Tihomir Bajić: a recipe for a successful startup

With twenty years of experience developing startups worldwide, Tihomir Bajić provides mentoring support to our startups in the Katapult program. The startup community has already heard about the guy who has the status of one of the most successful Serbs in Silicon Valley. His mission in the Katapult program is to prepare our participants for receiving additional investments.

“My advice to startups is to prepare their story through work with me and other mentors, in order to show how fast their startup can progress and grow, and to come up with a winning combination that will result in gaining foreign capital”, pointed out Tihomir for Katapult.

For the development of a successful startup, it is necessary to operate successfully in the long term, generate profit and establish an inflow of capital. Success also implies a good team gathered around an idea that solves a specific problem.

In addition to the financial aspect, the startup’s vision is one of the essential factors. Solving a specific problem in which someone is willing to invest and a large enough market to return the invested capital are vital to the success of a startup.

Tihomir believes in the potential of Serbian startups, so he has already invested in some participants of the Katapult program.

The goal of Katapult Accelerator is to provide comprehensive support on the success path. According to him, the World Bank has gathered a quality pool of local and foreign mentors with the expertise and experience with the work of accelerators worldwide.

“My role here is to prepare startups that go through the Katapult accelerator to be ready to present themselves to investors and receive additional funding after the completion of this program”, Tihomir has explained.

Serbia is a small market targeted by only one or two of the 19 participants in the Catapult Accelerator. Tihomir states that foreign markets provide far greater opportunities for acquiring capital, which is precisely why our startups must be ready to compete globally.

The key challenge for these startups is that they operate in one country, while targeting customers from another.

“The group of mentors we have gathered is trying to facilitate the entry of startups into the foreign market. That is one of the main things in the system we are trying to overcome because, after all, that market is much bigger in terms of capital and purchasing poweр”, said Tihomir.

Tihomir expects that most of the selected companies in Кatapult could secure additional investments in the next 6 to 12 months. Soon, the success of these companies can be recognizable, and based on their experience, Кatapult can get the next generation of successful startups.

“Only through practice, exercises, obstacles, and enough time can we show how fast a startup could grow. That is how we come to the winning formula that will result in obtaining foreign capital for most of these startups”, Tihomir has concluded.

Tihomir Bajic graduated from the University of Toronto in 2006. With an already formed vision of what he wanted to do in the future, in 2011, he moved to San Francisco’s Silicon Valley — the strongest community for those involved in business.

Tihomir is one of the founders of the Serbian Entrepreneurs organization in San Francisco. Serbian Entrepreneurs is a pay-it-forward global network of entrepreneurs fostering the Serbian startup ecosystem.

Tihomir has extensive experience in developing startups from various industries around the world. He is currently LTSE Software CEO.

As a startup enthusiast, Tihomir continuously works to improve our startup ecosystem and provides wholehearted support to our entrepreneurs in the diaspora. As a business angel, Tihomir invests in new startups in Serbia and the diaspora every month. He also launched the Fifth Quarter Ventures investment fund.