Get out to get back in

Backstory: I spent 10 years in the U.S. as a kid and the last 23 in Poland. I started a marketplace for the oil and gas community about 10 months ago and moved out to Boulder/Denver, Colorado 3 months ago.

One of the main reasons I made the move (with my wife and 3 kids in tow) was that I couldn’t find a technical co-founder in Poland that understood and cared about B2B/enterprise products, that understood we’re building for a global audience and that wasn’t polluted by EU/government funds so he/she understood that we need to generate revenue from more or less the onset of our business and that that revenue needs to be generated globally from the very beginning (no test runs in Poland). I spent 6 months looking for such a person and wasn’t successful. Guys who wanted to be CTO/co-founders were junior or senior developers who wanted to have a good lifestyle job or they were guys looking to set up companies in much more consumer-focused areas.

This is how I would attack the problem: if you’re a software engineer leave to work abroad as soon as humanly possible. Go to work in the U.S. for 2–3 years and then come back to CEE and work for companies there. This will make all of the difference in your career and for the Polish tech scene. I have spoken to coutlness people in the Polish tech community aged 22–28 who not only would be willing to consider this but are very eager to go out and do this. They just need a push. The 30–35 year olds feel tied down but if I were in their shoes I would do the same (I’m 38 and thrilled with the move).

Needless to say in the course of 3 months I had 3 very experienced CTOs ready to join Globeshifts and things have picked up tremendously since then.