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November 24, 2021,

Rockaway Insider with Mait Müntel, co-founder and CEO of Lingvist

Rockaway Insider with Mait Müntel, co-founder and CEO of Lingvist

Mait Müntel

Education accompanies us all throughout our lives and it is not always a simple process. Mait Müntel decided to use his experience working with machine learning tools in particle physics at CERN and founded Lingvist in his native Estonia, which recently became part of the Rockaway Ventures Fund portfolio. The startup aims to greatly simplify the learning process through advanced algorithms.

What key thing has 2020 taught you?
I got my pilot license, so that is something! But more seriously, one important lesson that 2020 taught me was that even if you are under time pressure and stress, don’t give up your sports routines. You may think that you can skip sport for one week or two, but it may take longer, and then you lose this routine and you will be much worse of to deal with the stress. So even if you think it is temporary, don’t give up your sports routines, because they are keeping you on track.

What is the number one rule that you follow at all costs in your business?
I think in the hiring process. When there is one NO it means no go. If somebody within the interview chain is against hiring the candidate, then that means the person isn’t up to the job. This might sound harsh, but our interview process is pretty regular. If there is one NO in the hiring chain, then that is no go.

One learns from one’s mistakes. What mistake taught you the most, and what, specifically?
One general mistake that I can comment about is being aware of dual roles. This is not always obvious, but people quite often happen to have dual relationships. For example when your employee is also your friend. Or when as a CEO I’m also a co-founder and team manager. Some of these mistakes are related to these dual roles. It is important to clarify what are the roles and keep them separated. This helps to avoid a lot of communication problems.

What is your most important piece of advice for new entrepreneurs and start-uppers?
My advice is not to give advice, but information. This might sound contrary to your question, but what I mean by this is important reframing – it is much more valuable to give information to others, than advice, because advice has a major problem. Every situation is different and has their own context. Advice givers can hardly know all of the details that advice receiver knows about his/her own situation. They draw their kind advice from their own experiences that are most probably different in some important context details and it makes their advice likely to be wrong. It is more valuable sharing what you know and have experienced by yourself in your own situations. This information helps people to make their own decisions and does not tempt them to offload their decisions to somebody else who is much less informed and incentivised to get their decisions right. So what I usually say is don’t give me advice, give me information.

What do you consider the greatest benefit of your business for society?
Lingvist helps people to learn languages faster. When people can learn faster, they will learn more and the whole learning proess will be more enjoyable for them. Ultimately they will enjoy their life more and even further, it upgrades the society as a whole.

What question are you asked most often, and how do you answer?
This is related to one of your previous questions. Most often people ask me for advice. My answer is just learn what experiences they have had, what they know more than you and make the decision by yourself based on this information.

What life-hack helps you most in your work?
Sleep! Sleep as much as you need. If you have a good sleep at night then you have enough energy to do your work. Don’t think that you will be more effective if you have not slept enough.

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