Borys Musielak @ San Francisco

15 years ago today, Reaktor was born. We just wanted a place to work, but we've built the Warsaw startup ecosystem instead. It was July 2011. I just came back from my first trip to San Francisco where I was inspired by startup mansions like the Blackbox Mansion, and I thought - why not build this in Warsaw? We teamed up with @kubafilipowski who has been thinking about something similar for a while, and my college pal @anwalkowska. The three of us were just launching their own startups, @filmaster, HumanWay and Homplex. But we also wanted more from the office than just work. So we invited friends from the small Warsaw startup world to join us... and they did. In the following 10 years we launched 82 legendary #OpenReaktor events, 10 amazing birthday parties, dozens of mentoring and matchmaking sessions. We hosted startup legends like @jerrycolonna or @bragiel as well as the rising starts of polish startups at the time like @elamadej @sbatory or @sadek. In 2016 @dianakoziarska joined as house manager and she took it to the next level launching the pre-accelerator program ReaktorX which helped 200+ founders launch their startups. Without Reaktor there wouldn't be @smokvc as we wouldn't have met this many amazing people who later became our mentors and LPs in the fund. Till this day every week I meet someone who tells me they met their cofounder, investor, employer or friend for life at one of the OpenReaktor events. We closed the house in COVID time when we were busy launching our first fund. But the @Reaktor_X brand is alive and kicking - currently run by @Stirbat_Luca in San Francisco where he's supporting the most ambitious under 25-year-old founders from Central and Eastern Europe.

Hey! I'm with my partner @bragiel in SF / Bay Area this week meeting the most exciting CEE diaspora entrepreneurs. At @smokvc we invest in immigrant founders pre-seed and help them on a journey to conquer the US market. Please tag the person currently building something cool!

I'll have breakfast tomorrow @ North Beach, San Francisco with a great builder. DM if it's you. – at San Francisco, CA

MIA ⛱️ -> SFO 🌉 🦄 Looking to meet old buddies and meet new ones. It's been a while! Wanna hang out? DM! And don't forget to RVSP to @CeeStartup meetup on Wednesday: luma.com/u1pso5wc #ceevalley – at San Francisco, CA

was fun hanging out with my buddies in Miami ⛱️ - tomorrow off to San Francisco 🌉

Last night we had another @smokvc CEE diaspora dinner, this time in Miami, Florida with @sbatory @gregokon @natalbrzezinski @1annafrankowska @uldis @ihor_bauman & other Miami-based entrepreneurs originally from Eastern Europe. San Francisco next! – at Miami Beach, FL

I'm in San Francisco next week and you're all invited to our @smokvc party at European Startup Embassy this coming Wednesday! I'm especially happy to meet Eastern European entrepreneurs building in the Valley as well as local venture capitalists and angels investing in diaspora founders. We've already made over 10 investments in San Francisco founders from Poland🇵🇱, Ukraine🇺🇦, Romania🇷🇴 and looking to add more over the coming years. See you in SF next week! RVSP: luma.com/u1pso5wc

VC bierzesz tylko wtedy kiedy wiesz że nie dasz rady wygrać rynku bez kapitału. W przeciwnym razie - bootstrap to najlepsza droga.

My US trip starts tomorrow in Miami 🏖️🇺🇸 Exited to meet CEE diaspora folks over the next few days and experience the Vice City during the new GTA launch. Also, let's hope 8 see Giannis 🔥🏀 win their first game this season against Pacers on Friday. See you around!

There's zero excuse for ghosting in the AI world. It's literally one prompt.

Software jest dziś najtańszy w historii. Dystrybucja jest najdroższa w historii. Nadchodzą ciężkie czasy dla bootstrapu, a złote czasy dla venture capital. Firmy z kasą z VC jeszcze bardziej zdominują konkurencyjne globalne rynki. Dla bootstrap zostanie nisza.

DM if you're in town for Warsaw Tech Week! Let's meet on Monday or Tuesday as I'm flying to Miami ⛱️ on Wednesday morning. #polandtechweek #techwawa #polandmaxing

Dobry advisor na początku drogi budowania start-upu może być więcej wart niż najlepszy VC. Taki impact miał na nas @markdeq jak budowaliśmy @filmaster (acquired by @sambaintel in 2015).

A startup isn't supposed to make money. It's supposed to grow fast and maximize the odds of returning a multiple to its investors. Once you take VC money, your job is to increase value, not generate profit. If a company in my portfolio is sitting on profits, I'm annoyed. That cash should be going back into growth. If you own 100% of your company, do whatever you want with the profits. Pay yourself a dividend. Buy a boat. Your call. With VC funding, it doesn't work that way. Dividends sometimes become acceptable after an IPO, long after anyone still calls the company a startup. Profit isn't the goal, it's what's left when you've run out of better places to put the money.

Albo grubo albo wcale.

I'm in Miami 🏖️ 🇺🇸 next week - who should I hang out with? Founders, angels, VCs, LPs, CEE diaspora people... let's meet!