Danil Kislinskiy: Developing and Supporting a Startup Community

The analytics, published by the World Economic Forum, highlight the crucial role of the startup culture in economic growth and recovery, and its significance has only risen since the article’s publication. Moreover, in 2023, the number of startups opening each year reached a 14-year high, surpassed only by the first five years of the millennium, while TechCrunch denotes 2024 as “a hot year for startup founders.” The growth encompasses many industry sectors, the leading ones being transportation, real estate, and information.

However, with the increasing number of new businesses opening, many startups closing also demonstrates growth. On average, 9 out of 10 startups do not survive the first year of existence due to internal and external reasons, from their founder’s mistakes to the inability to secure investment. This is the issue Danil Kislinskiy is trying to address by establishing a growing community with thousands of participants, which will help founders connect with relevant investors.

Daniel, as a person with vast experience in mentoring and coaching, what advice would you give to the startup founders to bolster their chances of being successful and avoid the fate of multiple businesses that are forced to close within the first year of their existence? 

From my experience, being part of a community is crucial, and utilizing networking to find an investor is not the sole reason for that. Any startup idea, even a groundbreaking one, needs to be improved and refined to be implemented in practice, and to achieve this, one needs to constantly exchange ideas with others, in the best case, with people of various backgrounds, other founders, and mentors alike.

During the last few years, you have participated in a multitude of events for founders and investors, such as Globalize Silicon Valley conference, Stanford AI Web3 Lab, Silicon Valley Funding Summit to name a few. How did you achieve this and what would you consider the most significant moment of your journey?  

Since my early years, I have wanted to be open to the world and pursue new opportunities when they open up to me. The first pivotal moment of my journey was visiting the United States through the “Work and Travel” program in 2002. This gave me a realization of what I can achieve, and since then, I have worked hard to pursue my dreams. For about eight years, I worked at Philip Morris International, developing my career from a merchandiser position to an international manager position at the company’s global operation headquarters.

The next pivotal point came when I decided to leave Philip Morris and move to Silicon Valley to study business and entrepreneurship, and then, after acquiring my MBA degree, launch my own business. Although my first experience of creating a company wasn’t what I would call a success, I learned from that and moved on. Soon, after having several successful launches on my record, I realized that I own valuable experience to share with the founders who are just at the starting point of their journey and to help them learn what I have learned by developing my businesses in Silicon Valley.

Your desire to share valuable knowledge and expertise has a beneficial impact on the startup communities not only in Silicon Valley and the US but also in other countries. You have taught at Skolkovo Business School and talked about effective go-to-market strategies at various events, such as Startup Village and Unicorn Battle in Russia or Globalize Conference at the Google Campus, where a large delegation of participants from Georgia presented. What advice would you give to local startups planning to enter the global market? 

The rapid growth of the number of newly founded startups mentioned at the beginning of our talk encompasses not only the US but many other regions. Due to this, I find it extremely important to share my expertise with the founders all over the world. The most successful projects are often those that go over national borders and combine experiences and ideas from various backgrounds, and this is another reason why creating an environment for establishing connections and exchanging ideas is so significant.

When teaching students at business schools or mentoring the founders, whether it be on a conference, at a pitching event or through talk given in a podcast, I attempt to balance theoretical knowledge with a vast amount of practical examples, demonstrating, that the ability to adapt and get the best use of emerging opportunities is one of the main skills founders require today. In Go Global World, we follow the same approach, connecting founders and investors.

Since its creation in 2023, your Go Global World platform demonstrated immense success by establishing relationships with more than 5,000 investors and creating hundreds of relevant matches between the investors and founders. As far as I know, within the first months after your platform was launched, two startups have already secured deals with investors through it, and currently, there may be more of them. With such rapid growth bringing a real impact for the startups, what does 2024 hold for you and your company? 

The main focus of my work continues to be on developing a positive environment for startups both in the US and in other countries, be it through mentoring, giving talks and conferences, partnering with startup accelerators, or further developing the services of Go Global World. We plan to continue with our regular GGW Shark events, which give founders an opportunity to pitch their projects to investors and build global connections.

There is one more thing you cannot avoid mentioning when observing the bursting startup market in the US, namely, the need to develop innovative AI tools that will answer the needs of founders and investors. With the right approach, AI technology has the potential to revolutionize the venture world, changing it for the better, and this is the area I will definitely pay close attention to in 2024 and beyond. However, my main objective is still to provide support, valuable feedback, and education to new startup founders, providing them with opportunities to grow and eventually benefit the economy.

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