For everyone who feels like an entrepreneur, Algebra College, the largest private educational system in Croatia, enables them to realize the ideas they dream of through its innovation center Algebra LAB. Algebra LAB helps companies, public services, and development firms to develop innovative business solutions that enhance competitiveness and offers participants content-rich, intensive, and enjoyable education, emphasizes Dr. Leo Mršić, director of Algebra LAB. The Algebra LAB program is currently enrolling the 14th generation of participants in a five-month program through which, says Mršić, they are building an interesting digital entrepreneurial future.
What does the Algebra LAB startup incubator enable for new entrepreneurs and those who are about to become one?
Research shows that each of us has just over 6,000 ideas daily! Our ideas are our hidden potential. I believe that the greatest advantage of Algebra LAB is the ability and experience of the mentoring team to give ideas space and intellectual support that will help in their realization. It turns out that in the early stages of development, teams often cannot recognize what they truly need; what they consider important actually comes much later. And even more importantly, all of this must ‘click’ at the right moment. Therefore, our focus is on open communication and a personal approach, a large number of contact hours so that we can create the conditions for creation and recognize those elements that the team needs to become aware of and decide together with us how to proceed.
The fundamental skill we apply is the ability to ask questions. Questions posed at the right time evoke clarity, introspection, provide enhanced creativity, and help in the search for solutions, having a strong impact on the team and encouraging team members to think. Once they adopt this approach, the market recognizes them as a potential for creating value, not just as an interesting idea. Every team that has gone through Algebra LAB can clearly see the change and progress in the development of the idea they started with. Among other things, we insist on public speaking training, and our final events are well attended by successful companies and individuals operating in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the region.
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Our team of experts focuses from the selection phase on identifying their hidden or visible values, which we further encourage and develop through personalized mentoring workshops. By identifying areas that need improvement, mentors ensure that teams have the opportunity to acquire skills at the most appropriate time concerning the life cycle of their idea. This process requires a high degree of commitment from our mentors to the team, but only with such an approach can maximum results be achieved, which again is shown by the very successful development paths of projects coming out of the Algebra LAB incubator. We are dedicated to monitoring the development and growth of our teams, and the results of this approach are seen and felt in the energy with which teams participate in the incubator. We believe that the future of entrepreneur education lies in personalization, and we work to enable optimal growth and development curves for our teams’ entrepreneurial ideas.
How many participants have there been so far, how do you select them, and how successful have their projects been?
Algebra LAB is the program with the longest tradition on the market; over the past 13 years, more than 150 teams have gone through it, primarily focused on the application of digital technologies. The selection process consists of several steps that begin with team applications. In the last generation, over 110 teams applied for one of the 10 spots in the incubator. Teams that enter the generation have direct access to the ecosystem with over 100 mentors from various fields of the economy and more than 500 teachers and associates from the Algebra Group.
We pay special attention to communication with partners specialized in financing or lending projects in the early stages of development. Therefore, our participants intensively prepare during the incubator program for presentations to investors and interested experts, all as part of a large final event that marks the beginning of a new phase of their entrepreneurial life.
I also highlight our ability to connect mentors of various profiles, mainly from the field of digital technologies. Equally important, from an early stage, it is necessary to work on communication skills. To enable even those who are less communicative to give their best, we motivate them to recognize their affinities and strengths and to work on them. We often find ourselves in a position where we reconsider the idea a team will work on with a team that shows great energy in the first days of the incubator, and often this process brings out the best that the team can give.
The relationship in which participants come first has been recognized by the community, and we continuously remain one of the incubators with the highest number of applications, even though we do not directly invest money in teams. However, our recommendation to the investor community carries weight and is recognized as relevant, and we are proud of that. Additionally, there is an increasing number of companies that are contracting incubator programs with our teams within their companies, and we have conducted such programs for several large companies in the region. More teams, during or after the incubator program, have attracted significant funding, some over 150,000 euros, and we are still in contact with many through various forms of cooperation, which we consider a sign of success that we have built and continue to build together.
What do beginner entrepreneurs gain by participating in InnORBIT?
In the domestic public, the European Union initiative stating that space research in the EU aims to promote entrepreneurship has not resonated strongly. The program guidelines state that competitiveness and investment in this area open up opportunities for the application of the most advanced solutions, which come as a direct consequence of investment. With a relevant approach, this area is extremely interesting for entrepreneurs. The Ministry of Science and Education has supported this initiative by promoting research work, but there are few institutions that actively participate in projects related to space research.
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Algebra LAB has collaborated for months on a project application for H2020 InnORBIT to enable entrepreneurs connected to our ecosystem access to knowledge related to space research. This practice is not new in the world, but entrepreneurs in Croatia have the opportunity to encounter it for the first time through the InnORBIT initiative. Through collaboration with project partners and via the Adriatic Aerospace Association (A3), we have already positioned Croatia as a region with potential, and we expect to achieve connections with some entrepreneurial teams by the end of the project. I believe that the average reader cannot simply connect space research with small entrepreneurship; moreover, they view such statements with skepticism. We want to change that by bringing small and medium-sized enterprises closer to consortia and companies that invest in this type of research. By connecting them with local entrepreneurs, we aim to establish frameworks for concrete, tangible collaborations.
What is the purpose of the IRI2 project, and how does LAB contribute to this project?
Within Algebra LAB operates one of the most complete teams of data scientists in our region, backed by numerous awards and collaborations with various companies. One of the larger, socially beneficial challenges that can be solved through data science is the automation of various systems we use in everyday life. These days, a new Electricity Market Act is in the legislative procedure, which will strongly impact this market and especially the development of smaller, intelligent, service solutions further stimulated by the advancement in the implementation of 5G networks. Through this project, in collaboration with partners, we are building just such a small but very intelligent service aimed at ensuring the reliability of the distribution system and the reliable delivery of electricity.
By applying machine learning and self-learning methods, the system will ensure automatic adaptation to changes in the network. It is crucial that the system uses existing but also completely new elements for regulation in the distribution system, thus ensuring minimal investment in the infrastructure of the distribution network. The results of this project are highly applicable in future development strategies of the electricity market and represent an innovation that will enable the development of numerous entrepreneurial projects, but also beyond.
How can higher education and small, medium, and new entrepreneurs complement each other?
Investment by companies in projects is directly linked to the development of a return on investment plan. In other words, it is neither simple nor cheap to invest in new technologies, innovations, people… Additionally, in the race for profit, the time available for product development in companies is often minimized, which usually does not yield good results. Higher education thus provides space, time, and a continuous source of knowledge that entrepreneurs can use to enhance their skills. Higher education represents the most important ecosystem that enables the economy to recognize, test, develop, and ultimately apply some modern digital solution.
Such ecosystems are equipped with technology and allow for the rapid formation of teams, thereby efficiently assessing the most common problems; i.e., how to find a market, whether to apply a solution, how much the application will cost, who will work on maintaining such solutions, how to approach implementation… Small and medium enterprises in higher education have support most similar to that of family, a refuge for peaceful development and prototyping ideas that will be applied in a turbulent market. At the same time, continuous access to talent allows strong ideas to be worked on by teams that have both energy and knowledge. Only in this way is space opened for synergy, scaling, and continuity of knowledge utilization. Smart and agile ecosystems gathered around higher education institutions attract significant investments and, in return, offer the activation of the economy enhanced by digital technologies.
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The small and medium-sized enterprise sector accounts for the largest share of the number of companies in Croatia, at 99.7 percent according to 2019 data, and records an annual growth of nearly 30 percent. At the same time, it employs three-quarters, 74.3 percent, of all employees in business entities and records an annual growth of over 20 percent. Finally, it generates over 60 percent of the total revenue achieved at the level of the Republic of Croatia, with an overall annual growth of over 20 percent. All this with an average of four employees per company. Innovation centers supported by higher education institutions are a source of resources for many entrepreneurs to conduct business, exchange experiences, and collaborate. There is no better way to activate the economy than through continuous, transparent, and purposeful investment in educational institutions whose purpose is to combine the transfer of knowledge and the application of that knowledge in practice. Likewise, there is no better way to learn about entrepreneurship than to become an entrepreneur, initially in controlled conditions of an incubator, and later – anything is possible.
What is the most important thing for every entrepreneur to survive in the market?
The ability to recognize what their strongest sides are, what motivates and activates them. The next step is understanding the market, realizing that although entrepreneurs often solve problems that trouble them through ideas, their product is used by others. Survival in the market represents constant work on what you love while respecting other elements that the market demands. In the early stages of entrepreneurial ventures, ideas are often recognized precisely by the people behind them; even in a large and well-known company, we will often remember the person who started the company before the company’s name itself.
For success, however, it is necessary to pay attention to just one thing. Unusual, but true, only one thing has determined or motivated most entrepreneurs, and that is ‘timing’, the right time to work on an idea. Recognizing the right time requires a high degree of desire to succeed, but also to hear advice or decide to adapt the idea. It is easy to recognize those entrepreneurs who do not have the element of accepting advice in their character. The others, however, bravely and focused wait for their opportunity.
Content created in collaboration with Algebra College
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