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detailed news in these [emerging] countries. When you get news, it’s 5 : STEP THREE – EVALUATING AND SELECTING IDEAS
often “headline” news that’s not very detailed. If you’re investing in these
markets, you need the meat.’152 He did not take the business idea of
providing that ‘meat’ any further at that point, however.

While on his business course, Mueller considered a number of other
business ideas, including setting up a food packaging company in
Russia, which he discounted on the grounds of excessive risk, and
establishing a bottled water company in Poland, which he rejected as too
capital-intensive.

To allow himself to manage the wealth of apparent opportunities
offered by the emerging markets of Eastern Europe, Mueller developed
six criteria against which to coarse-screen ideas, shown on Table 5.8.

Table 5.8 Coarse-screen criteria

Coarse-screen criteria Rationale

Low start-up costs Could finance start-up from friends and
family and limit downside risk

Low variable costs once business Control the rate of cash-burn
established

Low capital intensity Minimise investment required

Rapid break-even Recognise political instability inherent in
emerging markets and gain rapid
feedback on market acceptability of idea

Proven business rather than Reduce risk by mimicking what worked
completely new idea in developed countries – successful start-ups
in Eastern Europe included English-language
publications, restaurant franchises and
copy centres

High market potential Satisfy personal and business ambition

During his time at Harvard Business School, a colleague on the course M
put Mueller in touch with his father, Ludwig Gelobter. Having emigrated
from Poland to the United States in his youth, Gelobter had been in the
first wave of entrepreneurs returning to Poland. He was enjoying
considerable success with a number of start-up ventures, including the
establishment of What, Where, When?, Warsaw’s equivalent to London’s
printed events-listing magazine, Time Out. What, Where, When?
addressed the unmet need which Gelobter had identified among western
visitors to Warsaw for even the most basic information about what was
going on.