Last Friday, I was at the 2nd Web.Start conference organized by Initium in Zagreb (Croatia).
Like last year, the two main themes were technology and business.
Although I only attended the biz part (day two), there was a lot of opportunity to meet interesting techies, entrepreneurs and VC’s active in this region - and of course to catch up with old friends.
The line-up of presenters included Yoav Leitersdorf (YLVentures), Reshma Sohoni (Seedcamp), Patrick de Laive (Fleck), Jim McGough, Andraz Tori (Zemanta) and many others.
This provided for a good balance of entrepreneurs and VC’s talking about what it takes to get a successful startup running in Europe (and especially Eastern Europe and the Balkans).
Is building a highway to London really the only way?
I think not - but I do think starting to focus more on business than technology per se and getting some local biz traction are a prerequisite if one wants to get something globally notable off the ground over here.
Overall, a good and well organized conference - congrats to Berislav, Ivan & co.!
This region is definitely hungry for web conferences - it’s time we organize a good one in Slovenia, too!
