Sara Koslinska — how this smart girl is taking over the fintech world from Poland

Sara is an entrepreneur experienced with Lean Startup methodology, idea validation, generating early traction and comparing business models.

So far she traveled 40 different countries getting to know the local startup ecosystems and has a cross- industry experience (both B2B and B2C) from Poland, Israel, UK, Singapore and Malaysia. She is also engaged in a range of projects in support of entrepreneurship including setting up StartupPoland in cooperation with Google.

Sara is currently the co-founder of Limitless, a micro-investment app made specially for Millenials.

“Can you tell us in one sentence what you guys do?”

Investing made easy with the Limitless app — helping financial institutions engage millennials with micro-investments.

“Why did you and your co-founders (if you have any) decide to build something like you do today? What was your initial inspiration or problem you wished to solve?”

One of the most shocking things my co-founder Ka-ming Lim read in 2015 was that Millennials had a negative savings rate. After over 20 years in the investment industry in London, NY and Singapore he knew that this was the time they should be not just saving money but investing for the long term. Together with me, a Millennial myself and a dynamic startuper with experience in Warsaw, London, Tel Aviv and Singapore, we set out to find a solution.

“What excites you the most about your work, and what is that single moment in your past that you are most proud of?”

We are solving a real problem and we are helping our peers to take care of their financial lives and as a result they become more confident and can make better decisions.

“…and fails? We all have them, but what were your most spectacular ones? Of course only the ones you wish to share”

Hmmm, hard to answer this one, because we didn’t have any spectacular fails. We got some rejections obviously, had a couple of meetings and presentations that weren’t impressive, but that’s about it, really.

“Who are you most excited about in your local startup ecosystem and why?” — this could be startups, coworking offices, accelerators, mentors…basically anyone who you think highly!

Stefan Batory of Booksy and Monika Zochowska and Ewa Dudzic of Glov for their perseverance and Borys Musielak of Samba TV and his Open Reaktor event and ReactorX incubator for creating a space where people feel welcomed, can share their experience and learn from each other.

“In your opinion what are the single best and the single worst things running a startup from Central Europe?”

Central Europeans are super hard-working and it’s relatively easy to find tech talent in the region.

The other thing is that the business environment is still less competitive than Western Europe, so it’s easier to find opportunities and get exposure. The worst thing is that it’s harder to build a global business.

“What do you value most in people? Especially those in your team?”

We value flexibility and openness for different opinions, styles of work, ideas

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We at CESAwards stand with our hats in our hands each year in front of all the amazing innovation, the incredible stories and brave startupper who strive for more, who are here to build and change the status quo in the CEE region.

In this interview series we introduce our National Winners of 2017.

Meet the best minds of the CEE region on cesawards.com