This week, we've interviewed Alan Suchánek, Co-founder of a startup called By Square, one of the winners of Slovak Start-Up Development Program 2012.

1, Please, tell us about your project

The By Square is a technological platform enabling efficient and reliable encoding of invoices and payment orders into QR codes.

2, Why did you choose to work on this idea?

While working on another business idea we had a need for a solution such as the By Square. As we could not find such solution we have started working on the By Square.

3, How long it took you to get from an idea to the MVP?

We have started to work on the idea in October 2011 and we have introduced the By Square standard in March 2012.

4, Who is your main competitor?

We have built By Square not as a competing product, but as a platform that is needed by both businesses and consumers. Naturally, we want to exploit this potential for cooperation.

5, Hypothetically speaking, how would you spend your $50k seed investment?

People. Once you are working on a good idea people are the most relevant factor. We will be spending most of our seed investment on the right people.

6, What's the single most challenging thing you have to deal with at the moment?

Heat. It is 38 degrees Celsius right now and there is no lake or pool around.

7, What's the hottest startup these days, and why?

Cradle to cradle manifesto and Cradle to cradle products innovation institute. It is the most relevant initiative and business concept of last decades.