u/Brave-Potential-7310

For me it’s the feeling of being in the moment or rather thinking, actively, both long term but acting in the moment. The big brain feeling - cliche, I know but how else to describe it? It’s nuclear levels of engagement in BAR where the factors are so many but so sophisticated that it takes so long to just master the basics. Or it can be the deceptively simple challenge like in TAB and DNO (Diplomacy is not an option) where the whole process of strategy comes to considering 1 or 2 important factors and then building around them and with them in mind.

But it’s this whole active process of thinking. No other genre exhausts me as much mentally but in a satisfying way that’s completely unlike the fatigue that… for example, comes from mindlessly grinding out your hours in an ARPG. It’s a sweet mental exhaustion, that’s how I would describe it, it doesn't stay with you that long and you feel like you really used your mind all throughout.

How would you describe the feeling that still keeps you coming back into older RTS and awaiting new ones? Other words, where does the moment of RTS satisfaction come from, for you?

I work at a SaaS company in Prague and I’ve been watching this region closely for near on three years now. There’s a pattern forming across the Czech Republic, Serbia, Croatia, and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe that I think deserves more attention than it’s getting. I’m signaling out these countries just because they’re the ones I’m most familiar with due to acquaintances from the same.

Some companies from this region that are competing at a level most people outside of CEE don’t realise, for example

Czech Republic - Productboard (product management, raised $125M, competes with Aha and Pendo), Apify (web scraping and automation at serious scale), Keboola (data operations), Rossum (AI document processing). Prague alone probably has 20-30 SaaS companies doing between $1-10M ARR that the US tech press has never mentioned.

Macedonia - HeyReach (LinkedIn automation out of Skopje, went from basically nothing to a real Expandi competitor in about 18 months). Small country but punching above its weight in SaaS.

Serbia - Clockify (time tracking, millions of users, bootstrapped from Belgrade), FishingBooker (marketplace, also bootstrapped, profitable for years), Nordeus (gaming/tech, acquired by Take-Two). Belgrade has this scrappy energy where people just build things without waiting for permission or funding.

Croatia - Productive (project management for agencies, growing fast), Treblle (API monitoring), Farseer (financial planning and analytics software for teams that want a more flexible way to handle budgeting, forecasting, and reporting). Zagreb has a surprisingly active startup scene for a city of 800K people. 

And these are just some I can name off the top of my head. There’s probably 50+ more across the region building problem solving products that generate more than considerable revenue.

Why does this keep happening here specifically? Based on working in the region, this is what I think.

Firstly, the local markets individually are tiny compared to the US (and others). Czech Republic is 10 million people. Serbia is 7 million. Croatia is 4 million. You literally cannot build a local-only SaaS and survive, so companies go international from day one. That sounds like a disadvantage but it means they’re globally competitive from the start instead of getting comfortable in big home market first.

The talent is there alright but the economics are different. Engineering salaries in Prague or Belgrade are significantly lower than Berlin or London, which means companies can reach profitability without raising massive rounds. Combined with the fact that VC money is harder to access here, founders learn to be capital-efficient early. The ones that survive usually have real unit economics, not just growth metrics propped up by funding.

Also, community infrastructure finally exists after a radio buzz that seemingly covered the region at the beginning of this century. Or sad to say, much earlier than that. Five years ago there was almost nothing connecting founders across these countries. Now there are regular meetups in most major CEE cities, communities like SaaStanak running events across most major CEE cities with an annual conference, ProductTank chapters in Prague and Belgrade, Startup Grind in several cities, and people actually sharing knowledge across borders. I’ve been to events in Prague, Bratislava, and Belgrade and the density of interesting people building real things is surprisingly high for a region most Western VCs ignore.

The part that still lags is real focus on distribution. Lots of startups rely on organic SEO and they rarely appear on social media like LinkedIn and X. The founders themselves are not vocal enough and altough region has a lot of great performance marketers and ad people, seems like we like really bold marketing efforts you see in SF based and western market SaaS.

Anyway I realise this turned into a long post. The short version is that some of the most capital-efficient, globally competitive SaaS companies are being built in cities most investors couldn’t find on a map, and I think that’s going to become a much bigger story over the next few years.

I work at a SaaS company in Prague and I’ve been watching this region closely for flat on three years now. There’s a pattern forming across the Czech Republic, Serbia, Croatia, and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe that I think deserves more attention than it’s getting.

Some companies from this region that are competing at a level most people outside of CEE don’t realise, for example:

Czech Republic - Productboard (product management, raised $125M, competes with Aha and Pendo), Apify (web scraping and automation at serious scale), Keboola (data operations), Rossum (AI document processing). Prague alone probably has 20-30 SaaS companies doing between $1-10M ARR that the US tech press has never mentioned.

Macedonia - HeyReach (LinkedIn automation out of Skopje, went from basically nothing to a real Expandi competitor in about 18 months). Small country but punching above its weight in SaaS.

Serbia - Clockify (time tracking, millions of users, bootstrapped from Belgrade), FishingBooker (marketplace, also bootstrapped, profitable for years), Nordeus (gaming/tech, acquired by Take-Two). Belgrade has this scrappy energy where people just build things without waiting for permission or funding.

Croatia - Productive (project management for agencies, growing fast), Treblle (API monitoring), Farseer (financial planning and analytics software for teams that want a more flexible way to handle budgeting, forecasting, and reporting). Zagreb has a surprisingly active startup scene for a city of 800K people. 

And these are just some I can name off the top of my head. There’s probably dozens and dozens more across the region building real products with real revenue. But why does this keep happening here specifically - is the question I asked to myself. Based on working in the region, this is what I think.

Firstly, the local markets individually are tiny compared to the US. Czech Republic is 10 million people. Serbia is 7 million. Croatia is 4 million. You literally cannot build a local-only SaaS and survive, so companies go international from day one. That sounds like disadvantage but it means they’re globally competitive from the start instead of getting comfortable in big home market first.

The talent is there but the economics are different. Engineering salaries in Prague or Belgrade are significantly lower than Berlin or London, which means companies can reach profitability without raising massive rounds. Combined with the fact that VC money is harder to access here, founders learn to be capital-efficient early. The ones that survive usually have real unit economics, not just growth metrics propped up by funding.

Also, community infrastructure finally exists. 5 years ago there was almost nothing connecting founders across these countries. Now there are regular meetups in most major CEE cities, communities like SaaStanak running events across most major CEE cities with an annual conference, ProductTank chapters in Prague and Belgrade, Startup Grind in several cities, and people actually sharing knowledge across borders. I’ve been to events in Prague, Bratislava, and Belgrade and the density of interesting people building real things is surprisingly high for a region most Western VCs ignore.

The part that still lags is real focus on distribution. Lots of startups rely on organic SEO and they rarely appear on social media like LinkedIn and X. The founders themselves are not vocal enough and altough region has a lot of great performance marketers and ad people, seems like we like really bold marketing efforts you see in SF based and western market SaaS.

Anyway I realise this turned into a long post. The short version is that some of the most capital-efficient, globally competitive SaaS companies are being built in cities most investors couldn’t find on a map, and I think that’s going to become a much bigger story over the next few years.