Όταν έμαθα για την δημιουργία του Openfund πριν από ακριβώς 2 χρόνια, το αντιμετώπισα επιφυλακτικά. Σε αυτό ίσως να οφείλεται το γεγονός ότι εκείνη την περίοδο, δεν υπήρχε κανένας παρόμοιος οργανισμός και οι μόνες μου γνώσεις περιορίζονταν σε κείμενα που προέρχονταν από το εξωτερικό. Παρόλο που μετά από τόσα επενδυτικά rounds έχει γίνει πλέον μέρος και της Ελληνικής startup πραγματικότητας, οι επιφυλάξεις μου δεν είχαν φύγει τελείως.
Ήθελα να ακούσω τι έχουν να πουν αυτοί που έζησαν (και ζουν ακόμα) την εμπειρία του Openfund από μέσα. Αυτοί στους οποίους πίστεψε η ομάδα του Openfund και επένδυσε στην ιδέα τους. Επικοινώνησα με τον Γιώργο Τζιραλή (ένας εκ των ιδρυτών του Openfund) και μέσω αυτού ήρθα σε επαφή με τους founders. Τους έκανα κάποιες ερωτήσεις, μου απάντησαν και σας τις παραθέτω για να δείτε πώς είναι η επιχειρηματική ζωή με την βοήθεια του Openfund.
Συνέντευξη #1: Alexey Orap, Founder του YouScan.ru
www.away.gr: Can you give us some information about your educational and business background?
A. Orap: I've graduated from Kiev National University with specialization in Computer Science/Applied Math and few years ago graduated from Executive MBA program in one of Ukrainian business schools. I have 15 years of relevant work experience in technology industries, mostly in corporate environment (Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent, Yandex), and through my career held both technical and business roles in those companies. But I always felt I want to run my own projects, so I made first effort in 2005, when I've started outsourcing call center in Kiev together with business partners. I did not quit my corporate job back then, but with the launch of YouScan in late 2009 I realized I have to do it to fully dedicate myself to the the project.
www.away.gr: Tell us a few things about your startup and which problem are you trying to solve?
A. Orap: The fact of life is that consumers’ decision making today is very much influenced by negative and positive opinions about the brands, posted online by their peers or even complete strangers. Brand's image is not owned anymore by company’s marketing department, but rather by consumers themselves. Brands need to manage their online reputation in a systematic manner, which is only possible with the adequate automatization tools for collection and analysis of user opinions posted across the diverse social web channels.
YouScan helps them - it is social media monitoring tool, which collects mentions about brands in real-time from blogs, forums, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets. It also provides beautiful analytics like Share of Voice, Conversation Dynamics reports, Top Sources/Authors/Communities and other cool stuff, plus teamwork features (assignments, notes etc) which allow multiple users within client’s organization to collaborate and act on the important information.
Social media monitoring has many applications - marketing and PR are the most obvious, but also in customer support, lead generation, gathering consumer insights for product improvement and so on.
Our business model is SaaS, we sell monthly and annual subscriptions to the tool. We are also experimenting with some professional services on top of that, to give clients the thing called "The whole product" which they can easily apply to their business needs.
www.away.gr: When did you got funded from OpenFund? How these money help you develop your product?
A.Orap: First, myself and founding partners put initial investment to develop product prototype by autumn 2009. Then, we pitched OpenFund and after several project review stages had their positive decision at the end of their firsts applications round, in November 2009. With the OpenFund money in hands, we could kick start more serious product development, so we made first real sales by spring 2010 already.
www.away.gr: From the moment you got funded, until today, could you analyze the evolution of your product? Can you please give as a small “walkthrough” of these months?
A. Orap: We are practicing what Steve Blank calls "Customer development", developing product features according to clients' business needs. The problem of the firths months of development was, we were actually the first product of this type on the market in Russia and Ukraine, and the concept of social media monitoring was just surfacing in the minds of marketing people here. So we did not have very clear picture of their needs (in fact, our first clients could not communicate it very well), so we had to make some best guesses for what features they need or will need soon, just looking at more developed markets.
This resulted in few errors, when we realized we have to drop development of some features, which appeared to be too heavy and not that useful for clients as we expected. But fast forward 12 months, and right now our development plan is much more clear, as we understand clients' needs much better (and so do they).
We have quite mature product already actually, selling it to big international and Russian consumer brands like Procter & Gamble, Indesit, Aeroflot, Piraeus Bank, and also to major agencies including GfK, Mindshare and others.
www.away.gr: What do you think is the greatest advantage of the OpenFund (and other seed funds): Advisors, money or some other kind of help? (ie. networking, legal)
A. Orap: OpenFund helped us a lot when we were searching for business model, advise and expertise they brought in was really useful. They have provided us with some great contacts, real experts who shared their knowledge of SaaS business and monitoring industry in US. I'm really glad to work with the fund because this is what most of the startups need, not just cash in the bank to burn but "smart money" - networking and expertise the fund can provide. So I guess both, expertise and seed money, is the value we have from OpenFund.
I actually would recommend entrepreneurs to apply to the OpenFund even just to get their initial feedback on your idea, because you will get solid insights from industry experts and having it is great for early stage project.
www.away.gr: Are you satisfied with the OpenFund and its Advisors? If you could go back in time, would you change anything?
A. Orap: We are quite satisfied and looking forward to continue our cooperation. The only thing I miss a little bit is networking with founders from other projects funded by the OF, but I realize everyone is busy with their projects, just like myself. I would not change anything in the past because I've actually learned a lot about startup life during this time, so this experience is very much worth anything that could be improved in the hindsight.
Συνέντευξη #2: Miquel Ros, Founder του GourmetOrigins.com
www.away.gr: Can you give us some information about your educational and business background?
M. Ros: I am an Economics and Business Graduate, I did my undergraduate studies at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona (with a spell at Lausanne University in Switzerland, during an Erasmus exchange programme) and I completed my education in London, at the London School of Economics. I have also worked at the Spanish Commercial Office in The Netherlands, helping Spanish small and medium sized companies get a foothold in the Dutch market, and before starting GourmetOrigins.com I worked several years at Bloomberg, a major financial services and publishing company, in London, where I had the chance to participate in the development of new financial information products.
www.away.gr: Tell us a few things about your startup and which problem are you trying to solve?
M.Ros: GourmetOrigins.com is an online marketplace to purchase high quality and unique foods directly from the producer. With GourmetOrigins.com we are bridging the gap between small independent high quality food producers, for whom usually it is difficult to get into mainstream distribution channels, and consumers, that have come to value more and more in foods features such as uniqueness, provenance or authenticity.
www.away.gr: When did you got funded from OpenFund? How these money help you develop your product?
M.Ros: We participated in their startup competition in January and the investment materialized in April (when necessary paperwork was completed). This capital allows us to work full time on the development of our marketplace, which has speeded up considerably the development task and we have also been able to get contract out professionals in other key areas of expertise, such as design and legal advice, which has resulted in a more robust final product.
www.away.gr: From the moment you got funded, until today, could you analyze the evolution of your product? Can you please give as a small “walkthrough” of these months?
M.Ros: GourmetOrigins.com has its origins in a map-based online guide to quality foods that Alex Wareing, our technical director, and myself started in 2009, it was not a full time project at that time and we were simply gathering information on where different foods came from and posting it on an interactive Google map. The project kept growing as we were adding more features and more foods to our database. At the beginning of 2010 we got some capital from family and friends in order to make it a fully-fledged business project. We also started looking for seed capital money with the idea to make of GourmetOrigins.com a place where people could not only learn about great foods, but also purchase them. In the fall of 2010 we applied to The Openfund and they invited us to present in Athens. In the months since they decided to invest in us, they have also helped us refine our business plan and today they are actively mentoring us as we prepare to launch our quality foods marketplace.
www.away.gr: What do you think is the greatest advantage of the OpenFund (and other seed funds): Advisors, money or some other kind of help? (ie. networking, legal)
M.Ros: In addition to the financial support, the major contribution of the Openfund has been the support they provide in the shape of mentorship and experience. Having people on your side that have been there and done it before adds considerable value to the startup and increases your chances of success. The ongoing mentorship they provide is very helpful in the sense that it makes you focus on what is most important, in setting goals and in making sure these objectives are reached.
www.away.gr: Are you satisfied with the OpenFund and its Advisors? If you could go back in time, would you change anything?
M.Ros: We are very happy with the way our relationship with Openfund has been unfolding, I think it was a great decision to apply to their seed capital program.
www.away.gr: Is there anything else you would like to add about GourmetOrigins.com or Openfund?
M.Ros: If your readers in Greece visit the site now, they will notice that at the moment we do not have coverage in Greece, however, this is to change in the near future, we would like to add coverage of Greece as well as other European countries very soon!
Αυτά μας είπαν ο Alexey Orap και ο Miquel Ros. Μέχρι το τέλος της επόμενης εβδομάδας, θα υπάρχουν online κάποιες ακόμα συνεντεύξεις με founders που έχουν χρηματοδοτηθεί από το Openfund αλλά και του Γ. Τζιραλή. So, stay tuned..