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Untold Stories Podcast

Untold Stories Podcast

BROCASTERZ // Untold Stories Conference

We believe founder stories are powerful, and we pride ourselves on having real, no-bs conversations to inspire and educate our community. Building off of our offline events, we developed this podcast with TechCamp Global to bring you untold stories from the region’s best founders year around. In each episode we try to uncover the details and hands-on tactics behind the founders’ successes, so you can skip their mistakes and benefit from their years of experience and lessons learned. Our hope is that you will be able to find new ways to accelerate your growth.

8 - Becoming Hungary’s first superangel - The Untold Story of Jared Schrieber
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  • 8 - Becoming Hungary’s first superangel - The Untold Story of Jared Schrieber

     #UntoldStoriesConference, #StartupEuropeNetworks, #startuphungary.io, #TechCampGlobal, #hungary.usembassy

    In the special episode we brought to you the Untold Story of Jared Schrieber - serial entrepreneur and angel investor directly from Silicon Valley. After unfolding his journey as a founder and CEO, he also shares his insights with us about the Hungarian startup ecosystem compared to his worldwide experiences.

    In 2011 Jared founded InfoScout, a marketing intelligence company providing household purchase information by item across all retailers. They went through every type of investment round, including a 2017 merger with Market Track whereby the 2 companies rebranded themselves as Numerator. After integrating the two companies, Jared stepped down from the company’s CEO position, moved to Hungary as a “love-refugee” and started focusing more on his angel investment activity. “I’m a little bit more of an early stage start-up guy, I think my strengths play to between 0-100 employees not between 100-1000...”

    Now he’s here to stay and to shake up the Hungarian startup world. His continuously growing portfolio of 25 angel investments has him well on his way to becoming Hungary’s first super angel.

    Hit the play button and dive into this extraordinary episode to find out how he grew InfoScout into a unicorn, how he sees the Hungarian startup world, and all the answers for these following questions:

    01.43 » How did his entrepreneurial journey start?

    04.23 » What was the origin story of InfoScout?

    07.20 » How did he overcome the initial struggles?

    08.42 » What was the importance of traction in the early years?

    10.17 » How were sales at the beginning?

    13.31 » What were the main milestones of the development of InfoScout?

    15.43 » What convinced him to say yes to a VC and how did this decision turn out?

    18.05 » What happened during the Series C venture round?

    22.04 » Why were the VCs sceptical about InfoScout?

    24.07 » Why did InfoScout merge with Market Track and how did it impact their day-to-day operations?

    26.30 » What was Jared’s role in Numerator after the merger and why did he decide to take a step back?

    27.45 » What happened to him and Numerator in the last 4 years?

    32.33 » When did he start his angel investing activity?

    33.13 » What was his first angel investment project and how did it turn out?

    34.36 » Have any of the companies he invested in failed?

    37.07 » How actively is he engaging with the companies he’s investing in?

    38.28 » In what VCs is he an LP as well?

    39.35 » What is the specialty focus of his angel activity?

    42.40 » What are the barriers in Hungary of becoming an angel investor?

    49.49 » Why is Hungary lacking later stage vehicles, and what other countries can be optimal role models for Hungary?

    51.33 » What are the elements of their model that we should adopt in Hungary?

    53.54 » How would he evaluate the quality of the early stage startups in Hungary, and how would he improve it?

    59.52 » Who writes first checks in Silicon Valley now?

    1.01.04 » What is his message for Hungarian founders?



    Tue, 15 Feb 2022 - 1h 01min
  • 7 - Building the future of drug discovery - The Untold Story of Turbine AI

    In the 7th episode of Untold Stories meet Szabolcs Nagy, the CEO and co-founder of Turbine AI Turbine AI is a simulation-driven drug discovery company, delivering targeted cancer therapies to targeted patient populations.

    The company’s origin story dates back to 2015 when Szabi with his business background completed the team of Kristóf, the machine learning engineer and Dani, the system biology expert. Out of their numerous business ideas, The Tripod (as they refer to themselves) decided to dedicate their work to the better understanding of complex cancer.

    “We can only do one thing right, and we need to do that one thing right.”

    Shortly after, they were already working with Bayer’s team in Berlin as they won the company’s G4A innovation program. In only half a year they managed to carry out their “killer experiment”, and came up with groundbreaking results even the company’s R&D team weren’t able to obtain in the past 5-10 years.

    “...we can actually predict how cancer cells behave and we can actually find novelty that they would not be able to identify otherwise...”

    In the following years the company got off the ground. From a service based model they pivoted into a drug discovery company, moved their base to the UK where the drug discovery ecosystem is more vivid, and raised 10 million euros during the pandemic from top-tier investors such as Accel Partners.

    Jump into the search for the Holy Grail of Biology with us, and explore the Untold Story of Turbine! Press play, and find out the answers for the following questions:

    <01.46>

    What made Szabi become an entrepreneur?

    <05.38>

    Why is the co-founding team of Turbine called “The Tripod”?

    <07.39>

    What is the origin story of Turbine and when did Szabi join it?

    <11.24>

    How was his transition to adjust to the biotech field?

    <13.59>

    How does product market fit and traction work in the biotech field?

    <16.50>

    How was it to participate in Bayer’s G4A Program Accelerator Program?

    <19.06>

    How did the early consultinglike projects shift overtime? What’s their current business model, and how did they get there?

    <28.14>

    What are the social aspects of their vision?

    <30.58>

    Other than Bayer, what other mentors had an impactful effect on Turbine?

    <35.53>

    How did they start their fundraising process?

    <41.49>

    How important is it to have a venture capitalist that really understands the company?

    <48.07>

    How many people do they have now, and how do they manage working in different locations?

    <50.41>

    After finding the right business model and the strategic direction, what other challenges did they have so far?

    <50.40>

    How does Szabi spend his time as a CEO?

    <56.33>

    What is his advice he wants to share with us?

    Thu, 02 Dec 2021 - 59min
  • 6 - A fresh take on documents - the Untold Story of Craft

    The 5th episode of the Untold Stories podcast follows the path of Bálint Orosz, CEO and founder of Craft Docs, an interactive note-taking app supporting writers and researchers with a frictionless sharing and collaboration platform.

    Since Craft’s launch in 2019, the startup has already secured an $8M Series A round investment led by Creandum and many ex-Skyscanner tech entrepreneurs. To understand how they reached this milestone, Bálint shares his journey from becoming an entrepreneur turning a hobby to a work project, through Skyscanner acquiring his agency startup focused on mobile technology to arriving to the decision to get back to the startup game with the daring goal of changing how people structure and write down their thoughts.

    “We like to work with curious people….we always want to see new ideas, we never believe we know anything. The more we know, the more we know oh my god, there's so much we do not know.” -This episode is not merely about presenting you with a company’s timeline to success, you can also learn about Bálint’s way of thinking about seizing opportunities, dealing with changes and learning from every situation along the way. Here are some of the questions you will find the answers to:

    <0.00>

    How did Bálint become an entrepreneur? What makes a good entrepreneur and are there certain personality traits one must have to succeed in this role?

    <03.57>

    How to gain visibility when starting out in a competing market such as mobile app development and what makes an app sustainable for the long run?

    <06.21>

    How to be relevant on a global scale? What led to their agency being acquired by Skyscanner? How to make the most out of a learning opportunity like this?

    <09.51>

    Is there a perfect time to sell a company? How do you know it is time for a change?

    <13.13>

    How did the transition period go? What are the roles founders have after a takeover?

    <20.00>

    How to shift from being a startup CEO to angel investor? What is Bálint’s perception on early startups and hopeful entrepreneurs?

    <29.50>

    What is the role of ‘inherent curiosity’ and safety in one’s becoming a good entrepreneur? What aspects have the biggest impact on being successful in the startup environment? How to narrow down focus and pick the right choices (as an investor)?

    <35.09>

    Early days of Craft - what happens when someone puts away the risk-averse conservative approach and goes all in? How was it for Bálint to get back in the game? What are the core values that Craft was built on?

    <41.00>

    2 week- and 2 year-plans - how does Craft design project management when execution speed & quality is a must in the crowded space they compete in? How coming up with new releases help grow customer loyalty?

    <46.47>

    How to choose the right people for a startup? Why could it be more important to focus on the company’s success than on ‘vanity metrics’?

    <50.45>

    How did Craft secure an investment and how did this help with their long-term goals? Is there more pressure in seeking out financing or already securing it and having to prove the company’s worth to investors?

    <57.25>

    What's next for Craft? Who should drive the innovation of a mobile app - the company or the users? How to shift away from being a product-focused company to being a distribution-focused one?

    <01.05.00>

    What advice would Bálint give to today’s fresh entrepreneurs? Why is it a mistake to focus on investment tiers?

    Thu, 02 Dec 2021 - 1h 06min
  • 5 - Rewriting the rules of publishing - The Untold Story of PublishDrive

    In episode 6 we dive into the Untold Story of PublishDrive, an innovative online book publishing platform for both indie authors and book publishers. Our guest, Kinga Jentetics, the company’s founder and CEO is here to share her inspiring story of turning an unmet need into a $1,5M company!

    In 2015 after having difficulties with publishing her master’s thesis, Kinga decided to create an easy-to-use e-book publishing platform. In the same year her persistent LinkedIn networking already led them to become one of the Apple Approved Aggregators.

    “That’s actually a real passion of ours, it’s in the company’s DNA that whenever we’d see a problem, we just went to solve it and we don’t stop until we do it.”

    In just a few years, after participating in the Startup Wise Guys program and the Google Accelerator program, PublishDrive grew from a Hungarian e-book distributor into an international company covering all aspects of the whole book-publishing scene. Other than e-books they also offer print-on-demand books and audiobooks followed by all kinds of functionalities, book marketing tools, analytics features and royalty management solutions.

    “Even during the pandemic when everyone was cutting all the development, and just focusing on keeping whatever they had, we came out with new things. Even I would say one of the biggest things that we had before, and I think that was already a good sign for most of the clients...”

    However, they had their most important launch on the very same day when Hungary was shutting down due to the pandemic, thanks to their new features and innovative relationship management they still managed to grow by an incredible 60% in last year.

    Hit the play button and follow along the growth of PublishDrive as well as Kinga’s journey as a female founder by the following questions:

    <0.49>

    What made her want to become an entrepreneur?

    <04.50>

    How did she find the right partners?

    <06.01>

    How did the initial e-book publishing platform become the PublishDrive we know today?

    <16.42>

    How does the technology work behind turning ebooks into audiobooks?

    <20.28>

    After starting off with distribution, how did they add all the following functionalities overtime?

    <25.48>

    How do they keep all the stakeholders satisfied? How do they prioritize the huge network they have to maintain?

    <29.51>

    What were their greatest results during the past few years?

    <32.25>

    Why did they change from the standard commission based business modul to the subscription model?

    <34.49>

    How long does the user typically stay with PublishDrive?

    <38.27>

    What are some of the big industry insights they uncovered based on their analytics?

    <44.53>

    What were the “big names” they wanted to win for their case?

    <48.48>

    When did they take on their first financing round and how did it go?

    <54.45>

    What was the biggest unexpected challenge Kinga had to face as a CEO?

    <58.24>

    What does the team structure of PublishDrive look like? How do they deal with remote work?

    <1:01:56>

    What is Kinga’s best advice for female founders?

    Thu, 02 Dec 2021 - 1h 07min
  • 4 - Culture first... - The Untold Story of Bitrise

    In episode 4, listen to the Untold Story of Bitrise, brought to you by the company’s CEO and co-founder Barnabás Birmacher. Bitrise helps clients build better mobile applications, sparing time and resources for clients, so instead of drowning in mundane details, they can focus on solving problems. Besides having a top-notch CI/CD process, Bitrise is also known for being the first and yet only Hungarian startup to be accepted to Y Combinator.

    This episode has so much to offer, especially about company culture and how to expand without losing touch with the founding values, so make sure you tune in and come along for this journey.

    ‘Culture in the beginning is actually how the founders are working… If you start hiring people, your culture is going to shift. From the beginning, just start thinking about this, how are we working, why are we going to win….’ - looking at successful startups, oftentimes we think success is mostly connected to how good their idea is. Barnabás explains how for Bitrise, company culture and a well-oiled feedback system is the backbone for their success. He explains how they kept on redefining their original idea based on feedback from paying customers, as well as mentors’ feedback.

    Participating in Y Combinator’s accelerator program would be a dream for many entrepreneurs, Barnabás shed some light on the most important thing Bitrise took away from this opportunity: ‘at this stage, as a scaleup you kind of have a playbook. You’ll need to build out the culture, you have to make sure you have good recruitment, you have really great people to help you scale…’

    This episode follows the story of Bitrise from early days of idea validation through product reiteration based on customer feedback to the rapid growth and expansion leading the company to raising $23.5 million and becoming one of the hottest Hungary-born startups today. If you are interested in the questions below, press play right away:

    - What can a CEO protect and nurture company culture? How involved a CEO should be after reaching a certain company size?
    - How to pivot when you realise your original startup idea will not work?
    - What can you learn from a world-famous startup accelerator program?
    - How to hire effectively not solely focusing on culture fit, but also culture add?
    - Feedback first culture - how to encourage people to properly give / receive useful, constructive feedback?
    - Shift to remote-first - how to decide, what is the right fit?
    - How did Ashton Kutcher, the tech-focused celebrity become one of the angel investors of the company?
    - What advice can Bitrise give to startups in the early stages?

    Thu, 02 Dec 2021 - 58min
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