Nice ,when there is a great Wikipedia article about your interlocutor.It becomes very easy to imagine him accurately. Steinar and I are peers, both were born in 1965. Steinar is Norwegian. Since 1992, he has been running his own startups and has founded a number of startups. Between 1992-98 these were Power FM, Scandinavian Travel Gazette and Metropoltian Media Productions. Now the word “exit” has become habitual to startup businesses, but Steinar made his first “exit” in 1994.

Since 2001, Steinar began to deal with one of the most important problems for startups - access to venture capital. Exactly in those years that the origins of the Seed Forum were laid, which today has become a worldwide event in more than 50 countries and six innovation centers in three countries.The Seed Forum trains over 1,000 "startups" per year on the international level and allows them to present their business ideas to novice investors. On behalf of the Seed Forum, Steinar has been responsible for more than 120 public funded projects in Norway/Nordic countries, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Africa, including Moldova.

Steiner, hello. We met with you during your last visit to Moldova. When was it exactly?

About seven years ago. I left Moldova in 2017 and this is my first visit here in recent years.

Are you connected with Moldova by the work of the Seed Forum?

Not only. I can safely be considered an investor in Moldova. I was one of the co-founders of the iHUB co-working center, and now I continue this partnership.

Seven years is a long time. In your opinion , how has Moldova changed over the years?

Lots of external changes. I have always liked Chisinau.But now , the new paved streets in the center are striking, many new restaurants have opened and, what is agreeable, the city has remained as green as it was.This is, if we talk about the impression as a tourist.As for the startup community, the changes are even stronger here. Yes, Moldova has not yet had its own “unicorn”, but the main thing has changed.What was only in its infancy in 2014 has now become a trend. And this trend is to be an entrepreneur, to start your own business.And what makes me especially happy is that this trend is spreading among young people.

Nevertheless, “from the inside” it seems to me that Moldova lacks several successful startups, for their example to become verily contagious.

 You already have all the tools for this, from Tekwill, iHUB, other coworking spaces to regional projects. And it’s importantly to determine for yourself, what is the criterion for success?

It is generally accepted that this is a successful exit ...

It's right. But success can be both , a profitable business and a business that changes the lives of its founders and the life around it.An entrepreneur must decide for himself , what motivates him and provides the main advantage of entrepreneurship - the achievement of inner freedom.

Also ,what I want to note as a change during the time I was absent is the growth of the startup community in the regions.I visited Comrat and Cahul, and I can't help noticing , how the business environment has changed in these cities.Moldova is a small country, but it should not develop according to the metropolis-province principle.You need regional business development platforms, such as I saw in Comrat and Cahul with great pleasure.And this is not possible without the help of donors. Thus, building relationships with them is one of the strategic tasks of Moldova.

We talked about strategy.If you were building a strategic plan for the development of the IT community in Moldova, what would you base it on?

In Moldova, it is necessary to change the way of thinking of the new generation.The main problem, as strange as it sounds, is modesty.You need to learn to think like widescale and  international markets.Otherwise, you will not get essential access to international venture funds. By the way , this was and remains my mission - to erase the geographical boundaries for private capital.In other words, you must to scale your thinking beyond ‘’the frame’’ of Moldova, via borders. Moreover, the opportunities have only expanded in this direction.The world took a huge step in part of digitalization, during the pandemic, including the digitalization of communication in business.

I was just about to ask, how did the Seed Forum survive the years of the pandemic?

It may sound paradoxical, but COVID has made an inestimable gift in the development of the digital world. Now the Seed Forum Global Accelerator is the time when you have all the continents in Zoom and there are no barriers to learning and gaining knowledge and investment.

Moldova again included in your plans?

At least as a co-owner of iHUB, I have never cut off my ties with Moldova. Now I am interested namely its regional development, Cahul and Comrat, which I spoke about earlier , and Transnistria. I do not want to go deep into politics, but now Moldova has a new window of opportunity for integration. This is your chance, it’s necessary to provide support for entrepreneurship in all regions of Moldova, on the right and on the left bank of the Dniester.

What is more ,I would like to highlight the value of non-tech startups.You should not be limited only in the field of IT technologies, furthermore ,IT technologies now permeate all areas of business.Non-tech startups are even more likely to succeed now. By and large, the same UBER and Airbnb are examples of just non-tech startups.Therefore, the fewer internal restrictions an entrepreneur creates for himself, the wider the prospects open up for him.

But we cannot discount the impact of geopolitics on business. There is a war going on in the neighboring country of Moldova, and its consequences will inevitably affect the economic background in Moldova, including the start-up community…

The war in Ukraine is a tragedy and danger.We cannot ignore the fact that , it will give rise to such economic and social changes in the world that will inevitably open  dozens of windows of new opportunities.

How to accelerate the economic development of the Cahul region?

Potential solutions were evaluated by the participants of the #EUTechDays Cahul Business Summit, one of the professional platforms dedicated to the business environment in the south of the country.

The guests pointed to the possibilities and ways of introducing information technologies in various fields of activity in order to achieve regional progress.

Pavel Zingan