If you can make it in Warsaw, you can make it anywhere

Warsaw is no longer a city of office buildings developed solely for corporations, it is gradually becoming a lively and hospitable environment for start-ups By Alicja Ciszewska Some 400,000 companies are currently operating in Warsaw, small and medium enterprises account for 200 of them. Additionally, 28 percent of the total number of Polish start-ups were started in the city, a report by Start-up Poland revealed. Warsaw attracts hopes of a better life, creative minds, money and big business ideas. Good infrastructure (well-developed urban transport and two airports), access to crucial institutions, international corporations and funds are what make the city the most frequently chosen destination for business. “Warsaw is the best place in Poland to work on a start-up. It's a sort of state within a state,” Mateusz Lebiedziński, director at academic incubator AIP SGH said. “Warsaw provides the best infrastructure of co-working space and other start-up locations, as well as the most opportunity to find financial support from capital funds or accelerators,” said Jacek Aleksandrowicz, the founder of Akademickie Inkubatory Przedsiębiorczości (AIP) and Polska Przedsiębiorcza. Annually, there are some 25,000 events addressed to start-ups and the start-up community in the capital, 11 start-up incubators are located in the Mazowieckie voivodship, eight in Warsaw alone. [caption id="attachment_95204" align="alignleft" width="300"] Image: Google Campus[/caption] Information hub The city hall of Warsaw established Centrum Przdsiębiorczości Smolna (Center of Entrepreneurship Smolna) in 2013. It is a place where an entrepreneur may receive advice on how to start a firm, how to write a business plan, where to get funding, or attend professional workshops and lease an office or conference room. A sort of “information hub” for anyone interested in running a company. Centrum Smolna is also a start-up incubator, hosting some 17 fledgling entities. The facility cooperates with academic incubators as well as Campus Warsaw and the Startup Poland Foundation. The center was created to support start-ups and promote entrepreneurship in Warsaw, “human potential is one of the biggest assets of our city,” said Deputy Director at the Office of European Funds and Economic Development, Grzegorz Wolff. It provides various information and opinion leaders’ knowledge, organizes workshops held by experts from tax offices or the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS). Centrum Smolna stressed that Warsaw districts are very active in terms of building entrepreneurship awareness and that they work closely alongside them. In addition, one of the center’s objectives is promoting Polish design abroad at international investment fairs in Cannes, France or Munich, Germany. Hustle and bustle Warsaw has hosted numerous events aimed at start-ups and entrepreneurs in general, which were carried out by academic incubators, institutions and international corporations. Centrum Smolna co-organizes and financially supports such events as Wolves Summit, Startup Weekends, WAWCODE (with Google), Hackathon (with Poznań and Gdańsk) and many more. Students at the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH) created Let’s Startup, a three-day event, during which 30 participants had to work in groups on their projects. The event also included a Dragon’s Den game (modeled on the American TV show), where start-ups could pitch to potential backers and convince them to invest money in their venture. Warsaw-based academic incubator AIP SGGW adopted the notion of speed dating into the start-up realm and invented Speed Business, a monthly gathering of up to 20 people – newcomers and investors - who have a short time to share their ideas. [negative]The Future growth of Europe is based on entrepreneurship and innovation. Campus Warsaw is our next step in helping Poland and the CEE region to thrive in these two areas [/negative] Corporations are becoming more and more interested in the start-up world, they more eagerly participate in various events, for instance a project organized by AIP SGH and Nestlé called “Your own company or a full-time job. The choice is yours!” which was tailored to students. Initially, big companies gathered around the Warsaw School of Economics, now they seek cooperation with other universities, according to Lebiedziński. Talking about international corporations’ engagement in the Warsaw and Polish start-up environment, Google cannot be ignored. Its Campus Warsaw, based in Warsaw's Praga district was launched in November 2015. "The future growth of Europe is based on entrepreneurship and innovation. Campus Warsaw is our next step in helping Poland and the CEE region to thrive in these two areas. It will be a new business space for entrepreneurs seeking knowledge, global networking opportunities and support in building companies which might change the world," said Matt Brittin, head of Google Europe. Despite the fact that the Baltic states perform better in various international reports (for instance Doing Business or the Innovation Index), Google chose Warsaw because Poland is the region’s leader, and the office based in the capital is the biggest in Central and Eastern Europe, according to Magdalena Przelaskowska, CEE Program Manager at Campus Warsaw. “We want to teach how to inspire people to launch start-ups. This is an open platform,” she described Google’s mission in Warsaw. The facility is Campus’ third after those opened in London and Tel Aviv. Since November, it has acquired 4,000 members and held numerous events organized by Google or by start-up societies, in January, they had already clocked up 180 events. Room for creativity [caption id="attachment_95201" align="alignright" width="300"] Image: Paweł Kowalik/Google[/caption] In ten years time, 50 percent of all Poland’s creative companies will be based in Warsaw, now it’s at about 30 percent. “Warsaw is a city of creative tension,” Wolff cited Wally Olins, the British practitioner of corporate identity. The majority of start-ups included in Warsaw-based academic incubators operate in the IT sector, followed by e-marketing, and interestingly, manufacturing. The city of Warsaw is to launch the Center of Creativity Targowa (Centrum Kreatywności Targowa) by the end of 2016, which will feature exhibition halls, conference rooms, offices and desks to let. By 2022, another facility, The Center of Creativity Nowa Praga (Centrum Kreatywności Nowa Praga) is to be delivered (construction work has not yet begun). This building will also be addressed to the creative industries, but unlike the one on Targowa street, it will offer workshops and studios. Experts at Smolna are convinced that the centers will gather creative artists and manufacturers willing to start and develop a business. “There was this guy who came up with the idea of crafting professional kitchen knives. He had so many orders, his schedule became full for over a year in advance. And a married couple who wanted to start a sewing company. There are loads of people like them. Therefore, I find such projects very helpful for young creative entrepreneurs in the long term,” Mateusz Lebiedziński pointed out. Although Polish customer culture is not ready for good quality local products, he continued, Warsaw is the best place for such ventures due to, among other factors, the metropolitan lifestyle and higher salaries. Right behind the front-runner One may think that Warsaw is too small to catch up with the best in the world, however, those who work with budding Polish entrepreneurs claim the opposite. “We have nothing to be ashamed of. My knowledge and level of awareness is the same as that of people from Silicon Valley,” Lebiedziński said. The only difference is that they are more familiar with doing business, it's something natural for them, unlike for Poles who still think that starting their own company is a big deal,” he explained. “American start-up culture is on a higher level, that's all,” he concluded. In Lebiedziński’s opinion, Warsaw needs some ten years to develop and achieve the level of awareness and maturity that the world’s greatest technology nation has reached. Although Przelaskowska believes that it is hard to compare Silicon Valley to Warsaw, Poland should be proud of its engineering talents, and the only thing that Poles lack is self-confidence. “I think that we know a lot,” she concludes. The local authorities, academic incubators and big companies currently operating in Warsaw are eager to push on.