Interview Edition: Viktor Mikulasek

Describe yourself in 50 words or less.

Hello everyone! My name is Viktor Mikulasek and I am CEO of Launcher – a Slovak startup and innovation studio based in Bratislava. We work closely with innovations and startups on their way to become real companies.

My personal background is over 10 years of experience in IT business. Besides my working life, I am the father of 2 blue-eyed and crazy blond daughters. And in my spare time, I love to practice various sports. I like to challenge myself so I am joining half iron man races every year.

What led you to investing in startups?

The idea behind Launcher began in winter 2013 as an initiative towards building up something meaningful in Slovak innovative industry. Something that could bring a new positive approach into the startup scene in Slovakia. We’ve started literally from scratch. Our philosophy ‘We help. We build. We support.’ describes us pretty well. Therefore we’ve decided to create a startup and innovation studio where we aim to gather talents, great ideas and connect them with the right capital, know-how and extensive network we have built in the IT industry over the last 25 years. Launcher is currently being involved in several innovation oriented projects with external companies while having 7 in-house startups at this moment.

What startups are you currently involved in?

We have invested and are being active in several startups that are sharing the same roof and coffee with us. For example, we have UAVONIC, which is an UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) company specialized in providing extensive UAV services, exclusive distribution for two world best selling drone brands for EU markets. Besides these core specialization UAVONIC is closely cooperating with STU (Slovak Technical University) on projects focused on developing UAV virtual control systems.

The Launcher portfolio also includes Zelena Posta (in English: GreenPost), which is a hybrid online post solution based on cloud. Another well established start-up project is Membery, a comprehensive membership management platform and Keepi, a cloud based accounting for micro and small enterprises. Crowdberry (SK only), an equity based crowdfunding platform connected to private banking capital, is our latest project. Apart our mature startups we have several junior/seed stage startups we work with.

Describe your typical day from waking up to going to bed.

It’s difficult to describe my typical day as every day is unique and full of new challenges. I spend most of the time working and meeting with people focusing on keeping a proper follow-up, getting things done and extending cooperation with our partners and interesting people. But what I like most during my day job is discovering new business opportunities, working with enthusiastic and dedicated team that I have at Launcher and above all, building a place, brick by brick, where magic can happen. As we say: The sky is the limit.

Tell us about your best investment so far and why it will succeed.

I think it is very soon to assess our best investments. Building innovative companies is not easy and it takes time. We started several projects recently with different goals and results. We believe that our projects in combination with our experience, funding, proactive approach, passion and synergies might bring fruitful results on international markets. Regarding our partial successes we can say we have built several vital companies, some of them with international subsidiaries within the EU, generating significant revenues. One of our portfolio companies already achieved several hundred thousand of EUR in revenues within the first 8 months. These projects have a great potential to succeed overseas/abroad. We have big plans so we all look forward on how it will turn out.

Tell us about an investment you made which turned out to be unsuccessful.

Unfortunately, failures are an inevitable part in the startup business industry. We were not very successful with Sportymob which was an app solution for fan clubs, sport’s match screening combining the fan e-shop. It was a good project but turned out to be non-viable in several aspects. We had to change the business model several times and we missed some opportunities that were laying in front of us. Nonetheless, we are glad to have had the chance to learn from this experience and to gain valuable insights that we may use in our further projects.

7 years from now: how did your contribution change the startup world?

Well, we are convinced that what we do and what we are planning to accomplish in upcoming years may establish several innovative and very viable companies selling products and services world-wide. We would like to see ourselves as an established platform for building new companies in a fast and very efficient way.

What trends would you bet your money on? And how will they influence everyday life?

I would personally bet on IoT, Wearables, UAS (drones), HealthTech and Virtual Reality. I am convinced that these areas are not the only ones that are going to be in a big hype, but the ones, I believe, that will change the way we live in upcoming years.

What does it take for a startup to impress you?

We look for innovative ideas, motivated people, experience, synergies, execution power and survival instincts. If we see goals oriented and business driven young entrepreneurs, this is the sign for us that we want to talk about potential business relationships.

What do you offer your partners when you’re not throwing money at them?

Our startup and innovation studio Launcher offers great team full of dedicated and experienced professionals. We know that our partners should feel our business commitment not only while having a strategic discussions but also to feel the passion for innovation and experience.

Describe what a business relationship with you looks like.

The main focus is always about understanding the business and the most important essence is to find relevant synergies. A cooperation with us has to deliver results, fulfil goals and still, we want to have some fun while doing these things.

What advice would you give first time entrepreneurs and young startups?

Every young and aspiring entrepreneur shall posses with strong belief, sell-sacrifice, endurance and should ideally gather himself/herself at the beginnings with an experienced mentor that could help open many doors on their way to success. And, of course, everyone needs a big piece of luck as well.

Viktor and his team at Pioneers Bratislava.

Viktor and the LAUNCHER team.

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