From Bosnia to Silicon Valley, via Australia
It is amazing what role the luck can play in business, in work, and in life in general. And in addition to timing, luck is the greatest ally one can have on their side.
More on luck a bit later.
Chapter 1: Bosnia and Hercegovina
But first let’s go back to the time and place where this story begins — 1993, in Bosnia and Hercegovina. Bosnia is a beautiful country by anyone’s standards. It features high, snow-capped mountains, gorgeous lakes, wild rivers and pristine beaches on the Adriatic Sea. Bosnia is inhabited by some of the nicest people you will ever meet anywhere in the world.
But equally, and despite in only very small numbers, Bosnia is where you will find some of the world’s worst and most evil.
In 1993, as the ‘parent’ country Yugoslavia had already disintegrated, the heart of Yugoslavia — Bosnia — was rapidly spiralling towards brutal ethnic war that would, as it turned out, last for several years and take hundreds of thousands of innocent lives along the way.
In 1993, I was 17; but fast approaching 18. And once I turned 18, all chances were that I’d be indicted into the army, and perhaps die in the war like many other teenagers before me, or after me.
My parents did not want me to take part in that war, and organised for me to leave Bosnia, on a bus. So there I was in February 1993, standing in the middle of winter at the bus stop, in snow up to my knees, waiting for my turn to get on the bus. Actually, on that day, due to so many sick people, injured soldiers, and elderly, who were in desperate need of health care, that day there were two buses.
Saying ‘good bye’ was particularly traumatic. There were so many people in tears… And then there were those like me, who were trying to hide theirs. Everyone was wondering if that is the last time they will see their loved ones. “What if I make it through, survive, but my family dies in the war?”, I thought. “What if something happens to Igor, whom we sent on the bus, how will we live with that responsibility?”, my family later recalled how they felt at the time. Indeed, that was the last time I saw my grandmother who raised me up and who was the dearest person in my life, and the greatest influencer on me. Everything I learned about always doing the right thing, being honest and being hardest worker in the room comes from her.
Sadly, she passed away a year later (of natural causes) and regretfully, I wasn’t able to return to attend her funeral.
By chance, that day I ended up getting on the first bus. And that is why I am still alive today and writing this story.
My bus left at 9:00am bound for Croatia, on a trip which, under normal circumstances, would normally be an easy 1-hour trip to the north. However, going north wasn’t an option. Instead, we had to take a much longer and more dangerous route through the south of Bosnia — a route which ended up taking 3 days.
The second bus left 15 minutes behind us. The plan was that we will ‘catch up’ at stopovers along the way; but we never saw them again, and had no idea what happened.
I found out the details later. When our, first, bus left and passed through some occupied territories, the occupying forces adjusted their artillery and were waiting for more vehicles to enter. And so when the second bus came, it stood no chance — it was shelled heavily, received multiple direct hits, and all of the passengers on the bus died.
My trip, with less than 300km in distance to cross, lasted over 3 days. When I think about it today, it is still something that defies belief. Our bus travelled on paths that were never designed for any vehicles, let alone buses. We crossed multiple improvised bridges that were previously demolished during fighting. We had no idea if timber pieces that were used to act as the bridge could or would hold the weight of the bus. If they didn’t, we were often looking at falling more than 30 metres into a raging river, in the middle of winter.
Large parts of the country were fully destroyed — the only home I had known was now completely unrecognisable. Burnt houses, destroyed buildings, demolished bridges were everywhere. There was just nothing left. During the entire trip we could hear fighting go on, which could not have been too far away because it was so loud.
But it was meant to be; we survived the trip, and managed to get through. By all accounts, we were definitely the lucky ones!
Chapter 2: Germany
I eventually ended up in Moenchengladbach, near Cologne (Germany), having spent only 3 days in Croatia.
Now, at this point one would say that I was safe and well, and I was. However, as a 17-year-old in a foreign country where I had to support myself, life wasn’t easy. I knew I had to complete my last year of ‘high school’, but I had no money or means to support myself. So I found job at an Aldi distribution centre. The job, however, meant that I had to wake up at 2am and ride my bicycle for 10km — even during winter. I could not afford a car, and at that time during early morning there was no public transport available, so riding bicycle in inadequate clothing and sub-zero temperatures was really the only option. Arriving at 2:30am, I worked as food packer for 3 hours; then it was time to ride back home, have quick shower, then go to school… It was hard to do this 5 days a week, but I considered myself lucky in comparison to those that I left behind — after all, I had opportunity to earn 500 Deutsche Marks each month! Which kept me just above poverty line in Germany at the time, but I was happy with what I had.
A year later, I graduated from high school, as one of the best students of my generation. I excelled in maths, information technology and geography. Little did I know that I will eventually end up utilising my favorite subjects as part of my career.
All my friends and teachers assumed that I would enrol in a University degree. However, university studies were very expensive, and I had no real income to speak of and no savings. Whatever money I had, I would send it to my family back in Bosnia.
Consequently, I decided to ‘postpone’ my studies until later — and found a job in textile factory as labourer. That job was actually quite nice in comparison to my job at Aldi; I worked 4.5 days a week, during normal business hours, and earned substantially more. I also learned a lot about discipline, team work, and punctuality — the skills that have served me well ever since.
At that point in time, I had made lots of new friends, started to go out, and enjoyed being young 19-year-old in one of the most industrial places on earth, Nordrhein-Westfalen. It was great fun!
But then, the news came: the war in Bosnia was over. The peace has finally arrived. That was terrific news! All great news, but… There was a problem. It wasn’t really an option for me in going back to Bosnia; the economy was shattered, there were no jobs and no real future for the young people such as myself and my sister. So my parents decided to apply for permanent settlement in Australia, where my father’s sister (my aunt) had lived since the 1960s. Australia? Really? I thought. And why Brisbane?
My parents and sister were going, that decision was already made. The only question was if I was going to stay in Germany or join them. What went through my head was that if I didn’t grab that opportunity to re-unite with them, that we would more than likely never come together as a family again. So I decided that I was going to join them and move to Australia. After all, I thought, if I don’t like Australia, I can always leave and go back to Europe (or so I thought — however I would never be able to afford the trip back!).
Chapter 3: Australia
We arrived in Australia — otherwise known as “the lucky country” — in April 1996, with not much more than few suitcases of clothing and other personal belongings. But one can’t help but fall instantly in love with Australia, and it’s people. The climate is fantastic, Australia is beautiful, and even the poorest people can live in dignity and enjoy life.
The next few years were hard work but rewarding — I completed a 4-year degree in computer science. I became an Australian citizen. And I met my future wife Marija, who studied at the same university, and came to Australia about the same time I did. Today, Marija and I are blessed with 4 beautiful, healthy and happy children.
Once I completed my studies, I got my first job at a local IT company. I stayed with that company for 7 years, and then spent further 5 years consulting to various clients in Brisbane. During that time, I had the privilege to work with many smart and experienced people. Unfortunately, I also worked with some not-so-nice people, to put it politely. Despite always exhibiting a strong work ethic, these negative acquaintances (and there only a few of those, to put it into perspective) told me that I would never be able run my own business. I didn’t have an MBA. I spoke English with an accent. I never went to private school. And I belonged to ‘ethnic’ people. Those ‘badies’ did not realise it at the time, but they actually gave me years of motivation and ‘fuel’ to run on. So I’m actually very grateful to them today!
I eventually started my first business “GIS People” in 2010, aged 35. During the first couple of years as an entrepreneur, one will experience few highs and many lows. But whenever times got tough, I remembered my times in Bosnia, Germany, or the meanies I’d recently worked with, and I was ok for another year!
My business was (and still is) focused on delivering professional services, software development and consulting in location-based services — otherwise known as geospatial technology. While we grew quickly and won multiple awards and accolades along the way, I always dreamed about developing our own Intellectual Property and running a ‘product’ or ‘platform’ business with global market potential.
And that’s how Gruntify was born.
In 2014, my company won an Open Innovation Challenge, organised and delivered by PwC and Queensland Government.
The Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads was trying to solve a problem associated with identification, reporting and remediation of graffiti in Queensland, so they decided to publish a problem statement as part of the Open Innovation Challenge. Large organisations, SMEs and universities had the opportunity to listen to the problem, then prepare a pitch to explain how they would solve it.
My company pitched a graffiti capture app and graffiti workflow engine, with geographic distribution of work management and real-time mapping of hotspots. We were up against multiple industry giants such as Telstra, Esri Australia and Queensland University of Technology. But the department were impressed with our attention to solving their specific problem, and chose our solution as the winning one!
As we progressed with developing the product for Transport and Main Roads, what quickly became clear was that 1) many other industries had similar problems (need for data capture and process management), and 2) since we retained IP, the system could easily be opened up as a generic platform and mobility framework to address these issues.
At this point, and realising that there were global market opportunities, we decided to commercialise the product and name it Gruntify. “What does Gruntify mean?!” I hear you ask. Well, the platform empowers field workers and gives them ‘extra grunt’, i.e. vroom, vroom. And by capturing and submitting data direct from the field to the cloud database, it does away with annoying paper-based forms that everyone hates to type up when they’re back in the office. So it does the ‘grunt work’ for them.
Since initial implementation at Transport and Main Roads, Gruntify has grown rapidly into a platform often dubbed “Instagram for Business” and is now offered as an enterprise-grade solution for big corporate clients. Applications range from being human-centric in smart cities, to conservation-focused in saving jaguars in the Amazon, spotting threatened species and monitoring conditions of Great Barrier Reef.
And with a bit (more) luck, and a lot of hard work, I hope to continue to grow the team at Gruntify, grow the product, and achieve more big things.
Chapter 4: USA
Today, 23 years after leaving war torn Bosnia, the 17-year old refugee has turned into an entrepreneur. I am about to embark on a once-in-a-lifetime business trip to Silicon Valley, United States — representing my new home — Australia. It is a dream come true; visiting a place all entrepreneurs dream about. For me this will be my first time in the USA and I feel incredibly humbled and honoured to be invited to attend the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2016 hosted by President Barrack Obama and the US Government.
While the chances of actually meeting president Obama in person are extremely slim, even being in the same room or at the same campus with the President is an extraordinary honour, one that I will cherish for the rest of my life.
So far, I’ve moved between “the unlucky country” (Bosnia), “the lucky country” (Australia), and I’m soon to set foot in “the country of opportunity” (USA).
This fourth chapter has only just begun, so who knows how it might unfold? And what will luck bring in the future?
I’m Igor Stjepanovic, an entrepreneur from Australia, and this is my story. If you enjoyed this story, I’d love to hear your feedback. Thank you!
