Access to a great technology is not enough, says investor Karel Obluk

The decision to dedicate his life to the IT field, whether as CTO and CEO of the Czech antivirus company AVG or as an investor, is not one that Karel Obluk regrets. The graduate of a doctoral programme at FIT BUT recommends that anyone seeking an investor should first and foremost gather facts and provide convincing answers. At the same time, he believes that university education is still very important even at the time of rapid increase in the number of start-ups and young entrepreneurs. In his opinion, millionaires such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs who never completed their university studies tend to be the exceptions proving the rule.

Karel Obluk, an IT expert, member of Evolution Equity Partners, a venture capital investment company, and the co-founder of the free association of angel investors Garage Angels, believes that university education is an important preparation for life. "I don't say that people cannot achieve success with just secondary education. At the same time, I believe that university studies are of fundamental importance for life. They provide people with formal foundations in the given field and prepare people for real life. When my two daughters studied at a university and complained about some of the courses or duties, we always told them that this was also part and actually one of the important aspects of the university studies. It will teach you to deal with stress and sometimes do something you do not really enjoy or in which you cannot see any sense. This is something that Czech and foreign companies have been encountering for a long time," said Karel Obluk.

As an experienced investor, he is also interested in the education of employees in companies in which he is to invest. "I focus primarily on investments in IT companies. In these companies, the number of employees with a PhD degree may sometimes be a certain metric increasing the value of the company. This does not mean that people with PhDs will automatically yield better results. However, it is a good sign for the investor that experts who have spent many years studying and have a relatively deep theoretical knowledge in the given area want to work for the given company. This shows that they believe that there is something interesting with a future potential," explains Obluk, stating that some people argue with names such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who are known for not completing their university studies. In his opinion, however, these are mere exceptions proving the rule. "Not to mention the fact that people should be educated continuously throughout their lives," added Obluk.

If he could return to the point where he was deciding on where to study, the life of Karel Obluk might now be completely different. "Information technology has changed significantly since the time of my studies. I studied courses that were dealing with classic electrical engineering. Today, I would probably be more interested in studying data processing and machine learning. However, from a practical point of view, I would certainly choose IT again," said Karel Obluk.

 If he was a student today, Karel Obluk would be interested in data science and machine learning | Author: archive of Karel Obluk

Obluk thinks that the IT field experiences enormous growth. "Of course, I am somewhat biased because we invest exclusively in information technologies within the fund. In my personal investments, the area of focus is wider, but I still invest primarily in IT companies. I can see that there is a growing number of technologies with an impact on our lives. While they used to be developing special software or hardware in the past, many technology start-ups are focused nowadays on products connected with everyday life," Obluk pointed out that it is increasingly difficult to delineate what is and what is not an IT company. "IT processes, technologies and equipment are also used in a number of other areas, from the automotive industry to environmental protection and medical sciences. It is then difficult to say where to put them," he adds.

While Evolution Equity Partners invest primarily in established companies in America and Europe and Karel Obluk and his colleagues monitor such parameters as financial performance, number of customers and potential for growth, he also decided to return a part of his knowledge and finances to Moravia. Together with important Czech investors, including Jiří Hlavenka, he established an informal group of angel investors called Garage Angels. This group may be approached by people who do not have any experience with operating a business and have not yet turned their idea into a profitable company. "In Evolution Equity, we help to manage companies as a whole and help them move forward; we provide assistance to already existing teams to succeed on global markets. On the other hand, I can help new companies with the absolute basics regarding the launch of their business. I have seen many businesses in their infancy. Some of them succeeded, some failed," said Karel Obluk.

According to him, the founders of Garage Angels primarily wanted to boost the business ecosystem in Moravia and support people in the region in running their businesses. Although the group only works for a short time, dozens of applications for investments have already been submitted. "We are not a fund with clearly defined rules, we really are just a free association of individual investors and that gives us the opportunity to share experience and discuss the ideas presented by people. We have a colleague who goes through the applications, divides them and presents them to us with some basic information. Once every two months, we invite representatives of five or six projects over for half a day. The more people are prepared, the better. They do not have to have a complete business plan, but even a simple table with specific numbers will help in the discussion. We then have something to discuss. The most important thing is to be able to explain who will buy the given product or service and why. Why should someone want to pay for it. Indeed, people often have a great technology, but they completely lack any sense of business. In commercial terms, their idea makes no sense at all," said Obluk.

He sees this as a general problem of the Czech business environment. "There is not enough people who are able to use their entrepreneurial spirit to establish their own companies. A number of great businesspeople will never establish a company of their own. On the other hand, a number of great technologists are unable to properly sell their ideas," he said adding that Europeans are still unable to present their ideas and lack the assertiveness and self-confidence of Americans. Unfortunately, according to Obluk, there is still not enough room for business education at higher education institutions in the Czech Republic. "Especially technical fields often underestimate this side of education. I like to occasionally participate in discussion panels with other guests because it is always more interesting and instructive for students when they can hear about various opinions and learn from the experience of others. For example, Jiří Hlavenka or Václav Muchna see education and business differently and this makes debates with them much more stimulating and interesting," said Karel Obluk.