> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.therecursive.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # How to Shine at Spotlight in Bucharest in Front of 250+ Investors - URL: https://www.therecursive.com/how-to-shine-at-spotlight-in-bucharest-in-front-of-250-investors/ - Published: 2026-09-02T15:41:14.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-02T15:41:14.000Z - Description: How to Web’s Carmelina Lungu on what made the startups selected for the top 20 stand out in previous years - Author: Livia Rusu - Tags: Interview, Bucharest, Events, Romania, Media partnership Hundreds of early-stage companies compete for a place in **Spotlight**, How to Web’s startup program and competition, but the first judgment begins with an application that must make the problem, product, market, and team credible within a limited amount of space. For founders, this is a deceptively difficult task and for the selection team, it means distinguishing between a weak business and a strong company that has not yet learned how to explain itself. We spoke with **Carmelina Lungu**, **Startup Relationship Manager** at **How to Web**, about how applications are evaluated, where founders tend to lose clarity, and what the strongest companies from previous Spotlight editions had in common. [**Spotlight 2026**](https://www.howtoweb.co/?ref=therecursive.com) will select **20 early-stage startups** to pitch at **How to Web Conference**, taking place between **October 6-8** in Bucharest. The five finalists will advance to the main conference stage, while all selected companies will also receive exhibition space, mentoring, and access to investor matchmaking. ## When you look back at the startups selected for Spotlight in previous years, what did the strongest applications have in common? We have consolidated three main criteria over the past few [editions](https://www.therecursive.com/how-to-web-conference-2025-agenda-ai-product-led-growth-and-the-future-of-european-startups/). **The first is market size and the relevance of the problem**. We want to understand how large the addressable market is, whether it is local, regional, or global, and how real and urgent the problem is. That urgency matters because it influences the product’s potential to scale. **The second criterion is the quality and capability of the founding team**. At a very early stage, traction may not yet be fully visible in the application. The founders still need to inspire confidence that they understand the problem and possess the technical or industry expertise required to solve it. When I look at the winners of the 2024 and 2025 editions, both combined an ambitious vision and innovative technology with well-constructed founding teams. The founders had complementary skills, with responsibilities distributed across areas such as technology and sales. That gave investors confidence that the team could execute the plans it was presenting. **The third criterion is clarity of thinking**. We want to understand how the founders arrived at their solution and what evidence led them to believe it was the right response to that particular problem. There should be a clear logic behind the way the product has been designed. The strongest Spotlight applicants demonstrated all three qualities, although naturally at different levels: a relevant problem in a sufficiently large market, a capable team, and a clear line of reasoning behind the product. ## Strong companies do not always present themselves well. How do you distinguish a weak application from a weak underlying business? The application gives us an initial description of the business, including its revenue, users, customers, and current stage of development. We then look more closely at the founders and their previous experience. That can include their professional profiles, previous projects, industry expertise, technical background, and any relevant public information about their work. We want to see whether the team has a credible connection to the problem it is trying to solve. Our work with founders also extends **beyond the application itself**. Through **Demo Nights** and other initiatives, we interact with companies throughout the year. Those conversations allow us to ask about their roadmap, current bottlenecks, industry challenges, and competitors. A founder who understands the business will usually be able to **discuss the risks as clearly as the opportunity**. Awareness of what could prevent the company from succeeding can tell us as much as confidence in its potential. ## What makes an ambitious claim credible? Which claims tend to weaken an application because the founders have not substantiated them? **Competition** is one area where founders frequently weaken their case. Some underestimate the alternatives already available to customers or suggest that they have no meaningful competitors. That is usually easy to identify and can indicate that **the company does not yet understand its market well enough**. **Concrete numbers make a considerable difference**. We look for evidence concerning current revenue, customers, users, and realistic expectations for the following year. The numbers do not have to be enormous, but they should demonstrate that the founders understand the business they are building and the industry in which they operate. Ambition becomes credible when it is supported by a clear understanding of the current position, the market, and the steps required to reach the next stage. ## Where do founders most frequently lose your attention? The company description can either create a clear picture of the product or make the business harder to understand. Some founders include as much information as possible, even when much of it is disconnected from the company’s **current** **stage**, **roadmap**, or **immediate** **objectives**. In other cases, the description appears to have been copied from an existing presentation without being adapted to the questions in the application. The founding story can be relevant, but the essential information sometimes becomes buried inside a very long narrative. By the end, the reader knows more about the journey than about the company’s present position. An application resembles a pitch in this respect. Founders have limited space and limited attention in which to demonstrate that they understand the problem, solution, market, and route forward. A **concise description** often shows that the founder knows exactly what the company is doing. Excessive information can produce the opposite effect. ## With so many startups now describing themselves as AI companies, what helps you distinguish genuine differentiation from a familiar product presented through current terminology? This requires **a** **deeper technical analysis**. We examine the tools the startup uses, which elements have been built internally, and how original or defensible the underlying technology is. The How to Web team brings together people with different areas of expertise, so applications can also be reviewed by colleagues with stronger technical backgrounds when necessary. That helps us understand whether AI is integral to the product or simply part of the way it is being presented. The commercial questions are equally important. How is the market likely to receive the solution? Could a larger competitor replicate or eliminate its advantage quickly? Is there meaningful potential to scale? How distinctive is the technology? There is no universal answer because **the assessment depends heavily on the company and sector**. The objective is to understand whether the technology creates **a credible advantage i**n the market the startup wants to enter. ## When founders have only a few minutes to present, which parts of the business deserve the most attention? The **problem** and the **solution** need to be stated clearly, together with the features or capabilities that **distinguish** the product from its competitors. Founders should also explain **the road ahead**. That includes the company’s financial plans, hiring needs, expansion objectives, and, if it is raising capital, how much it is seeking, how the money will be used, and what period of development that investment will support. The team deserves **dedicated time** as well. Even thirty seconds or one minute can provide important context about the founders’ backgrounds and expertise. The person presenting may lead sales, for example, while the company is building a highly technical product. Investors need to know that the team as a whole has the capabilities required to deliver what is being proposed. A good pitch gives the audience enough clarity to understand the company and enough reason to continue the conversation afterward. ## For the 20 selected startups, winning the final competition is only one possible outcome. What other results should founders deliberately work toward? The pitch is one part of a broader program. Each of the 20 selected startups also receives a one-day booth in the exhibition area, with ten companies exhibiting on the first conference day and ten on the second. This creates an opportunity to demonstrate the product and speak directly with potential customers, partners, and investors. The **mentoring** component takes place **after the pitch competition**, giving founders an hour of one-to-one feedback from investors and experienced operators. Because it follows the pitch, the conversation can be **more specific** and address both the business and the way it was presented. Founders also receive access to the conference matchmaking system. We share information about the participating startups with investors and provide startups with the investor list ahead of the event, allowing both sides to arrange relevant meetings rather than spending the conference searching for contacts. There are also sessions dedicated to **fundraising** and **sales**, including practical formats such as **live pitch-deck analysis**. Even when one company’s deck is being discussed, other founders can use that feedback to identify weaknesses in their own material. The **investor meetings** are important, but founders should look more broadly at the **people attending the conference**. The same environment can produce customer relationships, commercial partnerships, and conversations with founders facing similar challenges. Sometimes the most useful advice comes from **another founder**, including someone working in a different sector or at a later stage. How to Web brings together companies from across Central and Eastern Europe, from pre-seed startups to more mature businesses. That creates **a compressed learning environment** in which founders can compare experiences and exchange information that is difficult to obtain elsewhere. ## What are you most looking forward to at this year’s edition? I am excited to bring some of **the strongest early-stage products in the region** onto the How to Web stage through **Spotlight**. I am also looking forward to working with startups at different stages and helping them find the part of the conference that is most relevant to what they need now. The conference creates **several possible paths** for founders. What matters is that they arrive knowing what they want to accomplish and use the programs, meetings, and conversations accordingly. Spotlight applications are open to early-stage Eastern European startups that are less than five years old, have raised **under €700,000**, and already have a launched product with some traction. Founders can apply for [**Spotlight**](https://www.howtoweb.co/spotlight-2026/?ref=therecursive.com) and **Dealflow** through the same startup application form. The deadline for Spotlight applications is **September 11**.