFoo and other similar businesses after having raised no less than $100mil.

How did this feel back in 2008 for the 123ContactForm founders? Did they start by making an analysis of the market? “We were watching some competitors, but we didn’t create a thorough analysis. The fact that we already had those kinds of competitors didn’t scare us, maybe because we were a bit ignorant. We already had the experience of other software products creating revenue despite being in the same market with big names. In the end, there’s room for everybody“, said Florin.

Further on, let’s go through some steps that helped 123ContactFrom and might be a good idea for you to follow.

#1. Build a community around a need

The 123ContactForm product was mainly built on customer feedback and suggestions. How did it gain a trustworthy share of users and how do they choose which suggestions to follow? Florin says they started their user-base through “marketing with 0 (zero) budget – forums, articles and especially SEO. We were mostly trying to make sure the people we listened to were those who also paid for our services. But seriously speaking, we tried to fulfill a wide variety of clients’ needs. Unfortunately, you can’t help them all. This is a specific of a “form building” service.”

#2. Build the product your community needs

So how do you develop the product and how do you differentiate yourself from the competition?  “We always listened to what our existing customers were saying or asking for. There are a number of features that set us apart from the competition, but the products are way too complex to stress those out. There’s one thing that surely sets us apart: the kangaroo! “.

Were they tempted to sneak a peek at the competition and copy successful features? “Oh yes, we were tempted. And we did! Sometimes we adopted what seemed interesting and doable. Some features have been implemented throughout the years; some are on their way to implementation in the present“.

#3. Use non-traditional marketing channels

Earlier, Florin told us that they acquired their first users through “marketing with 0(zero) budget – forums, articles and especially SEO“. Asked about the methods of customer acquisition used from that moment on, he said: “Still, we keep on SEO. We try to spread the word through articles and guest posts. In general, Google and Facebook are at top of the list when it comes to visitors sources. For a change, we tried Adwords and BuySellAds – that didn’t work“. Why didn’t they work? “Negative ROI. We didn’t get enough conversions to make it profitable”. That’s one downside of having big competitors. They’ve already taken over and super optimized the traditional marketing channels.

#4. Increase word of mouth

One more thing you can do to boost up your name and get more customers is making sure the existing ones spread the word. How does 123ContactFrom work on this matter? “We keep our customers as happy as possible. A happy and satisfied customer will tell his friends. We have live support chat and we try to solve any support ticket in under an hour.”

So there you have it! 123ContactForm’s “recipe” of making it through a crowded market. A recipe that has proven to be very efficient to this day. If you have another take on this matter, please do share!

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One of the international speakers present at this edition is Andreea Provaglio, an IT professional with over 20 years in the industry and an experienced conference speaker. In the present, his activity is focused on the adoption of Agile and Lean methodologies like Scrum, Kanban or Extreme programming, the development of social skills in teams and organizations and coaching on software development in Java/J3EE.

One interesting thing on the event’s agenda is the Open Space session, which allows participants to present or propose discussion themes. The participants are encouraged to use the “two feet” rule: “if you feel you’re in a situation where you’re not learning anything new and where you can’t contribute with anything, use your two feet to move on to another discussion”.

For more info on the speakers, the event’s agenda and registration, go to www.openagile.ro. And if you’re missing the Iași conference, keep an eye on OpenAgile Romania, as future editions of the conference will take place in other cities of Romania as well, later this year!

How to Web is a media partner for the OpenAgile conference, organized by AgileWorks, the Agile Community in Romania and MozaicWorks.

DevWorld aims to share the latest technologies and apps, and to identify the most innovative projects in web programming, in an interactive approach both for desktop and for mobile platforms, in 3 main tracks:

• Web Programming Languages for the desktop: PHP, Java, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, .Net, SQL, Ruby, ActionScript, Python
•  Frameworks/CMS - WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, CMSMS,  CodeIgniter, Cake PHP, Kohana, Symfony, Rails (Ruby)
•  Mobile Platforms - OSs: Android, iOS (iPhone), Windows Phone, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, Bada

The speakers list includes names like Patrick Bosteels – CEO and co-founder of TCS Digital World, Gabriel Marin – CEO of Omnilogic or Marius Hanganu – founder of Tremend Software Consulting.

The novelty of the 3rd edition is the “My idea” section, which offers participants the chance to present their idea in front of an audience of IT experts. The most appreciated presentations will be rewarded with hardware prizes and the best will be financed by the sponsors.

Check out the DevWorld website for more info, registration and My Idea applications.

How to Web is a media partner for DevWorld.

Related articles

• Balkan Venture Forum – Skopje, April 18th and 19th 2012 (how-to-web.net)

This looks very much like another success Romanian startup story in the making. So we wanted to take some time to find out what the Nexi journey has been so far. This way, we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed and placing our bets about their future with the exact facts at hand. Read on for the Nexi story, told by Cristian Andreica, who founded Nexi together with Ciprian Mardare.

How to Web: Tell us about “the birth” of Nexi. How did you get the idea, how has it evolved so far?
Cristi Andreica: We started working on the idea of referral recruiting on August, 2011. We were in a board meeting at Balaur.ro, together with Alexandru Ghise (CEO) and Alexandre Almajeanu (investor), and decided we should approach the recruiting market from a different angle than a job search engine.

The first thing that crossed our minds was to build a prototype for Romania. In about one month and a half, we had Nexi.ro ready for launch. Basically, we were offering a public referral platform that would help users to refer their friends for the available jobs. We quickly gathered about 80 accounts and about 18.000 resumes.

We spent some time to contact and meet HR managers from companies here in Romania, in order to get feedback about the product and get them involved into using it. Over 15 recruiters kept telling us that they value referrals brought by their own employees a lot more that those from outside, so we switched to internal referrals.

At the beginning of Octomber 2011, we took development from ground and started working on a private referral system that would allow only the employees to refer candidates. In November, we had a prototype ready for HTW Startup Challenge and Netcamp StartupNow competition.

How to Web: How did you and Ciprian get together and decide to go into this?
Cristi Andreica: We met in college and started working together on several projects. For about 9 months, we were involved in Balaur.ro. Attended Yahoo Open Hack in May 2011. We managed to work together really well under pressure and Nexi seemed a great way to keep doing that.

How to Web: Tell us a few words about your product. What problem are you solving, what market ar you addressing?
Cristi Andreica: Nexi helps companies find top talents through their employees’ social networks.

As you probably know, more than 30% of the hires are made through successful referrals. But recruiters have a hard time getting employees to refer and making them involved in the process. So they end up having to scan the entire network of their employees in order to find the perfect candidates.

Nexi makes it really easy for employees to refer by sending them a shortlist with the best candidates. All referrals are sent to the company account, where the recruiter is helped to choose the right one.

How to Web: We’ve seen you compete in the How to Web Startup Challenge, we’ve seen you pitch Borris Wertz at the Bucharest GrowLab event. How has this road been so far?
Cristi Andreica: HTW was a great way to get out in front of the online community and connect with a lot of interesting people. Actually, Ciprian met James Digby (cofounder Rockstart) at the party after the event. James encouraged us to apply and here we are.

We met Borris Wertz at Bucharest Hubb and we had the application ready for Growlab. In between, we also sent our application for Springboard, Rockstart and IOVentures. Rockstart felt like the perfect match.

How to Web: Tell us about the Rockstart application process. What happened between your application and their “we want you”?
Cristi Andreica: We had to fill an online form with basic information about us and our startup. As an advice for teams who want to apply in the future, the information should be clear and concise, no bullshit. Put some numbers to reflect the achievement or failure of things.

On the second phase we were asked to record 3 videos about ourselves, have 3 Skype calls with the Rockstart team and fill a multiple-choice personality test. It’s really important for them to figure out if they can work with you or not. There has to be some sort of match between their beliefs and yours. I think this happens in every circle.

For the last phase, we had to pitch in front of Rockstart selection committee in Amsterdam. We got the chance to meet them and the other teams still in the race. We got a Skype call just a few days later and we received the great news: we’re in.

How to Web: When will you be moving to Amsterdam? What’ll happen from now on?
Cristi Andreica: We should be in Amsterdam just a few days before the program starts (23rd of March). For the following 3 months, we’ll challenge our assumptions and continue building the product with the Rockstart team and great advisors from Europe and US.

You can find more details about the schedule and major activities here.

For us, the road is pretty much clear now. We want the get the most out of Rockstart and grow our startup like never before.

Related articles

• Rockstart accelerator – just a few more days for applications! (how-to-web.net)
• A chat with Boris Wertz, investor and founder of the GrowLab accelerator (how-to-web.net)
• Speak League: Practice a foreign language with people who share your interests (how-to-web.net)

The event’s agenda is filled with panels, pitches and reverse pitches - that is, investors presenting themselves
, offering startups the opportunity to wisely chose who to approach. The Balkan Venture Forum also hosts an Innovation fair, taking place during the whole period of the event. And of course, networking time and parties are also on the agenda.

What does the Balkan Venture Forum bring new to the Balkanic tech scene?

Eastern Europe hasn’t been the best place for tech startups. We’re still looking with envy towards regions like the Silicon Valley or Western Europe. But things are definitely moving in the right direction in EE too. What does the Balkan Venture Forum bring new to help the growth of the area? “The BkVF is at its core a regional event for promoting investment in tech innovation. Perhaps it is the only Balkan event with such a general focus, which is its great challenge but also its greatest value. The whole Balkans is lagging behind with its startup and investment eco-system. Its countries rarely have the infrastructure or the critical mass to make significant progress and keep up with the global developments. So it is natural that we join together our knowhow, connections and potential. On the other hand, this potential attracts the top world-class stakeholders such as investors, accelerators, enthusiasts… All in all, the value created is exponential. And best of all, we are spinning it into a regional orbit, so each year a different city will host it. To me it sounds like a lot of fun and opportunities“, says Aleksandar Tasev – entrepreneur and investor, initiator of Balkan Venture Forum.

The BkVF competition – destined to startups in all stages of development

If you’re a startup in the area, you should definitely consider participating in the Company pitching competition, offering you the opportunity to deliver a pitch in front of the vast range of personalities that the BkVF brings together. “The criteria for getting accepted in the pitching competition and in the competition itself, do not exclude by the stage a company is in. Certainly having customers helps, but the risk or lack in one category (eg. early stage) can be compensated in the other criteria(eq. technical merit, patent, market potential, team, etc.) and vice versa. This is not coincidental, since the array of investors varies from accelerators(Rockstart) to large growth funds (Intel Capital). We encourage any ambitious and agile tech companies which believe they have a strong business case, to apply for the official competition no later than 12.03.2012“.

Looking at the overview of the conference, this looks like a great event, creating great value for the Eastern European tech scene. But, take it from people with a bit of experience organizing a similar event, it also means tons of work. We know what motivates us, and we were curious what Aleksandar’s motivation for it was. Here’s his opinion: “ My involvement in funding tech startups and determination to continue being a serial entrepreneur in a region that is not so welcoming to tech innovation, has motivated me to do something to improve the system. It presents another entrepreneurial challenge to me, but perhaps with greater personal motivation because of the social impact that we are hoping to achieve. We have the vision how it should be, the method how we will achieve it, and most importantly the good people who want to bring it about.

We are lucky that a team of wonderful people from the whole Balkan region and further, have mobilized within the initiative, which also makes it great fun. It is a privilege to work with brilliant, progressive and kind people in changing the status quo. Did I mention that it is also a fun roller-coaster ride? “. Oh yeah Aleksandar, talk about roller-coasters!

So guys, hope to see as many of you in Skopje! And I personally hope to soon be writing about the great deals you made as a consequence!

How to Web is a media partner for Balkan Venture Forum.

Related articles

• A chat with Boris Wertz, investor and founder of the GrowLab accelerator (how-to-web.net)

Conceived as a one-year program, School for Startups offers the help and support a startup needs in the initial phase of the business, which is said to be the most failure-prone. You will receive lessons, advises and guidance from the three renowned mentors (Doug Richard, Marius Ghenea and Peter Barta) and from the awesome guests speakers (Alexandra Samuel, James Dening, David Roberts, Ken Richard and Andrew Davis).

Find out more about the program from the School for Startups Romania website. And if this fits your needs, hurry! The application deadline for the 2012 program is March, the 1st!

Oh, and here’s a great promo video, featuring Doug Richard talking about some of the vital questions an entrepreneur must answer in order to build a successful 21st century business.

During the “Acelerate your startup with GrowLab” event, local startups were offered the opportunity to deliver 1-minute pitches and receive Boris’s feedback. We were more than happy to help organize the event and we couldn’t miss out on having a little chat with Boris about his experience and interest in startups.

What’s the best strategy when delivering a 1-minute pitch? Does it matter where you come from?

It’s not rare that startups are offered a short time-spot to present their idea. When you have 60 seconds to talk about your startup, what pieces of info are crucial? What best catches an investor’s attention? “If you only have a minute to pitch, your pitch should focus on only 2 things: the entrepreneurs behind the idea (what have you done in the past that is relevant for the success of this venture?) and a high-level overview of the business including the problem you are solving, how you solve it and the long-term vision you have for it.” Asked about what common mistakes he noticed during the pitches he heard in Bucharest, he said: ”One of the mistakes at the Bucharest pitching sessions was that the entrepreneurs rarely talked enough about themselves and their talents. The other improvement potential was usually a lack of understanding what actual problem they solved.”

I think it’s safe to wonder if the cultural backgrounds and life experiences lead to similar attributes or attitudes for startups coming from the same region of the world. When you’re running an accelerator, you get in contact with teams from various parts of the world, so I thought Boris had an advised point of view: ”Good teams show interestingly enough the same characteristics independent from where they come: great technical and design skills, a clear vision of what they want to build, a very detailed understanding of the market they are in, a willingness to “hang in there” for a long time to make it work and an incredible work ethic.”

How important is the initial idea? What’s the entrepreneurial “dream team”?

We keep hearing that the idea is far from being the most important part of a startup. And looking back at the courses successful startups took, we often see them pivoting at least once. In this case, you can’t help but wonder, how important is it really to have a great idea when you apply for an accelerator? How is the initial idea relevant for a potential accelerator acceptance?  ”It is pretty common for teams to “pivot” their ideas, especially at such an early-stage: 2 out of the 5 teams in the last GrowLab cohort changed their business and product during the program. This is also why we at GrowLab rather look at the entrepreneurial and technical raw talent behind a team than the idea itself when people apply to our accelerator.”

I’ve heard a “solitary” entrepreneur saying that he once got a “definitely not investing in a one person startup” from an investor. I was curious to know what Boris’s take was on this. ”I personally have backed sole entrepreneurs in the past but it is not the ideal situation (and GrowLab tends to not do it) – the path to a successful start-up is a long and hard one so you significantly increase your chances if you have partners helping you along the way. A founder dream team is usually made up of people that truly respect each other and have complementary skills.”

Looking for an investor? In need for an accelerator?

If you’re looking for an investor and wondering if Boris is one of the guys you should try approaching, it’s useful to know that he usually invests in 3 areas: consumer internet (especially models that show a strong network effect), Software as a Service (SaaS) and mobile, but he sometimes likes to “take a bet on an exceptionally talented team that works on a really interesting problem”.

In the end, Boris had some very kind words to say about Bucharest: ”It was my first time in Bucharest and I was stunned how beautiful the city is. Bucharest seems to have a small but rapidly growing start-up community, tons of technical talent and some really smart entrepreneurs. Will hopefully be back soon.“

PS. Applications for the GrowLab Spring program are open until the 19^th of March.

So what is Rockstart Accelerator? 

Rockstart is a European accelerator based in Amsterdam that comes with a great offer. Attending teams will have access to seed investment of €15k, 6 months of office space, a lineup of 99 mentors and coaching by entrepreneurs in house. The startups will also be going on a 3-week trip to Silicon Valley where they will meet serial entrepreneurs, pitch to investors and VCs, visit 500startups’ hub and co-work at Google campus for several days.

Back to the mentors…

Great names on the advisors and mentors list! You can check out the whole list for yourselves, but let’s just name a few:
- Werner Vogels – CTO and VP at Amazon.com and the visionary behind Amazon Web Services
- Dave Kochbeck – Former CTO of Friendster; CTO and founder of AtomicPass
- Arthur A. van Hoff – CTO at Flipboard
- Dees Chinniah – Firestarter at Mozilla, the makers of Firefox
- Patrick Vlaskovits – Entrepreneur and author of The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development: A Cheat Sheet to the Four Steps to the Epiphan
- Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten – Serial entrepreneur & Founder of The Next Web

Applications for Rockstart accelerator are open for teams from all over Europe, until January 31st. Check out the full agenda of the program. So, European awesome startups, if you were looking for a great accelerator not that far away from home, Rockstart accelerator is definitely an option for you!