Every day I experience the struggles of entrepreneurship myself, so it's good to see how other businesses come from nothing and what can lead to failure.

Judging by the crowd and the many young participants, I can see that despite the crises, enthusiasm is not waning, there are always those who believe in success and are willing to sacrifice for it.

Jared Schrieber, a startup mentor and investor living in Hungary, compared the situation of Silicon Valley and our small country in terms of startups in his opening presentation.

Both regions have around 10 million inhabitants, but the similarities end there. 
While in Silicon Valley it costs only $500 to start a business, employees usually get shares and options at the start, companies can access capital in many ways, the legal environment offers significant guarantees to the investor, in our small country we rely on state support and do not make colleagues interested in achieving a common goal.

But there is good news. In Eastern Europe, companies and people in general are much more used to crisis situations. They are much more willing to fight, so they (would) have better chances in a better environment.

A panel discussion also brought up the role of the media in the startup world, or rather the misperception of startups. There is a perception among many that young programmers, eating free food between two foosball games, will sell the company for millions of dollars. But the reality is that the few lucky ones who can build a functioning company make a successful exit through blood, sweat and tears.

Agnes Golya, a Forbes told us that they would like to report on the road to failure, but they can't really find an entrepreneur who will tell us what went wrong, with a name and a face.

Well, I wouldn't put my failures out the window either.