Back history of Einblick [1:28] - Your journey from professor to entrepreneurship [6:45] - At what point in your research did you feel you can commercialize your IP. What was the trigger for starting the company? [8:44] - What does Einblick’s product do? What need is it full filling in the market today? Process of commercializing academic research [14:47] - How did you go about taking research from your academic field to commercialization? What was the process like? [17:55] - What should other e...
Jan 21, 2021•33 min•Ep. 33
[1:18] - Overview of the Baltic startup scene [10:14] - What are some of the interesting findings and highlights from the Baltic startup report that surprised you? [14:18] - Given much of the funding for the Baltics startups came from UK or US, what does that say about the Baltics funding scene? [16:21] - What are some of the trends or niches you see across the 3 countries? [21:17] - Diversity and inclusion. What is the scene like for women founders and what is holding them back still? Is it sim...
Jan 14, 2021•38 min•Ep. 32
[2:25] - What is leadership and how does it differ from management? [5:29] - How did you influence and get support for your ideas at Siebel where you were responsible for a product that made insignificant revenues compared to CRM, their flagship product? [12:02] - What is important - leadership or management for a founder? [16:25] - What is your philosophy on hiring and how do you hire for talent and cultural fit? [21:15] - You joined Qlik when it was a small unknown Swedish company and took it ...
Jan 07, 2021•50 min•Ep. 31
[0.49] - Your journey to founding Too Good To Go? [2:19] - Background on the food wastage problem [9:06] - How can businesses be more sustainable? [11:59] - What is a B Corp, who can get it, and what is its value? [12:58] - What are the trends you see from one city to another based on app downloads and transactions? [18:27] - How does Too Good To Go work? [22:14] - Why did you scale so fast and what were the challenges you faced? [25:11] - What are the specific challenges you faced from scaling ...
Dec 10, 2020•38 min•Ep. 30
[1:33] - Why did you get into music tech? Why are there so many music tech businesses coming out of Sweden? [5:05] - How has the transition from B2C to B2B business been for you given all your earlier startups were in the B2C space? [7:56] - What did you need to do to go from a field sales go-to-market model to a fully self serve model. What did you need to change in the organization or investment priorities? [17:21] - Some stores like M&S have stopped “piped music” completely in their store...
Dec 03, 2020•51 min•Ep. 29
Market [2:45] - Why did you decide to build an automation solution for crypto trading? Why that asset class? [4:47] - What is the current state of crypto trading? [8:12] - What is the maturity of crypto trading today? [11:37] -What is the geographical landscape for crypto trading? On Coinrule [13:32] - Who is this platform for and what problem does it solve for them? [20:16] - Are you worried about the exchanges building the functionality you have? [22:24] - How do you make money? What fees does...
Nov 26, 2020•43 min•Ep. 28
On Crane [1:12] - What was the gap in the VC market you were addressing when you started Crane Venture Partners? [4:48] - Talk about a few of Crane’s portfolio of companies and why Crane invested in them. GTM [10:28] - How would you go about helping a company with their go-to-market strategy? [15:30] - The 3 pillars of go-to-market: CS, Marketing and Product Marketing [22:24] - What are some common mistakes you see founders make? [26:33] - What is the difference between deep tech product vs non-...
Nov 19, 2020•47 min•Ep. 27
On becoming an entrepreneur and Talkdesk [1:15] - What were some people or events that influenced you in your early days before Talkdesk to become an entrepreneur? [4:04] - What was the hardest growth stage of Talkdesk and why? [6:57] - What advice would you give founders who are thinking of stepping down from something they started? Cleverly.ai [10:48] - On cleverly.ai - what does Cleverly.ai do? [11:48] - What is the gap in customer service management that Cleverly.ai is trying to solve? [16:4...
Nov 11, 2020•48 min•Ep. 26
Big Picture - Market and Trends [1:11] - What is Consumer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) and how does that differ from traditional identity and access management (IAM)? [4:21] - How did you go from the traditional open-source code of Sun’s IAM to this new consumer identity and access management. Can you give a quick history of ForgeRock. [6:40] - Can the ForgeRock solution help consumers have more control and visibilities over their identities? [12:00] - What are the top trends you and Fo...
Oct 28, 2020•46 min•Ep. 25
[0:58] - Intro and journey to starting Sustainbly. [6:15] - What does Sustainbly do? [8:34] - What changes have you seen in the donation patterns since the pandemic hit? [10:11] - How are charities leveraging digital to fundraise? Is your platform really making an impact to their bottom line? [12:19] - Why have you build Sustainbly as a for-profit rather than a non-profit company? [14:37] - What are some concerns consumers have in using such apps and how are you addressing that? [16:21] - How di...
Oct 21, 2020•34 min•Ep. 24
[7.46] - How has blockchain space changed due to Bitcoin and what are the top trends you are seeing in blockchain technology? [12:47] - Where are the opportunities for blockchain for the corporate market? [14:48] - What problem does Minespider solve and for whom? [17:30] - Why is blockchain the best technology to solve the supply chain transparency problem and who is this valuable to? [20:30] - How did you identify the business model? Are customers willing to pay for this transparency? [23:40] -...
Oct 14, 2020•46 min•Ep. 23
[1:12] - What are you responsible for at Hubspot? [2:08] - Why did they choose you to lead international expansion? [4:30] - What are the criteria Hubspot considered to determine the timing for expansion? [6:45] - How did you think about mapping and prioritizing different countries in Europe? [11:24] - What is the playbook for launching into a new country? [24:58] - How does hiring differ across Europe, Asia, Australia? [29:03] - How did sales differ from geo to geo? [31:39] - Advice to CEOs on ...
Oct 07, 2020•59 min•Ep. 22
About Next Matter [4:16] - What does Next Matter do? Can you share a few use cases? [6:45] - How does Next Matter differ from other project management tools? Big Trends [9:08] - Are no coding tools realistic for large companies with complex and unique processes? [13:59] - What trends do you see for how the future of work will evolve? Building your company [17:58] - How do you position Next Matter effectively in the prospect’s mind? [19:52] - How do you get people to actually pay for yet another ...
Oct 01, 2020•42 min•Ep. 21
[3:15] - What advice would you give other entrepreneurs looking to start a company with someone they are related to? [4:34] - How have you dealt with the fear and uncertainty of the current situation? [6:55] First for your employees [8:27] For your investors [9:41] Your customers - how have you dealt with angry frustrated customers? [13:40] - How are you and your brother managing the stress? [15:27] - How does the payment flow work if I am a customer and I just paid for a multi-tour? [17:56] - W...
Sep 23, 2020•35 min•Ep. 20
[1:28] - Which of the various roles you have had - consultant, entrepreneur, board member, CEO, investor, and now VC - have you enjoyed the most, and why? [4:14] - What is “Indico powered by Google Startups” initiative? [9:10] - How can European VCs get better at identifying the next big Airbnb or Uber in Europe? [14:50] What is the Portuguese startup scene like? Where are the opportunities in Portugal? [17:54] - What are some of the areas of opportunity Indico Capital is focusing on? [21:35] - ...
Sep 16, 2020•44 min•Ep. 19
[1:52] - Why did you start Akoni? What pain does it solve? [8:00] - How did you achieve product-market fit? [11:18] - What are the key trends you are seeing in financial services and fintech? [15:13] - How has the pandemic changed the expectations and needs of the consumer and business user? [21:13] - How do you balance innovation from open banking and open finance with ensuring adequate protection of consumers? [26:19] - How do you see open banking evolve in Europe and what would you like to se...
Sep 09, 2020•49 min•Ep. 18
[0:48] - What need does Trint solve beyond transcription? [2:45] - How does Trint differ from other transcription services? [6:14] - How did you go from being a war journalist to becoming an entrepreneur? [14:49] - What have you learned as a war correspondent that you were able to use to become the entrepreneur and CEO you are today? [21:09] - What advice would you give someone starting a company who has little experience in entrepreneurship and/or are starting this late in their life? [29:02] -...
Sep 02, 2020•44 min•Ep. 17
Show Notes: [0:43] - Why did you start Dashboard and what problem is it trying to solve? [5:06] - How did you refine your initial value proposition and find your focus? [6:54] - There are big companies with deep pockets in the energy space - why can’t they solve this problem on their own? [10:05] - Is there a VC arm inside most of these large energy companies and who are the right people to build relationships with? [13:02] - What does the funding look like for industrial tech and how was that p...
Aug 26, 2020•50 min•Ep. 16
Show Notes : [2:57] - How does Anote work? [6:32] - How do you convince investors to invest in music as an asset class where timeline and expected cash flows are unpredictable? [10:44] - What songs or artists make ideal suppliers in Anote? [16:37] - How do you value music and does it require a certain sophistication on the investors side? [18:40] - Since you launched the platform, what are you seeing as yields/returns for investors? [20:38] - How are you going to market? Finding investors and ca...
Aug 12, 2020•48 min•Ep. 15
Show notes: [1:03] - Journey from documentary filmmaker to startup founder [3:41] - What was your strategy as a first-time founder for attracting people who are really motivated and engaged to work with you? [4:52] - What does Panion do and why is it called Panion? [9:05] - How do you build engaged communities? [14:53] - What are you seeing as successful monetization strategies for community-based platforms? [17:22] - Advice on angel funding [21:28] - How did you keep yourself motivated in your ...
Aug 05, 2020•27 min•Ep. 14
Show notes: [3:53] - Why is now the right time to have a carbon removal marketplace? [5:57] - How did you launch a marketplace from idea to first auction in 71 days? [11:21] - If I am a carbon emitter, why can’t I buy carbon offsets? Why do I need carbon removals? [12:47] - What regulations are needed for carbon removal to become mainstream? [13:59] - How do I as a carbon emitter verify the amount of carbon removal? [15:55] - What is the cost of removing 1 tonne of C02 from the atmosphere? [18:0...
Jul 29, 2020•32 min•Ep. 13
Show notes: [4:39] - What are the trends you see in the travel sector? [7:20] - Will anything change fundamentally in the travel industry because of the pandemic? What will be its impact, long term? [8:53] - Is there a difference in the way people consume online travel services in Africa vs Europe? [11:56] - How did you build such a strong brand in Africa? [16:10] - How do you recruit people that stay with you for a long time? [18:26] - What are the most important highlights of your career?...
Jul 22, 2020•29 min•Ep. 12
Show notes: [1:05] - Childhood and background that contributed to your entrepreneurial drive [3:21] - What led you to see an opportunity in digital UX analytics? [5:06] - What does Contentsquare do? [6:39] - How is Contentsquare different from Hotjar, Google Analytics etc? [8:13] - How does consumer behaviour differ between regions based on the data you are seeing? [9:48] - What did you do in the early days that laid the foundation for future growth. And is there anything you would do differentl...
Jul 15, 2020•37 min•Ep. 11
Show Notes [0:50] - What does Garden.io do? [2:16] - How did you go from being technical to becoming an entrepreneur [3:45] - How do you balance your desire to be technical with the other aspects of running a business? [5:47] - How has software development changed since you started? [8:30] - When does it make sense to have an open source offering? [14:00] - Is selling to devops different in US vs Europe? [15:11] - How did you determine the pricing for your commercial offering? [17:03] - How did ...
Jul 08, 2020•33 min•Ep. 10
Show notes: [2:35] - How has tech hiring been affected by covid and where are you seeing hiring picking up again? [5:50] - What is a typical hiring process like? How do you find the right hire for a role? [9:28] - When should founders be thinking of making the key commercial team hires? [11:12] - What is the toughest role to fill today? [13:23] - How do founders/CEO think of candidates with unconventional backgrounds and what is your view on it? [15:09] - How do you motivate a candidate to join ...
Jul 01, 2020•39 min•Ep. 9
Show Notes: [ 2:46] - How do you think of the business of sustainability and the need to do good and make money? [6:37] - Why is education the biggest part of sustainability? [10:37] - Can you break down the landscape for online education? [17:07] - How do you keep children motivated and engaged with online education? [19:17] - What is Valenture institute and what is their educational offering? [21:18] - Why taking the traditional curriculum and moving it online doesn’t work? [23:59] - What’s yo...
Jun 24, 2020•40 min•Ep. 8
Show Notes [1:46] - Why BlueYard and the vision for the fund [3:33] - How the thesis received by the LPs and people you were trying to raise funds from? [5:10] - Is there a breakdown of where the current funds come from and does it impact your investments? [6:22] - Your investments by region [9:44] - What stage do you invest in and why are there no multi-stage VCs today? [12:06] - What kind of VC are you and how many investments do you make? [13:53] - How do you develop depth and expertise in ni...
Jun 17, 2020•50 min•Ep. 7
Show Notes: [1:15] - How Chris went from being the #1 employee at Hearsay to now being Chief Product Officer at Hearsay [4:22] - What does Hearsay do? [6:16] - How has the current pandemic affected Hearsay's business. [7:51] - What criteria did Hearsay consider when it decided to expand into Europe. [10:47] - How to prioritize different markets in Europe. How did you pick where to go? [12:40] - Was your strategy to go country by country or to all of Europe? [14:43] - How did you personally prepa...
Jun 10, 2020•35 min•Ep. 6
In this episode, I sit down with Adrien Nussenbaum, co-founder and US CEO of Mirakl. Mirakl is part of France’s 40 most promising startups and widely seen as the next French “unicorn.” Their online marketplace technology today powers over $1.5B gross margin value (GMV). In our talk, Adrien discusses the big trends in eCommerce, how companies need to do to adapt, and how they built a $100M ARR business. [1:00] - How you came about starting Mirakl and the significance of the name [6:52] - How does...
Jun 03, 2020•56 min•Ep. 5
[5:29] - When hiring for Europe, is it better to hire natively or focus on expertise [8:28] - 3 strategies for thinking about Europe expansion [13:42] - How should European companies think about European expansion [15:34] - How should you hire for European expansion [21:40] - Who are the first core people we should hire for each region? [23:28] - How long is reasonable to expect in establishing a region and seeing consistent sales [24:29] - One strategy of developing Europe is to partner [26:56]...
May 27, 2020•30 min•Ep. 4
