David Dostal
EPISODE 007 DETAILED SHOW NOTES
In this episode Mats is meeting with David Dostal. They had the conversation in Prague just before Christmas.
Topics covered:
- David’s quest from freedom at any price
- David’s interest for computers and programming already as a young teenager
- How he as a 25 year old started a company in Switzerland
- The struggle you can have with German bureaucrazy
- David’s experience as in investor in internet companies
- How his journey that took him back to his parents roots in Czech Republic
- The creation of his new company Fetview and what change that will bring for gynecologists and patients over the world
- What David thinks about theoretical studies
- Advices he would give to young graduates and students
- How he as a teenager improved the production lines at Mercedes
David’s constant quest for freedom
David’s parents flew Czechoslovakia in 1979. They pretended a holiday in Jugoslavia and managed to get out of the country and the flew over the Austrian mountains with only what they could grab with them to finally come to Germany and start up a new life there.
David was born in 1980 and it is like his parents journey has imprinted something very strong in him and that is to seek freedom first at any price.
David explains that even if he has to pay more, like take a 1 year lease on a car rather than 3 years, he does it to keep the freedom of choice and to not be tied in.
This leitmotif has guided every action he takes in his life.
David the Entrepreneur
David always dreamt of starting his own company. He first tried in Germany but stumbled on complicated rules and a lot of bureacracy and finally got the chance to move to Switzerland and set up his first company.
He praises the ease and transparency there is in Switzerland to create companies and also how amazing pension system they have where every month you get a statement of your assets, something that in most countries is a black box.
The current company that David has started is Fetview. It is a revolutinzing tool allowing gynecologists to send their patient data into the cloud where it can be viewed both by them and the doctors.
They started this with the aim on the German market but they have already penetrated 30 countries and continue growing.
It is a very scalable business model and it is fascinating to see that in Medellin, Colombia their are doctors using their software.
The investor
During his Swiss journey David came in 2008 in contact with Austrian-Czech investor who focused to invest in Czech internet startu-up companies. David joined him and learnt all the tricks and tools of an investor which served him a lot later when he founded his own company.
Many of the companies they invested in are today successful Czech companies like Invia and H1.
One of the companies where even sold to the famous Axel Springer.
This was the time when David came in contact with the traditional corporate world. When they tried to sell one of the companies David suddenly realized the difference between an entrepreneur and a traditional corporate manager. He explains:
They are managers, they get their fixed income every month, whether they decide something or not. When a manager decides to buy a company they take risk, but they get their money anyway so why should they take a risk? The managers did not want to decide anything so the process was so long to sell a company to the corporate
The web and internet developer
David started coding and did his first internet application in 1996 as a 16 year old. He and his father created an online community for gynecologists and their patients and in the early years of 2000 it was the biggest social media platform in Germany with 5 million hits a month.
Theoretical Studies
David studied Economics and IT in Stuttgart Germany but his view on theoretical studies is rather harsh. He explains:
Studies in general or the theoretical part was never for me. I was the practical guy, doing things. Go out and do it, develop it. Not learn about how to code or sit in seminars and university and learn about it, you learn nothing, you learn theory.
and his recommendation to young students and graduates is simple:
My advice to young people and to students, do it, do it really practically. Yes, learn it, but go out and do the things, code, develop, go for it, when you have an idea, in my point of view, within 24 hours you have to do the first step otherwise you loose the momentum.
The Mercedes experience
As a student David work in the summer at the Mercedes factory in Stuttgart at the department of diesel pipes. There were blank diesel pipes that had to go into galvanisation and the job consisted of taking the blank diesel pipe and put it into a frame and back on a small wagon.
When he started the benchmark was that the workers did 5.000-6.000 diesel pipes per shift .
David directly increased the level to 10.000 only by working hard and the workers were not happy with him raising their benchmark.
Then he came up with an idea and had a kind of shovel developed that increased the throughput to up to 15.000 per shift.
He filed it and got later a reward for this innovation, the managers where happy but not everybody around saw it the same way.
Where can you find David
On Instagram at @dostal
On Twitter at @dostaldavid
