Răzvan Rughiniș and Andrei Pitiș about creating a program for students and future founders in Romania: ”At that point, a startup was a crazy thing to do”

Find out the story of Innovation Labs from Romanian Startups: Roaring Tigers of Europe - The Extended Series, following the documentary launched at the end of 2023.

The documentary "Romanian Startups: Roaring Tigers of Europe", made by the start-up.ro team, spans across 33 years of history, from the first entrepreneurs in the transitional years to the initial technology company transactions that brought Romania into the international spotlight.

Romanian Startups: Roaring Tigers of Europe - The Extended Series will present the people who built the Romanian ecosystem and who discussed with the VideoCorp and start-up.ro team for this documentary. In this series you will find the extensive interviews and find out the stories of those who built entrepreneurship in Romania.

During these 12 years, over 5,200 participants and over 1,750 teams got involved in the nationwide hackathons organized by the Innovation Labs team. Out of them, almost 700 teams got mentoring sessions from the program's partners, and over 220 got on stage to pitch at the demo days organized throughout the years.

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Bottom line, Innovation Labs was the stepping stone for over 60 startups that found success and whose valuation reached almost 200 million euros.

For the Romanian Startups: Roaring Tigers of Europe documentary we’ve talked with the two initiators of the program, Razvan Rughinis and Andrei Pitis, about how they built the program, their inspiration and their goals for Innovation Labs.

Andrei Pitiș and Răzvan Rughiniș were the initiators of Innovation Labs. Andrei came with business experience, while Razvan was the link with the students.

Innovation Labs started as a program that gathered the most talented students from the best technical universities in the country and the best business and entrepreneurial minds that mentored them and shaped them into the founders that help grow the local startup ecosystem.

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We’ve started our discussion with the origins and development of Innovation Labs, a program designed to foster entrepreneurship among students through startups.

”This was 2012. Nowadays, everybody is talking about startups. At that point, a startup was a crazy thing to do. Something that you do for pleasure, for passion, not for business”, Răzvan Rughiniș tells us.

Răzvan and Andrei, two engineers with a strong technical background, founded the program after observing the limited scope of engineering education in Romania.

They sought to expose students to business and entrepreneurial thinking, inspired by university startup programs they observed in the United States.

Their efforts began in 2012, a time when the startup scene in Romania was practically nonexistent, with just a few initiatives like coworking spaces and pitching events. The startup ecosystem lacked essential components such as venture capital funds and government support. Andrei and Razvan aimed to bridge these gaps by providing a platform for students to engage with business mentors and real-world problems.

”Our expectation was that the program would grow. What we didn't expect necessarily is that this would become a national program and become the biggest program”, states Andrei Pitiș.

The program's initial success was marked by a contest supported by corporate partners that offered a prize fund and mentorship. This encouraged technical students to develop business ideas.

Over time, Innovation Labs expanded nationally, becoming a significant part of the Romanian startup ecosystem. This expansion was made possible by collaborations with universities across Romania and support from the Romanian American Foundation.

We've discussed with them at lenght for the documentary Romanian Startups: Roaring Tigers of Europe. Read their statements below and watch the entire interview in the video.

The inspiration for Innovation Labs

• In 2012, despite the lack of a startup ecosystem in Romania, they established Innovation Labs to combat the notion that startups were only pursued for pleasure, not business. The aim was to create value while nurturing entrepreneurship.
• Initially, there were few resources and little interest in startups in Romania. They noted that components of a startup ecosystem, like venture capital and success stories, were missing.
• One of the key challenges the founders addressed was the lack of business understanding among technical students.
• They also emphasized the importance of teamwork, which Romanian education often overlooks, focusing instead on individual achievements.
• Răzvan and Andrei highlighted the importance of bridging the gap between technical skills and business knowledge and decided to focus on mentoring engineers with a business mindset.

A new pathway for students to discover entrepreneurship

• Innovation Labs has had a significant impact, creating a pathway for students to explore entrepreneurship.
• It aims to nurture the entrepreneurial gene in students by providing a structured yet practical experience through hackathons and mentorship.
• The program not only provides technical skills but also equips students with the ability to identify and solve real-world problems.

A lesson in bootstrapping

• The first Innovation Labs event had seven teams, with standout teams developing a ride-sharing app and a recruiting business, which went on to achieve significant success.
• The program has grown nationwide, in part due to support from organizations like the Romanian American Foundation and interest from foreign companies seeing innovation potential in Romanian students.

• The founders of Innovation Labs emphasize the importance of team dynamics, risk-taking, and learning through failure for successful entrepreneurship, addressing gaps in the Romanian education system regarding teamwork and practical application.
• They also recognized the necessity of creating a third career path for students: pursuing startups, which was initially absent in Romania compared to other countries.

Constant evolution

• Andrei and Răzvan noted improvements in the Romanian startup ecosystem over the years due to increased VC interest, European Union support, and a greater focus on market competition.
• They emphasized the importance of understanding Western markets for the future success of Romanian startups, aiming for global competitiveness and diversified verticals in tech.
• Now, Innovation Labs seeks to continuously evolve to adapt to new technological trends like AI while maintaining its mission to serve as a pre-accelerator for students.
• Although formally passing the program to a new generation of leaders, Andrei and Razvan remain involved, with ambitions to ensure its lasting impact and sustainability in Romania's tech industry.
• Andrei is transitioning back into entrepreneurship after handing over Innovation Labs to the next generation, while Razvan focuses on engaging high school students with tech education.

Roaring Tigers of Europe is a production by start-up.ro and Videocorp, part of the Romanian publishing company InternetCorp, active for almost 20 years on the market. The documentary was made with the support of partners BCR, Orange, and 2Performant. Community partners included Guran Consulting Global, How to Web, Launch, Impact Hub Bucharest, Flaviu Simihaian, Rubik Hub, SoftServe, and the Romanian-American University.

Watch the entire documentary in the video below: