I had a pleasure to meet Alex Osadzinski at New Connect Club event organized by Ewa’s firm and moderated by Yours Truly. After the club meeting (catch a glimpse) we had a dinner and the next day we gave Alex and his lovely wife a tour around Warsaw. After hanging out for some time I can tell you that this guy rules!

(FYI New Connect is an AIM-like unregulated market run by WSE.)

So Alex is an experienced operational exec, very technical, now a VC with Trinity Ventures in Sillicon Valley. Before joining Trinity 7 years ago he’s created over 230 billion USD (!) of aggregate public market cap, or acquisition price, for the 6 startups that he’s been at.

But let’s allow Alex to introduce himself:

I’m a lifelong geek and lover of technology with a passion for building, growing and managing teams and companies. I’ve been fortunate to have been at five startups that created great products, employment and economic value. I was sobered by the sixth startup that taught me that everyone has limits to what they can achieve. Now I enjoy helping and nurturing early-stage technology startups as a VC.

Alex works in Sillicon Valley but has a broader and multicultural perspective compared to the California locals thanks to his British experiences. He was born in London and worked in the UK for a long time. Since we were looking for a rolemodel for young Polish entreprenuers he was the perfect guy for the job. That’s why we invited him for New Connect Club event where he presented his viewpoint on global expansion of European tech companies and differences between business cultures here and there. You can see Alex’s presentation on slideshare or below. It was featured on the SlideShare homepage by their editorial team.

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But that’s not all I have to say about Alex. With every passing minute I learned more about him and it’s quite a story, I tell ya…

While we were walking through the streets of Warsaw Alex made a point that some parts of the town look like in Half Life 2. That’s kinda true. And now you know that he’s also a gamer. How many VCs would admit something like that?

Half Life 2 scenery

Warsaw 2008 scenery

Unlike many future-oriented, technology-loving geek-VCs Alex is also very concious about his geopolitical surroundings, his Polish ancestry and Poland’s history. Since his parents had their share of the WWII effort we visited the Warsaw Uprising Museum (high-tech and industrial in its design - kind of like in Ravenholm basement, but as Alex noticed no headcrabs).

When we were passing the Wellington real-size model it turned out Alex is also a pilot. Turns out that many VCs (in California) are pilots. Alex also confessed that while he’s not burning fuel over the Pacific coastline he tries to save the environment by driving a hybrid car, recycling garbage and using solar-generated power from his roof. Only in California man… ;-)

Around that time we were passing the Warsaw University buildings and we bumped into Creative Commons guys. They had a conference and Alex confessed to be an acquaintance of Lawrence Lessig, Stanford professor and founder of Creative Commons. That’s all I needed to know so we crashed CC guys party. Alex gave a 3 minute speech on his point of view… and we left. So much to see, so little time… ;-) I just hope that Alek Tarkowski, the moderator of the CC event isn’t too mad at me.

CC conference in Warsaw - tourist VCs are always welcome

It was a lot of fun.

And if that wasn’t enough I found a couple of shared interests (besides Valve games) with Alex - namely pigs and one of my favorite movies (lately) entitled “Idiocracy” by Mike Judge.

Man, what a great guy!

Remember Soviet Union? 30% of all R&D efforts of USSR were performed in Ukraine. High-tech, space tech, nano, bio - they did it all. This tells you something about local engineering talent. Multiply that by increasing internet penetration, access to business know-how and venture capital. What you get is a vast pool of potential breakthrough businesses waiting to be incubated and cultivated. Cheap.

And that’s as far as global opportunities are concerned. Ukraine itself has a population of 50 mln and is a potential outlet to the Russian 200 mln people market. We’re talking about rather homogenious and isolated market. Think copycating. Think replicating proven business models. Any questions?

Quite a few in fact. Like - how is it there? What are the people like? What about labour costs? Recruitment services? Infrastructure? Political and legislative stability? Infrastructure and business environment?

When flying to Ukraine I had all these questions bouncing in my head. I was hoping to clarify some of these issues during TMT.Ventures‘08 Kiev conference hosted by New Europe Events.

Few months back I’ve met an Ukrainian entreprenuer and a great guy Yegor Anchishkin. Based on that experience I was expecting a lot and I must say I wasn’t dissapointed.

Ukraine is an emerging market for sure but apart from its local engineering talent it’s got great connections with Sillicon Valley through numerous ex-USSR inhabitants now living around the world and in the Bay Area itself. They know what’s left back home and they’re taking advantage of it while the global and regional VC funds consider it too early to enter Ukraine.

The conference agenda looked great. So did the speakers list. If that wasn’t enough I was expecting an emotional and thrilling 7 minutes contest. Nice package.

For starters Andrzej Jasieniecki, MCI Investment Director, proved his language skills when speaking Russian and surprising most people in the audience. Because of the big internal market some people know English rather passively which doesn’t stop them from building successfull businesses. Andrzej IMHO is one of the most successful VCs in Poland by the way.

Another positive surprise for the audience came with presentation of Ms. Lidia Adamska, v-ce President of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. She speaks both Russian and English which certainly helps. Her business English and presentation skills were the best I’ve heard from a non-native speaker. That’s class. WSE’s offerings sold themselves as an alternative to other markets like LSE. Cheaper, closer, equally stable and secure and they speak Russian.

Speaking next was Tomasz Czechowicz who is one of the most successful and most distinguished VCs in Central Europe. In fact I think his top-ranked-CEO-style presentation and image is a bit intimidating for most entreprenuers. I’ve seen it at several different occasions and in many countries. He’s all business. All other VCs say that.

One of the highlights of the event was also a Paul Fisher presentation. Paul represents Advent Venture Partners and a Westerners easy-going personality. And he’s a fun guy to be around. Just like few months back in Warsaw he raised great interest and did a lot of networking after the presentation. Easterners dig Westerners like Paul, Greg or Sean.

Then the most anticipated part of the event commenced. The 7 minutes contest is is a unique competition for innovative entrepreneurs and their projects from the space of telco, new media and new technologies. It is an express elevator up to the community of investors and experienced businesspeople with decision-making power whose recommendations and support are like rocket fuel for the projects aimed in the right direction.

‘7 minutes’ is also a challenge for entrepreneurs trying to make an impression and deliver a convincing presentation in an extremely short period of 7 minutes. It is a test of self-confidence and charisma for the project-leaders standing in front of a demanding audience, their competition, world-class investors, bloggers and media people.

And it was moderated by Yuri Boyko - an eloquent engineer, hi-tech entreprenuer well known to many venture capitalists, an invited speaker at the industry and scientific conferences and co-organizer of master classes for high-tech start-ups. I must say he was the perfect guide for the young and not-so young Ukrainian ‘7 minutes’ finalists. Very involved and really supportive. And he flew over from the States to do this job. Just like in previous contests I was the moderator’s side-kick running the 7 minutes clock and viciously stopping the finalists presentations. That was fun. Hopefully most people got the idea of self-improvement and polishing their presentations.

The ‘7 minutes’ presentations … I’ll update this piece later.

Then the discussion panels followed. Since they were in Russian and the simultaneus translation wasn’t too accurate I didn’t get much of it but one thing is sure - these folks mean business.

All of this couldn’t have happend if it wasn’t for Denis Dovgopoliy of BayView Innovations - the local business angel and investor relations consultant. Denis knows everyone, pickes the most promising start-ups and flies to San Francisco several times a year to get them going. He’s the local go-to-guy if you want to invest in Ukraine. And he’s smart to stay independent from any particular VC fund too dispite many employment offers. That’s how emerging markets work.