The document provides advice for entrepreneurs on the best time to start a business. Some key points include: - Great entrepreneurial talent can now be found globally due to increased access to venture capital and the internet which allows entrepreneurs to more easily scale their businesses worldwide. - The author, Anna Hejka, is a serial entrepreneur and investor who has founded and invested in several global companies. - The document outlines lessons learned around factors like timing, understanding the market and problem being solved, building the right product and team, fundraising processes, and management skills.

2. BEST TIME TO BE ENTREPRENEUR
 Great entrepreneurial talent can be found everywhere
 VC money has found its way into CEE
 Explosion of Internet gives entrepreneurs from anywhere
ability to scale everywhere, mobile gives speed & B-user
app stores quick monetization
Where you come from suddenly matters much less
than where you are scaling into

3. ANNA HEJKA
Global Leader for Tomorrow by World Economic Forum in Davos
for being serial entrepreneur on global scale
Business Angel of the Year 2009 by European Business Angel Association
12 years of PE/VC: Founder & Managing Partner Poland Growth Fund I, II, III,
MCI, Global Visions Fund
25 years of serial entrepreneurship: HCM, CEF, PGF, Five Dreams, GVF
27 years of investment banking: Founder & CEO Heyka Capital Markets
Group, Salomon Brothers/Citigroup, Security Pacific
3 years of commercial banking & credit analysis: Banking Officer JPMorgan
Chase

4. UNICORN NEST

5. GLOBAL ECO-SYSTEM
American Managing
Partners, mentors, trusted
VC funds & co-investors,
corporations & investors
French & German
Venture Partners
Polish investors, IC & board members,
mentors & operating partners
Pan-European & transatlantic partners
& mentors, IFC & World Bank
American / Polish
business angels &
crowdsourcing
Israeli trusted VC
funds and co-
investors
Global corporate network Technology incubatorsService organizations
Polish Managing Partner & financial institutions

7. GUARDING THE BIG IDEA

8. MARGINAL NICHE OR DERIVATIVE IDEA
Large/ Easy Value
Boring/ Difficult Benefit
• Change target group
• Refresh image
• Add funtions or
• Sell IP
Large/ Easy Value
Serious Benefit
• Get financing
• Build company
• Go to market
Insufficient Value
Boring/ Difficult Benefit
• Delay development
• Listen to beta testers or
• Sell IP
Insufficient Value
Serious Benefit
• Add funtions
• Change target group
• Find partner
Medicine

9. NOT/PROTECTING INTELECTUAL PROPERTY

10. NOT INCORPORATING EARLY

11. NOT HAVING THE RIGHT CO-FOUNDER

12. POOR HIRING

13. EXCESSIVE PERFECTIONISM VS. SIMPLICITY
Portfolio of publicly traded companies in global top 10 brands
has beaten average global stock index by 214% since 2009

14. TOO MANY APPS VS. MVP

15. NOT LISTENING TO CUSTOMERS

16. GETTING DISTRACTED BY FEEDBACK

17. LAUNCH DELARYED OR PREMATURE

18. RAISING TOO LITTLE MONEY/SPENDING TOO MUCH

19. OBSESSING ABOUT FUNDING

20. TRYING TO WIN OVER EVERYONE

21. RAISING TOO MUCH MONEY

22. NOT UNDERSTANDING THEMSELVES OR

23. … INVESTORS OR

24. … CHEMISTRY REQUIRED BETWEEN THEM

25. NOT DOING DUE DILIGENCE OF INVESTORS

26. POOR INVESTOR MANAGEMENT

27. NOT EMBRACING AGILITY

28. PREMATURE OR DELAYED SCALING

29. ASSUMING VIRALITY

30. SACRIFICING USERS FOR SUPPOSED PROFIT

31. LOSING FOCUS

32. HALF-HEARTED EFFORT

33. OBSTINACY

34. CHOOSING WRONG PLATFORM

35. BAD LOCATION

36. LESSONS LEARNT → MARKET
 Timing is critical, now also due to hiper-competition
 Size of potential market, perception of problem there &
number of potential competitors are critical
 Disruption is always met with skepticism (competitors),
users opened, investors mixed
 Speed of global growth requires greater funding: Cos with
B$ status founded b. 2003-2008 raised median of $168M,
after 2009, $248M

37. LESSONS LEARNT → PRODUCT & TEAM
 “...fall in love with problem you are solving, not solution you
are proposing.” Uri Levine, Waze (Israel)
 Your basic idea has to be strong enough to see you
through early versions of product not being good enough
 Be deeply & intimately passionate & creative
 Build great entrepreneurial teams, including local teams to
transcend local differences & tastes; motivate them

38. LESSONS LEARNT → PROCESS
 Best ideas are often in front of you, ideas that people think
are too simple or too obvious to work (Spotify)
 Invest your own money
 Launch domestically to demonstrate that product works,
then internationalize & go global
 Differentiate from competition, build scale & barriers to entry
 Focus on getting users & revenues but remember that
problems are compounded by rate of change

39. LESSONS LEARNT → MANAGEMENT
 Solve problems quickly
 Give your local teams power to control as much as possible
 Avoid cash shortages to make sure you can make land grab
for early market share
 If you can prove you can deploy capital well, it will work out
 Talk to inspiring leaders
 People need heroes

41. Source: Victor H