nowEurope

The old Indextools website is gone. The new Yahoo! Analytics website is minimalistic, offering just the home page and a second page describing the features. That’s appropriate, because this incarnation of Indextools doesn’t have to sell. It’s Yahoo! And it’s free.

However, the technology behind the screens is still 100% Indextools. They probably have four or five times more server capacity, but the features are essentially the same ones I described on the original site. (Disclosure: I was the marketing director in 2004-2005.)

In the first part of this case study I described how Indextools minimized its weaknesses to compete with VC-funded US companies. This time around I’ll talk about how this scrappy Hungarian startup maximized its natural strengths to build a world class business.

Continue reading ‘Indextools: How to maximize your strengths (part two)’

Central Europe is full of long-haired academics who love to tinker in their university laboratories and workshops. Most of these guys wouldn’t know a business opportunity if it hit them on the head. Technology transfer is a public sector buzzword for funding projects to extract those ideas from the laboratory and develop real world businesses. The catch is that we don’t see too many examples yet.

The last dozen nowEurope posts have contributed to my understanding of Central Europe’s innovation dilemma, but I am not yet persuaded that technology transfer is not just wishful thinking. I found it useful to summarize where we stand in order to highlight what we still need to know.

Continue reading ‘CEE innovation: what we know so far’