Start Smart

​

​

In a digital and technology-oriented world, Intellectual Property (IP) is a business’s most valuable asset. A company’s valuation and its attractiveness to investors are directly tied to the protection and exploitation of IP. However, IP protection is often overlooked, especially in the early stages of business development. The reasons may be manyfold, but the (inaccurately) perceived costs related to IP protection are one of the biggest obstacles in obtaining it.

 In this IP STARTegy session, Nicoleta Cherciu (Partner Sirbu&Vornicu Law) will walk you through:

•  The DOs and DON’Ts in IP protection;

•  The different forms of IP protection;

• Which of these forms are cost-efficient and valuation effective;

• Spillover effects resulting from the use of third-party IP, including open-source

​

​

​

Pricing is the one element of your company's moving parts machine that will have the biggest impact on your financial outcomes. 

But it's one of the most underutilized and misunderstood tools by startup founders. 

Emanuel Martonca, Pricing Strategist and Founder of Soft Fight; will be showing you some of the pricing mistakes other startups made, so you can learn from their experience.

​

​

​

In today’s business climate there are thousands of great tech products launched every year, so it becomes more and more difficult to make yours visible. 

It is not good enough to have a great product if you don’t communicate it to your customers in a way they can identify, differentiate and remember you. 

Building the brand is as important as building the product, and should take place simultaneously.

In this session we will go through some of the most critical but overlooked branding concepts: 

• Branding is perception, our perception is not our customer’s perception 

• Storytelling & community, counts

​

​

​

Tech startups put a lot of focus on product development and funding, but find it more challenging to navigate through the business, sales and marketing landscape. Salespeople, sales leaders, and other talented people are hard to recruit, hard to manage, and even harder to retain. Great resignation, virtual selling and changes in purchase habits are increasing the pressure on sales and marketing people to deliver growth that the whole organization needs, but to which it shall also contribute. In his presentation, Mihai Guran will build on his extended sales, sales management and strategy expertise to identify classic mistakes that can be avoided by startups, as well as how you can better align your organization for an improved strategy execution.

​

​

​

It is a common myth that startups perform better than ‘corporate’ organizations. People believe that startups are much more agile and efficient because they are small. They believe corporate organizations are heavy and inefficient because of their size and processes. In reality, startups are much more inefficient than corporations. Waste is present in corporations, but as a percentage, it is much higher in startups.
It is a mistake to believe that a startup wins market share against a corporation (or a much bigger organization) because it is more efficient. In fact, inefficiency keeps the startups struggling for many years and stops them from growing. 

In this session, Radu Mesa, business and learning consultant, will share more about:

• Most common practices that generate inefficiencies in a startup

• Strategies to reduce the waste of resources, perform better and grow faster

​

​

​