Last week I was invited to Midtown Manhattan be on the panel for the first GreekTech Talks event.
The event was hosted by GreekTech.org (an upstart organization founded by Mario Nicolaou that is dedicated to helping startups grow from Greece and Cyprus into the United States through New York) and attracted over 120 attendees, both members and friends of the local Greek community.
The panel consisted of John Papadakis (founder and CEO of Pollfish), Michael Boloudakis (founder of Kinems Inc) and was lead by Lia D’Alessandro.
The discussion ranged from our individual backgrounds and the founding stories of our respective businesses, through product-market discovery fit and some of the challenges/opportunities of expanding from Europe into the United States. We then shared some honest bits of advise and insights into some upcoming trends before answering questions from attendees.
It’s always lovely sharing included.co‘s story, who as a lean bootstrapped company is now considering raising our first round of external funding as we procure and distribute business-boosting deals on products and services for 400+ coworking and freelancer communities in 60+ countries worldwide.
But it was also lovely hearing about how Pollfish was born out of the need for sustainable monetization for smaller app/game publishers; and how Kinems was built to fill the gap between playing and learning for children with special educational needs.
Although our experiences as founders varied regarding how we funded our companies and began servicing the US market, I believe the audience got a clear picture that there’s no ‘right way’, and that businesses can expand from anywhere to everywhere if you focus on building a company that solves a real problem and creates value for your customers.
It was a lovely evening, getting to meet a new community, make new contacts and I look forward to seeing (and supporting) how GreekTech brings more and more passionate people and businesses together. You can see their upcoming events via Facebook here and I believe the second GreekTech Talks even will be announced soon.