In late 2005, we published a list of Central European ‘companies to watch’ which you’ll find at the top of the nowEurope links page. The list consists of technology companies based in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. The main selection critera was the subjective opinion of the NETIES consortium team members in each of these countries.
It’s now time to review the list and consider whether those companies are still worth watching. And what better way than CoolSW, a new service launched by Intel which Wired Magazine describes as a DIGG for software companies.
The burning question: Are Central European software companies ‘cool’?
Continue reading ‘Is Central European software ‘cool’?’
Yesterday I sat down with Gabor Cseh, the former director of the IWIW project at Virgo Systems. Earlier this year, Gabor and his colleagues sold Hungary’s leading social networking site to T-Online for HUF 1b (about $4.3m). I’ve invited Gabor to speak at our next Entrepreneurship Forum at the Central European University (July 11) and I wanted to hear more about his story.
One point that intrigued me is that Virgo only sold T-Online the Hungarian-language rights to IWIW, meaning they can use the code to launch similar services in Hungary’s neighbors. Can Virgo make the magic happen twice?
Priceminister is a website that allows private individuals or professionals to buy and to sell to each other cultural and entertainment products. At start, Priceminister was only targeting cultural products (books, CDs, DVDs) but is now offering wider ranges of products, especially multimedia hardware. The specificity of Priceminister is that they have a database of “product sheets” (including the bar code or SBN code) which are continuously created by users themselves.
The advantages of e-trade services are numerous (no stock, no logistics, and no requirement for working capital). Nevertheless, because they only charge 15% on each transaction, Priceminister has to deal a very large volume of products and, for this reason, had to make an initial investment in marketing. As they did not have any personal assets and had already hired people, Priceminister?s partners sought for business angels’ assistance. Luckily, business angels were reactive and knew the sector very well so that they understood the logic of entrepreneurship and of their business.
Continue reading ‘Priceminister only financed by business angels’
One of my favorite resources is the Wikipedia - the world’s free encyclopedia, written by its readers. I suppose I must have discovered it about two years ago when I began to regularly notice it in the search results. You might well argue whether the Wikipedia is accurate (here’s the pro, here’s the con). Regardless, I find it incredibly useful and fun to browse.
One thing I like is that the Wikipedia is so comprehensive. While watching DVDs I will inevitably search for Wikipedia listings on the film, actors and so on. And to think it used to take so much effort to be a film buff.
This morning I discovered that the Hungarian-language version of the Wikipedia is also coming up to speed. Sitting at my favorite Buda-side cafe I got into a conversation with the waitress about the music she was playing. She wanted to know more about Dave Brubeck and I discovered a Hungarian-language page. Compare this to the English-language listing for Brubeck and you’ll see it’s not as detailed - but, hey, it will do for a start.
The Hungarian tech community is currently abuzz with the news that T-Online has purchased a local social networking site, IWIW, for EUR 4m. For some here, this feels a bit like the heady exuberance of the dotcom days. In fact, the success of IWIW has already inspired two imitators.
This news will certaintly provide encouragement to local tech entrepreneurs, and may be an important signal that the online ad market is beginning to mature. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons this deal is unlikely to create much in the way of long-term value. All the same, congratulations to Virgo Systems!
The good news is the IWIW deal signals that the Hungarian online ad industry is starting to matter. One reason T-Online paid the money was to acquire the advertising inventory. According to reports, IWIW attracts up to 400,000 visitors each day (although I can’t help wonder if those are actually visitor sessions). Another obvious reason is that T-Online wants to increase the value of their portfolio of websites.
The downside of this deal is that IWIW’s popularity is clearly a bubble. The service is primitive in comparison to international competitors such as LinkedIn and OpenBC (the latter is also available in Hungarian). Once a critical mass of users has connected to each other, there’s not much more for them to do unless T-Online is prepared to invest in expanding the service.
And that’s not likely. T-Online has neither the vision nor the will to further develop IWIW. Nor are there any clear models for commercializing such a service. The most sophisticated competitor, LinkedIn, now provides a number of useful services to job seekers, however the service is not yet profitable. Most notably, Google seems have to have given up development of its social networking service, Orkut.
The local tech community can take pride in the fact that IWIW’s valuation (EUR 4m) isn’t that far off from the sums being invested in similar US services - LinkedIn ($15m), Friendster ($13m), Spoke ($21m) and Tribe ($4.8).
I just read interesting news about development of productivity during 2005 - the ten new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe delivered a spectacular acceleration in labour productivity growth in 2005 according to The Conference Board’s annual analysis of global productivity trends, Performance 2006: Productivity, Employment and Income in the World’s Economies. On average, the EU’s new member states EU-10 increased labour productivity growth rate from 4.1% in 2004 to 6.2% in 2005. Most of the EU-10 showed an improvement in productivity growth but Poland (from 4.1 to 7.7%), Hungary (from 3.7 to 6.3%) and Slovakia (from 3.9 to 5.5%) registered the most marked increases. Remarkably, Poland’s productivity level is now higher than South Korea’s.
Continue reading ‘The highest productivity increase in Poland, Hungary and Slovakia’
When an entrepreneur succeeds to build, grow and sell a globally successful company, it can be called an extraordinary achievement. There is not many cases like that in the Central and Eastern Europe. If he or she succeeds to do it again, it makes him a star exceeding the dimensions of the region.
Recently we discussed here with Tarmo the Estonian team behind Kazaa (peer-to-peer system for sharing MP3 files) and Skype (acquired by eBay) that did it under Niklas Zennström (Swedish) and Janus Friis (Danish) management. I’m glad there is another success story, this time having roots in the Czech Republic.
Continue reading ‘Roman Stanek’s 2nd success story’
Ten Slovak SMEs have been included to last Central Europe Technology Fast 50. During last 6 years it is prepared by the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu . All mention Slovak companies are technology companies with high qualified human resources and which can fully profited on existing business potential in their region. During last 3-5 years, some of them increased own annual profit several times year-by-year. The most significant challenge for the future is for them to ensure further high technology development and creation of adequate company?s infrastructure aiming support its further economic growth.
Continue reading ‘Ten Slovak SMEs among the Central Europe Technology Fast 50′
We are still selecting promising biotechnology teams for free participation in the international coaching programme Bio Venture East. The goal is to enable biotech companies and research teams from the new members states a free participation in interactive workshops focused on business plan development and finding foreign partners and investors.
The third Venture Academy (after Warszaw and Budapest) will be held in Brno on the 2nd of November and you will have a chance to meet there experienced biotech entrepreneurs, consultants and investors. Next events are planned in Sofia (Bulgaria) and Zagreb (Croatia) early next year and nominations for biotech start-ups active in your country are certainly welcome.
Continue reading ‘Biotech sector in the Czech Republic, Brno, Nov 2′
On Tuesday I took part as a coach and moderator at Europe Unlimited’s Biotech Venture Academy, held here in Budapest. I attended the BVA in Warsaw in March, and offered my impressions about how well the format works. Hungary has a reputation as the region’s leader in biotech, so I was interested in comparing the quality of attendees at the two events.
The first thing I want to say about Budapest Biotech Venture Academy is that the quality of participation was high. The BVA format puts entrepreneurs in front of a group of business coaches to pitch their companies. The coaches offer their criticism and suggestions, and they work with each entrepreneur in a one-on-one meeting to improve the presentation.
Continue reading ‘The BVA comes to Budapest’
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