Miljan Ilić believes one of the biggest mistakes founders make is spending too much time trying to prove they’re right and not enough time trying to understand what they can learn.
People often think entrepreneurship is about having the right idea.
I don’t.
Over the years, I’ve met founders with brilliant products, impressive technical knowledge and an incredible work ethic. They have all the necessary components for developing viable businesses, but they were unable to expand beyond their immediate communities. Watching that happen made me realise that talent isn’t the biggest challenge for most entrepreneurs. More often, the real challenge is gaining access to the right people, opportunities, and conversations. That understanding changed the way I approached my own business. It also changed the way I think about entrepreneurship itself.
When I started building my company, I naturally focused on the product. Like many founders, I believed that if the solution solved a real problem, customers, investors and partners would recognise its value. Experience taught me that this is only part of the picture. The value of a good product offering cannot be denied, but it does not necessarily inspire confidence. First, you must be able to earn the confidence of your potential investors; and for that, they must be confident about you as a leader of the organization. Those lessons only became clear after years of meeting customers, investors and fellow entrepreneurs from different industries and countries.
That shift in thinking influenced every decision I made afterwards. Alongside leading Recikom mm innovation doo, where we’re developing digital infrastructure for the circular economy, I also became the Regional Partner for Startup World Cup Serbia. Although the two roles are different, they are connected by the same purpose. Both give me the opportunity to work with founders who are trying to solve meaningful problems and connect them with mentors, investors and international partners who can help them grow. The more founders I meet, the more convinced I become that great businesses are rarely built in isolation. This process is facilitated by teamwork, constant learning, and good relations.
One habit has probably influenced my journey more than any business strategy. I stopped walking into meetings believing I had to convince everyone that my solution was the best. Rather than this, I began to view each interaction as a chance to learn something new. Customers described issues from a totally different angle. Investors raised questions that I had never thought of. Experienced founders shared lessons they had learned through years of building companies. Not every conversation led to a partnership, but almost every conversation helped me become a better entrepreneur because it encouraged me to think differently.
That is why I believe founders should spend less time trying to have all the answers and more time asking better questions. Markets change, technology evolves and customer expectations never stand still. Curiosity allows you to adapt, while humility allows you to improve. In my experience, those qualities create stronger businesses than confidence alone because they keep you open to new ideas and better ways of solving problems.
What shaped my thinking most
| Experience | Lesson |
| Meeting founders across Serbia and the Balkans | Talent is widespread, but access to opportunity is not. |
| Speaking with investors and mentors | Credibility grows through consistency rather than one successful pitch. |
| Listening to customers | The best products begin with understanding the problem before developing the solution. |
| Working with international startup ecosystems | Long-term growth comes from relationships, collaboration and continuous learning. |
If there’s one message I’d like another founder to take from my journey, it’s this: don’t measure every meeting by whether it results in a deal. Measure it by whether you leave with a better understanding than you had when you walked in. Some of the most valuable opportunities in my career started as conversations where nothing happened immediately, but the lessons from those discussions influenced decisions I made months or even years later.
The Customer Changed the Way I Build Businesses
One thing became clear quite early in my journey. Customers don’t see your business the way you do, and that’s exactly why talking to them matters.
Like many founders, I was passionate about what we were building. I enjoyed discussing ideas, technology and where the business could go in the future. The discussions were fun, yet I learned a lesson from them. Customers weren’t interested in hearing why we believed our solution was different. They wanted to explain the challenges they were already dealing with and understand whether we could genuinely help them solve those problems. That changed the way I approached every meeting because I realised listening creates far more value than delivering the perfect presentation.
As our understanding of customers improved, the business evolved with it. Instead of starting with technology, we started with the problem. They involved idea testing, seeking opinions before making big decisions and accepting the fact that the first proposed solution was not always the best. The discussions made us realize that sometimes we were on the right track, but at other times we had to totally change our perspectives. Even though these were some of the hardest moments for us, they prevented us from making costly mistakes.
That way of thinking eventually became part of the culture at Recikom mm innovation doo. Our work focuses on developing digital infrastructure for the circular economy, but the technology is never the starting point. We begin by understanding where businesses struggle with transparency, traceability and resource management, and only then do we look at how digital solutions can make those processes simpler and more efficient. I believe innovation only becomes valuable when it improves the way people work or helps them solve a challenge they face every day.
The same belief also explains why I became the Regional Partner for Startup World Cup Serbia, organised by Pegasus Tech Ventures. People often see it as a startup competition, but I see something much bigger. Every founder who applies brings a different idea, a different background and a different perspective on solving problems. Working with startups from Serbia and across the Balkans has shown me just how much talent exists in our region. At the same time, it has reminded me that many founders still need better access to investors, experienced mentors and international markets if they want to reach their full potential.
Supporting those founders has become an important part of my own journey. Through Startup World Cup Serbia, I have the opportunity to connect entrepreneurs with investors, corporate partners and the wider global startup ecosystem. Sometimes that connection leads to funding. Sometimes it leads to mentorship or a strategic partnership. Whatever the outcome, every conversation creates an opportunity for founders to learn, improve and expand their thinking. And that is how I see great startup ecosystems being developed—not because of individual success cases but through communities of people who are willing to exchange information and develop together.
Had any other founder asked me what had made the greatest impact in my venture, I would not mention any particular technology or business approach. It would be the decision to stay curious. The more questions I ask, the more I realise how much there is still to learn. Every customer, investor and founder sees the world from a different perspective, and understanding those perspectives has helped me make better decisions than trying to prove I already had the right answers.
That mindset has also changed the way I deal with setbacks. Earlier in my career, I measured success by outcomes alone. Today, I pay just as much attention to what every setback can teach me, because some of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned came from opportunities that didn’t work out the way I expected.
The Future Will Reward Founders Who Keep Learning
Entrepreneurship has never stood still, but I believe the next few years will bring a level of change that every founder needs to prepare for. Artificial intelligence, robotics, cybersecurity, clean energy and digital infrastructure are all evolving at the same time. The above-listed innovations will transform almost any industry, but I am sure that success will be found in technologies that solve a problem and bring value to our customers.
Working with Recikom mm innovation doo and Startup World Cup Serbia gave me a unique chance to meet the founders of the startups in various industries at different levels of growth. All of them share something in common – curiosity. The ones who keep improving their companies are not those who think they know everything. It is those founders who ask better questions, open up to different opinions and adapt to changes in the market environment. That mindset is becoming one of the most valuable competitive advantages a business can have.
I also believe we need to invest more in people than technology. AI will become the technology each company will rely on, but it has to serve as an instrument for supporting human judgement instead of making decisions by itself. Creativity, critical thinking, ethics and cooperation skills will remain the must-have competencies of the future because technology works as well as people using it. The future belongs to those entrepreneurs who can marry innovation with responsibility and never forget about the problem they need to address.
If there is one thing that my experience has taught me, it is the fact that entrepreneurship is not only about creating a venture, but also growing personally through each experience, even the negative ones, when you can always find some useful lessons in them. Markets will continue to change, but curiosity, resilience and a genuine willingness to keep improving will never go out of date.
Five Ideas I’ll Continue to Build My Business Around
Every entrepreneurial journey is different, but some principles remain constant. These are the thoughts that influence the way I run my business and cooperate with other entrepreneurs.
- Establish credibility through deeds rather than promises
- Know the issue well before coming up with the solution
- Embrace feedback because it will enable you to make better decisions
- Build relationships even when you do not need them
- Stop learning when you can no longer learn from any conversation
There will be changes in the corporate world; there will be changes in the technology that will revolutionize entire industries. But there will be certain constants such as curiosity and integrity. In my experience, those qualities create stronger businesses than any trend or technology ever will.
About Miljan Ilić
Miljan Ilić is the Founder & CEO of Recikom mm innovation doo and the Regional Partner for Startup World Cup Serbia, licensed by Pegasus Tech Ventures. Based in Kragujevac, Serbia, he works at the intersection of digital innovation, the circular economy and startup ecosystem development. Through Recikom, he develops digital solutions that improve transparency, traceability and resource management, while his work with Startup World Cup Serbia focuses on connecting promising founders from Serbia and the wider Balkan region with investors, mentors and international growth opportunities.
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