Ivan Ivanka·Founder & CEO, Markster
Amateurs hustle.
Pros systemize.
Hungarian operator in SF. 20 companies, 6 exits, Markster makes 7.
Notes on what works, what doesn’t, and what I’m still getting wrong.
A bit of context
20+
Companies started since I was a teenager.
6
Exits behind me.
Markster makes 7.
$300M
In B2B pipeline generated. 8 markets, four continents.
A bit more
Hungarian. SF. Operator.
My dad has run construction businesses since the Soviet Union fell. Brilliant operator. Feast or famine every month. I learned the difference between a business that runs on a person and one that runs on a system before I knew what either word meant.
First business at 8 (bootleg software in Budapest). Youngest KFC manager across 4,400 stores at 18. Twenty companies since. Six exits. Markster is the seventh.
Most of what I have to say came from the fourteen that didn’t exit. The grind. The wrong bets. The teams I built and lost. The deals I priced too low. The scaling traps I walked into with my eyes open.
This isn’t a company newsletter. It’s what I’m thinking about right now: the books that bent my brain, the bets I’m placing in public, the post-mortems I owe myself.
- You’ll get: operator notes, post-mortems, books that moved the needle, side bets I’m placing in public.
- You won’t get: AI summaries, affiliate links, “5 ways to…” listicles, Markster sales copy.
- How often: when I have something to say. Usually once or twice a month. Sometimes less.