The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

When CEE Startups & Investors Come to

Silicon Valley

Tytus Cytowski

Attorney

BITSPIRATION 2016

Warsaw, Poland

Twitter: @tcytowski

SILICON VALLEY

Physical Place & Business Culture

• NOT HBO SV SHOW MORE LIKE

THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY

• ALL ROADS LEAD TO SV IN THE

DIGITAL ECONOMY

• FUTURE IS WRITTEN

• HIGH CONCENTRATION OF IDEAS,

CAPITAL, PEOPLE

• COMPLEX SYSTEM BASED ON

STANDARIZATION & TRUST

SILICON VALLEY

Business Culture

• PROBLEM/SOLUTION METHOD

• IDENTIFY MARKET OPP

• IDENTIFY BEST CUSTOMER TO

TARGET

• SCALE SMALL BUSINESS INTO

GLOBAL COMPANY

THE GOOD

Homework DONE

• YOU NEED TO BE IN THE SV (Y/N)

• LISTENING (TO FEEDBACK)

• NO SECRET HANDSHAKE

• NO FORMULA FOR SUCCESS

• PRODUCT MARKET FIT

• ASK FOR HELP

• NO LIFETIME EMPLOYMENT

THE GOOD

Successful Entrepreneurs

• 4 KEY METRICS BEFORE

-Team, Traction, Investor, Idea

• EXPLORE SV/MAKE PLAN/EXECUTE

• IT’S THE CUSTOMERS/MENTORS NOT

THE FINANCING

• LEVERAGING ASSETS OF SV

• KISS

- Plan A vs. Plan B

- Cap Table Problem

THE GOOD

Don’t Forget

• BUILD NETWORK

• FOLLOW UP

• POWER OF THANK YOU

THE BAD

”CEE Syndrome”

• NOT BIG ENOUGH

- Only Unicorns, Centaurs,

- No Ponies Please!

• TOO LATE, TOO SLOW

• RULE BREAKING

• NO NETWORKING (NOTWORKING)

• RECOGNIZE VS. REPLICATE

- New Ideas Vs. Cloning/Looking For

Similarities or Patterns

- Product, Business, Company

THE BAD

It gets worse….

• WANTS ONLY MONEY

• NO DREAM

• NO FOMO

• NOT COMMITTED

• EXCUSES

- “SV is too hard; we should focus on EU”

- “We can’t replicate SV. Stay in Europe”

- “We don’t have the capital/entrepreneurs”

THE UGLY

Not bad, but ugly…

• NO GOAL/PLAN IN SV

- Parachute Approach

• NO PAY IT FORWARD

- Not qui pro quo

• INSULAR/GHETTO

• UNCOACHABLE

• NOT COMPETITIVE

• TRANSLATING REALITIES

UGLY

Ugliest….

• WANTS CONSTANT INTRODUCTIONS

THANK YOU!!!

Q&A

PS –

YOU ARE

THE GOOD, THE BETTER, THE

PRETTIEST