Our guest today is the CEO of Nuri (formerly Bitwala) and a digital thought leader. Nuri enables customers to invest in cryptocurrency directly from their bank account. As Kristina Walcker-Mayer puts it: it is banking without the bankers. Kristina is rapidely becoming the chief storyteller of neobanking, shaping topics around investing, blockchain, cryptocurrency and modern leadership. In this episode she pulls back the curtain on how she leads Germany's third-largest neobank with her honest and...
Mar 18, 2022•58 min•Season 4Ep. 142
Jerome Lange went from trying and failing to build a babysitting business as a student (no founder-market-fit) to building an operating system for construction sites (founder-market-fit). It’s badly needed: construction is pretty much the only sector that has become less efficient in the last 40 years. This has become untenable, as we need to build faster, better and more sustainably in light of climate change. A team of young entrepreneurs decided to tackle this and founded Koppla as a spin-off...
Mar 11, 2022•32 min•Season 4Ep. 141
Gerrit McGowan is an investor, entrepreneur and startup mentor who has coached over 1000 founders and entrepreneurs across five continents. He is also the host of ‘The Most Awesome Founder’ podcast and recently launched the Rainmaking Venture Studio in Germany that partners with corporates to invest and build high-growth companies. In this episode, Gerrit and Oliver take a deep dive into the all-important equity story (aka pitch) that all founders need to master in order to raise money, in parti...
Mar 04, 2022•41 min•Season 4Ep. 140
"What is leadership but language? Changing the way we communicate changes the culture. Changing the culture transforms our results.“ (L. David Marquet) What’s the role of a leader? Certainly to set the strategy, focus everyone on what matters, bring in top talent, and ensure there is enough money in the bank. All of these require a high proficiency in communication. And have a huge impact on how their company performs. With the experience of over 1000 media interviews and having coached professi...
Feb 18, 2022•29 min•Season 4Ep. 139
Our guest today turned the Why? question into a thriving business. A clinical psychologist by training, Sarah Reitz worked in consulting until her work had lost its purpose. Pondering her personal dilemma, she emerged with two co-founders and a novel business idea that addresses a growing need. The result: whylab - a digital fitness studio for mental wellbeing Tune into an episode in which Sarah and Oliver analyse 🗝 Why the framing of your offer and messaging is key to differentiate yourself 🙊...
Feb 11, 2022•40 min•Season 4Ep. 138
Your organisation's culture is the key to its success. Its not just a nice to have and the mission statement you put on your website. It’s the path to happy and high performing employees, to securing profitability and retaining talent, to building a strong and resilient company. Our guest today is a company culture builder par excellence. Kristen Mashburn coaches leaders how to get more out of their teams by installing systems to build high-performing cultures. With KPMashburn - a company cultur...
Feb 04, 2022•55 min•Season 4Ep. 137
Millennials want convenience, like being able to open a bank account in 10 minutes. The GenZ cohort expect convenience and also want a purpose they can relate to. So how well you communicate your purpose is becoming a main differentiator for companies targeting this group. Still, so far very few fintechs have created financial products for the next generation of customers. Bastian Krautwald' s company is one of the few exceptions. While still a student, he founded "deineStudienfinanzierung", a p...
Jan 28, 2022•38 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Pour yourself your favourite drink for this week’s episode. Communicating under the influence is not without challenges, and so is communicating about alcohol. More precisely, we are talking about spirits, with the person who represents one of Europe’s most valuable agri-food export sectors. Ulrich Adam is the Director General of spiritsEurope , the Brussels-based association that represents the interests of 29 associations of spirits producers as well as 10 leading multinational companies, supp...
Jan 21, 2022•43 min•Season 4Ep. 135
First: create a market. Second: own it. Third: expand globally. Amboss' market share is simply off the charts, bigger than Google’s, and the Berlin EdTech has big plans to make up-to-date research accessible to ever more medical students and doctors around the world. A decade ago: studying for your medical exams or accessing up-to-date medical research was a time-consuming grind. Scientific communication was cryptic and elitist. Today: Amboss does the heavy lifting. The Berlin EdTech company tha...
Jan 14, 2022•49 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Today we talk about an issue that concerns over 100 million young people in Europe. During the pandemic our podcast guest, a couples therapist, was approached by many millennials who were struggling with their relationship skills. Even though the needs and situations were all quite different, Katharina Wäschenbach realised they could be resolved using the functional tools of couples therapy. But this needed a twist, because couples therapy is: (1) for two and not a coaching for one person. (2) h...
Dec 17, 2021•23 min•Season 3Ep. 133
Today's guest was browsing the internet 3 years ago to find a sustainable black dress. That search for the perfect piece with a purpose turned out to be way harder than she could have imagined. " This shouldn’t be so difficult “, she thought, and an impressive entrepreneur was born. Last year, Iris Skrami co-founded Renoon , a search platform for conscious consumers that offers a curated selection of pre-owned, rental and new products that meet rigorous sustainability standards. A place where yo...
Dec 10, 2021•29 min•Season 3Ep. 132
Todays guest is building the future of urban living. Florian Färber is the Founder and CEO of TheBase . Previously he was the co-founder of Zipjet that he successfully led to an exit in 2019. Now he has turned his attention to a completely new space: real estate with a purpose. With TheBase he aims to provide unique co-living spaces that enable individuals to 1) live beyond the square meters they would otherwise be limited to in traditional housing formats and 2) find possibilities for privacy a...
Dec 03, 2021•26 min•Season 3Ep. 131
The VC scene is male-dominated, and more diverse investment opportunities are being overlooked. Our podcast guest concluded that there is significant potential for financial returns and making an impact at the same time. In February 2021 Gesa Miczaika set off with her joint angel investor Bettine Schmitz from Auxxo Beteiligungen to initiate Germany’s first VC fund for female founders. In spite of many sceptics forecast that getting investors on board will take at least 1,5 years, the Auxxo Femal...
Nov 26, 2021•31 min•Season 3Ep. 130
Some stories just make you sit up and listen. Today’s episode features Tamaz Georgadze , co-founder and CEO of Raisin , the leading marketplace that links private investors to savings products from all over Europe. Tamaz became a chess master at 4, started university at 15 and held two PhDs before most one of us knew what we wanted to do with our lives. In 2012, the former McKinsey partner launched Raisin with his two co-founders in a Berlin basement. Together they have grown the fintech into a ...
Nov 19, 2021•39 min•Season 3Ep. 129
What started as a passion project by two economics graduates in 2013 now reaches 30 million users each month on multiple channels. This week’s guest is Mengting Gao, the impressive CEO of Kitchen Stories . She built a global brand in the very crowded online cooking market with her co-founder Verena Hubertz . What a story! First they were rejected by investors; a few years later they exited successfully by finding the right strategic partner. Their business model evolved from vague to acing both ...
Nov 12, 2021•37 min•Season 3Ep. 128
Why do nine out of ten startups fail? What differentiates a future unicorn from your run-off-the-mill startup? More often than not, the answer is communications. As Ben Horowitz points out, “As a company grows, its biggest challenge always becomes communications.” Clearly, no raging success has been built on bad communications. Given the magnitude of this challenge, there is little systematic advice out there how startups and scaleups can overcome this challenge and turn communications from thre...
Nov 05, 2021•14 min•Season 3Ep. 127
Psychedelics are back. And thanks to scientific discovery there are high hopes that these substances will treat depression, addiction and help in other categories of mental illness. Science is one thing. Building a business in a this arena is still highly controversial and even illegal in many countries. This is definitely a challenge that requires very sophisticated communication. Anne Philippi is the founder and CEO of The New Health Club , a platform and a community in the field of psychedeli...
Oct 29, 2021•33 min•Season 3Ep. 126
Michael Wax is the co-founder & CEO of Forto , a Berlin based unicorn that is driving digitalisation and decarbonisation in a sector that is the backbone of the global economy - freight forwarding. Not only is the fast-growing company, formerly known as FreightHub, a top-ranked employer. Michael is also an outspoken CEO who is on a mission to shipping sustainable while further democratising the access globally. Tune in and find out 🎯 Why sometimes every word counts and rebranding allowed Mi...
Oct 22, 2021•27 min•Season 3Ep. 125
Are you as relaxed as the Dalai-Lama in front of a camera? Pulitzer Prize Finalist Piotr Pilat knows how you can achieve that state. Having interviewed personalities such as the Tibetan spiritual leader and Richard Branson as well as reporting from conflict areas worldwide for Reuters, he is now on a mission with HeyViz to empower you to create quick and painless videos to grow your brand and sales. Working together with Konstanty Sliwowski (#leadershiphiring #expert) and Oliver Aust (#CEO #comm...
Oct 18, 2021•24 min•Season 3Ep. 124
Change is hard. Getting someone else to change is even harder. So how can you convince someone to become your customer when it really matters? Jan Rabe , co-founder and CEO of of three companies - Wechselpilot, RABOT Energy & RABOT Charge - knows how to persuade us to do the right thing. Most notably, Wechselpilot is a thriving German start-up that makes switching electricity and gas contracts easy for private households. All three of his start-ups share a mission: to convince us consumers t...
Oct 08, 2021•35 min•Season 3Ep. 123
How can I create an irresistible brand? Every founder is looking for an answer to this question. With a strong brand, it becomes easier to attract top talent and the right kind of customer. You can charge more for your product or service, generate higher margins and grow your company faster. As a founder, you want to take your brand seriously from the start and create a minimum viable brand (MVB) that has the potential to become irresistible. In this episode Jag Singh , accomplished entrepreneur...
Oct 01, 2021•31 min•Season 3Ep. 122
Videos have become a cornerstone of CEO communications: for media interviews, brand building, pitches, social media content and internal communications. Videos create awareness, build trust and boost sales. Yet, many CEOs still shy away from stepping in front of the camera. With the experience of over 1000 media interviews and having coached professionals in over 100 countries between them, top international executive coach Bettina Hausmann and Oliver talk about CEOs on camera. Specifically: 🤩 ...
Sep 10, 2021•47 min•Season 3Ep. 121
Our guest today turned his Veganuary into a thriving business with a purpose. For Jan Bredack, Founder and CEO of Veganz - the brand leader for plant-based food - eating vegan is more than a nutritional choice. It is a path to better health, animal welfare and climate protection. When Jan swapped his career at a luxury car maker for the chopping waters of building a vegan company from scratch, the Vegan food choice was still in a niche. Getting investors, supermarkets and the consumers on board ...
Sep 03, 2021•32 min•Season 3Ep. 120
Only 7% of what you say matters, but your voice accounts for 38% of the first impression you make. So, how come that dating apps are voice-less? Not anymore. Our guest today is the co-founder and CEO of Wayvs , an audio dating app that combines the magic of voice and the efficiency of audio communication. With her Co-founder Julian Krahnen, Franziska Focken just raised €1.5m from investors to take the slow dating app to international markets. Tune in and find out all about 🎢 Franziska’s rollerc...
Aug 27, 2021•34 min•Season 3Ep. 119
Can a brand make all the difference? Yes, it can! Robert Ermich is a passionate and successful serial founder and investor. He masterminded DeinHandy, a portal for mobile phones, which he scaled to market leadership and a successful exit. To a large extent, the success of DeinHandy was built on the brand he built there which received two „German Brand Awards “. Next has been OnTruck , an agency with a climate pledge which offers creative advertising on – you guessed it – heavy goods vehicles. As...
Aug 20, 2021•34 min•Season 3Ep. 118
Traditional recruitment is over while companies experience The Great Resignation . In this special episode Oliver talks with Konstanty Sliwowski , founder and CEO of Caissa Recruitment about the rising role of employer branding to attract and retain top talent. Tune into this episode to find out 📺 How talent perceives potential employers 🔝 How to update your company’s brand to attract the right people 🔥 What recruiting has to do with energy If you find the episode helpful, please share it wit...
Aug 13, 2021•37 min•Season 3Ep. 117
In today’s episode we speak to Jonathan Romley, co-founder and CEO at Lundi . Lundi helps companies scale their global hiring. After running companies on three continents Jonathan realised that we need to rethink labour mobility and enable employers to have access to the world's top talent through one platform. Whether you’re in need of an engineer in New York or looking to hire a fluent Mandarin speaker in South Africa, the network of thousands of pre-screened recruiters helps you find the perf...
Aug 06, 2021•49 min•Season 3Ep. 116
Double Dynamite: Today’s episode features two entrepreneurs solving the biggest pain points for #freelancers: finding customers and managing finances. And to do this successfully, sustainably and on scale, both have built highly engaged communities. We talk to Vincent Huguet , Co-CEO and founder of Malt , an Airbnb-style marketplace that connects employers and freelancers across Europe, and Christopher Plantener , serial #entrepreneur, currently founder and CEO of Kontist , a banking solution fo...
Jul 16, 2021•43 min•Season 3Ep. 115
How can I inspire as a CEO? How do I communicate in an age-diverse company environment? And do female CEOs face other communication challenges than their male colleagues? Irina Crisan, founder and president of the WHU Women in Business Club invited Oliver to answer these and more questions in depth in today’s special episode: the recording of a #StartTheConversation event from the Women in Business community at the WHU - the Otto Beisheim School of Management. After a brief introduction into the...
Jul 09, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Season 3Ep. 114
Amy Wilkinson is a lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, a bestselling author, keynote speaker and former White House advisor. She is also the founder and CEO of global innovation company Ingenuity and Chair of the Board of Grover. We reached out to Amy because we are truly enjoyed her excellent and extremely well-researched book “The Creators Code“ for which she interviewed 200 high-growth entrepreneurs from Elon Musk to the founders of Airbnb, PayPal and LinkedIn. In our interview,...
Jul 02, 2021•38 min•Season 3Ep. 113
