What Can Businesses Learn From Burlesque? Wolves Summit at a Glance.

A lady dressed in a tight bodysuit, black garters and high-heeled latex boots walked up on stage, followed by a loud applause by the audience.

No, I’m not at a theatre or a nightclub. I’m at Wolves Summit , about to watch one of the most insightful and inspiring keynotes of the whole event. And the lady is Paulina Tenner - a successful female entrepreneur with 4 businesses behind her back and a thriving career in burlesque performing.

Paulina’s presentation, called “What the Business Leader learned from the Stripper”, showed that it’s okay to let your wild and edgy side come out - it might actually help you in ways you wouldn’t expect.

Wolves Summit took place in Vienna over the course of two days and brought together hundreds of startups, investors and businesses from all over Central and Eastern Europe. This was the first time the event was taken outside of his “homeland” Poland and - surprise, surprise - it will take place in October 2023, Vienna again!

What happened at Wolves Summit?

Day 1 started off with a few panel discussions with experts from different fields. “Hyper growth is no longer enough. We’re now looking for sustainable growth” - this is one core message that got stuck with me from the panel “From Super Early-Stage to IPO - the Stories of Investing Across Different Stages” with Johannes Blaschke , Dr. Andreas Nemeth and Enik? Deák . Along with the panel discussions, there was a Startup Showcase during both days where different startups got to pitch their idea and receive expert feedback from a selected “jury”. Even though we, as a media, write about startups on a daily basis, there were still some companies that surprised me with their innovative thinking and interesting concepts.

To give a few examples of startups that stood out to me, I’ll start with the Romanian company Plant an App , which helps non-developers tap into the world of software and create customer projects, allowing companies to reduce their costs by 75% and get their project done 10 times faster. Or at least that’s what Bogdan Litescu and Radu Florescu, MBA claim. ;)

Another great project with Romanian-Hungarian roots is Dima-AI by Andrea Magyar and Paul Muntean , who turn the boring old-school manuals of electronic devices into an interactive solution, allowing companies to keep track of how their products are used, easily gather feedback and have a direct connection with their customers.

If you’re a fan of draft beer but are fed up with long waiting times, especially at events and busy bars, you might want to look at One Two Beer and Balazs Blaho , who have developed a machine that pours the perfect glass of beer in 5 seconds, eliminating the need for teaching personnel how to do it. Be sure to also check out Roofit.Solar , whose aim is to make the planet cooler… quite literally. Their solar panels look like a regular rooftop, but with the ability to produce energy. And they can even be used on historic buildings!

And finally, something that touched me deeply was the personal story of Malgorzata Sochacka , who created Moodmon to help her son and anyone else on the planet who suffers with mental health issues. Moodmon is an AI tool, connecting patients, their families and doctors in order to monitor the patient’s health in the most accurate way possible. It’s currently undergoing clinical research and I’m eager to keep following their journey.

What are the main takeaways from Wolves Summit?

?During the second day Diana Florescu announced the publishing of the first research and report, dedicated to media for equity, conducted by mediaforgrowth (MFG) . In addition, she had a fireside chat with Chris Sheldrick - the founder of what3words , who have received €80M in media funds. This is on, if not the best example of the power of media equity, as what3words is now recognised across all of the UK and their “Neighbours” TV ad even received a TV Creativity Award from The Thinkboxes.

A panel discussion between Daniel Dumitrescu, PhD. , Virginia Vegas , Sonia-Denisa Fedorovici , Thomas Kolarik and Elemér Eszter outlined that there’s a lot of private money, but not enough public money being invested in Europe. The good news is that startup funding in CEE is growing exponentially, and according to the Central and Eastern Europe Statistics 2021, the venture capital investments in Central and Eastern Europe totalled €121M in 2017, whereas in 2021 they went up to €659M!

The afternoon was dedicated to the closing ceremony, which surprisingly turned into an awards ceremony. Synaptiq.io grabbed the Best AI Startup award from AI Startup Incubator, receiving a €50,000 pitching opportunity. Other award-holders were QuickLegal , Finqware , Ohdoki , and CircuitMess .

We also got to share some exciting news about The Recursive, which was kept in secret until this point. Our co-founder and CEO Irina Obushtarova went on stage to share that The Recursive is growing and from now on we’ll be covering the news around tech and innovation in the whole Central and Eastern Europe.

In addition, we announced on stage the winner from our Futureshaper Awards, conducted in partnership with Wolves Summit. We received thousands of votes, but there was only one winner - Push Marketplace . Congratulations, guys, and we can’t wait to see how you’ll be shaping our future in the next years!

Final thoughts

I’d like to finish off with a question from Paulina Tenner ’s keynote - “What would happen in your business if you really lost your inhibitions?” For her, it allowed her to let go of all worries and be more mindful,? to follow her passion and do everything that feels fantastic, even performing burlesque, without worrying about the opinion of others.

What passion would you follow if you were not afraid of anything?