Builders' Studio: a Founder School by Slush

Exits are a famously glorified part of a startup's journey. Whether it be through acquisition, IPO or anything in-between, a startup's life inevitably takes an intense turn upon exit. While we are ending the series with exit, this is ideally the phase in which the startups journey truly starts to grow. Joining us to unravel exits is Jan Rezab, Founder and CEO of Time is Ltd.  Having built and exited Socialbakers, Jan will be finishing off the Builders' Studio series with a dissection on an exit truly means for a startup and what founders should look out for, as told by a founder who just went through it all.

Every company has a board, yet it is not all that clear how to efficiently leverage one at different stages of a company's lifecycle. An ideal board of a young startup may look very different from a well functioning board of a more mature company. Are there some key heuristics that founders should follow when setting up their board? Matt Miller, Partner at Sequoia, sits on the boards of multiple scaleups such as Graphcore and Tessian. In this talk, among other insights, he'll share his take on the ideal size for a board, what happens in a board meeting and what should be the board's main focus points throughout the way.

International expansion is a difficult phase most ambitious scaling companies will ultimately face. How then should you go from selecting your target markets to all the way establishing an operational team in place? Joining us to walk through how startups should approach this delicate process is Sofia Dolfe, Principal at Index Ventures. There are a handful of key factors you should consider when thinking about expansion - market size, localisation, competition, familiarity, regulation and capital. In this talk Sofia explains how to analyze each of these as a scaling startup and outlines the common challenges companies face, while giving concrete advice on how to combat them.

While establishing a team focused solely on growth is not a worry in the early days, it is an eventuality for a startup that wishes to scale aggressively. While an eventuality, many still don't have a clear image on what a growth team truly does. Joining us for an inside look into the mechanics of a growth team is Caroline Hjelm, VP of Growth at Voi.  Using learnings from Voi, Caroline goes through the when, why and how founders should start thinking of establishing a growth team for their company. As a key starting point, you need to recognise which functions for growth, remove silos and establish a growth function internally. What next? Tune in to hear more.

As it is rare that customers organically find you, building an efficient sales organization is a crucial part of the success of most startups. While at the face of it, sales might sound straightforward, building an efficient sales process is complex. Joining us to show just how startups should approach their enterprise sales is Geraldine MacCarthy, Chief Revenue Officer at Personio. In this talk Geraldine outlines how the nature of sales changes as the company scales - from founder centrality in the beginning, to setting up a growth team sales function and beyond. What remains central throughout, however, is the importance of the sales/product feedback loop and utilization of metrics that allow for iteration and efficiency.

Ever since Andy Rachleff coined the term ‘Product-Market Fit', it has reached a near mythical status among founders. Many might have an idea about what Product-Market Fit means, but how should one define it? Joining us to open up the concept is Georgie Smallwood, Chief Product Officer at Tier.  In this episode Georgie helps founders identify the concrete actions needed to reach product/market fit, to understand what it feels like to have it, and how to ensure you don't lose it.

Community-led growth is a go-to-market strategy that relies on a community as a driver for customer acquisition, expansion and retention – growth. It can be a powerful growth strategy, especially for direct-to-consumer companies. Olivia Nottebohm is Chief Revenue Officer of Notion, a company whose growth has been highly organic and has heavily revolved around a community. She'll be sharing her secrets on organizing your company for scale around community. How do you build your company inside-out, focused on community? How do you engage your community? How do you raise awareness and leverage ambassadors to expand your reach?

Paul Graham has famously advocated for doing things that ‘don't scale' in order to kickstart your client acquisition. What does this mean in practice and what strategies can founders utilize in the very beginning to convince customers to hop on board? Joining us to uncover what goes into early customer acquisition is James Hind, Co-founder and CEO of carwow. The very beginning of a startup's user acquisition journey can be grueling. In this talk James outlines how carwow benefited from keeping processes manual in the beginning, the way they found the perfect clients to pitch to and much more to kickstart their growth.

Unicorn startups are cool but they are not all sunshine and rainbows. To get there you need to be a cockroach - a founder that nothing can kill. Jussi Laakkonen, Co-founder and CEO of Noice, will be sharing the story of how Applifier changed its course successfully.  It took two hard pivots before Noice was acquired by Unity Technologies. In this episode Jussi shares his hard earned lessons on pivots, founder mindset and grit so that you can be unkillable and survive the hardest times.

Product design is what defines the look and feel of digital products and platforms, making it a crucial cornerstone of product development. However, as a relatively new field of expertise that combines design, engineering and marketing, not many truly understand the value of fantastic product design. Joining us to uncover this secret recipe is Karri Saarinen, Co-founder and CEO of Linear.  Having led design at Airbnb and Coinbase, Karri builds on his experience to deliver a product design masterclass in this episode. Through this talk you'll learn how to consider design as an advantage, why product-design fit matters, what to look for when hiring your first designer and much more.

Pricing is a crucial but often misunderstood topic, which receives disproportionately low attention compared to the potential value it can drive. While pricing is a complex equation, joining us to understand its inner mechanics is Jevgeni Kabanov, Chief Product Officer and Head of New Verticals at Bolt. Building on his twenty years of experience in pricing B2B and consumer-facing products, in this episode Jevgeni will be delivering a deep masterclass into the nuances of pricing to help startups unlock their revenue potential. Through this talk you'll learn how to think about the different components of pricing, from unit economics, switching costs to moats.

When taking a product to the market, there are some fundamental questions to address. What does your product really do and who is it for? What is its true use case? Understanding the answers to these questions is the process of product positioning. Joining us to demystify how companies should position their products is April Dunford, Founder of Ambient Strategy.  With over two decades of experience in positioning, repositioning and launching products, in this episode April shares her key learnings on how to ensure your product is reaching the right customer. Expect to learn how to think like your customer, identify effective market segments for your product and much more.

While product management is the backbone of the most thriving product-driven companies, not many actually have a clear understanding of what the role entails. Joining us to uncover what goes into fantastic product management is Silvia Källgren, Senior Product Manager at Tink. Silvia has managed products at some of the most successful fintech companies in the world - Tink, Klarna, Paypal and iZettle.  In this talk she will be sharing the hidden insights that define successful product management and how early stage founders should begin to think about assembling their product teams. Expect to learn how the product teams should scale and shift focus as the company itself scales.

Every product starts somewhere, but how should one approach building new products from scratch? When do you know if your minimum viable product is ‘ready'? Joining us to open up this incredibly nuanced process is Monika Ocieczek, Product and Design Lead at Primer. Monika has been leading the design and development on the first iterations of Primer's core products from the very beginning and gives a practical deepdive in this episode into how founders should approach developing their MVP. Tune in to hear how you should go about understanding the problem, recognizing the solution, validating it, and ultimately launching and iterating your product.

Today it can be increasingly difficult to break into media as a startup – there is so much noise to break through. How should founders pitch to and develop relationships with the media? Joining us to share hidden best practices is Heini Vesander, Head of PR and Communications at Wolt.  Having led communications and PR at a number of scaling companies, Heini gives a practical deepdive into the nuances of PR. Importantly, PR is storytelling - it is not advertising or user acquisition as such. Learn from Heini on how to understand your angle, identify the right media and successfully pitch your story.

Marketing today is much more dynamic and iterative than it has ever been, as performance marketing campaigns have the ability to give instant feedback. How then should you structure your campaigns and how do you actually measure success? Joining us to unravel the science of performance marketing is Joost Brok, Chief Marketing Officer at Colvin.  Building on his time at Treatwell and Colvin where he has built their performance marketing strategy from the ground up, Joost will be sharing his insights on how startups can get themselves out there. Expect to learn on how to design driving KPIs so as not to mislead your goals, how to align performance marketing strategy with internal teams and how to establish a modern performance marketing data stack. 

At best your brand can be a true competitive advantage, but building one requires strategy and consistency. We all know a good brand when we see one, but how and when should founders start thinking about building their own brand? Joining us to uncover what goes into creating and sustaining a striking brand is Akis Evangelidis, Co-founder and Head of Marketing of Nothing.  With a background in leading OnePlus' communications and brand in Europe and having now led the branding strategy for Nothing from Day 1, Akis provides founders with all they need to know on how to leverage your brand when scaling. In this talk Akis outlines how they approached building the distinct Nothing brand, all the way from the initial vision, first logo mockups, colour scheme experimentation to the polished product.

While it has seemingly never been a better time to raise capital, it has also never been a better time to bootstrap - the cost of developing products has dramatically reduced. Bootstrapping is driven by the idea of not reaching for external capital in the early phases of growth, but instead relying on savings and your startup's cash flows to sustain growth. Joining us for an inside look into the bootstrapping process is Sabba Keynejad, Co-founder and CEO of VEED. Bootstrapping has the benefit of avoiding dilution, but is not without its hardships. In this talk Sabba takes us through the turbulent VEED journey which took them to 6.5m ARR in two years. VEED is a testament to true founder grit - along the way the  founders had to take full-time jobs to fund the business, they were kicked out of their first office, were rejected from YC (twice in one weekend) but eventually reached product-market fit through aligning on their user acquisition channel.

In a competitive and increasingly complex business and funding environment, the CFO plays a more important role than ever in understanding the nuances of fundraising. Joining us to shed light on how to think about company finance is Maria Hedengren, CEO of Readly.  Maria has seen it all -  steering the ship at iZettle as CFO from an IPO to an acquisition at the last minute and taking Readly public. In this talk Maria will be sharing her learnings to founders on how to think about the various stages of funding, from VCs, to acquisitions and going public.

Raising external capital is perhaps the most common – and some might argue the most efficient – way for startups to finance their growth. Thus, almost every company with dreams of scaling has to learn the craft of fundraising. Carlos Eduardo Espinal, Managing Partner of Seedcamp, is not only one of the most experienced early stage investors in Europe, but also the author of Fundraising Fieldguide. He'll be taking us through the fundamentals of fundraising. What does it really mean to fundraise, both for you and your company? How much should you aim to raise? How to leverage the human element in the fundraising process?

When raising money from VCs, founders will ideally be faced with multiple term sheets before moving forward with executing their funding round. However, especially for first-time founders, term sheets can be complex to navigate. Joining us to explain how term sheets work is Tom Wilson, Partner at Seedcamp. Based on his background in VC law and now as an investor, Tom's talk revolves around what founders should hope to see in a term sheet  and what they should aim to avoid. To get started, it is important to understand that while term sheets are not legally binding, they are considered morally binding. Expect to learn how to balance the economics, investor protection and governance of your term sheet to ensure that your fundraise sets you on a firm foundation.

As the pace of funding seems to be ever-accelerating, the role of a sound legal structure becomes increasingly important. Beginning from founder agreements and cap tables all the way to funding rounds and stock option schemes, what should founders look out for from a legal perspective? Joining us to unpack what this all means is Anthony Rose, Founder and CEO of SeedLegals.  Through founding SeedLegals, Anthony has seen first hand just how valuable it is to have a solid legal foundation - both as a founder and through helping thousands of startups navigate their first funding rounds. Expect to learn how to structure option pools, talk about valuations, establish founder agreements and approach dilution.

Any fundraising process requires a pitch, but building the perfect pitch is more of an art than science. Joining us to explain what investors look for in a pitch and how founders should think about communicating their ideas is Ted Persson, Partner at EQT Ventures. With a background that combines product design and storytelling with investing, Ted is a master at understanding what a fantastic pitch involves, from the deck to the demo. In this talk Ted walks us through how he has constructed pitches himself and gives practical insights into what the best pitches utilize - from understanding how the pitch will be viewed, to crafting the first slides of the pitch, and to managing the flow until the very end. Importantly, Ted recommends leaving a hook for the end of the pitch, so that it surprises the audience - you can expect the same from his talk!

Investor relations undoubtedly become different the further a company scales. What are investors looking for before and after Product Market Fit? What should you emphasize in your Series B fundraise? Joining us to help understand how investors evaluate startups at all stages is Jonathan Sibilia, Partner at Molten Ventures.  In this talk Jonathan uncovers what investors look for, whether it is a seed, Series A, Series B or a growth round you are raising. What you'll come to find is that the perspective is very different based on the stage of the company - the vision and team matter most in the beginning, with defined metrics driving investment decisions only later with defined benchmarks that are important to know.

As most early employees of startups inherently take a risk when they hop onboard, how should they be rewarded for their ambition? How should you think about your company's stock option pool? Joining us to make sense of pay and incentives is Katharina Wilhelm, Partner at Index Ventures.  Index started their database on startup compensation a decade ago - by today they have amassed enough data to provide valuable benchmarks. In this talk Katharina gives insight into the thinking behind deciding on an appropriate stock option pool and salary base. Talent is a crucial bottleneck for startups and rewarding talent plays a key role for sustained growth.

Video game rooms and ping-pong tables – everyone wants to have a great company culture, but few really understand what it means and how to build one. On a foundational level culture can be seen as your values and beliefs in action –joining us to talk about culture is Nina Carøe, VP of People and Culture at Dixa.  Having led culture at Dixa during its intense growth in past years, Nina will be enlightening founders on how they should think about culture and act on it from Day 1 onwards to enable sustainable growth and ensure culture scales with the company as well.

A scaling company needs to ultimately scale its people as well. However, this is no easy feat. Joining us to talk about recruiting at scale is Sarah Manning, VP of People of Hopin. Hopin's growth is nothing short of miraculous - they've gone from 0 to 1000 employees in just over two years.  In this talk Sarah shares her insights on how to attract, recruit and develop employees at scale. With examples from Hopin's journey, she'll walk us through why maintaining your employer brand is crucial, what character traits to look for when hiring to a high-growth startup, and how to ensure a successful onboarding of new employees. Central to this is maintaining your employer brand through focusing on the candidate experience – everything from the first interview to onboarding has to be smooth as word gets around.

The early employees of a company can make or break it. Thus, the real question is: who should you hire,  and how do you convince them to join? Joining us to talk about how to ensure your early employees can facilitate scaling is Eleonore Crespo, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Pigment. As a VC turned founder, Eleonore has a unique perspective on getting your first hires right. In this talk, Eléonore highlights how in the early days your team will be the most valuable asset you have, and as such, you should only hire the best people –  the quality of the team is a signal on the ambition of the company.

In the beginning of any founders' journey is problem selection, but how does one go about choosing one? Joining us to disentangle the problem selection process is Job van der Voort, Co-founder and CEO of Remote. Having led product at Gitlab from 5 to 450 people, Job founded Remote incredibly successfully in 2019.  In this talk, Job walks us through how he ended up identifying a problem worth solving. You'll learn how to validate your problem through talking to customers on day 0, how to narrow down to what customers really want, ways to identify your ideal customer profile, and finally, when to start building.

What do the most successful founding teams have in common? How do you identify potential co-founders?  How  many should there be? Joining us for a deep dive into founding teams is Ilkka Paananen, Co-founder and CEO of Supercell.  Ilkka has not only founded two startups in Sumea and Supercell but has also invested in some of the most successful companies in the Nordics and Europe, such as Wolt and Hopin. In this talk Ilkka shares the defining characteristics of world-class founding teams, outlines how the role of the founding team evolves as the company scales and gives advice on decision-making.