Interview with BIH Mentor George Roth - The Power Of Timing, Strategic Scaling And Chasing Opportunities

His name resonates profoundly when it comes to startup innovation and AI. As a seasoned entrepreneur, AI Evangelist at UiPath, mentor, and Honorary Consul of Romania in the Bay Area, George Roth has been at the forefront of guiding startups towards their path to global success. His deep understanding of both Eastern European and Silicon Valley ecosystems uniquely positions him to understand the challenges of aspiring tech leaders.

Known for his commitment to fostering innovation and his extensive experience in the tech industry, George shares his perspectives with us, from his serendipitous entry into the world of cybernetics in Romania to his influential role in supporting CEE’s vibrant startup ecosystem, living proof of the power of vision, resilience, and strategic mentorship.

What first attracted you to the tech industry?

Oh, that's interesting. There’s this book called ‘Outliers’. If you read it, you know how important  timing and where you are in your life can be for the person you’ll become. So - location and timing: I was in Cluj, and in the eighth grade we had to take an exam to get to high school. 

At the time, the government would generally assign students to schools where you’d learn something practical to become able to work as a technician, instead of the predominantly theoretical schools, that was the trend. I was set to attend a school for electricians. But instead, one week before the exam, the chemistry teacher who knew me called my mother and said, ‘Tell George not to go to that school because exactly at this school, we are creating a cybernetics high school’.

I had no idea what cybernetics was. My only association with it was an American cartoon, one of the few we had access to, called Fireball XL5, with some guys flying through the galaxy, who had all sorts of lights coming out of their computers. That was about my perception of what cybernetics was. Not even the teacher had any clearer idea

Back to timing, that was actually in the year Romania was among the first countries to create these special high schools for computer science, inspired by a French model. The funny thing is, as I come back to the book, a lot of people in that first generation were from a village near Cluj called Așchileu. It would be interesting if someone did a history of the first generation of fully schooled IT people in Cluj, because they’d see that many of them are from this village, which makes no sense unless you know the full story, because the secretary of the high school was from that village. 

For me, it was the coincidence of timing and location, the fact that I lived across the street from the school, that got me into high tech.

This probably also explains the success of Romanian IT because in these 4 cities—Timișoara, Iași, Cluj, and Bucharest— where these cybernetics high schools were created. 

Drawing an arc over time, how did you first get in contact with Bulgaria Innovation Hub, and what motivated you to join its mission?

I have always admired Bulgaria. Bulgaria was always ahead of Romania in terms of the ecosystem. I got into the ecosystem due to my position of Honorary Consul of Romania in the Bay Area, in which capacity I attended many events where you meet a lot of people from different countries. They have honorary consuls and consuls because some countries have regular consuls. I realized that some of these countries are much more organized than others. 

One of the worst was Romania, who didn't have anything, but Bulgaria was always there. I met Pavlina, and then I found out what she was doing. She invited me to some events when their cohorts were presenting, then we also met at other events organized by other countries, and when she asked me if I would like to help as a mentor I didn’t hesitate. Because I love seeing innovation coming from Eastern Europe. I also liked that the BIH was not strictly Bulgarian-oriented and they accept startups from other countries into the program. I've seen great companies there, and the dialogue was great. Pavlina does an amazing job, and the contributions of Bogomil Balkansky, who is a very well-known investor and mentor, made me decide to help them periodically and in an organized way.

Speaking of making it the U.S. market, do you think there are any specific challenges when scaling to the U.S.?

Of course, the challenges are the same all over. This applies to CEE as well as the whole of Europe. The European Union model of helping investment is very European; and un-American. The KPIs are not defined, which means they invest in many of these companies, who in return don't feel any pressure to do something in terms of go-to-market. 

Secondly, Eastern Europe and even Europe as a whole lack the necessary qualified people in product design, in the sense that most startups are started by technologists. This right here is the second big problem. The third one is that in Europe there is no critical mass of marketing people, professional marketing people specialized in go-to-market like you have in the U.S. 

In one of the previous cohorts at BIH, I met a company from Sofia that had a product platform for product engineers and product management. From the beginning, they included the marketing part and the go-to-market strategy. The whole development of the product itself was happening in parallel with the preparation of the go-to-market, which is how it should be. I was really impressed to see this holistic approach take shape in our region.

Does this account for a better culture of innovation in the U.S. compared to Europe?

There are two types of innovation. There’s technology innovation, which Romanians and Bulgarians are very good at because the schools are good in this respect. And then there’s product innovation, where we’ve got a gap in the system in Europe. Even as a student in the U.S. you’ll have your courses prepared by alumni who have created successful companies. If you study business, you’ll have to create a business plan from scratch and to launch a product virtually every month. This type of hands-on education in product launch is still lacking in the school system in Europe. 

How important do you think it is for CEE startups to establish a presence both locally and internationally simultaneously? Would this help bridge the gap?

It's important to establish a presence both locally and internationally, but only after a while. It's much easier to start a company in Eastern Europe because of the access to talent. In America, getting access to first-class talent is extremely challenging and requires a lot of money because big companies are paying incredible amounts for top talent. 

The easiest way is to start something in your country, and if you can find a relevant accelerator to support you it’s even better. You can go-to-market there, and once you start to get traction and success, then you’ll scale up and go to another country. Launching in the U.S. is almost like launching globally because it's like 50 different countries with the same structure. That's a huge advantage—a large market with a lot of money. And then, if you succeed in the US, you succeed globally.

How can startups balance innovation with regulatory compliance when expanding internationally? Is it difficult?

It depends on the industry, but there are some specific industries where it’s definitely harder. If you are in healthcare and your technology impacts a patient, you have to be very careful; you need to hire people who know how to handle this because you'll need to get FDA approval. If you're short on money, you might not realize how long this takes. Also, the new AI regulations can increase your costs significantly. Another example are international tax laws if you're selling cross-country. That's why I recommend having legal advice for companies with global or even local businesses from as early on as possible.

Specifically for AI startups looking to scale, do you have any advice?

The first piece of advice for AI startups is to look into the cost of running and tuning up models. This can be prohibitive. Microsoft recently released a course on SLMs (Small Language Models), which allows small companies to run AI models without requiring massive support payments, which is great because big cloud providers give credits. But the cost of computation needs to be factored in. At this point, there are thousands of AI companies, and 90% of them don't make any money because it's hard to develop AI for the sake of AI. You need an end-to-end business process or market need that you’re solving. AI is impressive tech-wise, but people buy solutions to their problems, not tech for the sake of tech.

Given how prone to failure AI startups are, what are the key traits that you're looking for in a founding team when you decide to take on a mentorship role?

There are a few important things for mentorship to be effective. First, as a mentor, you need to take a look at your expertise, the proven success in a vertical that you bring to the table.

Secondly, understanding the technology is super important especially if you’re looking to mentor AI-based startups.

And last but not least, you need to have a certain affinity and match with the founders and to be on the same wavelength. I would never get involved with a company whose founders are arrogant and believe their technology will conquer the world without being humble about the problem they solve. 

Everyone has their own affinity and area of expertise. For me, it's AI, document processing, and healthcare because I admire what's going on in healthcare and know how important healthcare innovation is.

What would you say are some critical elements that a startup can include in their pitch that resonate most with US investors?

Oh, that's crucial! The main thing is to express your vision, and to lead with it. 

Answer to ‘What are you trying to solve?’. Never start by talking about the technology, even if it’s through that piece of technology that you’re solving the problem and achieving your vision. 

I'll give you an example. There’s this company that created a way for patients to share their medical test data and results with another provider when they change doctors. In the U.S., there’s a real problem when you go from one doctor to another regarding transferring the data. It’s a mess. And this company effectively solved it in a very elegant way.

Basically, they transferred data ownership to the patients, who can now keep their entire medical history and share it with multiple doctors through a downloadable link. 

But instead of saying this, when I talked to them, the way they presented their solution to me was ‘We created a great database that can handle very large files like X-rays’.  

Instead of saying, ‘We have a great database’, they should have said, ‘We provide a mechanism to share patient data across providers’. When you put it this way, your vision is clear: every patient owns their data, and there’s no problem getting it when they change providers.

Do you have any recommendations for founders who want to be part of the Bulgaria Innovation Hub accelerator?

I definitely recommend it. The Bulgarian Innovation Hub has a history of very good companies and successful exchanges. These trips are not tourism, they’re about learning to network, a crucial aspect for a startup founder looking to scale. The Bulgarian Innovation Hub has many cooperations with other hubs through a lot of established professionals such as Bogomil Balkansky, who is very well known in the VC world. Another important aspect is that it has nothing to do with the government–being privately funded is an upside because changes in politics do not affect the way it works.

And a last question. In the many years you have spent in the States, what is one piece of cultural paradigm or general approach towards innovation that you think we should take inspiration from in Europe?

Innovation is always born because you keep your eyes open and see things around you. You identify the need for a service or a product that you didn't encounter. That's real innovation—when you see something you want to do but can't find a solution for, and you think, ‘There must be millions of others with the same problem’. That's how innovation starts. 

Always keep your eyes open. But to think outside the box, first you have to make sure you know what's inside of it. If you create a startup, do serious market research to make sure no other company is already doing it  the same way with a large lead in the market. Even if your technology is better, convincing people to switch to your product from an existing one is very costly from a marketing perspective. 

The big difference between the U.S. and Europe is not in innovation, but in the funding concept. In Europe, self-funding and bootstrapping are more common because there isn't as much money available. There's also a cultural aspect where in many countries you're still educated to spend your own money, not someone else's. This is the opposite of the U.S. mentality, where you spend someone else's money for development. Having money from outside your own circle is in fact smart, not because you’re not going through your savings which is a superficial way of looking at it, but because it guarantees that those investors who back you up did their due diligence, which helps attract the next investors.

The possibility for Bulgaria Innovation Hub to achieve these milestones is achieved with the support of America for Bulgaria Foundation (ABF) - an independent, nonpartisan, and nonpolitical American grant-making foundation working in partnership with Bulgarians to strengthen the country’s private sector and related democratic institutions. For more information, please visit: https://us4bg.org/