Chief Scientist tells entrepreneurs: “Think Big”, “Think Scale”, think about “How Value is Created”

Chief Scientist Demetris Skourides recently participated in a panel discussion at the EUC Startup Networking Night, which was organised by European University Cyprus (EUC), where he urged entrepreneurs to “Think Big”, “Think Scale”, think about “How Value is Created”.

The event was part of the EUC Startup Programme powered by Microsoft and aimed to bring together startups, entrepreneurs, and investors.

The panel discussion was moderated by Dr Celia Hadjichristodoulou and panellists also included Maria Markidou Georgiadou, Managing Director Cyprus Seeds, Andreas Panayi, Co-founder of VC Kinisis ventures, Yiannis Eftychiou from VC 33East, and George Georgiades, Senior Partner Technology Strategist at Microsoft.

Skourides explained that Cyprus is now in a position where the fundamental building blocks to build a leading class innovation ecosystem are available. He referred to the relevant government policies and the island’s startup programme, and how attractive its, before going on to explain that more needs to be undertaken to prepare the Startup scene for scaling up externally. He acknowledged the importance of funding to help entrepreneurs pursue their ideas and convert them into MVPs and solutions.

The Chief scientist echoed the views of Andreas Panayi, who said that entrepreneurs must learn from failure, and should leverage financial support from angels and venture capitalists in addition to the funding available made available by government through competitive funding.

Citing the examples of Oracle and AWS, Skourides advised entrepreneurs to “Think Big”, “Think Scale”, think about “How Value is Created” and to “Obsess” about Customer centricity.

Elswhere, Skourides stressed the importance of senior leadership teams and how they act as enablers for success, referring to how Larry Ellison, Oracle’s former CEO, stepped down from the leadership position as CEO assuming the role of CTO to ensure that the company had “all eyes” focused on business, revenue growth and not just product innovation.

Concluding, the Chief Scientist said that given the size of the Cypriot market, it is important for entrepreneurs and startups to think about validating their customer value proposition in other markets earlier on, and not have the market validation as an afterthought.