The startup community in Albania was fortunate to have among them the expert in this field, the mentor and promoter of rapid startup development, Tal Catran. Arriving from Israel, he became part of several program events in the country. In Korça we were lucky to meet with him. In an exclusive interview with Business Magazine, he invited Albanian youth to think about the international market, to be open and prepared for it. Albania is a small country, according to him and the opportunity for development comes only if we are open and prepared.
Business Magazine: Do you think we have the same spirit as Israel, in terms of flexibility and getting things done, with little planning?
Tal Catran: I think that first of all, once you are pushed, you do, someone needs to push you still. People will just stand on the side and look. In a way, confidence needs to be built, and when you are shy or when you are afraid of failure because everyone is going to point at you, you say why do I need to be different, I am going to be like everyone else and when everyone is not doing anything, you’re just not going anywhere. Now there are always exceptions because you still have hundreds of startups, you do have, you want to be in the thousands, in the tens of thousands.
Business Magazine: This is where I have a question because you have a lot of experience from Israel which is a Startup Nation, here in Albania we have been evolving the scene for a lot of years, and there are a lot of things going on, especially in Tirana but we still lack, let’s say, success stories that go beyond Albania, so we still do not have some startup that we say this startup from Albania, made this acquisition or achieved this success in a global range or European range. Was this period in Israel weak or did it have a lot of investment?
Watch "The Pitch for Success" by Tal Catran here!
Tal Catran: I wouldn’t know because that period is like in our history, meaning it happened so long ago. Listen, if the culture in a way or the way of conduct of the startups is like the people that I have seen here, kind of reserved, they don’t engage too quickly, well how can you commercialize and become international when you don’t communicate. How is it that today, although many of the participants were young people, we still don't speak English, you know the panels, why are we speaking Albanian, I mean I see that in other countries, where all the population is the problem, they don’t speak English but the schools teach youngsters, here it’s kind of the opposite, you are giving the option if you say should we speak English or Albanian, they say Albanian. No this is not how you do it, you don’t ask them, you say we speak English, period. Again, when will this big name come out of Albania? When Albania decides, when the people decide it is time to go international and understand that Albania is small. This is why when you pitch to me and you say well my target market is Albania, are you serious? No, so your target is Europe, good, learn English, see yourself somewhere. To get yourself to UK, France, Germany, Israel, you need to speak to people, you need to engage with people, but when you remain reserved, how will you go international?
Business Magazine: I have to intervene here because it’s your second day let’s say in Albania and what you have seen here it is not the real startups, and I want to talk about this as well, it looks like everything happens in Tirana, Tirana is the center, and when we talk about Albania’s Ecosystem we talk mainly about Tirana, what is your suggestion, how can we spread this atmosphere from Tirana to Korça and other cities because Tirana is different, it’s not like this, we are let’s say some years back in Korça as it used to be in Tirana seven years ago. How can we do this transition and pass this knowledge and spirit and everything in other cities?
Tal Catran: First of all in the last two days of being in Tirana, I have met with Growpreneur and Uplift, I heard the startups, yes, they are amazing, okay? I give them that, but their initiative of growing outside of Tirana is no different than any other country in the world, I mean come to Israel, where would you see most startups, in Tel A Viv, come to Lithuania, Vilnius, come to Romania, Bucharest, come to Hungaria, Budapest. It’s always like this, the richest country, which is usually the capital, is where all the startups or mainly are located, why? The best academies are there, the investors are there, the government is there, so why be somewhere else? When you want to see change, something needs to start, this will not start from the side of the ecosystem, meaning the startups, it needs to start from the government and municipality. When the government decides: "We want to put a huge flashlight on Korça", it says to startups very simply: "You want benefits from it? Go to Korca! Do you want funding? Be in Korça. Even further away from Korça, I will help you but not if you are in Tirana, I have no reason because you can do it by yourself, I want to help you where is difficult, I want to help you when the culture is not still ready, when the infrastructure is not that well, when you don’t have the surroundings, this is where I will help you". How smart should you be not to realize this?
Business Magazine: I was also asking in the terms of a startup or a youngster, if I were living in another city and I wanted to evolve myself, I have an idea and I want to make it happen. What can I do?
Tal Catran: Go to an accelerator. Why should you leave your city, what is the meaning?
Business Magazine: Well, when nothing is happening in my city...
Tal Catran: Here, I must say, I saw a mayor who is very different from others, who is very engaging. I saw the minister of defense, very engaging, very touchable, he is there, he was standing and everyone wanted a picture, wanted to talk to him, he is there. So, if you don’t see that, go and ask, go and say: "Okay I want to stay in my city, I don’t want your money, I want a program, I want an accelerator. Can you open one for me?". Again, when you are not asking for money, people listen to you! When you say I need a program, the municipality will make this program happen, how? Very simple, they will take a program from Tirana, tell the people that we will offer you so and so, but the way we want to bring it here is that we don’t want you to immigrate from Tirana to Korça, come and train our trainers, our trainers will take it from here, we want local people, local mentors, local startups, local accelerator managers, everything needs to be local and then maybe people will immigrate from Tirana here, maybe not just from Tirana, maybe from Macedonia, maybe from Kosovo. They will come here and say: “Hey Korça became the center of everything!”. This is where everything starts, I told the mayor yesterday: "I want you to put a big sign at the entrance of the city, that says: “You want to be successful? You come here!”, "Your success starts here in Korça". Under the sign “Welcome to Korça”, should be “Your success starts here!”, the arrow says here.
Watch "The Pitch for Success" by Tal Catran here!
Business Magazine: That is nice but you maybe make it look so simple, that is the power of your storytelling, I am tended to think about what our problems are as a whole ecosystem. So maybe if we can sort things out in different cities your way then maybe we should work more in terms of engaging the youngsters with this mindset because I see here nobody makes questions, they are very shy, so how can we do something about this, to change their mindset? Or where shall we start?
Tal Catran: I am just going to translate what I heard here many times: "Tal, you make it sound so simple." I think the impression of being so simple, first of all, is because I speak simple words, second, I have only solutions, I don’t have problems, I only give solutions, three, practical, easy to do. Not like give me a billion dollars. I don’t have a billion, I would never ask you for a dime, I just give you practical solutions that don’t cost you anything, just attention. So first of all, just to clarify on this, I am not a rocket scientist, I am not sharing secrets you can’t find anywhere, I am just giving a very simple and direct way to implement, to be practical. You know what is the funny part, although it sounds so simple, I don’t know how much from what I gave you will kind of convert into action. It is in the hands of people, people need to do it.
For the other part, people here are shy because this is part of the culture, second of all it was kind of an intimidating day, the minister is here, the mayor is here, delegates are here, it’s in English, then comes this guy from Israel, it is not a usual day. But the number of people that reached out to me, so impactful, so inspirational, so, so, so simple to understand, the problem is, there is no day after. That is the big problem! We will all go home after the cocktail, feeling good about ourselves with a full stomach, wake up Sunday and say: What now? Where do we go? What do I do? It needs to have a continuation, it needs to have a day after the program, a plan needs to be in place and it needs to have people that in this stage will hold them by the hand and walk them through.
We have experience with people who are mentors, who made them mentors? Who trained them? You don’t wake up and say hey, I am a mentor today, so no one taught them as well. We have the university here today, ask them, you as a university, do you train for entrepreneurship? Do you have a diploma that says: "Software Engineer and Entrepreneur"? No, why? It is simple, you just add it and you are good, but you need to teach it. A lot of the elements are kind of around us, someone needs to structure them all together, put everything to the right place, right now is kind of scattered. Lastly, I still have this weird sensation here that although this place is very small, people here compete not for the right reasons, instead of understanding that you’re such a small number of people, that you all pull or push towards the same direction, some of you are here some are not, for what? For eagerness, for money, for business, this cannot be stopped entirely but it needs to be on the table, let’s discuss it. Why are we not all going in the same direction? What is the direction that we are going needs to be clear, then needs to be KPI’s, how will you know we have succeeded doing what we just promised ourselves else way. Where are the numbers, quantity, how many startups do we want for 2022, where is the plan? Where is the number?
Business Magazine: Do you think that this process could be led by the government or can come up with a proposal from the businesses, or associations, or the ecosystem builders? How does it work in your opinion?
Tal Catran: When we mention government and municipality, we just mention money, why? Because the initiative honestly needs to come from the private sector, meaning from them. I can take money from the mayor but I can’t tell him to give me money. I can tell the mayor, listen, this is my plan, it will start on this date, it will be this much, it will end up here, when I end this will be the results, these are the numbers, KPI’s, for this I need 5000, then for you to say no it will be really difficult.
First of all, he said that innovation is the main topic, okay, where is your money? Put your money where your mouth is. I am saying this as a good person because he said to me go ahead I am with you, don’t go too crazy but a little crazy. The minister same, he said Tal we need success stories, I said okay, if I want my kid to be successful, well I need to bring him help. I am not saying to my kid well you pay, I will pay but first of all I will bring you the best of the best, second of all every day I want you to report to me, tell me what did you learn, where are we going, are we according to schedule, are you meeting the plan, are you meeting the KPI’s? Yes, yes, no, no, I just want to know. This is how you grow the ecosystem. You take them by the hand and you make it happen. You don’t wait for luck. Don't hesitate, accelerate!
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