Startup Notes

Gunnar Froh is Founder & CEO of Wunder Mobility. Based in Hamburg, Germany, the startup is one of the globally leading technology providers for new mobility solutions. With its platform, the company enables startups, corporations, and governments in 100+ cities around the world to launch, scale, and analyze shared transport solutions. Founded in 2014, Wunder Mobility pivoted twice to find its optimal business and operating model. Today, it is the fastest-growing company in its sector in Europe. The tech startup has also successfully raised $70m from notable investors like Blumberg Capital and Piton Capital along the way. In this episode, Gunnar shares why the founding team decided to pivot Wunder Mobility and how to successfully manage such a wide-ranging task when building a startup.

Gunnar Froh is Founder & CEO of Wunder Mobility. Based in Hamburg, Germany, the startup is one of the globally leading technology providers for new mobility solutions. With its platform, the company enables startups, corporations, and governments in 100+ cities around the world to launch, scale, and analyze shared transport solutions.   Founded in 2014, Wunder Mobility pivoted twice to find its optimal business and operating model. Today, it is the fastest-growing company in its sector in Europe. The tech startup has also successfully raised $70m from notable investors like Blumberg Capital and Piton Capital along the way.   In next week’s episode, Gunnar shares why the founding team decided to pivot Wunder Mobility and how to successfully manage such a wide-ranging task when building a startup.

Katharina Jünger is Co-Founder & CEO of TeleClinic. The Munich-based startup is one of the leading digital health companies in Europe. Its vision is to provide better healthcare for everyone through online doctor visits. Raised in a family of doctors, Katharina knew early on about the advantage of medical advice that is always available - something that she wanted other people to benefit from as well. For this, TeleClinic is building a platform that is a digital one-stop-shop for all health-related questions. With its app, it enables simple and secure communication between doctors and patients anywhere in Germany. Like this, patients can consult physicians, get prescriptions, and sick notes in just minutes. Since the startup was founded in 2015, TeleClinic has raised 9m€ from Digital Health Ventures and renowned Idinvest Partners, which has notable success cases like Onfido and Zenly in its portfolio. In this episode, Katharina shares how TeleClinic reacted to the COVID-19 crisis and why she thinks that the ongoing pandemic will help the digital health sector to leapfrog five years of market development. You’ll also find out about her biggest learning as a first-time entrepreneur and how to navigate in a highly regulated market.

Katharina Jünger is Co-Founder & CEO of TeleClinic. The Munich-based startup is one of the leading digital health companies in Europe. Its vision is to provide better healthcare for everyone through online doctor visits. Raised in a family of doctors, Katharina knew early on about the advantage of medical advice that is always available - something that she wanted other people to benefit from as well. For this, TeleClinic is building a platform that is a digital one-stop-shop for all health-related questions. With its app, it enables simple and secure communication between doctors and patients anywhere in Germany. Like this, patients can consult physicians, get prescriptions, and sick notes in just minutes. Since the startup was founded in 2015, TeleClinic has raised 9m€ from Digital Health Ventures and renowned Idinvest Partners, which has notable success cases like Onfido and Zenly in its portfolio. In this week’s episode, Katharina shares how TeleClinic reacted to the COVID-19 crisis and why she thinks that the ongoing pandemic will help the digital health sector to leapfrog five years of market development. You’ll also find out about her biggest learning as a first-time entrepreneur and how to navigate in a highly regulated market.

This week, we have a special episode with some great entrepreneurial insights from Silicon Valley. We had the pleasure to talk to Ilya Volodarsky, Co-Founder & President of Segment, a few months ago. Once close to failure, the Y Combinator-backed tech company was pivoted twice on its journey to unicorn status. Based with its HQ in San Francisco, Segment is the world’s leading customer data platform (CDP) that democratizes access to reliable data for all teams and offers a complete toolkit to standardize data collection, unify user records, and route customer data into any system where it’s needed. More than 20,000 companies like Intuit, FOX, Instacart, and Levi’s use Segment to make real-time decisions, accelerate growth, and deliver compelling user experiences. Amongst others, leading VC firms like Accel, e.ventures and GV (formerly Google Ventures) belong to its investors. In this episode, you’ll find out how founders can and should use analytics to drive their company towards success. +++ Apologies for the below-average audio quality of this episode!

Next week, we’ll have a special episode with some great entrepreneurial insights from Silicon Valley. We had the pleasure to talk to Ilya Volodarsky, Co-Founder & President of Segment, a few months ago. Once close to failure, the Y Combinator-backed tech company was pivoted twice on its journey to unicorn status. Based with its HQ in San Francisco, Segment is the world’s leading customer data platform (CDP) that democratizes access to reliable data for all teams and offers a complete toolkit to standardize data collection, unify user records, and route customer data into any system where it’s needed. More than 20,000 companies like Intuit, FOX, Instacart, and Levi’s use Segment to make real-time decisions, accelerate growth, and deliver compelling user experiences. Amongst others, leading VC firms like Accel, e.ventures and GV (formerly Google Ventures) belong to its investors. In next week’s episode, you’ll find out how founders can and should use analytics to drive their company towards success.+++ Apologies for the below-average audio quality of this episode!

Everything in life evolves, and like you, we have changed. Today, we make a step forward by becoming #InvisibleMedia. Stay tuned! We will be bringing a whole new immersive audio experience to you soon.  

Olivier Ramel is Co-Founder & CEO of Kymono. The Paris-based startup has developed into Europe’s leading „culture design“ company. As its core product, Kymono offers customized clothing for startups that is affordable, high-quality, and of the highest ethical standards. Companies like Airbnb, Zenly, Google, and LVMH are already wearing its clothes. Kymono’s ultimate vision goes further though: It wants to help its clients to infuse a company’s particular spirit into every object and space like their office. Not even 30 years old, Olivier is a true young serial entrepreneur. Already while he was a student, he started his entrepreneurial endeavours. Before co-founding Kymono together with The Family in 2017, he has started and led 4 other startups. In this episode, we talk with Olivier about his journey as an entrepreneur, why company culture is so important, and how to land your first customers.

Martin Bell is a global startup advisor, angel investor, and Founder & CEO of Bell Ventures. He advises corporates, investors, governments, and start-ups. He is a thought leader and a keynote speaker on the topic of company building within organizations. Martin was previously with Rocket Internet and helped to build ~50 companies. At Rocket Internet, he was the chief architect of a 100-day launch process through which he took 20 companies. Moreover, he led more than 100 due diligences for 25 growth-stage companies and was an interim executive in 5 companies, including great success cases like Zalando, Delivery Hero, and Foodora. In this episode, we talk about Martin’s journey in the startup world and dive deep into his „100 Task Playbook“ for setting up, launching, and scaling a tech company.

Thomas Wilke and Alex Meyer are the founders and General Partners of VC firm 42CAP. Based in Munich, they are currently managing two funds with a focus on seed-stage investments. Their portfolio includes investments into startups like Kaia, CrossEngage, and MoBerries. Thomas has a vast background as a technology & product leader for complex marketing and e-commerce applications. He was a founder of eCircle, which was sold to Teradata in 2012. Alex has a longstanding experience in scaling SaaS companies and exec-level M&A transactions. He was the initial VC investor in eCircle and quickly after that joined the company as its CFO. In this episode, Thomas and Alex tell us about their journey of building 42CAP from scratch over the last years. Among others, we discuss their VC approach and outlook on the current market for tech investments.

Since 2014, Sebastian Stricker has been a true trailblazer of social entrepreneurship. First, by founding award-winning app ShareTheMeal that collaborates with the UN World Food Programme and helps to feed children in poverty and crisis situations around the world through donations. And for the past two years, by building startup 'share' that is showing that an FMCG business can also create a direct positive social impact. The concept behind share is simple, yet unique: If you buy one of its high-quality consumer products like snack bars or soap, another one of it gets donated to people in need. The startup’s '1+1' principle is the foundation for the 'social consumption' approach it is bringing to the FMCG industry. In this episode, we speak with Sebastian about his learnings from building a social FMCG startup. Among others, we talk about mistakes he made, why scale matters, and how luck plays an important role in being successful. --- We already once spoke to Sebastian about social entrepreneurship back in 2017 when he was still CEO of ShareTheMeal. Listen to his thoughts back then on why the timing for social startups has never been better here: bit.ly/2uxpxqM

Being a serial founder and investor, Frank Thelen has an impressive track record over the last 25 years with having reached 100+ million consumers in 60 countries, receiving several awards, and becoming not just a renowned keynote speaker but also one of the leading voices of the German startup scene. As CEO of Freigeist Capital, Frank invests in early-stage tech startups as well as promising companies in the food industry. Notable investments and ventures as a founder include among others ip.labs (sold to Fujifilm in 2008), Scanbot, MyTaxi, Wunderlist, Lilium, Pitch, and Little Lunch. In 2014, Frank joined the prime time TV show "Dragons’ Den", broadcasted in Germany as "Die Höhle der Löwen", making him known also to the wider public. His bestselling autobiography “Startup-DNA” was published in 2018. In this episode, moderator Christian Miele (Partner at e.ventures) and Frank elaborate on different exit options, whether founders should have an exit strategy from the beginning or not, the process of selling your startup, and how to negotiate the right price for your company. ------ “From Scratch” is an exclusive series of masterclasses produced by Startup Notes and McKinsey Digital in Berlin that brings together Europe’s top entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators to give exclusive lectures on digitalization.

Kaya Taner is Co-Founder & CEO of Honeypot. The startup offers an innovative online recruiting platform for the best tech talent out there. It makes it easier for specialists like software developers or product owners to find new jobs that actually match their expectations as companies have to present and pitch themselves to them instead of the traditional other way round. Recently, Honeypot got acquired by Xing (the leading online business network in German-speaking markets) for a sum of reportedly up to 57m€ only 4 years after it was founded. In this episode, Kaya shares what it takes to find, hire, and retain the best talents to build world-class tech teams from scratch.

Daniel Stammler is Co-CEO & Co-Founder of Kolibri Games. Founded under the original name Fluffy Fairy Games by a group of IT and Business students in 2016, Kolibri Games is a vibrant mobile gaming studio based in Berlin. The team developed its first title Idle Miner Tycoon in just eight weeks, following the startup’s signature lean approach.
 By now, their games Idle Miner Tycoon and Idle Factory Tycoon have cumulatively reached over 100 Million downloads. With a team of more than 100 dedicated engineers, artists, and game designers, the startup is raking in millions in recurring revenue and has been profitable since Day 1 - without having raised any VC funding. Kolibri Games’ exceptional growth story has been recognized several times: LinkedIn added the company to the 2018 list of Top 25 startups in Germany; Red Herring placed Kolibri Games among the 2018 Top 100 Global and Deloitte awarded the company with a first place in the "Rising Stars" category of 2018’s Deloitte Technology Fast 50.  In this episode, we speak with Daniel about how to create hits in the gaming industry. Among others, Daniel shares Kolibri’s philosophy of developing games closely tied to user feedback and why the startup has declined all offers by VCs so far.

In our 11th #FromScratch masterclass, Johannes Reck (Co-Founder & CEO of GetYourGuide) taught our audience how to grow and scale fast. Johannes is one of Germany’s premier startup founders. As Co-Founder & CEO of GetYourGuide, he has built a truly global a tech unicorn out of Berlin over the past 10 years. Recently, the travel startup raised one of the largest financing rounds the tech scene in Europe has seen so far by collecting $484m in its Series E led by SoftBank. Based on a personal need, Johannes founded GetYourGuide by chance when he was still at university with the original intention to pursue a career in academia. Having evolved from an idea of a group of students into the leading booking platform for attractions and activities that serves millions of travelers anywhere in the world, Johannes credits especially to the team’s attitude for “infinite learning” at a high speed. In this episode, moderator Christian Miele (Partner at e.ventures) and Johannes discuss the right timing for starting to grow quickly, share best practices on how to accelerate growth, analyze the roles of product and marketing, and define what kind of people a company needs to scale as fast as possible. ------“From Scratch” is an exclusive series of masterclasses produced by Startup Notes and McKinsey Digital in Berlin that brings together Europe’s top entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators to give exclusive lectures on digitalization.

Til Klein is Founder & CEO of Vantik - a Berlin-based PensionTech startup. Launched in 2017, it is the startup’s vision to provide a simple and secure private pension that is as flexible as life itself. Vantik aims to inspire millennials to start saving for their future. Recently, the promising tech company that was founded by Til and Lara Hämmerle raised a seed round led by STS Ventures, Atlantic Labs, Seedcamp, and prominent business angels (like N26 Co-Founder Maximilian Tayenthal), bringing its total funding amount to over 2m€. In this episode, we speak with Til about how to use early user feedback to build a great product. Among others, we cover how to design a product depending on your users’ motivation to use it, do customer interviews the right way, and translate feedback into features. +++ If you register and open an account via Vantik’s website www.vantik.com/en/voucher, use the following code to get a 25€ starting bonus: STARTUP25

In our 10th #FromScratch masterclass, Michael Brehm (Founder & CEO of i2x) taught our audience how to build a sales-driven organization. Michael Brehm is one of the most influential people in the German startup scene. As former Executive Director and investor at social network startup studiVZ, he left his mark already in the early 2000s. Over the course of his career, Michael has built several companies, successfully sold some of them to Google and eBay, and taken one venture public. Michael is one of the cornerstones of the Business Angel scene in Germany, having invested in more than 50 startups and being the launchpad for a lot of entrepreneurs. He is also a Partner at VC firm Redstone, which has helped corporates to invest in over 200 tech startups. In 2017, Michael decided to found a new tech company himself: With i2x, he is leveraging his renowned expertise in sales and marketing, bringing real-time AI-powered speech analytics to companies for improving their sales calls. In this episode, Michael and moderator Christian Miele (Partner at e.ventures) will elaborate on why sales is a numbers game and how you can build the right sales funnels in an organization. Michael will share best practices of building sales teams including setting up efficient structures and the right KPIs, creating incentive schemes, and how to train and motivate a sales team. ------ “From Scratch” is an exclusive series of masterclasses produced by Startup Notes and McKinsey Digital in Berlin that brings together Europe’s top entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators to give exclusive lectures on digitalization.

In our 9th #FromScratch masterclass, Tamaz Georgadze (Co-Founder & CEO of Raisin) taught our audience how to build a sustainable high-performance culture. Backed with more than 170 million EUR by prominent VCs like Index Ventures and corporates like PayPal, the FinTech startup is the leading European marketplace for investments and deposits. More than 10 billion EUR have been deployed by Raisin’s customers throughout Europe since the startup was founded in Berlin in 2013. In this episode, Tamaz and moderator Jan Miczaika (Partner at HV Holtzbrinck Ventures) - who kindly jumped in for our usual host Christian Miele (e.ventures) on short notice - discuss how to build a sustainable high-performance culture in a startup. The two elaborate on how first employees shape a company’s DNA, how to create high-performing teams and increase internal efficiency, as well as the importance and ways to measure your company culture. ------ “From Scratch” is an exclusive series of masterclasses produced by Startup Notes and McKinsey Digital in Berlin that brings together Europe’s top entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators to give exclusive lectures on digitalization.

Inspired by numerous requests of our listeners, we created some special episodes based on different key themes. We have put together the best pieces of timeless advice that we found most insightful from all the conversations with founders and VCs that we have published so far.   In our third special episode, we focus on what makes great teams and company cultures. Find out what successful startups do right in this regard - we hope you enjoy!   01 - Uwe Horstmann (Project A Ventures) [01:33 - 06:12] Who you should hire first when starting a company [06:13 - 07:31] How to best set up the compensation scheme for your team   02 - Florian Heinemann (Project A Ventures) [07:36 - 09:35] What type of expert your first marketing employee should be [09:36 - 11:50] The background and experience your first marketing employee should have   03 -  Friedrich A. Neuman (MAKERS.do) [11:55 - 12:59] The ideal setup of a founders team   04 - Benedikt Franke (Helpling) [13:04 - 15:20] The conditions for making it work to start a company with a friend   05 - Niklas Jansen (Blinkist) [15:21 - 21:23] When and how to build a strong company culture

Inspired by numerous requests of our listeners, we have created some special episodes based on different key themes. We put together the best pieces of timeless advice that we found most insightful from all the conversations with founders and VCs that we have published so far. In our second special episode, we focus on the traits of great founders. Find out what successful entrepreneurs have in common - we hope you enjoy!   01 - Christoph Gerber (Talon.One, former Lieferando) [01:52 - 03:46] What mindset entrepreneurs should have   02 - Uwe Horstmann (Project A Ventures) [03:50 - 05:34] What traits and skills of founders stand out for early-stage VCs [05:35 - 07:57] The #1 trait of great entrepreneurs [07:58 - 12:02] What startup CEOs must do and what they should not   03 -  Julian Riedlbauer (GP Bullhound) [12:06 - 14:43] Being ahead of the market and knowing when to change roles   04 - Jasper Masemann (HV Holtzbrinck Ventures) [14:48 - 16:52] How founders leave a lasting positive impression with VCs   05 - Friedrich A. Neuman (MAKERS.do) [16:56 - 18:47] Which traits founders need to bring to the table

Inspired by numerous requests of our listeners, we have created some special episodes based on different key themes. We put together the best pieces of timeless advice that we found most insightful from all the conversations with founders and VCs that we have published so far. In this first episode, the particular focus is on one of tech’s most important topics: Raising money from venture capital investors. We hope you enjoy!   01 - Pawel Chudzinski (Point Nine Capital) [01:38 - 03:15] Why tech startups usually need to raise money [03:16 - 05:02] Criteria that Point Nine Capital assesses when making investment decisions [05:03 - 06:47] On the importance and best practices of a good pitch deck   02 - Philipp Pausder (Thermondo) [06:52 - 07:45] Why VCs invest more into complex business models nowadays [07:46 - 08:19] Large markets that have lots of potential and VCs like to invest in   03 -  Julian Riedlbauer (GP Bullhound) [08:24 - 10:03] How founders can leave a lasting impression with their pitch   04 - Claude Ritter (Cavalry Ventures) [10:07 - 11:55] Soft factors that influence an investment decision   05 - Jasper Masemann (HV Holtzbrinck Ventures) [11:59 - 12:59] How founders can differentiate themselves and positively ‚wow‘ VCs[13:00 - 14:03] What not to do when pitching to VCs   06 - Luis Hanemann (e.ventures) [14:07 - 16:41] Personal learnings of a founder who turned VC

The siblings Pia and Cornelius Frey started Opinary in 2013. The Berlin-based startup has established a new way for users to share their opinion in online content. Its technology helps millions of monthly users to share their view with a tap and understand opinion trends at a glance. Publishing partners (like The Times, HuffPost, and NBC) use Opinary to engage and monetize their audiences, while global brands and corporations boost attention, create high conversions and generate insights. By now, Opinary has raised 4m€ in funding from renowned investors like Project A, Global Founders Capital, and Rolf Schrömgens (Founder of Trivago). In this episode, Pia and Cornelius explain what it is like to start a company with a close family member, the way Opinary helps its clients to gain valuable insights, and how they bootstrapped the startup from a side project into one of Germany’s hottest tech companies.

Michael Cassau is Founder & CEO of Grover. The startup is one of Europe’s market leaders in technology rentals, bringing the access economy to the consumer electronics market, by offering a simple, monthly subscription model for the best in tech. Via its website Grover.com, it makes new technology products accessible to everyone while breaking the linear way of consumption, questioning the meaning of ownership, and offering a real alternative to financing. Since it was started in 2015, Grover has closed 60m€ in funding by prominent investors like Circularity Capital, Commerzbank, Samsung NEXT and Global Founders Capital (Rocket Internet). In this episode, Michael explains in detail the reasoning behind founding Grover, what the future for the sharing economy holds, and how to find the right investors that share your vision for global growth.

In our 8th #FromScratch masterclass, Josef Brunner (Founding Investor & CEO of relayr) taught our audience how to leverage corporate-startup partnerships. Relayr enables its clients to digitize physical objects for harnessing the power of the Internet of Things. In 2018, the startup was sold to Munich Re (Group) for €300M. Partnering with corporations has been key for its success. In this episode, Josef and moderator Christian Miele (Partner at e.ventures) discuss the criteria to evaluate the suitability of corporate partnerships, the right timing for starting such collaborations, and what the common reasons for failure are.

Florian Hübner is Founder & Co-CEO of Uberall. The startup has developed a cloud-based platform to let small and large businesses get listed and market themselves across multiple location-based services. Uberall has raised more than $50m by leading VCs like Project A and HPE Growth Capital since it was founded in 2012. Originally started in Berlin, the startup by now has a team of 250 employees with offices in San Francisco, Cape Town, Paris, London and Amsterdam. In this episode, Florian shares his key learnings on internationalization.

In our seventh #FromScratch masterclass, David Okuniev taught our audience how to build a product that users love. David is Co-Founder of Typeform. Based in Barcelona, the startup is making the filling in of forms and surveys awesome by helping users to collect data in a conversational way. A passionate creative and musician, David is a full-fledged product designer specialized in UI & UX design. As technical director for the product, he focuses on further developing the successful SaaS platform. Typeform has raised more than $50M in funding from investors like Index Ventures since it was founded in 2011. In this episode, David and moderator Christian Miele (Partner at e.ventures) elaborate on the approach of designing for a „human experience“ (HX), the right data for assessing your product-market fit, and how to align your team to deliver a product that customers build an emotional relationship with.

Dmitri Uvarovski is Co-Founder & CMO at Homeday. Started in 2014, the Cologne-based startup is on a mission to revolutionize the way people sell and buy property. With its platform, Homeday offers data-driven pairing between real estate agents and private property owners to ensure a more transparent, efficient and overall smoother experience for all parties involved. Supported by prominent VCs like Project A Ventures, Paua Ventures, Picus Capital and Axel Springer Digital Ventures, the company has raised more than 20m€ in funding so far. In this episode, Dmitri shares his insights on how he and his team are changing the way people buy and sell properties, the challenges, and opportunities that he sees in the real estate sector, and the role of legislation for enabling innovation.

Tobias Tschötsch is Founder & Managing Director of Contorion. The Berlin-based startup offers a B2B online marketplace for maintenance, repair and operations products. Started in 2014 with the help of investor Project A Ventures, Contorion exited only 3 years later in a presumed $100m+ acquisition to high-quality tool producer Hoffmann Group. Previously, Tobias was Co-Founder & COO of Groupon UK. In this episode, Tobias shares his insights on how to successfully make an exit with your company. Among others, we discuss exit strategy, how to make a deal, and founders' incentivisation.

Susann Hoffmann is Co-Founder of EDITION F, the first business-lifestyle platform for career-interested women in Germany. Started by Susann and Nora-Vanessa Wohlert in 2014, EDITION F has grown into a community-focused platform with 600,000 unique users per month that provides women with the insights, tools and network they need to grow both professionally and personally. In this episode, we talk to Susann about her journey with EDITION F, the differences between men and women when it comes to building companies, the challenges for women to balance family and career, and how to foster female entrepreneurship.

Daniel Krauss is Co-Founder & CIO of FlixBus, which is one of Europes's biggest recent startup success stories. After starting operations in 2013, FlixBus has quickly established itself as Europe’s largest intercity bus network provider that offers an affordable, alternative, and green way to travel. The startup recently entered the US market and started to also offer travel options via FlixTrain. FlixBus has raised several funding rounds from leading VCs like Silver Lake Partners, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures and General Atlantic. Before founding the company in 2011, Daniel worked in different roles at e.g. Siemens and Microsoft. He is also active as a Business Angel, including an investment into klarx. In this episode, Daniel shares the story of FlixBus' success and explains how to put your customers first, use your data the right way, and grow faster than your competition.

Dr. Sophie Chung is Founder & CEO of Qunomedical, a digital health platform that provides its clients access to affordable high-quality healthcare worldwide. With Qunomedical, patients can e.g. find information about procedures, doctors, hospitals, pricing, and destinations. Among others, users can obtain quotes from the hospital of their choice directly through the platform. Based in Berlin, the startup has raised around 2m€ in funding from top-notch VCs like Project A Ventures, 500 Startups and Kima Ventures since it was founded in 2015. In this episode, we discuss with Sophie why healthcare is lacking innovation compared to other industries, the opportunities that exist for entrepreneurs, and how better legislation can foster the digital transformation of healthcare.

Jörg Rheinboldt is a legendary serial tech entrepreneur and investor that has played an integral part in setting up and financing some of Germany's most successful online companies, such as Alando.de (which was acquired by eBay only six months after launch) and N26. He also founded non-profit betterplace.org, which makes donations possible for various causes. Today, he continues to help building companies and making things happen in his role as founding CEO of APX (an accelerator by Axel Springer and Porsche). In this episode, Jörg shares his extensive experience of over 20 years in the digital tech scene. Among others, we discuss what it takes to turn a dream into a successful company by delivering solutions that people actually want and need.

In our sixth #FromScratch masterclass, Florian Heinemann taught our audience how to acquire first users and build a marketing machine when starting a company. Florian is Europe’s number one online marketing expert. Since 2012, he is a Founding Partner of the operational VC firm Project A Ventures. Prior, he was Managing Director of Rocket Internet. In this role, he was instrumental in building Zalando, Global Fashion Group, and eDarling. Before joining Rocket, Florian co-founded several startups and exited two of them (i.e. to Amazon). Florian has been a business angel and founding investor in close to 100 startups including Trivago, Zalando, Home24, CityDeal, Audibene, Affinitas/eDarling, ClassPass, AdScale, Mimi, Bitbond and Movinga. In this episode, Florian elaborates together with moderator Christian Miele (eventures), on how to understand who your key customers are and tailor your product around them. He explains why it is key to start collecting business analytics data from day one and find the right approach between quantitative and qualitative marketing.

Felix van de Sand is Co-Founder of COBE, a digital agency focused on UX design. COBE provides a variety of services to its clients, ranging from design thinking to coding. Mobile and web app development agency COBE.tech also belongs to the group as well as popular Fantasy Football Manager Kickbase, which was initially only built as a design project but ended up becoming one of Germany's most popular apps among football fans. In this episode, we discuss with Felix best practices and common mistakes in UX design. We will especially look into how to design an outstanding UX for startup success.

Ralf Wenzel knows how to build successful digital ventures inside out. As CSO of Delivery Hero, he is responsible for the strategic growth of the Berlin-based tech company that IPO'ed in 2017. He also stil serves as CEO of Foodpanda (sold to Delivery Hero in 2016), an international online food delivery marketplace, and worked in leading senior positions at Skrill and Jamba. Ralf is also active as an angel investor. In this episode, we are exploring the key elements of B2B sales with Ralf. We will discuss the importance of building scale for international growth, the value of networking, and why you first have to invest in various ways to conduct B2B sales successfully.

In our fifth #FromScratch masterclass, Gloria Baeuerlein and Christian Vollmann taught our audience how to raise money. Working as a Principal at Index Ventures in London, Gloria knows the VC industry inside out. In her role, she primarily focuses on growth stage investments across all sectors in Europe and Australia. Being one of Germany’s most influential entrepreneurs, Christian Vollmann (CEO of nebenan.de) also invests in other founders' companies. By now, he has been involved in more than 70 startups like eDarling, trivago, StudiVZ and Researchgate. In 2017, he was voted as the German „Business Angel of the Year". In this week's episode, recorded during our fifth #FromScratch masterclass, Gloria and Christian take a deep dive into raising capital for startups. Together with moderator Christian Miele (Partner at e.ventures), the two elaborate on techniques to determine the amount of money needed, how to structure the fundraising process, and the best practices and tactics to find and convince the right investors.

Melikshah Ünver is the CEO and Co-Founder of Taledo, a curated online recruiting platform that connects top 10% talents with the best open positions in Germany's digital startup ecosystem. After working as a consultant and heading the Group Development sector of well-known HitFox Group in Berlin, Melikshah and his co-founders wanted to start their own venture and founded Taledo to help ambitious professionals find digital roles at market-leading companies. In this episode, we are discussing Taledo's approach of matching applicants with the right employers, the state of the art of recruiting for startups, and the needs of ambitious talents today.

Jens Woloszczak (CEO) and Karl Sponholz (COO) are heading one of Germany’s most exciting FinTechs: Spotcap. Based in Berlin, the startup offers access to flexible finance and operates as a direct lender to small and medium-sized companies in the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, Australia and New Zealand. Backed by investors like Rocket Internet and Holtzbrinck Ventures, the company has raised more than 100m USD in funding so far and continues to grow quickly. In this episode, we discuss with Jens and Karl challenges and best practices for internationalization, how to build a product that users love, and why it is important to fail fast.

Valentin Stalf is Co-Founder & CEO of N26. Over the past five years, he has become one of the world’s most influential founders in FinTech by building one of the fastest growing challenger banks in Europe. Today, N26 has 1 million customers in 17 countries. Having raised a total of $215 million over the years, Valentin is on a mission to bring modern personal banking to users around the world. In this episode, recorded at our fourth "From Scratch" masterclass, Christian Miele (Partner at e.ventures) and Valentin discuss how to balance gut feeling vs. data analysis when building an MVP, the importance of building an "MLP", and how N26 itself was the outcome of a big pivot.

Pawel Chudzinski belongs to the most renowned VCs in Germany and Europe. Working and living in Berlin, he is Co-Founder of early-stage venture capital firm Point Nine Capital. The firm is focused on early-stage investments related to SaaS and digital marketplaces. Startups like Revolut, Typeform, and Delivery Hero belong to its portfolio. In this episode, we are talking to Pawel about best practices on how to raise early-stage funding, stand out among the startups that ask for investments, and what the ideal relationship between VCs and founders should be like. Full list of topics that we discussed with early stage investor Pawel Chudzinski: [00:48 - 03:56] Introduction of Pawel and his professional background [03:57 - 09:15] The ‚secret sauce‘ behind the success of Point Nine Capital [09:16 - 11:33] On the right timing for raising funding at an early stage [11:34 - 13:57] How to find the right balance between bootstrapping and raising VC money [13:58 - 16:20] Point Nine Capital’s criteria when evaluating investment opportunities [16:21 - 18:45] How Point Nine Capital assesses startups with B2B/B2C products [18:46 - 21:15] On the importance and best practices of a good pitch deck [21:16 - 26:15] How to balance honesty and over-selling your startup when pitching [26:16 - 29:12] How to stand out among all the startups that are seeking funding [29:13 - 31:46] Why the valuation of startups is very subjective [31:47 - 35:00] What to be aware of regarding liquidation preferences [35:01 - 37:45] How to choose the right VC as a founder [37:46 - 39:29] Open positions at Point Nine Capital and its portfolio companies

Uwe Horstmann is one of the people that truly stand out in the Berlin startup scene. Only in his early 30’s, he has been Managing Director at Rocket Internet in the past and started his own VC firm that follows a special approach - Project A Ventures does not only invest into startups but also supports them operationally with its own team of experts. Uwe knows what qualities to look for in founding teams to increase the chances of making it to the top. In this episode, recorded at our third "From Scratch" masterclass, Uwe and moderator Christian Miele (Partner at e.ventures) take a deep dive into the underlying elements of startup success with a special focus on the traits of founders that accomplish great things together.   „From Scratch“ is an exclusive series of masterclasses organized by Startup Notes in association with Digital McKinsey. It brings together Europe's top entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders to give their personal insights on becoming digital winners. The lectures are presented by Business Punk.

Dr. Fabian Heilemann rose into the spotlight of the European startup scene after founding DailyDeal together with his brother Ferry. In 2011, they sold the company to Google for $114m. Later, they went on to found FreightHub, which recently raised $23m. Currently, Dr. Fabian Heilemann serves as Partner at renown VC firm Earlybird. In this second lecture of “From Scratch”, our moderator, Christian Miele (Principal at e.Ventures), and Fabian listed the criteria of great business ideas, explained how to identify them in a structured way, and outlined which future trends are offering business opportunities for future entrepreneurs. „From Scratch“ is an exclusive series of masterclasses organized by Startup Notes in association with Digital McKinsey. It brings together Europe's top entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders to give their personal insights on becoming digital winners. The lectures are presented by Business Punk.

Charles von Abercron is the Founder & former CEO of GLOSSYBOX. Started in 2011, GLOSSYBOX is an online subscription service that delivers high-end beauty products directly to its users’ doorstep. Founded by Charles with the backing of Rocket Internet, the startup was successfully sold to The Hut Group in 2017. Having been been responsible for all of the company's operations, including brand management, strategy development and marketing concepts, Charles successfully developed GLOSSYBOX into an international role-model business for subscription commerce and led the startup until 2015. Prior, he was Vice President for International Online Marketing at Groupon International. In this episode, we talk to Charles about the importance of timing when starting a company, the particularities of the beauty industry and advice for increasing one’s personal productivity as a founder.

Finn Age Hänsel is one of the most notable personalities in the German startup scene. Based in Berlin, he is Managing Director of Movinga - an online startup that was founded with the ambition to globally disrupt the moving services industry and is backed by renowned investors like Earlybird Venture Capital, Index Ventures and Global Founders Capital. Before joining Movinga in 2015 and turning the struggling high-growth startup around, Finn was MD of EPIC Companies (a company builder). Prior, he made a name for himself as Co-Founder of THE ICONIC (Australia’s biggest online fashion retailer), which he built up for tech powerhouse Rocket Internet in Sydney. Since 2013, Finn is also Co-Founder of a craft beer brewery called „Berliner Berg“. In this episode, we are discussing with Finn the different phases of a startup’s lifecycle, how to manage a turnaround when your company is struggling, and why founders should not focus too much on their competitors. This is the full list of topics that we discussed with turnaround expert Finn Age Hänsel: [00:37 – 05:21] Introduction of Finn and his professional background [05:22 – 08:07] Finn’s recommendation on working in consulting before becoming an entrepreneur [08:08 – 11:02] Why the moving services industry is one of the most exciting ones for Finn [11:03 – 16:15] On managing the turnaround of a struggling startup [16:16 – 21:05] How to find the right balance between growth and building a robust organization [21:06 – 24:47] How Finn managed the turnaround of Movinga [24:48 – 29:18] On the partial takeover of Move24 after it folded [29:19 – 35:00] Why founders shouldn’t focus too much on their competitors [35:01 – 37:22] Finn’s best advice for aspiring entrepreneurs [37:23 – 39:32] Recruitment opportunities at Movinga

Christoph Gerber belongs to Germany's best-known tech entrepreneurs. Back in 2009, he started Lieferando — one of the first online food delivery startups in Germany. In 2014, Christoph and his co-founders sold the company for €62.9M to the Dutch Takeaway.com Group, which went public only two years later for a valuation of almost €1B. Only shortly after selling Lieferando, Christoph already started from scratch again by founding Talon.One - a SaaS company with a powerful API that enables businesses to create, manage and analyze promotional marketing campaigns. On 27 March 2018, Startup Notes hosted the first event of its new „From Scratch“ masterclass series on digital entrepreneurship in collaboration with Digital McKinsey. Hosted at the McKinsey Experience Studio in Berlin, moderator Christian Miele (Principal at e.ventures) and Christoph Gerber together took a deep dive behind the scenes of the often glorified tech world. In this episode that was recorded at the event, Christoph demystifies entrepreneurship by sharing insights on how he started Lieferando and takes a sweeping swipe at what he calls „Rocketpreneurs“ (life-style entrepreneurs) who either found a company just for the fame or the money. He discusses good and bad reasons to start a company as well as how important it is to take breaks. This episode is brought to with the support of Business Punk.

Chanyu Xu is a seasoned entrepreneur from Berlin. After co-founding several food startups like EAT ÜBER and Eating with the Chefs (backed by star investor Peter Thiel), she became the Founder & CEO of ONO Labs in 2017. ONO LABS creates individualised and life stage-tailored fast moving consumer goods for women by using natural ingredients and smart data. The startup delivers 100% natural nutrition for women before, during and after a pregnancy. In this episode, we talk to Chanyu about trends and success factors in the foodtech space, her plans for ONO Labs, and how to get started with a MVP and make hiring decisions.

Sascha Weiler is Founder & Managing Director at Homebell. The Berlin-based startup has taken on the challenge to digitalize home improvement and living space projects by offering reliable craftsmen services at a fixed quote and fair prices via its platform. Most recently, Homebell successfully raised 11m EUR. Before founding Homebell, Sascha was Co-Founder at Hem, a design studio creating a new generation of sustainable furniture, accessories and lighting. Prior he worked for Rocket Internet and was part of the founders team of Casacanda, which was successfully sold to Fab.com for $10m. After the exit, Sascha served as Executive VP Europe at Fab. In this episode, we are making a deep dive with Sascha into marketing operations. He shares his advice on how to proper set up your online marketing campaigns, startup fundraising efforts, and how to put learning experiences over making money in the short term.

Seth Pierrepont joined the international VC firm Accel Partners in 2013. At Accel, he focuses on investments in software, consumer marketplace and mobile businesses. He helped lead Accel’s investments and ongoing work in CallSign, Carwow, Kry, and Soldo. Prior to Accel, Seth invested in European companies with Vision Capital and advised technology and media companies on strategy with Oliver Wyman in San Francisco. Originally from America, he is based in London. In this episode, we are talking to Seth about the potential of the European startup scene, Accel’s investment criteria, his best VC advice for founders and why entrepreneurs should show that they are really passionate about what they are working on.

Michael Brehm is one of the biggest names in the German startup scene. As former Executive Director & Investor at social network startup VZnetzwerke (with its brands studiVZ, schülervz, meinVZ), he forever influenced the society in his home country in many ways in the 2000’s before industry giant Facebook even entered the local market. Having built and sold several companies (e.g. to Google and eBay) and taken another one public in his career, he is especially a renowned expert on sales & marketing. Among his notable ventures was e.g. Rebate Networks, which has rolled out couponing websites all across the world. Since 2014, Michael is a Partner at Redstone - a first of its kind venture capital firm with the approach of „VC-as-a-service“. Moreover, in the past years, he has been involved in supporting startups like Bonaverde as a member of the supervisory board and also working on launching new ventures. In this episode, we are doing a deep dive with Michael into startup marketing & sales. Among others, we are talking to him about how to implement a coherent startup culture (especially in relation to sales efforts), the development of studiVZ back in the days, the importance of paying detailed attention to your product & customers, the qualities that make a great CMO nowadays as well as useful marketing tools and how to combine them. He is also sharing insights about his new startup i2x that he kept in stealth mode for the past two years.

Yassin Hankir is one of Germany’s FinTech stars. After a few years as a Consultant at McKinsey, he co-founded vaamo, a digital wealth management solution, and in 2015 started savedroid - an innovative personal savings app. This interview is a special one - being Startup Notes’ very first follow-up episode. One year after our first conversation with Yassin on FinTech in Germany, we talked to him again triggered by some really exciting developments at savedroid. The startup recently entered the cryptocurrency space. More specifically, savedroid is currently staging its own ICO to raise money for its vision to democratize access to cryptocurrencies. Savedroid wants to enable users to get easy access to smart crypto-savings plans and superior crypto-investment opportunities without any technological adoption barriers - leveraging savedroid’s existing core assets of AI and great UX. In this interview, we talk about Yassin’s view on the future of cryptocurrencies, regulation in the space and we dive into the topic of ICOs. There’s definitely some really great insights in here - both for people who are new to cryptocurrencies, but also more knowledgeable members of the community. --------- More info on savedroid’s ICO: http://bit.ly/2FqgewB (main sale ends 9th March 2018) Our first episode with Yassin from February 2017: http://bit.ly/2CiOSKr

Anna Alex belongs to Germany's top female entrepreneurs. Since 2012, she and her co-founder Julia Bösch have been disrupting the fashion industry with OUTFITTERY. The startup offers a curated online shopping experience for men that allows their clients to save time while receiving professional style advice by its stylists. OUTFITTERY is operating in eight European countries, employs 300 people and has raised roughly 50m EUR in funding so far (e.g. from well-known VC’s like Mangrove Capital and Northzone). Prior to starting her own business, Anna was Head of Product Management & IT at a Swiss online company and also worked for German startup powerhouse Rocket Internet as well as Smava. She holds a Master’s degree in Economics. In this episode, we are talking to Anna about her entrepreneurial journey of building OUTFITTERY from scratch, the reasons for the low number of female founders in Europe, the power of good storytelling, and collecting and analyzing the right data for delivering your clients the best product and experience possible. Here is the full list of topics that we discussed with fashion industry disruptor Anna Alex: [01:06 – 1:36] Introduction of Anna and her background [01:37 – 02:17] Explanation of OUTFITTERY’s business model [02:18 – 03:28] On OUTFITTERY’s different growth stages and focus topics so far [03:29 – 04:21] One thing that people would be surprised to know about OUTFITTERY [04:22  – 04:49] The split between different roles among OUTFITTERY’s staff [04:50  – 06:51] Anna’s worst management decision and her learnings from it [Listener Question] [06:52  – 08:23] OUTFITTERY’s unfair advantage in comparison to its competitors [08:24 – 08:56] Anna’s view on provocative media coverage [08:57 – 10:02] What the future holds for OUTFITTERY in 2018 & 2019 [10:03 – 13:05] How the fashion companies of the future will be based on technology [13:06 – 14:57] The role of Amazon in the fashion ecommerce space [14:58 – 18:00] Anna’s opinion on the importance to address the topic „female founders“ [18:01 – 22:00] On the power of good storytelling when building a startup [22:01 – 27:01] Anna’s best practices on structuring her work day [Listener Question] [27:02 – 27:49] The KPIs to track for retaining great talent for your startup [27:50 – 28:12] The one must-read book for founders [28:13  – 29:43] The best life advice that Anna has been given [29:44 – 30:55] Startups that former employees went on to found [30:56 – 31:19] One thing that Anna fundamentally disagrees on with other people [31:20 – 32:30] Advice that founders should write down on post-it notes and always remember [32:31 – 34:10] Anna’s ultimate vision for OUTFITTERY