On November 19, 2024, we had the opportunity to once again welcome our guests to the Google for Startups Campus in Warsaw. It was then that another conference organized as part of our ScaleUP program took place - this time entitled "People vs. Business".
We gathered over 150 people in the room - representatives of startups from the WP Square portfolio, because the conference was dedicated to them, but also representatives of industries supporting founders - law firms, training or consulting companies, industry media, as well as VC funds and private investors. It is safe to say that there were people in the room who actively participate in building the Polish VC ecosystem and startups.
Before the speakers entered the stage, it was taken over by the WP Square team, which summed up the past six months in a short presentation. There were successes in the form of a biomethane fund, there were awards for representatives of the Digital Ocean Venture Starter fund, in which we are LPs as WP2 Investments. Finally, there were plans for the coming months, including the announcement of new training for portfolio companies (about AI tools) or new initiatives as part of the ScaleUP support program.
After a short introduction, Marek Kamiński entered the stage, and in his opening speech, he talked about the experiences he gained from the expeditions he had made that were useful in his career as an entrepreneur, which he is today. Maybe not every founder needs to know how to operate on their appendix while being alone in extreme conditions, but this part of the story clearly said that in the life of a startup founder you also have to be ready for sometimes extreme, albeit business-like, challenges.
In the next part of the event, we could listen to two debates. In the first one , Henry Camilieri from Metropole Search Partners, Niko Papagiannis from Excelsior Gmbh and Adam Filipowski from Leocode shared their experiences of building startup teams in today's AI-dominated world.
Next, Róża Szafranek showed us that despite the fact that the startup path is strewn with KPIs and everyone only looks at business results, skilful process arrangement and understanding of their role (founder, CEO of the organization) will allow you to effectively enforce work-life balance and find time to build your mental health.
In the second debate, Paulina Wardęga from Heroify, Magdalena Olczak-Nowicka from DOV Starter, Michał Wrzołek from Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder and Krzysztof Kaliciński from Kozminski University discussed that both founders and VC funds should check each other, and that effective startup teams are a mix of many factors such as a healthy organizational culture, founders' experience and the ability to navigate business, dynamic realities.
The last block was the speeches of companies from the portfolio of WP2 Investments - Nuadu, which showed how it can support the recruitment process with exam modules, Sportigio, whose gamification tool perfectly builds team spirit, and Wellbee, whose platform supports caring for the well-being of employees.
Marcin Góra, a representative of Atos, showed that effectiveness in remote work is more than just tools – it is an organizational culture that supports communication, flexibility and work-life balance.
Damian Winkowski, on the other hand, used examples to show how modern AI tools can support teams and simplify their daily duties.
In turn, in the last speech of the day, Mateusz Kowalczyk from Foodsi and Maciej Zawadziński from Hard2Beat talked about how to take care of your own and your team's well-being as the CEO of a startup and what tools to support the development of teams.
Afterwards, a joint lunch awaited the guests, which was a continuation of the conversations started during the networking breaks. We are glad that our guests stayed with us long after the substantive part was over. This is the greatest reward for us.
