PAMETNA HRVATSKA Anto Širić

Guest Anto ŠirićHosted by Boris ŽivkovićMay 3, 2026

Anto Širić

About this episode

What you'll hear in this conversation

The best product ideas often come from the people who need them most. Anto Širić, a professional kickboxer and mechatronics engineer, found himself building a solution for his own training — a device to sharpen reaction times. What began as a final project for his degree, prompted by his coach, has evolved into SportReact, a system of wireless modules and an app designed to develop reactive abilities across a range of sports. This conversation explores how a founder's dual life, balancing the demands of elite sport with the precision of engineering, shapes not just the product itself, but also the disciplined approach to its development and market readiness. You'll hear how personal experience can define a product's core, and why a founder might pump the brakes on a market-demanded product until it truly meets their own exacting standards.

Insights from the conversation

What to take from this episode

Anto Širić began building SportReact because his kickboxing coach asked him to create a device that would help them develop reaction times. The most potent product ideas often emerge from a specific, immediate problem faced by someone deeply embedded in a field, not from a grand market analysis.

The SportReact prototype took two years to build, with Anto teaching himself programming for the project primarily through YouTube and StackOverflow, relying on trial and error. A functional prototype doesn't always require formal training; persistent, self-directed learning from public resources can be the most effective path when you're driven by the problem.

Despite testing SportReact in several clubs and receiving "great demand" and feedback that his device was "better than the competition," Anto refuses a full market release due to remaining bugs. Just as he wouldn't enter a match unprepared, he insists the product meet his own exacting standards before launch, demonstrating that an operator's personal quality benchmark can override market pull.

Although SportReact was conceived for sports training, Anto sees a "huge opportunity" in cognitive rehabilitation for individuals recovering from a stroke or facing developmental delays. An initial market focus can be a strategic entry point, even when a broader, equally impactful application is evident; sometimes, you choose the clearest narrative first before expanding.

The pivot from a technical project to a startup came during a "Technological Entrepreneurship" course, where Professor Sergej Lugović introduced Anto to concepts like competition analysis and differentiation. Academic programs can provide the crucial framework for turning a technical project into a viable business, offering the tools to see beyond invention to market strategy.

Anto describes SportReact as a "fusion of my two loves: sport and engineering," being both a mechatronics engineer and a professional kickboxer. When a founder embodies both the problem and the solution, their deep, personal understanding of the user experience becomes an almost unfair advantage in product development, ensuring the tool truly serves its purpose.

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