Jeff Kolovson is COO at Faire, a B2B wholesale eCommerce platform that Techcrunch described as “Indie Amazon.” But with capital raised north of USD 800m, a valuation of 12.5b US as of May 2022 and a recent partnership with Shopify, all obfuscates Faire’s size. But at its essence, the label fits: retailers can access, via subscription, millions of products by 100,000 brands on the platform and use some very clever filters to ensure that the products align with retailer values. We discussed the ro...
Jan 24, 2024•44 min•Ep. 71
Today, we are talking about the future of our mobility and our cities with Dance mobility co-founder and CEO Eric Quinedus-Wahlforss. Dance is a Berlin-based mobility startup offering its users eBikes and eScooters on a subscription basis to have and to hold as their own. In today's pod, we discussed the challenges of overcoming the sodded reputation of eBikes and how Dance succeeded in selling those “clunky contraptions” most-commonly associated with unathletic retiree-types to the hipster, chi...
Jan 05, 2024•45 min•Ep. 70
Quentin Bordage is the founder and CEO of Kolsquare, a leading European SaaS service that connects influencers and KOLs with companies and brands. Originally founded in 2010 as Brands & Celebrities, Kolsquare in its current form has been around since 2018, acting more as a self-service platform for companies to find, vet and connect with KOLs, or key opinion leaders. In this episode of the OMR Podcast, Bordage sat down with host Scott Peterson to discuss the current state of influencer marke...
Dec 06, 2023•50 min•Ep. 69
Today's episode features Johanna Dahlroos and Emma Tracey, co-CEOs and co-founders of Berlin-based creative brand agency Sceal. Its focus lies primarily in helping tech companies grow at scale, finetune brand values, overall brand presence, products and brand campaings. This episode is driven by the atypical founder stories that Johanna and Emma have. Johanna transitioned from a career as a painter in her Native Finland to digital designer and now founder, while Emma is a serial entrepreneur hav...
Dec 01, 2023•38 min•Ep. 68
Nikolas Bullwinkel is co-founder and CEO of food delivery startup Circus. Based in Hamburg, the venture launched in May 2022 and has set as its mission nothing short of creating what it calls the "Kitchen of the future." In this episode of the OMR Podcast, Nikolas spoke about his plans to redefine kitchens, incorporating AI into the back of the house and why he left Flink.
Oct 20, 2023•38 min•Ep. 67
We all know it's important, but only a few of us know where to start: safeguarding and safe handling of data. Fortunately, Thomas and Kivanc are two of the aforementioned few, having built the number 1 PIC solution that now serves over 3,000 organizations worldwide. Dataguard is essentially one-stop shopping for privacy, information security and compliance matters. Thomas and Kivanc discussed current privacy regulations and mandates, how Dataguard assists companies in self-inspecting their data ...
Sep 29, 2023•42 min•Ep. 66
Christopher Leidinger is a branding expert as founder LIT Create. He has been instrumental in the rebranding of major fintech players in Nuri and Solarisbank, as well as smaller scale enterprises ranging from a chemistry startup and a chocolate startup to an AI food delivery startup, a craft spirit brand and even an underground techno club in Berlin. Furthermore, LIT has worked with Airbnb, Volkswagen and Hyundai on various image and ad campaigns. We discussed the state of branding, what it is, ...
Sep 04, 2023•49 min•Ep. 65
Last year, Figma was headline news around the globe. Adobe announced it had reached a deal to acquire Figma for over USD 20 billion—which would make it one of the largest startup exits ever. While that deal is being held up in regulatory limbo, it is nevertheless an impressive feat for a company that only launched seven years ago. Figma is a collaborative design platform that is used by millions around the world. Yuhki Yamashita is Chief Product Officer at Figma, a position he's had since June o...
Jul 06, 2023•37 min•Ep. 64
Konstantin Baum, Germany's youngest-ever Master of Wine, runs one of the world's largest wine channels on YouTube. In this episode of the OMR Podcast, we spoke about the business of wine on social media, his YouTube channel, monetization and community-building strategies, and other business verticals revolving around his passion for vino.
May 22, 2023•50 min•Ep. 63
In this episode of the OMR Podcast, we're talking with CEO and founder of Hinge Justin McLeod, the dating app "designed to be deleted. We talked about Hinge's long road to success, the company business model, why he completely tore down Hinge back in 2015 and why the company has no need for standard performance metrics like retention and engagement.
Apr 05, 2023•35 min•Ep. 62
By founding Snapchat in his mid-20s, Evan Spiegel reached billionaire status at a very early age. Today, some 350 million people use the app globally. In the OMR Podcast, he talks about the failure of his first startup, drops his take on when augmented reality glasses will become part of people's everyday lives and why he still believes in Twitter's potential.
Feb 03, 2023•42 min•Ep. 61
In less than a decade, Sridhar Ramaswamy went from Google grunt to Senior VP of Ads and Commerce. After a decade and a half at Google, Sridhar decided he’d had enough with data-driven search and that the sector was in need for disruption. Enter Neeva, a privacy-focussed, user-centric and subscription-based search engine. Funded in part by Greylock Partners, Neeva has raised over USD 100m—despite the seemingly long odds of outperforming Sridhar’s former employer.
Jan 19, 2023•46 min•Ep. 60
Maybe when Tim Brown retired from professional soccer in 2012, he should have seen it coming: swapping out cleats for shoes. It was in fact his shock at the amount of plastic in the footwear freebies gifted to him during his playing days that gave rise to an obsession, which, eventually, evolved into Allbirds, a D2C stalwart and love brand for sustainable footwear founded in 2016.
Dec 15, 2022•43 min•Ep. 59
In the OMR Podcast International, co-founder and CEO Yoni Assia discusses the importance of user experience for eToro, the impact of the social component on growth, engagement and retention, platform features, crypto, investment tips for beginners and a rather unsucessful dinner with Warren Buffett. He also spoke at length about past, prominent ad and marketing campaigns, including sports sponsorship deals, ads featuring Alec Baldwin and a spot during last year's Super Bowl.
Nov 25, 2022•43 min•Ep. 58
It has been an eventful 12 months for Contentsquare. From rolling out a slew of key new features, AI capabilities and a cookieless solution, among others, acquired a couple of companies, expanded globally adding a number of new offices and nearly doubled its workforce to approximately 1500 at present. On top of all that, you locked up approximately USD 600m in funding recently, the latest in a 12-month span that saw Contentsquare acquire a total of 1.4B in backing and helping CS’s total valuatio...
Nov 04, 2022•39 min•Ep. 57
While the problems Prof. Yunus and Saskia Bruysten, CEOs and co-founders of Yunus Social Business, hope to solve may seem impossible, the way they laid out the path to success in this episode of the OMR Podcast, impossible seems plausible.
Oct 19, 2022•52 min•Ep. 56
For the past 8 years, Margrethe Vestager has taken the fight to the world's biggest tech companies in her role as EU commissioner for competition. Despite the incredibly deep pockets of tech lobbyists, she has had some very high-profile "wins." In the OMR Podcast, she discusses what will happen next.
Sep 22, 2022•48 min•Ep. 55
Almost exactly one year ago today, Morgan Selzer was appointed CCO at mindfulness platform Headspace. In that time, she has spearheaded content expansion on the platform, which now includes music, guided meditation, sleepcasts and, recently, content focussed exclusively on women's health. And her efforts have begun achieving widespread recognition, as well, as she was named Podcast Executive of the Year by Adweek last month. Morgan joined the OMR Podcast to discuss the brand partnerships and con...
Sep 01, 2022•37 min•Ep. 54
In this episode of the OMR Podcast, we are chatting with Mirko Caspar, CEO of omnichannel eyewear provider Mister Spex. Since Mirko has been at the helm, he has focussed on enhancing brand perception and convincing eyewear consumers to turn to online outlets as well as offline offerings. A decade later, a tenfold increase in annual revenue to EUR 194m is all you need to know about how it's going for Mirko and Mister Spex. We spoke about specifics regarding purchasing habits of prescription eyewe...
Jul 28, 2022•31 min•Ep. 53
Jul 08, 2022•44 min•Ep. 52
The OMR Festival is a place for the unexpected. From the guests and speakers to everything else, it's a series of moments that surprise and inspire. While surprising certainly qualifies for talking robots and a 1960s school bus converted into a mobile recording studio (where today's episode was in fact recorded), inspiring perfectly describes my guests in this episode of the OMR Podcast: Ammar Kandil co-founder of Yes Theory and Max Rantz-McDonald, who organized a Global Citizens Live event amon...
Jun 10, 2022•34 min•Ep. 51
Our guest today in the OMR Podcast was not only instrumental in revolutionizing the music industry by inventing the iPod, but also helped lay the groundwork for the iPhone and founded—and sold—Nest (to Google). Simply put, Tony Fadell's decades-long career has been characterized by superlatives. In the OMR Podcast, guest host Florian Heinemann spoke to Tony about his past and current projects, as well as the role tech can play in protecting the environment.
May 27, 2022•32 min•Ep. 50
In early 2021, Adam Ross was appointed CEO at Awin, the world's largest affiliate network. In the OMR Podcast, I spoke to Adam about his tenure at AWIN, how the industry has evolved from being perceived as supremely shady to an absolute must for advertisers and publishers, how the company has transformed from a niche service provider to a "feature-rich martech platform" and the impact of influencers on Awin—and Awin on influencers. If you've ever wanted to know what affiliate marketing is and wh...
Apr 28, 2022•47 min•Ep. 49
Christian Horner runs one of the top racing teams in all of Formula 1: Red Bull Racing. In the OMR Podcast, he speaks with Philipp Westermeyer this past season, one of the most exciting in recent memory. He explains what impact "Drive to Survive" has had
Mar 22, 2022•50 min•Ep. 48
In 2013, SAP bought up CRM and cloud service provider Hybris for 1.5 billion US. At the time, the deal was the largest of its kind for a European entrepreneur, but for anyone in . It also came at a time when cloud technologies, their use case and applications, were in their absolute infancy. In this episode of the OMR Podcast, I had the chance to discuss the deal with Thoma, if he has any regrets about the timing and the price—can you regret a billion-dollar deal? We also discussed his activitie...
Feb 23, 2022•55 min•Ep. 47
Maya Leinenbach is not your typical teen. In the space of two years, she's transformed her passion for vegan food into a thriving love brand, Fitgreenmind. In this episode of the OMR Podcast International, she discussed how simplicity, vision, repetition and time management have all converged to let Fitgreenmind flourish.
Jan 27, 2022•35 min•Ep. 46
Founded in 2015, Activant Capital was a relatively unknown VC fund until recently. A string of higher publicity investments saw Activant and its CEO & founder thrust into the proverbial limelight, but truth be told its bonafides were legit long before it started to make a name for itself: 4 funds since founding, assets totalling over USD 1.5B under management and 35 companies in the portfolio and several successful exits. Plus, last month it joined other US companies in establishing a presen...
Aug 05, 2021•55 min•Ep. 45
Last November, Lithuanian second-hand clothing app Vinted announced it would attempt to merge all 8.5 million German "Vinties" into the mother app. It was an ambitious plan with massive risk attached in a second-hand market with a total volume approaching nine figures. Much was at stake for Vinted and its CEO Thomas Plantenga, who called it "brand suicide." OMR editors Martin Gardt and Scott Peterson take a closer look at the second-hand fashion market to see if Vinted's move paid off.
Jul 22, 2021•21 min•Ep. 44
If it were film, you'd think Hollywood had taken significant liberties with factual accuracy. And yet, the genesis of Gymshark, now a billion-dollar DTC fitness fashion brand, begins with all the hallmarks of a sappy Hollywood biopic. While working at a local Pizza Hut, 19-year-old Ben Francis, a dedicated weightlifter, founds his passion project Gymshark. After two years of hand-sewing clothes and barely making ends meet, he catches his big break at a local fitness trade fair, where he stumbles...
Jun 22, 2021•57 min•Ep. 43
Today’s episode is all about one of the hottest things anywhere on the internet—Pokémon cards! Search for TCG, trading card games, and unboxing, or some combination thereof on YouTube and you will find all sorts of examples of people shelling out beaucoup bucks for boxes of Pokémon cards. The hype surrounding Pokémon plays into the larger popularity of TCGs, including Magic: the Gathering, Yo-Gi-Oh and Dragonball Z, among others and their collectability—A shadowless “Charizard” Pokémon card rece...
May 10, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 42
