Meet The Disruptors: David Štýbr Of Livento Group On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Manage your time: Work, private life, and sleep should always be balanced.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing David Štýbr.
David Štýbr is the CEO of Livento Group, which focuses on acquiring and developing companies with disruptive business models. He manages AI and machine learning products for portfolio optimization and recently launched the BOXO Production brand focused on movie production. Štýbr is looking for companies where the team can deliver 30x value through an IPO.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Since university, I have been leading teams, restructuring organizations, looking for ways to do things more efficiently, increasing performance and delivering added value to companies. I restructured and built four divisions/companies during my time at CPI Property Group in order reorganize the company and a focus on clients and organic growth. I am on the board of Iconic Labs, a UK-listed company, currently acquiring technology companies worth $100 million.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
First, I would say that disruption doesn’t mean always going against the flow at any cost, while just having a vision that something can work. Disruption happens in my work through a focus on specific goals with a strategy to help reach it. These targets are often something new to the market, which creates a disruption in the business or industry. Our stock market Portfolio Management System is a disruptive tool for asset managers and high-net-worth investors that seamlessly rebalances portfolios to obtain the best results. BOXO Productions is also disruptive. Through the brand, we are democratizing investment in movies and TV shows and leveraging the growing customer demand for new entertainment content. We deliver high margins and a positive financial outcome for investors.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I would say attention to detail is something I missed. I was two days into my new job, as a confident junior finance manager, and I almost got fired. I overlooked that the signature space in one agreement was on an empty page of the document and my boss did not like that. There were two lessons that I learned: first, you never know if you are making your next mistake at any moment, so always be ready, and second, pay attention and think twice before you feel that you’ve completed something.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
My mentors have manifested in a less traditional way. I was working with successful people and managing their assets, and I became very interested in listening to how they got their start in business, their path in life, and any recommendations they had for me.
The most important thing I learned is that what really matters is the paying customer. No matter what business you build, you need to have revenues. I believe that a lot of people in companies that are not in direct touch with customers should have this written on their desks or monitors because sales teams and revenues are the basis of success.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Disruption usually means change and people, by nature, typically don’t like change. Some people use disruption to “negate” some way of doing things and want to do things differently at any cost so they can personally benefit from it. But I believe that’s not how this concept should be taken and executed since that’s the opposite of a positive approach.
Disruption should be linked with a path to achieve a selected target. Disruption should be the result of a needed change and not the cause of it.
Take for example our portfolio AI system. We developed it as an answer to today’s information and news flow problem.
Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
- Think positively: Never think about why something doesn’t work, instead, think about how to make it work.
- Focus on the customer: Without revenues, you do not have a business.
- Prepare for a black swan event: You need to be ready for a new obstacle to arise at any moment.
- Manage your time: Work, private life, and sleep should always be balanced.
- Team: Find people that excel in areas you do not and people who move you forward.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Livento Group becoming public is a big step ahead for us and is enabling us to develop and grow our projects more quickly. I believe our revenues can be tripled within the next several years since our projects have the potential to grow and the right business model to succeed in the market. Our target is to uplist Livento within the exchanges so we can reach a wider investor audience and become an interesting partner for corporate clients. We plan to grow our revenues by establishing new offices and targeting new clients in the US.
We have one more ongoing IPO project under Livento and a venture project that we will announce in the next couple of months, which is focused on green personal transportation.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
When I was very young, I often read books about the universe and people climbing the highest peaks of the Himalayas. Both have a few points in common, which I am employing now: if you want something, you need to work on it so it can happen, you will never solve a problem without finding the cause, and the distance to a final goal is what matters.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I like a quote from Henry Ford, “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it.” We all are at work or home under a constant deluge of events and new information and need to find a way to not become totally absorbed with it. Especially at work, the operational part of a job can often fill a whole day easily. But what’s important is to sit down for 20 minutes and think about questions such as “How did I help today in regard to short-, mid-and long-term goals?”, “Is my time being used properly?”, and “How can I move forward faster toward my goals (not dreams)?”
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I believe that everyone should try to find where they belong and create some good in that space. With billions of people on the planet, everyone can make a change, even a small one, to have a positive impact on the climate or technological advances, for example. As you can see with Livento, we are building new AI systems and brands like BOXO, and we want people to be part of it so we can all benefit in one way or another.
How can our readers follow you online?
You can follow me on my LinkedIn page and also follow Livento’s work on the company’s website, LinkedIn page and Twitter page.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Meet The Disruptors: David Štýbr Of Livento Group On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
