Back In Ljubljana

Comments (Archived):

1. Most int’l companies I have seen follow that model: R&D & product at home, sales & marketing in the US. But I have seen a very few lately who insist on everyone in home country. Their philosophy? Too easy for a disconnect between the people deciding the product, building the product, marketing the product, and selling the product. Downside? No one lives really close to the customer.Haven’t seen enough data points of the “everyone overseas together” to form a real opinion yet. Any thoughts?

   1. Don’t see how this can work without sales in the market country.Sales is a customer activity. Your feet need to be firmly on the markets turf.

      1. you don’t receive sales calls from call centers in India?

         1. Not from companies that care about my business.And this includes customer support. I simply won’t do business with companies that push my calls into a vortex.

            1. i’ve decided the vortex exists no matter where the customer call center (or person – I think southwest’s Customer service is actually out of individual homes

            2. I did a VP Talent Management search for a concierge company where all the customer service reps work from home — massive work force and a rapidly growing business. I love the concept because it opens up the potential for a workforce and provides jobs that would often be offshored.BTW, did you get my Edna text message? It was quite a story — my daughter and I trying to get this photo of a woman who looks like the real life Edna in order to send it to you.

            3. Nope, sorry didn’t get that text 🙁 Actually, edna is based on a real personhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wi…

      2. Hi Avi, our sales team is US based as we primarily sell to US firms, but to jason’s point, our sales team works with our support team, which is both in NY and Ljubljana, to troubleshoot and help our customers and we’ve found a good formula where it works.

   2. I think you need a founder in both places who are regularly going back and forth to provide the right level of communication and coordination between product and sales

2. BTW, nice to have you posting in the morning my time!

   1. I have heard of GMT Greenwich mean time…never heard of AMT…Avi mean time :-)Yes. I agree …it was good to see ‘our’ morning post at AVC.

      1. Hey, I am a nice guy, not “mean”! :-)So nice, in fact, that we can call it KMT (Kasi Mean Time), if you want.Besides, don’t they call it UTC = Universal Coordinated Time nowadays?

         1. ha…ha….I humbly accept the honor of KMT!!!

   2. i’m still yawning,… and where’s my breakfast?!

      1. In Ljubljana!

         1. then that would be cold porridge for lunch 🙁

   3. Where are you? I thought you were in NY.

      1. Nope. I live in Israel, but all of my work is North America-based. Hence my many different timezones.

         1. That’s the smart way to be global while local.

            1. It has its price, but it works. The Israeli start-up and tax scene needs to mature quite a bit before it’s worth my putting in the effort there.

            2. But it’s still the best ecosystem outside of the US, comparatively speaking. See my last blog post on SUM 🙂

            3. Yes, it definitely is. It has a long way to go, although having lived through the late 90s boom and the late 2000s boom, I see huge improvement.

3. Couldn’t agree more. Ljubljana is an amazing place to visit and often overlooked by the masses who travel to Europe (very much like some startups). What surprised me the most from my trip back in 2005 was just how developed their infrastructure was in comparison to surrounding countries (as you also noted in your other post). If you have the time/inclination, a trip out to Bovec definitely won’t disappoint and if you are up for it, the canyoning is guaranteed to get the heart pumping 😉

4. Made for America really works … Slingmedia’s slingbox was 100% designed and developed in bangalore just 2-blocks away from where i lived in bangalore.It works when a well-thought-out-product is in the making where there is less of pivoting. The disconnect and disagreement will bounce like a bear at the time of pivoting…development team can never understand why and why ….and will start asking …. what is wrong with the people of USA. That is when the challenge begins for the founder and investors.

   1. Fantastic insight.

   2. this is really brilliant – do you think there are ways around this?

5. Gorgeous photo! Glad that Plan B worked and you arrived safely and in a timely manner it seems, but I can’t imagine what is happening to your internal clock right now given yesterday’s travel adventures.One of the aspects I enjoy about AVC is to be able to follow along vicariously on your travels and this time even getting a peek at how Zemanta is functioning on different continents.I am greatly intrigued by the idea that a company no longer has to be completely subject to geographical restrictions in forming the team and that people can explore opportunities outside their immediate geography. I have experienced this with clients for most of my career, but in terms of job opportunities not so much. There is still a lot of resistance to the idea of geographically dispersed teams but I believe we will see this changing, especially as technology continues to make us more accessible to each other and as the right talent becomes harder to come by and companies have to become more flexible. I would love to be part of helping a company figure out how to have a thriving culture in a geographically dispersed environment.But even in dispersed arrangements, there is still great value to getting people in the same room from time to time and it is heartwarming to think of how affirming it must be to the “home team” that you made the trek.

   1. Where there are advantages there are always challenges.btw, r u also travelling donna?

      1. Because of my strange hours? No, Kasi, I just live this way.

         1. I used to be night owl during my last 2-years of my studies…literally…going tobed at 7.a.m and sleep until 3-4 p.m….those where strange years.btw, u deleted some part of your reply why?… 2-minutes ago i saw 2-paragraphs…worried about NSA 🙂

   2. Getting on a plane to meet the people you do business with is almost always the right thing to do.Doing a lot more Skype call with my Office Hours offering working pretty well.Skype is better than phone but nothing beats face-2-face if you can swing it.Trying to set up an office hours morning in Bryant park for the next month. Free Wifi, under a tree. What an office!

      1. how about much larger telepresence systemsAnd better be early – it is hot as hell in ny

         1. I’ve used them when I worked at large companies. Skype works as long as you can get face-2-face at times.Yup, hot. I start early…

      2. Indeed. A company I worked for purchased a company in Romania, probably 10 years or so ago, and of course the three founders (who lived in the US, quit as soon as their earnouts were done)While telecon’s, and Video meetings were essential, a continual onsite presence was also vital (which is how I learned that whenever someone came to visit, the “managers” would start an immediate crackdown of “the Americans are coming, you guys better work way harder than you normally do or they will come in here and fire you all”Suffice to say it was the managers, not the (already hardworking) employees that were let go ….

         1. I don’t believe that remote management works.Teams and leadership are all about people and you simply need to touch flesh and work together to make the times that you aren’t, work.Wonder why I have 4M AA miles;)

            1. Indeed, which is why you need to grow and mentor local managers (or move :)When you have a remote staff of 50 (that grows to over 300) then obviously local management is critical (we inherited some poor ones and some good ones, and unfortunately hired some poor ones — and good ones too)

            2. There are lots of ways to do this of course.For myself, I’ve always had senior staff on the ground, usually people that moved and took up residence there.I also found that how this worked depended on where we are talking about. Culturally when I’be done this in Asia and Europe they were different.

            3. Yes, it’s definitely ideal if you can do that.I was supposed to be that person but it’s rather tricky to leave the US for any length of time on a green card and be confident they will let you back in, so that didn’t work out so well.I don’t know if eventually they managed to get people to move there or not.

            4. I’m in year four of advising consulting work so culture may be shifting.I do mentor international teams via Skype but mentoring and managing are very different. The former works really well.

            5. Agree. Tried to relay that to a startup, and they didn’t get it. I do think that if the core of the mgmt team is in one place, and they have some remote workers it can work.

      3. Your office hours concept is intriguing to me. I meant to ask you about this when we met. I have been thinking about setting up a space in Santa Monica for this.

         1. We can talk.Most are Skype some are in person. Not doing calls.They are two one-hour sessions per month, some are every week.They are not management but mentoring from an advisory perspective. Focused. Time focused.They work.

6. Where is Zemanta incorporated?

   1. I think U.K. (their legal page says so).

      1. a safe jurisdiction for investing with confidence.

   2. London because of seedcamp but we are changing that to the US now. We wanted to wait to make sure it was worth the investment. It is now

      1. what’s the upside of moving Z from London to the US?

7. Hi Fred.Are you going to stop maybe in Germany again?

   1. Yup. In late Sept

8. http://www.zemanta.com/ …this link does not seem to work..

9. I love this example of global business cross-fertilization. Business crossess and connects the world. Beyond boundaries.

10. I’ll be there next week for a Celtra board meeting. Slovenia has some great entrepreneurs and dev talent.

    1. I heard you are going to stop by Zemanta and say hi

11. Getting to know people on their own turf on their own terms is priceless in any relationship.I have clients in Europe and showing up there is never convenient, always essential.BTW–reblogged your photo of the bike share there. Wonder if you could do a bike share Friday with pics of the community on bike shares wherever they are in the world. Honestly, have no idea how many there actually are.Safe travels. Drink Vitovska!(Information you didn’t ask for–>Kras/Carso is one of a few wine regions that spans two countries (Slovenia/Italy) and where the political boundary is somewhat arbitrary as the culture, the grapes, the language is all the same. Amazing spot!)

    1. There is little that can replace getting on a plane and seeing people in person. I have to admit…I’ve made a few hacks to flying that have me not minding it that much. I even welcome it to some extent…the phone stops ringing off the hook and I have more good thinking time.The hacks? Biggest one was centralizing my flying to one airline. Loyalty pays, and for me, it means accelerated security lines, boarding first so I never have to check bags and always getting great seats in exit row, economy comfort or a free first class upgrade.Plus the right equipment…a great well-organized backpack, a roll aboard suitcase and a MacBook Air with all-day battery. 🙂

       1. Yup….Loyalty programs for air and hotels do really work as comfort and efficiency are energy boosters.The other travel piece for me was exercise and working it into the cycle somehow.You’ve got to be both disciplined and healthy to get yourself into the time zone of where you are traveling to. Exercise helps me do that.

          1. Absolutely. A huge must. I’ve had to start doing it in the evenings or the hotel gym is busy and I don’t get it done.

             1. Work is a marathon for certain. Being in shape really helps.

       2. I get a lot of value out of my time on planes as well. Either good work time, or good downtime allowing myself to read things I typically don’t have time to — like fiction, and doing the crossword. But you are right — some hacks and routines and the right equipment make a difference.

    2. err, I need to relearn, but ok, i like the idea

    3. We drank a lot of Slovenian wine last night and I enjoyed all of it

       1. #envious

       2. Lots of good posts lately, Gadgeteer. Nice to see you’re back to your old self.

    4. “I have clients in Europe and showing up there is never convenient, always essential.”How does that work billing and cost wise? Who pays and under what circumstances? [1]I can see the value. Just curious as to the money transfer.[1] For example I can see how someone might have clients in Europe and want to travel there anyway so it’s a way to be able to deduct a trip cost, but I also can see a client paying for the travel obviously or simply covering it yourself if the opportunity is large enough.

       1. There is no one rule fits all.

          1. For me, this is discussed in creating the agreement (i.e., contract).

             1. Advisory and consulting economics are their own beast to tame.The only standard I have is Office Hours and its a small piece of my work.

       2. Generally, when I travel on a client’s behalf and/or at their request, the client reimburses travel expenses. If I do something for my own benefit on that trip — like stay an extra night, meet a friend for breakfast, court a prospective client, then I cover those costs, of course. Most of the time this is for a nationwide search for a senior enough position or one where culture and values fit are so significant that meeting personally is imperative.I have tried to convince my clients to do more recruiting in Hawaii to no avail.

          1. When doing that do you also meet with the spouse of person being hired and/or family?I would think that is important with regards to pinging for family life or impact and level of career supportiveness.To bad you don’t do medical doctor recruiting. All the conferences are in nice places. [1] You could attend one conference and come away with a large quantity of potential candidates. Actually you could probably find conferences in Hawaii (or St. John or any nice place) and do the same non-medical. So you work backwards.[1] I attend these with my wife. They are always in nice places and the best hotels.

             1. Good call, LE. I do meet the spouse for certain types of searches. I don’t really interview the spouse, but I observe the couple’s interaction and respectfully ask the spouse questions about the candidate. Body language of one when the other is talking is a huge signal. I also invite the spouse to ask me questions which tells me more than if I was asking questions.Even if I don’t meet the spouse, I encourage the client to do so for a senior level hire — just meeting casually for dinner.Anytime an offer involves relocation, I try to suss out the spouse’s perspective.

12. I think staying where you are and marketing into the world or the US is a lot easier than it used to be 4 years ago.If you have a strong team of developers and innovators outside the US where it’s generally a lot cheaper, why disrupt them? Keep them there, and build bridges to the US and where the markets are. That’s been the Israel model for many years.

    1. No question its easier. It’s still not trivial.The key is and always has been the team that spans the market and where the product gets built.

    2. Israel is really different – they had a strong connection to the US way before they went the way of startups

       1. True. India is similar. I just wrote about this http://startupmanagement.or…

          1. India is no way similar to Israel. No1 finances “products” here,VCs in India idolize Samwer brothers. From Alok Kejriwal, one of the only people from India who has created anything yet, http://ibnlive.in.com/news/…

             1. I was referring to the “Bridging” part where there are similarities. Not implying that the 2 countries are similar, but how they leverage resources and relationships across the ponds.I’m specifically referring to the IT outsourcing industry which is close to $100 billion now. That’s a lot of money going back to India and as you well know, that employs millions of people, and it’s a good thing. That is a strength that can spill into the startup ecosystem gradually.(you know I worked for Cognizant for a few years, and have been to several parts of India)

             2. at present everything in tech in india is about money, nothing else. no1 gives a rat’s ass about “relationships”. Read the last few paragraphs of the blog. Nothing similar with India n Isreal. Those guys have their own fighter jets!!! Indians take kickbacks when they purchase anything.

             3. Iive been negotiating with an Indian owned corporate in recent weeks. you are absolutely right. money is the only metric they recognize. it’s almost a psychological illness.

             4. while negotiating never use %s, they will talk to your competitor. If your talking about IT, they charge approx 1/2 the rate compared to the US companies. Pay the employees 1/10th. Use that metric, don use %s.

13. Come by Rijeka, there’ll be a great startup event there, http://rockpaperstartups.com/. There will be a lot of cool startups from this part of Europe attending, mine included 🙂

14. Love Slovenia. If you haven’t already visited, try to get to Lake Bled and Lake Bohinj if you can, Fred. Glorious.

    1. I am dying to. Can’t do that on this trip though

15. I have fond memories of my trip to Ljubljana 4 years ago. Such great hospitality. Honored to have served as Zemanta’s first US employee.

    1. Badge of Honor

    2. You drank their wine, and served your time 🙂

       1. Good wine…very good wine.

16. This is great. I hope one of these days you invest in France.

    1. I think he does constantly…by eating French food 🙂 I do the same. And French wine, deserts & cheese of course.

       1. A few more million like you guys and we’ll get unemployment back down below 10%. ;)Founder, Noospherehttp://noosphere.io/

          1. What does Noosphere do? How can we help?Maybe the AVC community can help get you users or visibility. In my experience, there’s an incredible amount of camaraderie and collegial helping each other here, even if you don’t ask. I’m sure you know.

             1. You guys are indeed awesome, and that’s why I’ve decided to come back more often.And sorry about the plug for my company, it’s my email signature. (I always respond to Disqus comments by email.)

             2. Don’t be sorry about marketing yourself or your company.

             3. don’t worry about it – these things happen

             4. I’ve missed you. Accueillir à nouveau!BTW, no apology needed, one of the most enjoyable things about AVC is learning about people’s businesses and work.

             5. For noosphere, a few ideas.a) get a presence in the US. An office, even a virtual office and phone number is better than being only in Paris.b) .io not a great idea. duplicate site content with a .com Not seeing the tie in to what they do with the name either.c) Pricing is in euros “€19/year”. No reason you can’t have a 2nd site which is just US based in USD. For that matter I would recommend to anyone to have sites dedicated to particular geographic areas. At the very least give $$ pricing that’s quick and easy. (Or Canada, or UK etc.) even if you are pricing in euros.d) Pricing seems to cheap compared to the value. No reason you can’t jack the price up to take advantage of corporate people with more money to spend. Perhaps add a “personal email consult level” at an additional cost [1] or private webcast, skype whatever. Would imagine just the questions people ask would be of value to your regular users as well.[1] In the past we’ve had products where we’ve offer email support and “phone support”. The phone support was charged at, say, $15 more per month. Some people (those spending OPM) gladly paid it. Instant revenue with no down side.

       2. time to roll out that weight gain post.

    2. I would love to. Just need to find the right thing

       1. Fred, this is the french blog to follow that chronicles the startup scene in France. It’s in English http://www.rudebaguette.com/

       2. Whitings, Paris-based just raised $30mil, but they included corporate VC’s.http://techcrunch.com/2013/…

    3. Did you see yesterday’s FT article about the French startup ecosystem?”French dreams of a start-up renaissance” -They highlight Criminal Case by Pretty Simple and Les Pigeons of course.http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/…

    4. Just saw this from Rude Baguette:French Government reforms will reduce 80% of administrative cost for companieshttp://www.rudebaguette.com…

17. how much have costs changed, compared to your comment 4 years ago that it was about half that of Italy?We are going to Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia in Sept/October, so will be reviewing your tips and those in these comments !

    1. The Slovenian economy is stragglingIf anything its gotten cheaperThey need more entrepreneurs to fix that

       1. Romania also is an excellent place for reasonable cost yet people that are well educated, speak good english and have good Software development skills.Hopefully they will manage to keep that up now they are going down the path of more freedom … definitely not an easy path to navigate but hopefully they will succeed

       2. The great economic answer. Entrepreneurs.(Personally, one of the reasons I am so bullish and want to pour my life into supporting entrepreneurship.)

18. This reminds me of a question I’ve wanted to ask for some time now.If you, Fred, were to stir a tech startup community in a location where there is virtually no signs of a community, how would you go about it?I would love to hear what the AVC community says about it.In any case, great write up, Zemanta seems like a cool company, have a great time there.

    1. The way Feld did it in BoulderHe wrote a book about it

19. Well, the word is out: The US Tech Startup model works, and all parts of the world are trying to replicate it. Paul Singh said it best:”You don’t have to be in Silicon Valley, but Silicon Valley has to be in you”I just wrote about this, Global Startups Should Build a Bridge to the U.S. market (pimping)http://startupmanagement.or…

20. It would be really interesting to hear how you think it’s changed since your 2009 post. There were a lot of comments on that one about the area’s potential and future.

21. We use Zemanta and couldn’t be happier with their product. I didn’t realize ‘homebase’ was in Slovenia, very cool!

22. Business travel is usually no fun – flying into a place, having back-to-back-meetings, flying back. One of my portfolio companies has operations in Shanghai and once a year we have a board meeting over there. It is a long flight so we all stay for 2 days. But it is probably the only time in the whole year when my business travel feels a bit special and I have a bit of time to soak in the city and a foreign country. So enjoy your trip to Slovenia.

    1. Thanks Boris. I had a wonderful 24 hours there. I am now on my way to Brussels for a business dinner

23. In 2007 part of my MBA studies was at the University of Economics in Slovakia Eastern Europe is a fascinating entrepreneurial environment. Our lectures revolved around the “velvet revolution” – transforming a state-owned economy into a private ownership economy without bloodshed.We also met with a young CEO trying to get an airline started, the managing director of DELL Eastern Europe, toured the Samsung Factory there and the brand new Audi/Volkswagen/Porsche plant.I also had a chance to present a short class on Entrepreneurship to law students in Prague.What fascinated me was the clean slate attitude – a generation of new entrepreneurs, who are witness to an amazing transformation, and are building the Eco-system from scratch.Glad to see USV on the ground and providing capital.

24. a bit off topic, but i have to work waaaay too hard to figure out what Zemanta does (and i know what Zemanta does – or did). Given how challenged many publishers and advertisers are in understanding the myriad of platforms out there, focusing on benefit is good, but explaining what it does first, better 🙂

    1. platform fatigue is unfortunately not connected to discovering solutions that really work.

    2. Good feedbackI will let them know

25. Slovenia is beautiful – country and people! Like you, I really appreciate and value interacting with overseas businesses – it’s truly a great way to wake up the mind and create new inspirations.