May 30, 2014

Expanding through partnerships

Bulgarian startups, like those in many other European countries, continually face a problem: growing beyond our local markets.

I find too many of my friends in hustling hard for potentially Zombie startups.

All that hard work, but not a lot of progress in the numbers that truly move them forward. On the other hand, there are clear strengths here in Bugaria; companies that have grown globally, and investors building broad networks.

So I asked them.

Vessy Tesheva from Telerik shared her approach with me: “Partnerships mean each company can act proactively on the others’ behalf. This takes trust, which comes from thinking about relationships, not deals or connections.”

Max Gurvits from Teres and Eleven explains to me how, for any networking goal, he makes a list of 100 potential people, since that research means he’s more likely to make contact sooner.

At Leancamp, I’ll be digging in with a few more local founders who’ve built their businesses through international partnerships. Join me!

Originally posted at betahaus.bg

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I'm Salim Virani. I've been designing peer learning programs since 2009, and these days I'm also having fun building random stuff.

In the past, I designed peer learning programs for Oxford, UCL, Techstars, Microsoft Ventures and The Royal Academy Of Engineering. I also played a role in creating the Lean Startup methodology, and the European startup ecosystem. You can read about this here.

What am I up to these days?

I’m working on a communication tool for community groups and unconferences. It focuses on autonomising focused teams rather than top-down coordination.

I’m on the Kernel Stewards team, where we help ~2,000 fellows understand the what the development of blockchains mean to humanity on anthropological scales, and how to use them altruistically and prudently.

Books & collected practices

  • Peer Learning Is - a broad look at peer learning around the world, and how to design peer learning to outperform traditional education
  • Mentor Impact - researched the practices used by the startup mentors that really make a difference
  • DAOistry - practices and mindsets that work in blockchain communities
  • Decision Hacks - early-stage startup decisions distilled
  • Source Institute - skunkworks I founded with open peer learning formats and ops guides, and our internal guide on decentralised teams

Random Projects

  • Cuppa - decentralised collaboration protocol (WIP)
  • Nonfungo - completely on-chain NFT sale notification bot for Discord. (Look ma! No Opensea API!)
  • Powerplays - real-time token launches

Other thoughts

What do you need right now? (2023)

Making sense of DAOs (2022)

An Agile starter pack for DAOs (2022)

Building ecosystems with grant programs (2021)

Safe spaces make for better learning (2021)

Choose happiness (2021)

Working 'Remote' after 10 years (2020)

Emotional Vocabulary (2020)

Project portfolios (2020)

Expectations (2019)

Amperage - the inconvenient truth about energy for Africa's off-grid. (2018)

The history Of Lean Startup (2016)

Three Skinheads are running at me, and all I can think to say is, “Here Dan, hold my kebab for a sec.” (2016)

Get your loved ones off Facebook (2015)

Entrepreneurship is craft (2014)

Peter Thiel vs the science fiction masters (2013)

Here's more...

Contact me