When I first met Jirka the founder & chief of Supernova he was super excited about the future that Supernova would be part of and which he would describe as automated design to code generation (for mobile apps). Supernova was fresh out of YC (btw did you know that Supernova was the first Czech startup to go through YC?) and full of dreams, ideas, and energy to go build it.

The age-old problem of hand-off between design and engineering. What Supernova was trying to solve sounded like an immensely hard problem that was tackled by a tremendously skilled team of engineers with a big vision. And they did deliver, the tool was functional, it was great to see in action (many jaws dropped for sure), but…it was not ready to be used for enterprise clients. The product around the functionality was missing. The team decided to do something about it. Not an easy task after months of blood and tears of hard work and development. A significant re-build into a new (and actual) product and strategy is probably a fair description of what happened.

Another thing that Jirka and the team got right and that was (and still is) a good guide on their journey was the importance of the digital experience for the users (I really mean the UX here). Many apps that we use on a daily basis, to stream music, communicate with our social circle or order a taxi have made us accustomed to the amazing design and simplicity (UX) that we now expect from all products that we come across.

Companies also realised the importance of digital experience that involves more functions (think more people in the design department). Design or digital experience is no longer just the “making it look beautiful” part at the end of the process. Design is a visual language. It is the way that users interact with a product or how a service is being consumed. It is both the workflow and the looks multiplied numerous times across multiple channels which require a more organised approach to designing and maintaining products. There are infamous stories of teams that coded a particular button 100+ times — just because nobody knew it was already created by someone else. Ensuring a seamless UX across product portfolios is extremely difficult at scale.

This is where Supernova comes in — with a solution that removes technological boundaries (often artificial) between cross-functional teams to allow for easier workflow and collaboration.

As proven already when pivoting from their initial no-code tool, Jirka and the whole Supernova team are relentless in achieving their dream which is now getting its first contours. We are extremely happy and honoured to be able to back them on their mission to make a difference in how teams organise around design and product.

Supernova shining brighter than ever was originally published in KAYA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We have known Veronika & Juraj — the founders of Better Stack since forever. Although we only invested the first angel ticket back in 2019, I can still remember the discussion about various projects that they were working on prior to that. The common denominator of those projects was always a problem they encountered somewhere along their path and felt that a “better” solution to it should exist. One that works, one that is more delightful to use, one where the experience is on par with the tech consumer experiences that people are used to in their day to day lives. When Veronika & Juraj explained the idea behind building a set of tools in the infrastructure monitoring & observability space, it only seemed fitting that they call it Better Stack. It’s a perfect name that describes the effort and mission they set out to complete, and one that if you know them you only have to agree with. You could not expect anything less than a radically better, 10x faster, 10x cheaper tool from such a driven team of founders.

Software reliability is a problem that is as old as the software industry itself. Only the issues are becoming more complex with the growing stack of tools used in the distributed world with omnipresent digitisation reaching every corner of the businesses today. And yes, a good handful of big companies have already been built in that space and probably even more will be built in the future.

With the proposition of Better Stack, where they push the bar higher in all aspects of the product — they not only want the product to perform 10x better, faster and be 10x cheaper than the alternatives. They also believe that these tools are being used by people that are used to smooth experiences with apps and services in their private lives. We are certain that bringing the latest practices of collaboration & technology stacks is the right approach for them to succeed and become a new standard in the observability & monitoring space.

We at KAYA are extremely excited for the opportunity to be able to back the Better Stack team in their quest for building a radically better world in their category. In line with our thesis of supporting exceptional founders and teams that are on a mission to build a category defining company with roots in Central Europe. Veronika, Juraj and the whole team Better Stack — thank you for choosing us to join you on this thrilling journey.

When the name says it all — a (radically) Better Stack was originally published in KAYA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

At some point in 2019, I was dragged into the meeting room by my then colleague Karel. “You have to meet Patrick — one of my best friends since high school and a great entrepreneur” he insisted. And there it all began.

Patrick, now one of the founders of Accomango, started the meeting by explaining about his accommodation business for blue-collar workers. Since he could remember he has been helping around their family business, which incidentally employed a number of seasonal workers in need of accommodation. He found suitable apartments for them providing a much more dignified living than typical hostels or dormitories. Over time he expanded outside of their family business and across Czechia accommodating 1,700+ people in any given month.

Seemingly overlooked niche counting in hundreds of billions of EUR

It was an instant connection — We liked Patrick’s pragmatic approach to building his business. Spending a number of years in the accommodation space, he knew the market inside out, understood the pain points and dynamics of it. Something you don’t see every day in a twenty-two-year-old. But he also understood that being the accommodation provider doesn’t allow you to scale as easily as other business models do. We left the meeting positively surprised. Blue-collar workers’ accommodation was a niche that was seemingly overlooked. To our surprise, it was a huge space with a number of workers counting in double-digit millions just in Europe that need to be accommodated. A market that adds up to hundreds of billions of euros just in the accommodation GMV — let alone all ancillary businesses like transportation and insurance.

Customer UX 20 years behind

Surely everyone is on Booking.com these days, you would think. The opposite is true in this segment — it feels 20 years behind consumer travel online marketplace solutions and at least 10 years behind B2B solutions for white-collar travel and accommodation like TravelPerk. Most of the supply of accommodation in this vertical has a limited digital presence, bookings are still done through emails or phone calls. No standard terms, no easy way to check who is accommodated where. From procurement to HR to the Finance department — when in fact an average digitally savvy consumer would expect this to be just a few clicks away. Inefficiency is not the only problem worth solving here. Living conditions that workers are provided with in dormitories and hostels are often of questionable quality. We believe it would be great to see that consumers are becoming more interested in understanding how the products they buy are made across all verticals. Same as it started a few years back in the fashion industry.

We believe that one day Accomango can bring much-needed change not just in the efficiency of the workflows but in the improvement of quality of the living conditions for people that work hard to oftentimes make products of our everyday life.

Karel who spent two years with us at KAYA (f.k.a. Enern) felt his true calling was in being an entrepreneur. He decided the best time to start a business is now and joined Patrick as a co-founder of Accomango. We seconded his decision, although our team will never be the same without him!

Back to the r̶o̶o̶t̶s̶ pre-seed

Few months of ideation, thinking through various business models followed, we were lucky enough to be part of those discussions. It felt that Patrick and Karel were onto something and so Accomango was born. We decided to write the first check in summer 2020. We were their first investor — something we as a team haven’t done for a long time, since the founding of Rohlik, Twisto or Topite. We are happy that with the launch of our 4th generation fund in KAYA we made the decision to support entrepreneurs from the very beginning of their journey in the so-called pre-seed. A process that doesn’t necessarily start with a formal pitch deck in a meeting room. It can be just a discussion about an idea — no need for formal meetings. If you are like Patrick and Karel and want to talk about an idea that’s been bugging you if you can’t make that long pondered decision to start your own business — just come to us, we are always happy to talk.

Not all investments start with a pitchdeck was originally published in KAYA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.