POZI.IO: STARTUP THINK TANK LAUNCHED IN BUDAPEST

Tamás Turcsán, fed up with the waste of ideas and talents, wants to boost the startup scene and map the talents of the Carpathian Basin: investors and the government are already seeing the potential in the Hungarian startup guru's project.

The startup world is a difficult thing for outsiders to understand. There's no accepted definition of what a startup is - we typically associate the term with mobile phone apps that have a clever solution to some trivial, everyday problem, and the sixteen-year-old Californian kids who invented it are suddenly found by a kindly uncle who puts a lot of money into the idea, and the kids become legends in their lifetime.

Indeed, many startups are something like this, but the focus is primarily on offering solutions to problems that occur globally and the potential for rapid growth,

not on the quality of the technological implementation. A startup is not a gadget or an app, nor is it the same as a Kickstarter campaign that might be launched to fund it: a startup is first and foremost a solution, a way of life. And then there is the investor, who, despite being called an 'angel' in this community, does not pour money into these ideas out of pure goodwill, but out of a very thorough business rationale. At least, that is how I understand it, after reading a lot of our conversations and articles with Tamás Turcsán.

You either win or you lose

Tamás is an interesting man himself. He is someone worth listening to, but - as outsiders - we have no chance of understanding his thought process in the first fifteen minutes. Afterward, however, he sketches out a vision, even in a crackling phone call, that, even if you don't fully grasp all the details, you feel that it is worth writing about because it has imagination. And if it doesn't work out, that's okay, because

in the start-up world, you either get a project right (one in ten) or you fail and learn (nine in ten), and then build on that to do something better. And Tamás has had a lot to learn: he has run dozens of hackathons - startup idea competitions -, dealt with hundreds of startups, has a reputation and a huge network of contacts among investors and startup people internationally, and is always on the move.

Ending the waste of ideas

Pozi.io is a startup idea store, a startup professional Tinder (dating site), and an elite club of innovators.

But let's approach it from the problem's direction, so it makes more sense: Tamás, who has been organizing the idea competitions for eight years, realized that after the competitions, despite all the work he had put in, he had, in his own words, nothing to show for it, while at the same time, in almost fifty hackathons many people have tried to invent the same things over and over again, that others have tried and failed because of fundamental problems.

"The ideas are never recorded anywhere," he explains impetuously. "There are a dozen international idea competitions, there's a sponsor, say a big name company, let's leave it at that because that's the agenda everywhere. Four hundred ideas are submitted, the big company sponsoring the event awards the first three, the awards ceremony takes place, everyone shakes hands, an article is written for the media and everyone goes about their business."

Everybody knows articles like "Three hundred ideas revolutionize the future of a well-known company!". Then we never talk about what happened to the winners. Whatever happened to them - but what happened to the other three hundred and ninety-seven ideas, of which there are surely plenty that could be used or worth exploring and thinking about?

Instead, the ideas are left to gather dust in a spreadsheet or drawer at the client's office, which is a huge waste - of waste. Pozi.io, on the other hand, pledges that anyone who brings their idea to a hackathon organized through the platform will not be lost, but will be included in the international bloodstream.

And he himself will be put on the map and will be available to others, and he can contact anyone - that's the Tinder part of it," says Tamás. Because behind the idea are talents that we haven't been able to find on any other site.

The point is that relatively simple filters allow people interested in the innovator world to find each other and the ideas and projects that have been made public. These filters are based on interests, what the registrant is good at - i.e. what skills they have - and what role they want to play, from investor to programmer to lawyer," says Tamás.

Different, more, less

Asked what makes it more than existing social media platforms, he makes a compelling case. Such as:

- it filters out the "noise", unlike Facebook, where everyone is on top, and even if you create a special group for start-ups, for example, the information is unmanageable and unsearchable;

- youthful, unlike LinkedIn, which is bound and formal - not least in its more usable features: paid - and almost absent from generation y upwards;

- Talent and real skills matter here, not paper or paper experience, but - as a relatively small community - it will work well to monitor those skills. In no time at all, anyone who is faking will be caught. But reference also grows fast: Tamás gives the example of a 22-year-old boy who has been working in web design for barely a year, but who has sketched out the design language that Pozi.io clearly needs on the first try.

Furthermore, it is not only possible to connect to each other - as is the case with Shapr, also known as "Business Tinder" - or to projects, but also to groups based on themes, which is where the founder expects the real explosion of ideas to come from. Tamás makes no secret of the fact that this could be the basis of his old talent map and admits that he also had Transylvanian Hungarian startups in mind, among others, who could join the global bloodstream.

So where are we now? 

Currently, there are around 60-70 projects or ideas on the site and around 450 startups from 30 countries have decided to give it a try. Looking through the list of names and considering the circumstances, unsurprisingly about half of them are Hungarian - on a site that, as Tamás says, is not advertised yet, people are only referred by word of mouth. He also believes that 10,000 startups would be the real milestone. However, they found supportive partners right away, which is also being used to develop the Pozi.io site, for example.

Creativity in times of covid

The first ideas competition, RESTART2020, has already been run; as Tamás notes, the problem was that the epidemic situation meant that there was nowhere for innovators to meet, as it is not worth organizing a hackathon in the traditional sense without knowing whether a mass wave of infection will hit next week.

Applications for the event, which will be broadcast live on 26 September, have just closed; as Tamás pointed out, what makes it special is that it is a place where ideas for existing funds are collected in bulk, and not only the podium winners but all of them are finally preserved, made available, joined and scored. In time, mentors will also grow out of this community, and Tamás hopes that with the right presentation, this could grow into a very serious international think tank, a think tank where, for example, the next Hungarian startup comparable to Prezi could be born.

Of course, the most important thing is that Pozi.io reaches the relevant age groups, and instead of pointlessly spaced out social media advertisements, Tamás and his team will do this by contacting international engineering student organizations and professional colleges, for example.

This is also a great opportunity for big companies, Tamás adds because if they need something, they can tell us what problem they are looking for a solution to, and based on Pozi.io they can organize a hackathon or an ideas competition, which gives new impetus to ideas and individuals. And in today's world of labor shortages and even more talent shortages, the network of competent, talented people who come into contact with each other can be a real asset.

They said they could provide a Secretary of State.

Among the sponsors of RESTART2020 and the jury, Pál Kovács, former Secretary of State for Energy at the Ministry of National Development, is one of the more well-known names in the start-up world: as Tamás says, the ministry has also indicated that they think the idea is a good one, and although they cannot support it financially, they can provide a patron, which is a kind of state seal on the initiative. In his reply to Mandiner, he justifies the support by saying that "digitalization is becoming more and more important and advanced nowadays, and it is becoming more and more noticeable in all areas of our lives. The development of technology in everyday life helps people, companies, and the state", citing smart cities, smart metering systems and smart grids, or the spread of clean electric vehicles, which the state is already supporting - for example through cheap energy prices.

It is well worth the investment

Tamás Bohner, who represents the investor side as a jury member of RESTART202020, is also pleased to be involved in the event and tells us that he sees networking potential in the event and in Pozi, as well as fresh answers to current problems. Bohner and Antenna Hungária have already organised investment competitions for start-ups, and he says that the names of the people leading the initiative - such as Tamás Turcsán - ring a bell, which is why they backed the event. 

Bohner adds that, just as teams compete in an event like this, the organizers and investors compete for them - for the teams and the talent. The Turcsans, for example, have raised a very topical issue, the epidemic situation, in RESTART2020, and Intellitext Ltd, of which Bohner is a board member, are trying to add value by providing not only money but expertise and all the help they can. The formula is simple, adds Bohner - for most teams, the tightest bottleneck is time, which often doesn't allow for finding the missing experts, but Intellitext "gives" the project not only money but also experts if the staff needs to be replaced, so as an early stage investor they do their best to make the idea a success.

And it's worth it: as he says, it's not uncommon for the money invested to return tenfold within a year, but there's also a good chance of failure. Bohner's experience speaks for itself, with half a hundred successful exits - the point at which the idea owner and/or early-stage investor feels the project has outgrown them and typically outperforms at a good price - and he says they have 24 investments ticking away, with 15minutespizza, which has performed exceptionally well during the epidemic, and Helpy, which cleans 1,000 times a month, being the proudest. But then there's Nightscope, a company that runs self-driving robots, which has made its exit not just anywhere, but in California, Rome, Jerusalem, and the Mecca of the startup world.

It all starts now

Tamás Turcsán adds, "Thirteen years of my own work in the startup scene is now coming to a head. But even with his enthusiasm, he knows that a lot depends on the success of the first event because where everything is in place to win, there can be pitfalls - but it's also true that after 50 hackathons, he's not afraid of surprises. As one of the founders of the Hungarian startup community, he believes that Pozi.io can find its place in the international startup world, while also realising an old dream of mapping the talent of the Carpathian region.

Written by: Zoltán Veczán