Philipp Kandal — How To Persevere Through Hard Work
Philipp Kandal embodies hard work and perseverance.
He’s Head of Engineering at Grab, he was the Senior Vice President of Engineering at Telenav, he co-founded Skobbler, he used to work as Product Manager Content at Navigon and he’s also mentoring startups in developing regions.
Photo credits to Philipp Kandal
He’s deeply invested in the startup world, being the man behind Startup Weekend Cluj and his story is inspiring to say the least.
Early Days
Philipp was born in South Germany.
He grew up in a small mountain town, but he didn’t let that interfere with his professional activities.
He had his first computer when he was seven. Combined with the monotony of a small, peaceful mountain town, this led to a passion for the tech industry.
The passion for the industry combined with the example of his father’s business drove him to entrepreneurship.
But it wasn’t just an attempt to emulate his father.
Philipp was deeply disappointed in his parent because he wasn’t trying hard enough — the young Kandal thought his father could be more successful.
At one point, the senior Kandal got tired of this and told his son to start his own business and be more successful — if he could.
Which is exactly what he did.
At only 16 years old, Philipp started a web development company with two friends. To put things in perspective, this was happening in 1997, so the market was barely emerging.
This meant they had to sell the product really well.
But the ambiguity also allowed them to package the services however they wanted.
In just one year, he was making more money than his father.
By 19 years old, he was making over 10.000 Euros a month.
Skobbler and Cluj
Photo credits to Dan Chung
After getting an MBA at the University of Cologne, Philipp started his first big project — Skobbler.
It was a navigation software, which meant they were dealing yet again with an emerging market. This was back in 2008, when Google Maps wasn’t so wide spread and having reliable navigation — especially for a business context — meant spending at least a few thousand euros.
The company was born after Philipp was part of a few companies in the industry and realized he could make use of the few smartphones around at the time to drastically reduce the cost of navigation.
They basically bought a team from Navigon (now owned by Nokia) and relocated to Cluj.
They chose this region because of a few well-researched reasons:
- There was a lot of technology talent;
- Romania was part of the EU, which meant a reliable legal framework;
- Cluj specifically because it had a lot of connections, both frequent flights to Germany and a relative closeness to the west;
- The price of starting a business was very competitive.
The biggest challenge they had working here is the mindset.
People in Romania are afraid to challenge authority, and startups don’t work like that.
Everyone learns from everyone and if you’re reluctant to point out problems to your boss, it can all fail.
But it worked.
And in the end they sold Skobbler for a hefty sum and some undisclosed benefits.
Besides giving him a good exit, Skobbler taught Philipp a lot.
Most importantly, that you need to be resilient. One day he could believe Skobbler was the best startup ever, the next he could be fearing for the survival of the project. This type of fears are normal, but you need to learn how to push through the hard times.
Before selling, they pitched Skobbler over 100 times.
Sometimes it worked but they didn’t like the offer. Sometimes nobody was interested.
Resilience and perseverance will help you push through the hard times. It’s normal for the enthusiasm to fade over time, but you should always keep track of the big picture.
Business Theory In The Real World
Using his vast expertise, Philipp drew some conclusions about currents and ideas in the startup world.
First of all, open source and classical business models can work really well together.
Open source in itself is huge. If you think about HTTPS for example, you realize that the whole foundation of the internet is open source.
And this really helps small startups. It gives people access to a foundation on which they can build and innovate. This is a great aid for the hustling entrepreneur, especially when it comes to B2B ideas.
But typical business models can work in tandem with an open source approach.
Service based industries can also benefit from any similar shift.
And Philipp thinks more of business in general is heading towards an open source approach.
But there will always be value to proprietary technology.
The good news is they can complement each other.
Photo credits to Mike Petrucci
About investment in general, Philipp wants us to remember that technology can change an industry in a matter of years.
If you look at Uber and the transportation industry, Airbnb and the tourism business or Facebook and the news industry, the game changed in a matter of years after a small innovation.
It’s not just revolutionary technology either.
“If you get 5 good developers, they can emulate Uber’s code in a matter of weeks.”
But this shouldn’t have us worry that maybe we’re investing in the wrong ideas. Maybe there are some funds going towards a bad idea or poor execution.
But as long as we have incremental technology improvements, the disruptiveness will not stop.
Philipp Also thinks that every industry will be disrupted, especially with the advent of AI.
If you think about jobs that can be digitized, you can chalk up a list of solid markets that will need to adapt to a fast upgrade in technology.
These include:
- The Transportation Industry
- The Food Industry
- Manufacturing
- Personal Medication
And many other niches where the human touch won’t be needed in 10 years.
Digitizing is the next step.
And we all need to be prepared for it.
Lessons For The Aspiring Entrepreneur
Photo credits to Helloquence
The number one lesson aspiring entrepreneurs need to remember is that failing is fine. Startups can be seen as schools, both when they fail and when they succeed.
80% of startups from Silicon Valley fail, and that’s ok.
You just need to use that as a learning experience.
Moreover, entrepreneurship is not about skills, it’s about character. Since you’re bound to fail at some point, perseverance is key, and no skills will help you with that.
Another thing that’s extremely important is to work hard. If you’re not willing to put in the hours, you’ll fail.
Some of this wisdom also comes from the best and worst decisions Phillip made.
The best was starting Skobbler. He learned a lot, he made a lot of money and the timing for the product was perfect.
The worst decision also deals with Skobbler. Philipp regrets they didn’t sell the company when they were offered $100.000.000, because it would’ve made him very rich.
On the other hand, he’s glad he didn’t make a huge pile of cash out of it, because it taught him about the important things in life.
Back when he was making 10.000 euros a month at 19 years old, he was spending it on dumb stuff like fast cars and cigars.
Which didn’t made him any more fulfilled.
If Philipp was to rewind life and start all over again, he’d pay more attention to people.
Startups are, before anything else, a business of people. If you have the right talent in the right place, they’ll figure out solutions to any problems.
The Romanian Startup Scene
Photo credits to Austin Distel
The fact that the EU doesn’t have the same cash for startups as the US is no secret.
But Philipp doesn’t want us to forget that the European ecosystem started from a complete underdog and made it to the top 5 “business” destinations in less than five years.
We also have huge assets in europe — a lot of talent and a lot of good universities.
What we need to remember is to not try to emulate Silicon Valley.
To put this in perspective, people used to say “How can we be the next Detroit?” and right now Detroit isn’t a top destination for investors. It just wasn’t a good model.
Even if the model is good, ecosystems that try to copy another ecosystem will fail, because the replica is never as good as the original. In simple terms, because the people, culture and money are not the same everywhere.
Want success? Find your own way.
Berlin for example focused on ecommerce and brutal execution, because Germans are good at getting the job done.
They made billions out of it. Not by copying Silicon Valley, but by finding their own path.
Cluj can make use of its pluses. For example, there are way more capable developers in Cluj than there are in Berlin.
The cost is better than Berlin’s.
And we fare better than most developing ecosystems.
But the people in Cluj also need to learn how to do startups better.
For example, one of the biggest mistakes we make is still working for outsourcing companies. We’re afraid “our wife might kill us” or that our parents will be disappointed if we quit a high-paying job to start our own company.
That’s a dangerous mindset.
And it can kill your idea, because you won’t have the time to dedicate to it properly.
Philipp doesn’t just say that. He really believes in people working for their own ideas, so he tells all of his employees at Telenav that if they want to quit and start their own company, that’s ok.
If we’re to talk about the Cluj ecosystem in general, Philipp believes it needs more capable designers and marketers.
Above all though, we need better business skills. The outsourcing phase we’ve gone through has helped build some of the business skills required.
But it’s not enough.
To compete, especially after the shift to product, we need to be better at numbers.
Written by SG Cluj Contributor Theodor Porutiu
