Goran Duškić, the co-founder of WhoAPI, interviewed Saša Šarunić, the co-founder and CTO of ShoutEm, among many other ventures. I love the idea of entrepreneurs interviewing each other, and with Goran’s permission, I’m re-posting this great post in its entirety from his blog.

There’s something about serial entrepreneurs… Take cliff diving for example. You are standing on top of a cliff, let’s say 10m high. It doesn’t matter if your plan is to jump on a head, or legs. You are scared as hell! Some of your friends, and “friends” are teasing you, saying you don’t have the guts to jump. You know that the chances of something bad happening are minimal, but there’s this loud voice inside your head yelling you could break your back, neck, embarrass yourself.

And than finally, finally you beat the coward in your self. You take the jump! Just do it, as the commercial said so. The rush goes through your body, as you hit the water you are relived. You are victorious as your friends are chearing, not tesing you. Entrepreneurs, you know what I am talking about.

Than a funny thing occurs. Along comes winter, and the next summer. You are up on that big rock again. Guess what, your legs are shaking of fear. Once again you have to beat the devil, the diablo. What in the world led you to that silly rock again? What in the world were you thinking?! Why, why, why do you persist? Maybe because you choose to. Maybe because you are foolish enough to think you can change the world. Maybe because you want to help people. Or maybe you just have that drive within you, and you are like a rocket prepared to do what it takes to reach Mars.

This is why I interview entrepreneurs. In our country, entrepreneurs like Saša don’t get (wrongfully) much media attention, because all the bad entrepreneurs get it. This leads the public oppinion in the wrong dirrection, so the public turns into a crowd that laughs at you, points fingers for no apparent reason, and throws accusations, because they are used of entrepreneur wrong doing. I choose to believe differently, I see entrepreneurs as saviours of the society. Paying way more taxes that drives country budget, and drive the ecnonomy by spending more, hiring people that were unemployed, and inventing new services (or bringing old ones to mass market) so they solve problems. Basically entrepreneurs are problem solvers, they are the solution!

I am sure there are some people in your country as well that call themselves entrepreneurs, when they are not. Know thy true entrepreneur, the force is strong within him.

Why Saša Šarunić? Oh well, no particular reason… He founded a succesfull mobile and software development company (5minutes) and got an $1.7 million for a third (ShoutEm) (The Next Web, 50 cent use it and even Eric Ries with Lean Startup to name a few), that’s innovation and high tech wrapped into one. You could say cliff diving is second nature to him, if you know what I mean. They were the first Croatian startup to get VC funding, went to Seedcamp, and the whole shebang.

Goran: Saša, how do you measure your success with your projects/startups/companies? You co-founded Pticica and Trosjed (which was sold to Net.hr), then 5 minutes, and then ShoutEm, in your eyes how do you measure success in them?

Saša: I measure success in work by two parameters – fun that you have by doing a work, and money as a compensation for your effort. I started all four projects with Viktor Marohnic who proved to be a great partner, full of energy and good ideas. Working with him was already guarantee enough that we were looking at fun times
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