What are the best approaches to scaling a business? Some say the secrets stand in the originality of a product, others that it’s about timing, while many advocate that the market’s needs are the loudest in points of determining a business’s success.

At Techsylvania, we have raised many questions in terms of entrepreneurship and have tried to reach some conclusions regarding a common thread in this journey.

During a panel about businesses that went international with Romanian entrepreneurs, we found out that opinions are divided, depending on everyone’s approach and the entire experience. Dan Isai, CEO and Founder at Salad Box, has extended his business among many countries and even continents and he believes that this is not that hard to do. His secret for expanding so easy stands in travelling — I think it the most important thing in scaling a business is about the timing and what helps to understand better this aspect is travelling.

Another approach, revealed by Mihai Dragan, CEO at Oveit, is going international from the start. Mihai and his team launched a product, which they made available for as many people as possible in as many countries as possible. Afterwards, without marketing it, they started checking where most people were coming from and they insisted there with their development.

“I think it’s like sailing: you go where the wind takes you, where the opportunities are.”

Sergiu Biris, CEO & Co-Founder at Zonga

Ondrej Bartos — Partner & Chairman of the Board at Credo Venture, Luke Mawbey — Head of Technology at Comply Advantage, David Kashak — Founder & CEO of Connatix and Ruta Laukien — Managing Partner at GrayBella Capital, discussed the pros & cons of investing in Romania. We are quite known for our technical talent, and many come here just for that, but on the other hand, the enforceability of law is still low in Romania. Ondrej divulged that he is a fan of the awesome teams that are found here, but also that when they invest in Romanian startups, they usually incorporate them outside of the country, in places where it’s more convenient from the legal point, with more standardized procedures.

“We should talk about entrepreneurship, we should talk about failure, we should talk about failure because they are all-natural.”

So you’ve seen some companies here, you’ve done some deal-screening, what’s your perspective here on some of the entrepreneurs and the companies?

“I think there are interesting ideas coming from here and it is an exciting time to be here and to be an early investor. I think it needs hands-on investment, I don’t think you can be an investor where you just spread out some money and just let them be,” said Ruta Laukien.

Andy Tryba has an experienced background as founder & CEO of many successful companies and he has passed a very optimistic perception of building & scaling businesses. After building RideAustin, a ride-sharing company, in just 4 weeks, he pinpointed these 5 quick tips:

1. Get the best people in the world on your team
2. If you don’t hate your MVP, you’ve launched too late
3. Build a community — iterate with feedback
4. Be ready to ‘incentivize’ both sides of the market
5. You’ll break every scale point, accept it, recover fast & improve