#17 ProductTank Wrzesień - Startup stories

Welcome back everyone after a short break! We have a great lineup, great venue and this time.. we welcome you in English (but only for 1 presentation marked 'ENG' below)

Our topic will cover various Startup Stories - the good, the bad, the ugly. We'll try to get answers questions like - How to get what you need? When to stop? What are common mistakes in building your own business? What investors are looking for? How to scale your business? All the meat. No bullshit.

1. [ENG] Andrew J Scott - General Partner 7percent Ventures & Co-Founder ICE List (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjscott)

Entrepreneur turned investor at 7percent Ventures investing in early stage technology businesses which represent $bn opportunities. Past investments include Oculus VR (sold to Facebook), Source DNA (Apple), Magic Pony (Twitter) and Blue Vision Labs (Lyft). 7percent love investing early in startup teams with moonshot ideas and reach-for-the-stars ambition.

Andrew is also Co-Founder of startup tech founder and investor group The ICE List and sits on a number of boards and advisory panels, occasionally speaking at industry events.

His experience is drawn from creating diverse D2C & B2B web and mobile products and services, as well as consulting for corporates, government and Venture Capital on strategy. He's pitched to countless investors and mentored 100's of founders in over 25 years of startup founding, advising and investing.

2. Radosław Paklikowski - Founder MeetingApplication.com, VP of Product Droplr Inc https://www.linkedin.com/in/radoslawpaklikowski/

He is an experienced Product Manager passionate about technology, marketing, innovation management, entrepreneurship, and is an avid connector. Since 6+ years he is involved only in projects from the USA.

Radek has developed a core skill set that spans the initiation and management of IT Projects, scoping of requirements, analysis and development work through to testing, implementation and review. Has a background in both marketing and technical environments and can effectively communicate with clients, investors, stakeholders, developers and end users. Build and lead teams of over 30 including programmers, UI/UX and marketing specialists.

He was also Scrum Product Owner with 5+ years’ Agile experience, hands-on managing the product roadmap, release planning, writing succinct user stories/acceptance criteria & prioritized the product backlog to guide multiple development teams to deliver iterative features based on the roadmap & company strategy.

3. Luke Deka - Co-founder & Chief Product Officer at Growbots (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukedeka/)

In 2014, Luke started selling outbound sales consultancy services. As a follow-up, the idea for Growbots was born. Firstly, it was validated in a concierge MVP mode, where the entire value was first brought to customers without a single line of code. Soon after getting early traction Growbots has taken a part in 500 Startups accelerating program in San Francisco and started building a product. They hit an incredible growth to $2m ARR in less than 12 months that helped to secure over $4m investment from angel investors and international VC funds. Now and then, Growbots helps companies worldwide to find and connect with their ideal customers. Over 500 customers are now getting new opportunities for their business, by using Growbots.

Luke is now responsible for Growbots’ long-term product strategy, but also is working very closely with the development team on day-to-day activities. He has been involved in scaling the company to over 100 people in Poland and the USA.