Untold Stories Podcast

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?

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?

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?

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?

In the third episode Untold Stories Podcast our guest is Soma Tóth, CEO and co-founder of Recart. Recart is a one-stop marketing automation tool integrated with the Shopify platform to help merchants engage better with their buyers, lowering cart abandonment rate, resulting in higher revenue.

‘We always put the customers first, generating value for customers first and everything else comes second.’ - Soma believes this relentless focus was key in becoming one of the top paid tools in the Shopify app store.

After Recart’s early growth they decided to move upmarket and target larger vendors instead of solely focusing on smaller merchants. They had to find their product-market fit several times, and as Soma told us, being able to change directions rapidly is one of the key critical capabilities making Recart’s team able to succeed in an immensely competitive market.

‘Merchants are in a new era where they have an opportunity to talk to their customers in a more direct and a more efficient way.‘ - Recart was able to cater to this emerging need.

Besides the interesting insights of building Recart, Soma openly shares about his entrepreneurial journey, personal growth and important lessons. Tune in to to episode and learn about:

How not to lose focus when searching for the right product-market fit?
Vertical vs horizontal integration - which is the better strategy?
How a data-driven approach can help not only improve clients’ conversion rates, but also better the customer experience for their buyers as an added plus?
Is there a way to properly manage platform dependence? If a business is too reliant on one source of income, how to handle that?
What are the differences between the Hungarian and US talent pool?
How COVID shifted employee expectations and the need for physical meetings?

Follow the Untold Stories experience!
Facebook: www.facebook.com/UntoldStoriesConference
Twitter: twitter.com/byUntoldStories?s=20

You can find Untold Stories Podcast on other streaming platforms as well:
- Soundcloud: User-163562240 – Empowering-merchants-the-untold-story-of-recart
- Apple Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/hu/podcast/empo…0536983957&l=hu
- Google Podcast: cutt.ly/VEIVVFW
- Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/6xzVol1F…6932eba46a9&nd=1
- YouTube: 

In the second episode of the Untold Stories Podcast our guest is Tamás Kádár - CEO and co-founder of SEON. SEON develops fraud detection and prevention solutions to protect online businesses. They have had an amazing year, astronomical growth and a high profile series A round making them one of the darlings of the ecosystem.The Hungarian fintech company was spotted by investors who previously had taken interest in companies like Bolt or Spotify, which could indicate a very promising future along the way for this startup.

“A really important part of building a successful software business is to know your customers, listen to your customers…. our customers are also mentors to us” - SEON’s founders were also its first customers as they could not find a solution to the problem they were facing and decided to come up with one. Since that day, the company has grown into a major scaleup facing the challenges of a rapidly growing and expanding company of 80+ employees, with offices in Budapest, London, Texas and Jakarta.

Besides discussing the company’s early days and how it grew into where it is today, Tamás also shares insights about his personal journey as an entrepreneur and how the founders experienced SEON’s journey from brainstorming on the university campus through having closed a €10m investment round in only a couple of weeks to opening up offices globally only to shut them down due to the pandemic.

We recommend tuning in if you’d like to know more about building a tech startup from the ground up, here are some questions we covered:
- What makes an entrepreneur and how to keep growing as one?
- What to do to find the right opportunities when starting out? Is location crucial?
- When should a company seek out investors and how to find the right fit?
- How can you know what go-to-market strategy fits your company the best?
- Why is the onboarding phase so crucial for a product-led strategy?
- How to grow an international team? Is it better to centralize or better to outsource responsibilities?
- Product advocates - how is it different from the standard sales job description and why could it be the way to go?
- What advice would Tamás give to future entrepreneurs?

Follow the Untold Stories experience!
Facebook: www.facebook.com/UntoldStoriesConference
Twitter: twitter.com/byUntoldStories?s=20

You can find Untold Stories Podcast on other streaming platforms as well:
Soundcloud: User-163562240 – Fighting-fraud-the-untold-story-of-seon
Apple Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/hu/podcast/figh…0534723045&l=hu
Google Podcast: coming...
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0sAKkavGpYParzTMtUPnt9?si=2690a969c16146ce&nd=1
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh1RCiudDns

“I can find the same joy in building an organization that I found in building a product or writing code… in many ways, it is a similar problem” - In this very first episode of the Untold Stories Podcast our guest is István Csanády, CEO and founder of Shapr3D.

Shapr3D is reinventing CAD (computer-aided design) for the next generation of designers and they pride themselves on creating a fast, frictionless design process reshaping the industry and breaking down some long-standing barriers to entry.

So why is the startup considered one of the most successful stories from Hungary? Today we are sitting down with István to talk about just that: starting from his journey as an unfitting employee to becoming an entrepreneur and solo founder, acting on a hunch to create a software solution for an upcoming Apple product release, through early struggles, to raising $12M funding from top European investors. It makes one’s head spin just to think about all that.

Besides its strategy for building a top-notch solution for the CAD industry, Shapr3D’s approach to talent sourcing and acquisition is also worth learning from. As István mentions, ‘you cannot rely on hiring for pedigree... you have to figure out for yourself how to find and evaluate the best talent’.

Turn on this episode and uncover the untold story about one of the best Hungarian startups of the decade. Here are some questions you’ll find answered in the episode:

-In what ways has Shapr3D shaped the industry and changed consumer behavior for the better?
-Do you need a precise go-to-market strategy to succeed?
- What was István’s personal motivation to become an entrepreneur and what could be the pros and cons of being a solo founder?
- Is it easier or harder to fundraise today vs 10 years earlier? How does the fundraising market look like for the top startups?
- What are the benefits of bottom-up distribution strategies in a top-down dominated industry?
- The importance of HR – how to balance between potential and pedigree?
- How to scale up the right way with mostly local talents and resources, and how to avoid a talent war?

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Follow the Untold Stories experience!

Facebook: www.facebook.com/UntoldStoriesConference
Twitter: twitter.com/byUntoldStories?s=20

You can find Untold Stories Podcast on other streaming platforms as well:
Soundcloud: cutt.ly/VWtBYK6
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/untold-stories-podcast/id1582782064
Google Podcast: cutt.ly/3WtBxk9
Spotify: cutt.ly/WWtBQNt