Currently, the CEE Fast 50 comprises 19 countries; Ukraine is the latest addition, joining last year. The interesting part about the competition is that it doesn’t really work like you’d expect. There is no jury of experts that determines the winner based on subjective criteria. The only criterion is revenue growth, though you need to meet certain baseline criteria to be eligible: revenues of €50,000 in 2021, 2022, and 2023, as well as making at least €100,000 in 2024.
Market forces
The result, explains Sauer, is that the market decides the winner. The fatter your annual increase, the more chance you have of winning. That said, he does admit that “there is a disadvantage because if in your base year you achieve significant revenue already, it’s very difficult to scale it up.”
That said, entry isn’t a complete free-for-all, says Sauer. ”They need to come to us, they need to meet certain criteria. We do background checks. We ask them for some supporting documentation. They need to do it on their own. So we encourage everyone to participate. We are very happy to see that the number of applicants increases over time. So right now across the region, we are getting hundreds of applications.”
Of course, it does beg the question what’s at stake. Sauer grins: “you get a nice piece of glass when you win, but the PR and the recognition are the biggest reward that we can offer.” They do the competition, says Novotná, “to create connections between the tech companies. Sure, some of them can become our clients, but we also want to support the community in the Czech Republic.”
For Novotná, this means “creating links to other organizations and bodies and bringing their ideas also to the Fast 50 community.” Naturally, this facilitates the inevitable move to foreign climes: “sooner or later, all Czech companies expand abroad, so there is an international element, even though they are Czech entities with Czech founders.“
Because of this, says Sauer, the biggest advantage to winning is direct access to Deloitte’s massive network, which, as a Big Four firm, spans across the globe and includes more than a few corporate behemoths, such as Citi or Google Cloud. “We like to connect our clients,” adds Sauer, deadpan.
This is likely also why the CEE isn’t where the Fast 50 ends. “Don’t forget there are also other Fast 50 competitions in other countries, like in the United States, India, Western Europe, with bigger countries like the UK, Germany and Netherlands, having their own.” says Novotná. All the winners of these separate rankings then go up into one that selects 500 worldwide.
Polish ambitions
The Czech Republic is in a good position, say both Sauer and Novotná, however, both agree that things could still be better. Like in our interview with Pavel Doležal, the example of Poland quickly comes up.
“We deal a lot with Polish companies,” says Sauer, “and you can see that in Poland they are bringing back attitude, self-confidence, experience. They really focus on results there, and it’s a matter of time before Polish companies will dominate the Fast 50 because of their drive, as well as their big inner market; it’s amazing.”
While a big domestic market can’t be emulated by Czechs, Sauer points to something that can: “ It’s also about self-confidence. If you’re from Poland and you know that your country’s ambitious and successful, and it’s successful because they have a vision.”
Sauer visibly warms up to his subject as he continues: “They want to get back the reputation that they had in the past. What is our ambition? Do we have any goal as a country? I’m afraid we don’t, or at least, I don’t know what it is. We have amazing people here. We have amazing entrepreneurs. We have companies that can do a lot of, a lot more, but we don’t care.”
According to Novotna: “ The people in the Czech Republic are smart. There is a good tech community, so we have a lot of success stories, so the ones who already succeeded can inspire the others. It shows you can go from being a student to a billionaire in just a few years. We know a lot of examples like that. If you have a good idea and you really put it in place and work on it, it’s possible.”
Legislative issues
This, of course, begs the question as to what’s standing in the way. Both answer confidently. For Sauer it’s immigration. “To get some specialists from abroad takes ages. For some reason we shoot ourselves in the foot with legislation, how we do business locally. We went to Israel on a study trip and we saw how the ecosystem works over there and how the government actively supports it. And it’s not by the means of providing money, but how the legislation is structured, how all the ecosystem is linked to the US environment.”
For Novotná, as a tax expert, the answer is obvious: “The Czech tax system is extremely complicated. It needs to be simplified. Each government wants to do it, but at the end of the day, it’s getting more and more complicated. There are exceptions to every rule and many of my clients are completely lost. For example, one year ago there was a huge change regarding employee benefits to make it simpler, but nobody understood it at all because the final system it’s super complicated and it requires additional administration from the client side.”
Novotná isn’t finished there, either: “We’ve also been promised a single form for employers to register employees, a project that has been talked about for over a decade. It’s supposed to be implemented by 2026, but nobody’s seen the form yet. The closer we get to the deadline, the more stressful and expensive it’s going to be.”
At the same time, Novotná sees that advancements are being made: “like with the taxation of employee stock-option plans or in greater support for research and development, two things technology companies have long called for. The question always remains, however, as to how the positive changes will be translated into practice. Tax administration and tax audits are still quite rigid in the Czech Republic.”
Looking forward
For Sauer it comes down to lack of vision. “We really need to decide what country we want to be. If we want to be a country based on cheap labor and on the proximity to the German market, that’s perfectly acceptable, but we need to decide. We’re not getting anything from the government in this regard.”
He has an example of a recent meeting with a delegation from the Ontario Ministry of Trade. “The province was producing two million cars per year, but it started to become extremely expensive. To become more competitive, they decided to focus on clean energy and advanced manufacturing. And right now they’re employing more tech guys than Silicon Valley itself. It was powered by the vision and the conscious decision of the government.”
“If we want to move forward and to take a step forward, we need to decide who we want to be as a country.”
