Ep 53: Adam Niewinski
Investing in Baltics, from entrepreneur to VC, Fintech trends and key to building an investment team
Adam Niewinski is the Co-founder and General partner at OTB Ventures - a leading venture capital firm operating in CEE out of Warsaw. Adam is a seasoned executive, entrepreneur and with OTB has invested in several Baltic companies already, including Kevin, Ondato and Fractory.
In this episode we talk about the evolution of the Polish VC/startup ecosystem, investing in the Baltics and sharing lessons for investing from business executive experience. We also talk about global VC trends, OTB strategy and making a good first impression to a VC. Finally we discuss building a strong VC team.
CLICK one of the links below to listen to the episode
The topics covered in this episode (with Timestamps)
🔈 [02:55] - ON POLISH VC/STARTUP ECOSYSTEM
Historical gaming industry
Startup ecosystem accelerating last 5 years
Mid-size country trap
EU funds impact
Unicorn inspirational effect
🔈 [07:20] - ON INVESTING IN THE BALTICS
Substantial part of the portfolio in Baltics and huge potential
Cooperation with local funds
🔈 [09:40] - ON LESSONS FOR INVESTING FROM OWN BUSINESS EXPERIENCE
Confident vs. arrogant founders
Have strong opinions, but be ready to change them fast
The strength of the right people
Investor can’t run the company for the founder
Investing as art+science
F2F vs. zoom investing
🔈 [18:50] - ON GLOBAL VC TRENDS
Correction on the stock markets healthy
Irrelevance of current market situation for long term investments
Historical context for venture investments
Innovation transfer from corporations to startups
🔈 [24:50] - ON FINTECH TRENDS
Bringing own financial sector experience to the table
Hands-on track record
CEE countries strengths for building fintech companies
Global fintech trends
🔈 [32:50] - ON BUILDING A VC TEAM
Founding story of OTB Ventures
Complementing skills of partners
Diversity with a common goal
Hiring drivers not passengers
Managing reputation
To reach out to Adam use: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-niewinski-07b7931/
Support for this episode comes from Nexpay > https://paynexpay.com/
Support for this episode comes from Venetor > https://www.venetor.co/
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