Patience, grasshopper

work in progress

Not features, not obvious markets. As Vinted shares their huge numbers, it's a timely reminder — the largest tech companies are like icebergs: massive complexity hidden below calm waters.

So there goes the AI-building. Yes, you can build smth overnight, but building significant company will take time, effort, and going very deep to do things that others don't. Pick some impressive scale-ups accelerating — is it Ovoko, Modash, Oxylabs, Eldorado (video how they emerged), Botguard — to see how little there can be vibecoded overnight. Sure, launch fast, but go deep, stick with it, don't jump around things.

Studio | Agency | People. Growing demand for senior talent, expertise, judgement: someone needs to give work to these agents. Tomas goes public with AI product studio: welcome Comfort of Complex Computations. Gabriele is now helping B2B companies get their commercial foundations right. In Estonia, Sergei Anikin launched Kodulabor, and Priit is building Nodachi, an AI-native solutions agency for defence and regulated clients.

Procurement. Eany is building full procurement orchestration, end-to-end, at scale already. Procurli is getting started with mid-size manufacturers.

By like Thomas
> come around to Vilnius from NYC in 2016 for a "consulting gig”
> help founders turnaround Vinted, become CEO in 2017
> focus on making it work, and profitable find friends, love and have a son
> grow Vinted from 11M revenue 2017 (at 10M loss) into profitable 1.1B revenue 2025
> remind Lithuanians that great companies need solid democratic foundation and donate EUR 2.2M to establish investigative journalism prize — call it PAMATAI
> raise more from tech founders to make the foundation perpetual
> keep going to build a generational European company

AI age is different: Vakaris at event in Kaunas - "I'm 14yo and I've been building my first profitable business PlayerTradeHub from Lithuania with basically no budget and no team.”

Fintech. Creem passes 2M ARR, just like that. One UK Bank explores acquisitions to expand into Northern Europe, but will need to rebrand I'm afraid. Top 5 largest Payment Service Providers in Lithuania: Paysera: €25.4bn (+2%), ZEN.COM: €25.1bn (+12%), Nuvei: €9.1bn (-53%), Genome: €8.1bn (+18%), GURU PAY: €7.3bn (+212%).

ID. Markus Reinisch, VP Public Affairs Europe at Meta, has joined alongID as a Board Advisor. Veriff appoints Rob Brazier as Chief Product Officer. Mifundo has a lot of work ahead to address European mobility.

Calendars. Latitude59: May 20-22 (one week left for pitch competition). Startup Fair - September 17. Series of Vilnius Founder's events – see TransferGo, Practica, Ondato, How EU shapes startup policy, etc.

People. New Board at Lithuanian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association - congrats all! Women take the lead.

sponsors

Cloudvisor [now offering stress-free migration from any cloud to AWS]
Hostinger [online presence accessible to everyone worldwide, hiring]
Google For Startups [cloud credits up to $350K, faster growth]
Oxylabs [Step into the world of web data gathering]
VIALET [Business accounts for growth, hiring]
Ace Waves [Enterprise ready AI agents for CS, hiring]
Surfshark [Top 50 among fastest growing in EU, hiring]
15MIN Group [all the news you need to know]
Eldorado.gg [world’s largest in-game trading marketplace, hiring]
Saily [eSIM data for international travel, hiring]

rounds and capital

Handhold, an AI-agent platform that turns visitors into customers without sales reps, has raised €3 million Seed funding led by Entourage Capital, with participation from Inovia Capital and e2vc.

three questions

This week we caught up with Mantas Staliunas, CEO at VIALET.

VIALET just refreshed their brand, and are know for building high-performance payment infrastructure engineered for global e-commerce, complex and regulated industries. Bootstrapped, solid and well-growing business.

Read the full interview here →

roleplay

brand + design

The data contradicts the discourse. Tech discourse says taste and judgement are the new advantage. They are staffing for coordination and shipping velocity, not for taste and differentiation. Lenny is saying there’s less opportunity - and less desire - to involve the design process. If everyone is hiring the same way - more PMs, more engineers, flat design - then the companies that don't follow this pattern gain a disproportionate edge. Be greedy when others are fearful, might not just be a financial advice.

Product is the story. Your messaging is your product. The story you're telling shapes the thing you're making. Nike's internal principles and Apple's marketing philosophy from the early days - Apple's written the same year they launched. Absolute gold.

founder's guide

Kobe: Failure does not exist.

Messy. Many operators will nod: what it actually feels like to be in tech right now.

In B2B GTM, especially enterprise, sending gifts instead of cold call is becoming at thing. Or cakes - this 19 yr old Norwegian is ramping up cake sending business (automated birthdays).

further insights

Value of a media asset? audience size * buying power * how influential you are over them.

Bell. Never planned to share a story about Škoda, but here we go: they made DuoBell, the first bike bell designed to noise-cancelling headphones

ecosystem

Estonia taking AI seriously: over the next 18 months, 100 000 people will receive AI training (over 18 next days would be even better).

Lithuania jumps in IMD International Competitiveness Rankings