Twenty five years ago next month, Czechoslovakia was born after a half century of the Communist darkness.
I was in Paris and 23 years old at the time, and could not stop reading about this seismic shift in the newspapers. I wanted to see it and my opportunity came to travel to the scene of the Velvet Revolution.
I came to Prague in February 1990 for a photo-shoot sent by my modelling agency in Paris. I told my hosts, a well-known Czech photographer and his model wife, that I wanted to see ground zero. They were nervous as we crossed into the border of Czechoslovakia with an American in the backseat, and they told me not to say a word under any circumstance. ‘This is our first time back too. We don’t know exactly if it is all true,’ they said. When they drove me back to Paris, they said they were immediately returning as they had much to do to build their country. Paris was not enough.
Fast forward to 15 October 2014, EntrepreneurCountry Czech Republic was ‘born’. One of 15 regions across the continent, Lucie Bresova and Lukas Hrdlicka invited the leading entrepreneurs to come to the Pavilon Grebovka and formally announce the creation of this new country which I affectionately call: entrepreneur country. I decided to found a new country as I saw the ravaging of entrepreneurs and their businesses through the 2009 financial crisis. I remember saying repeatedly to myself, ‘I wish more people could go to ‘entrepreneur country’ (that figurative place entrepreneurs go everyday where only they know how much it takes out of them to drive their businesses forward, and where they can share their stories with other entrepreneurs).’ I ultimately wrote the book, Welcome to EntrepreneurCountry published in 2012, and set up EntrepreneurCountry Global because I realised that it was inevitable: we are all going to entrepreneur country. It’s just that not everyone realises it yet.
We have imperfect information about the future today just as the Czech freedom fighters, just as those Czech protestors did not know the detail of the arc of history, but they knew the endgame: they would demand fiercely their freedom, and they would have it. Today, if we could aggregate the visions of all entrepreneurs, we’d have much more perfect information about the future, as entrepreneurs live in the future. EntrepreneurCountry aggregates those future visions, and brings them kicking and screaming back to the present, so we can act. In EntrepreneurCountry we are also tapped on the shoulder by the arc of history, and we answered the call.
Back to Prague.
Today Prague is the cross-roads of people who want to restore cultural and family heritage and entrepreneurs like those who came to the launch of EntrepreneurCountry Czech Republic. One of the most impressive individuals I’ve met there was at the Pavilon Grebovka: Ondrej Kratky who founded and is the Chief Marketing Officer of Liftago. Their story indicates why we are never checkmated by history. There are always clever moves on the chessboard - unique opportunities for individuals who believe they have a contribution to make to the world, and who are willing to do the hard work of thinking about business models and how technology is a layer slicing through all industries.
Liftago didn’t broadcast their ambition. They didn’t have VCs stuffing money in their pocket at the Rosewood Hotel or Bucks or the University Café. They set about determining from Prague what was the best way to enable a fluid transportation market, to encourage people to leave their cars at home and take a taxi, and to empower taxi drivers. They knew that only 25% of taxi drivers’ time was spent driving and the rest was spent waiting or looking to be hired. They thought about doing Uber in the Czech Republic, but saw through measuring a lot of factors and doing this A/ B comparison that the empowerment of the existing taxi industry was far more capital efficient than building out new infrastructure for a new taxi network like Uber.
Back to the entrepreneurial vision, perfect information and the obsession to make it happen.
Ondrej knows that there will be driverless cars in the future. Is it two years away or ten? We don’t know the timeframe, but we know the inevitability. They figured that by enabling the existing taxi networks with technology, it was a shorter leap to getting customers used to being driven by driverless cars if they have customers behaviour primed as they do. They looked long into the future, and then worked their way back to the present as great entrepreneur do.
As we complain about the European venture capital scene – too little money, too little risk, too little success, we have to confront the reality that we may not be willing to do the hard work of thinking about business models and how technology is slicing through all industries. We don’t have more that many home-grown heroes because as a group of financiers we didn’t spot what Ondrej spotted, or didn’t press more European based potential Ubers to do the A/ B comparison of economics and capital efficiency between rebuilding the taxi network or enabling the existing one with tools. As a result of Americans doing their usual big mouth – ‘I’m going to own the market’ approach, aggregating the capital, telling the story and overspending, , there’s a 5 year delay.
Prague has its billionaires and one has backed Liftago. Many more are being created. The unique opportunity for those and the other entrepreneurs across this European continent of 450 million people is to enable not to disrupt. Disruption is a later-born child activity. It is new world thinking. We Europeans may not be as subversive. We are first born children: We have a stake in the existing order of things, but we also have hope that that can evolve. We do it softly – sometimes too softly, but the Velvet Revolution approach does lead to opportunities unlocked by human ingenuity. The impact is massive and comprehensive even if the voice over is not.
Europe desperately needs system-level change. It is clear to those of us who live in entrepreneur country that that will be driven by entrepreneurs: people who are living abnormal lives to bring that future kicking and screaming into the present. The EU was a first attempt to find Europe’s business model and to create a set of economics which would work for its citizens. But the breakthroughs always come after many attempts to crack the code. The EU as a political entity doesn’t harness the incredible power that we can see in a moment of history like the one that happened 25 years ago in Prague. It’s a system which is not by the people, for the people, but for the elite, and it won’t really tell you where your money is going. This soft condescension shows an enormous disrespect for those who fought for their freedom.
Europe is being redefined by its entrepreneur today. It is being reshaped with its home-grown digital cars running over its home-grown highways. Europe’s money needs to back these new industrialists of today. EntrepreneurCountry Global is making those victories discoverable – making them count. They aren’t necessarily loud like an American from Palo Alto would recognise, but they are profound as they are more system-level, more enabling, and more respectful of the inherent stake we have in the existing order of things. These digital enablers are not digital disrupters; they are the friends of the ROTW.
At Ground Zero, the Velvet Revolution protestors turned founding brothers and sisters of their new country wrote in Czech: If not now, when? If not us, who?
Twenty five years on, I hear the same questions which speak not only to me but 140,000 citizens of Entrepreneur Country, and to my partners across the European continent with whom I build our new country. The link between freedom and free enterprise and creating wealth for all of society is a direct one. Those of us who build our own businesses know profoundly that there are no short-cuts and no fast tracks. Freedom is fundamentally the freedom to create, to unlock the ingenuity within, and to make the contribution to your fellow man. This is hard, and you can’t merely throw money at it.
We walk today in those same Velvet footsteps. The landscape may have changed, but the vision remains the same.
As Ondrej said to me as he walked me to my Liftago taxi on the way out of the Pavilon Grebovka and into the Prague night, ‘and by the way, we are there’. It took me a moment to catch up with this extremely bright mind of the Czech Republic as I thought he was speaking about the taxi at first. But it is his endgame he breathes. He’s living in the future every day of his life. He goes to Entrepreneur Country, and puts up with what he puts up with in order to deliver his business day in and day out. He’s already living in the future where he’s enabled his fellow citizens – drivers and driven - to empower themselves with tech in cars. This is all about execution now. He’s already there.
By the way, we are there. Are you?
