Entrepreneurs of Budapest: Oszkar Rimoczi, Enbritely

Entrepreneurs of Budapest is a deep-dive into some of the people and stories that are building startups (often not their first) in Budapest today. We invited local startup founders and teams to tell us about their personal entrepreneurial journeys, their thoughts and impressions on building a company in Budapest, and their hopes and desires for the future startup scene in Hungary.

This week we’re excited to publish our interview with Oszkar Rimoczi of Enbrite.ly, and unofficially his two patient, though camera-shy kids.

Tell me about how you started Enbrite.ly! Where did the inspiration come from?

Back when we started, half of the founding team was dealing with anti-fraud related to affiliate marketing and the other half of the team was made up of some of the best experts in big data and data analysis, and from these two halves, we put together the MVP for Enbritely back in 2014.

We started off thinking we could solve everything through bootstrapping. But when we realized that that wasn’t feasible, we applied to Startup Sauna/Pioneers and fortunately, got into Startup Sauna and won the Slush 100 pitching competition in Helsinki. Leveraging the Slush 100 victory meant that we could get together a co-investment seed round and keep going.

Was the startup your brainchild?

My cofounder and I came up with this idea at Gozsdu Manó klub next to a beer, that’s how the story started. Of course, we have changed all the details of that concept ever since :).

We want to change the world of online advertising. Currently, many companies are building business models on quantity KPIs that they cannot account for, they just don’t know where the impressions are coming from. So our main goal is to change all sorts of KPIs and measurement methods within the online advertising value chain to give real value to advertisers and publishers alike.

What gave you the idea to start a startup and what was your personal motivation?

I was working for a big company as I mentioned before for seven years, by the time I quit, there were about 700 or so people working there, for me too many. The reason why I left was the fact that the company did not want to go in the direction that I would have liked, and I wanted the freedom to do what I like to do, in my own way.

I wanted to create my own world with like-minded people.

What inspires you to work on your startup every single day?

These guys — actually (pointing at the kids). I wanted to create something that I can be proud of and they can be proud of. That is the real personal motivation behind this project, I am doing everything for them and for the next generations.

This concept came to life 5 years ago, before that, I did not know what to do, how to do it, who I am, or why I am here in the universe :).

What exactly do you plan to change for the next generation?

Will this interview be written in English, or will my mom be able to read about it? :)

My parents’ only goal was to earn money and I could not understand why for me, money was just a tool. There should be a bigger aim, a larger motivation behind earning money. And of course for my parents, there was never enough money — the amount that we would have really “needed” to be happy. And that is what I mean about that sort of frustration, the kind that’s not about the money itself but about how you relate to it.

I really appreciate everything I learned from my parents, my way of thinking and my values are mainly coming from my parents, and that’s what I can be really thankful for.

I guess there is also a question about all that has changed between the two generations.

It’s true, I live in a very different environment now from where I grew up, Jászfényszaru, which was a small village at the time (even if it was called a town). It was only me and one of my relatives who were brave enough to go to Gödöllő to high school, which is considered so far away from Jászfényszaru, 32 km :), that’s where it all started.

On the way here, we talked about how the local startup ecosystem is always developing. How do you think the Budapest ecosystem has changed over the years?

To be honest I haven’t watched it very closely, mostly because we do not have any Hungarian investors, which is something we wanted to avoid at the time. Maybe I would revise that today because now, by talking to other startup founders and investors, I can feel that something is really changing.

When we started, investors also wanted to take over half of your company, every negotiation started with 51%. This pretty much ruined the whole ecosystem, because there were founders who took the deal, then they realized that half of their company was gone, then that they were not motivated enough to manage it and then the investors realized they were not able to manage the companies — now what?

This seems to be changing, I hear of more and more investors from abroad who are looking at the Hungarian startups, like Speedinvest, some Russian funds and many more. The mentality is totally changing. What I think that we founders should do more of — and I also feel guilty for not doing enough for this — is to raise attention and bring together smart minds.

What have your been experiences with the rest of the startup community?

I think there are loads of opportunities for a vibrant startup community and knowledge sharing. What we need is some sort of catalyzer.

I know that the demand is there, even for playing football with each other and then having a small discussion, but it seems like no one has the time to organize it. All the people I know, like Codie, Synetiq are very cool guys and open-minded, so the potential is there.

Turning back to your personal story, can you speak about the challenges you’ve faced as an entrepreneur?

One of them stems from people management. You need to keep people motivated, and to keep them motivated you need to be full of energy every day, no matter what. But the motivation is there and the energy source is there.

The other one arises from the fact that we are at an early stage which means that we are still in the process of finding the product-market fit, that is why we are talking to many people and target groups in advertising. In order to find it, you have to produce revenue, you have to develop the product and realize what the product is, which involves playing with your limited resources cleverly without knowing what the outcome is going to be.

You will actually never know, you just hope that what you believe in is right and you have to make decisions very quickly. That is one of the biggest challenges, especially if you’re dealing with software, as you never have enough resources and managing them is really tough.

What do you like most about being a startup founder?

I think being a founder is like a nightmare of which you enjoy every second. Even if I’m really down, I always say that tomorrow will be a different day and go to the office with this in mind.

Photos by Zsolt Pinter

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