Guest post: Romania, a great location for start-ups - 5 things to consider before starting a firm

Guest writer Adrian Enache, who runs an online financing platform for startups, tackles several of the challenges anyone should consider when turning entrepreneur.

Romania has a unique opportunity to make its mark on the global tech scene: more than 50 venture capital firms from UK, Germany, and US are looming to the local ecosystem and targeting potential investments. In this context, intellectual property is crucial for Romanian startups and investors are particularly interested in it but also in the potential for accelerated growth on large markets.

The potential for startup development is considerable, as more institutional investors have developed partnerships here, the Diaspora started to positively impact the perspective on our country and more Romanian senior managers have reached top positions in the global investment ecosystem.

So much good content is written about how people should go about starting a business startup, but little is said about whether someone should start one – and if starting and running a business is suited to them.

These are the question we should be asking:

1) Would you give up the dream if you were offered a high paid job? Most entrepreneurs argue starting a business is about so many different things and say they never want to work for anyone else again. But when asked if their current salary were to increase dramatically, their determination wavers and they start thinking about financial security, paid leave and all the other perks of being employed. Not everyone is suited to running a business and the economy needs workers so don’t feel pressured if on balance it is not for you.

A growing number of corporate specialists are turning to entrepreneurship in Romania, but the trend is still at the beginning. Sometimes stability & predictability are more important than “reaching for the stars” – it depends on age, marital status, personality, and other factors. However, if the answer is yes, then the thought of having a safety net might draw you back from being “all in”.

2) What does success like to you? I often hear from people who want to start and run a successful business but in truth they don’t even know what that would look like for them. Is your goal a certain level of turnover, a percentage of market share or do you just want to make enough to live on and have happy customers? Without a goal in mind it is hard to plan.

The vast majority of thriving start-ups that now impact the world did not start as a way to generate more profit but had an impactful and innovative purpose. At least in the beginning. Does your success have a second component?