Digital Transformers by Boldheart

My name is Kilian Karrasch and in this episode, I talk to Daniel Hanemann, CEO and Co-Founder of Wundertax.

Daniel went from building up Foodpanda in Hong Kong to founding Wundertax, one of the leading tax software in Germany.

But his story has a twist that taught him many lessons…

In our podcast, we talk about: 

• what his experience as a re-founder taught him about succeeding as an entrepreneur
• what most entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs get wrong when starting out
• growth strategies on how to grow your business 60% y.o.y. - without increasing your costs

Daniel on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/hanemann

Wundertax: wundertax.de

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a minute to subscribe, like or share this podcast to spread the word, so I can continue bringing you outstanding guests and conversations. 🙏

And if you have questions about this episode or on how to start building digital products or services, reach out to me on LinkedIn (you can find me at linkedin.com/in/kiliankarrasch/) or write me an email at [email protected].

Thanks again for listening to the Digital Transformers podcast. 🚀

00:00 - Introduction

00:28 - Who is Daniel Hanemann

00:40 - Topics of the podcast

01:24 - What led Daniel to become an entrepreneur

02:42 - Idea discovery: Daniel’s epiphany that led to “Wundertax”

03:58 - Why Daniel left his startup after two years

06:02 - An unusual story: how Daniel rejoined “Wundertax” later to accelerate growth

07:05 - How to leverage mixed heritage to build successful companies and cultures

11:03 - The benefits of having a diverse team

12:58 - The challenges of having a diverse team

18:31 - How to decide what features to focus on when starting out

20:09 - Why intentionality is one of the most important traits for founders

22:58 - How to decide on the “one thing” the company should focus on

24:48 - How to deal with co-founder differences

27:12 - How to cope with leaving behind the innovation you’ve dedicated your life to

28:47 - Why founders should prioritize physical and mental health

30:53 - How “Wundertax” grew 60% every year with flat costs - and how you can do so, too

35:22 - The advantage of having a small and lean team of experts

42:02 - The importance of estimating customer lifetime value into marketing budgets

46:06 - The three best digital growth strategies

Today I welcome Marketing Executive and Keynote Speaker Maria von Scheel-Plessen to the show.

Maria started her career as an e-commerce manager at Hugo Boss and - after leadership roles at Amazon and the rocked-backed Asian Zalando Zalora, went on to digitally transform the luxury maison Montblanc to move it into the omnichannel age. She has been nominated Luxury Women to Watch 2021, Business Punk Watchlist 2022 & Business Insider Future Shaper 2022.

In today’s episode, we talk about: 

• how to transform a luxury maison into a leading digital player
• 3 tactics to successfully market to GenZ
• and her personal advice on building a successful career in the luxury industry

Connect with Maria on her socials 📲

Instagram: @mariaplessen

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mariavsp

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a minute to subscribe, like or share this podcast to spread the word, so I can continue bringing you outstanding guests and conversations. 🙏

And if you have questions to this episode or on how to build outstanding products or services for your next generation luxury customers, reach out to me on LinkedIn (you can find me at linkedin.com/in/kiliankarrasch/) or write me an email at [email protected].

Thanks again for listening to the Digital Transformers podcast. 🚀

Timeline:

0:00 - Intro

0:30 - Who is Maria von Scheel-Plessen

0:55 - Episode overview

1:16 - Why involving external parties is crucial to accelerate innovation success

2:50 - Why Montblanc embarked on the journey of digital transformation

5:51 - What challenges Montblanc faced in the transformation and how Maria overcame them

9:06 - How to prioritize what departments of the company to digitalize first

11:18 - How to convince stakeholders you’re taking the right digitalization approach

14:37 - How support circles in a company can foster innovation

16:25 - How Maria’s support circle at Montblanc came together

18:21 - Why it’s important to communicate the mission of your department

20:23 - How Gen-Z will shape the luxury industry

23:24 - Strategies and tactics to successfully engage Gen-Z

26:56 - How to deal with brand risk when engaging in new marketing channels like the metaverse

28:11 - Should luxury brands collaborate with (micro-)influencers

30:36 - The one tip Maria would give founders and corporate professionals that want to be successful in the luxury industry

Serial entrepreneur and angle investor Robert Ermich went from being a consultant to building one of the fastest-growing online portals for mobile phones and contracts, which he later exited to Mobilezone. 🚀

In this episode, we talk about:

• How to rapidly build up a leading platform in a market dominated by big companies
• 3 tips on fostering a strong innovation company culture
• Succeeding in the new era of digital marketing

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a minute to subscribe, like or share this podcast to spread the word, so I can continue bringing you outstanding guests and conversations. 🙏

And if you have questions to this episode or on how you can identify best build outstanding platforms, reach out to me on LinkedIn (you can find me at linkedin.com/in/kiliankarrasch/) or write me an email at [email protected].

Thanks again for listening to the Digital Transformers podcast. 🚀

In this episode, I talk to Victor Henning, serial entrepreneur, investor, and former advisor to the UK and Dutch governments on technology policy.  

Victor went from opening and raising 75000€ for the first student cafe in the town where he did his Bachelor, to building Mendeley, one of the world's leading platforms for scientific research. After his successful exit, he then went on to build the world's best smartphone camera system with Fjorden.

Victor has been nominated “Best European Startup Founder” by Techcrunch and holds investments in more than 15 startups.  

In today’s episode, we talk about the following:

• how to identify strong customer pain points and build a business around it
• how to organically acquire tons of customers - in B2B and B2C
• and other core learnings of building leading tech companies

Victor Henning on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/victorhenning

Victor's smartphone camera system Fjorden: fjorden.co

👋 Get in touch with Kilian here: linkedin.com/in/kiliankarrasch

Do you have an innovative idea you would like to validate through market research or rapid prototyping or a validated concept you would like to bring to life (e.g. in form of an MVP)? Then book a free consultation here: http://bit.ly/3Xr0BvG 🚀

Timeline:

0:00 - Introduction

0:48 - Who is Victor Henning

1:25 - What we cover in the episode

1:49 - What made Victor the entrepreneur he is today

5:24 - How Victor founded 2 leading companies and which walls he encountered in the process

9:32 - How to validate and size market potential - and what not to do

16:49 - How to rapidly validate prototypes

21:59 - How to use content-marketing the right way to get vast amounts of customers

25:51 - Challenges in scaling a science platform into a market leader

28:40 - The advantage of keeping your product simple

34:17 - How to artfully deal with thousands of customer complaints

37:43 - Why your entire team needs to understand the customers problems

38:27 - Advice on how to succeed in launching new products and services

In this episode, I talk to Bonita Grupp, Head of E-Commerce & HR at TRIGEMA and possible successor to the current CEO Wolfgang Grupp. 

As a member of the family business dynasty, Bonita has played a key role in the digital transformation of the traditional clothing retailer - and has been recognized as Top 40 under 40 for her achievements. 

In our episode, we talked about the following: 

• what it takes for traditional family businesses and organizations to succeed in digital transformations?
• how to win over GenZ employees - also for classical functions such as production
• why strong values will be the core differentiator for companies in future?

Bonita Grupp on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bonita-grupp-396a4923

Jobs @TRIGEMA: https://www.trigema.de/karriere/jobs/

👋 Get in touch with Kilian here: linkedin.com/in/kiliankarrasch

Do you have an innovative idea you would like to validate through market research or rapid prototyping or a validated concept you would like to bring to life (e.g. in form of an MVP)? Then book a free consultation here: http://bit.ly/3Xr0BvG 🚀

Timeline:

0:00 - Introduction

0:56 - Who is Bonita Grupp

1:18 - Topics covered in the podcast

2:31 - The challenge of digitizing TRIGEMA

4:36 - Why the digitization journey of TRIGEMA has differed to that of other competitors

6:25 - The crucial issue that TRIGEMA had to solve through digital innovation

10:22 - How TRIGEMA communicated the transformation to employees and what the action steps were to kick the process off

12:30 - How Bonita selected the individuals to drive the transformation at TRIGEMA

14:06 - How TRIGEMA as a traditional company is approaching New Work

16:52 - Which work values matter to Gen-Z

18:09 - How TRIGEMA is adapting it’s work culture to cater to Gen-Z

21:02 - The #1 tip Bonita would give other corporates who want to successfully transform themselves digitally

24:11 - The biggest challenge companies have to overcome when it comes to digital transformation

In this episode, I talk to Carsten Priebs, CIO of Randstad.

Carsten is a multi-award-winning digitalization, IT, and innovation top-level executive who has led hundred-million dollar transformation and innovation projects at some of the leading companies in their industry, including DB Netz AG and Randstad. 

In this episode, we talk about the following:

• how he as CIO took one of Randstad’s award-winning apps from “zero” to market in 6 weeks
• his top learnings as an innovation executive
• and his suggestions for everyone who wants to build highly successful digital products and services fast

Carsten's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/carstenpriebs

Carsten's Blog: https://www.tech-leadership.de/

👋 Get in touch with Kilian here: linkedin.com/in/kiliankarrasch

Do you have an innovative idea you would like to validate through market research or rapid prototyping or a validated concept you would like to bring to life (e.g. in form of an MVP)? Then book a free consultation here: http://bit.ly/3Xr0BvG 🚀

Timeline:

0:00 - Introduction

0:48 - Who is Carsten Priebs?

1:09 - Topic overview

1:33 - Carsten’s secret

2:33 - How endurance sport shapes business success

3:40 - Building an award-winning app

5:29 - Need identification: the big pain point to solve

7:12 - The secret to developing an app in only 6 weeks - as a corporate 9:02 - Determining app features & functioning

12:06 - How to evaluate the viability of your idea - the falsification test

15:42 - Validating your idea with “The three phases of a lean startup”

19:59 - How to pilot-test

21:14 - Project timeline

21:51 - The biggest challenge in the app development process

23:07 - How to convince stakeholders to use the platform

26:07 - Why developing a non-profit app can be a smart business move

28:32 - The two tips Carsten would give founders and corporate innovation leaders seeking to build similar digital products or services

31:13 - The key success factors to pay attention to when bringing digital products and services to market really fast.Timeline:

Christian Ammer climbed the IT ranks at Siemens Financial Services and Real Estate and later led major international IT carve-out projects at Siemens before shifting into the Financial SME and Legal Sector.

He has been awarded twice Top10 CIO of the year and won the Digital Transformation Award in 2021 for his outstanding work.

In today’s episode, we talk about the following:

• what it takes to transform companies in traditional industries such as legal services into digital leaders
• how organizations can leverage digitalization to enhance their service business 
• and why IT M&As only make sense in particular circumstances - and what it takes to make them a success

Christian on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/cha23x

Christian's book - Praxis Guide für Digital Leader: https://www.hanser-kundencenter.de/fachbuch/artikel/9783446475625

👋 Get in touch with Kilian here: linkedin.com/in/kiliankarrasch

Do you have an innovative idea you would like to validate through market research or rapid prototyping or a validated concept you would like to bring to life (e.g. in form of an MVP)? Then book a free consultation here: http://bit.ly/3Xr0BvG 🚀

Timeline:

0:00 - Introduction

0:46 - Who is Christian Ammer

1:16 - What topics are covered in the episode

2:18 - How can you radically digitize a traditional law business

3:31 - Creating technology to enhance the work of lawyers 

7:10 - What can you do if you can’t digitize your core business

11:40 - How to overcome the challenge of change in your business

13:34 - What services are crucial to enhance lawyer’s and service personnel’s ways of working

16:03 - The advantage of law firms using digital platform services instead of startup tools

20:07 - Christians' two core learnings in transforming Noerr into a digital leader

25:36 - How to evaluate if the willingness to transform the business is high enough 

30:18 - Why a positive perception of IT is essential in your company and how to change this perception

35:48 - should companies acquire new IT talents to function as role models in the company

38:15 - Christian’s tips on how to facilitate a cultural transformation

40:18 - What are the most crucial challenges the legal industry will have to face in terms of digitization

42:50 - Why artificial intelligence won’t solve everything in the legal business

Today I talk to Marcus Stahl, the founder of Tonies SE

At the age of 45, Marcus and his co-founder created a digital story playback device for small children and within only 6 years of starting operations, scaled the company to IPO.

Today, Tonies has won numerous design awards and has sold its category-defining products to users in more than 100 countries. 

But their story wasn’t easy. Frustrated by the lack of child-friendly solutions to consume audio dramas, Marcus and his co-founder dedicated 3 years to creating a solution before hitting the market. In the process, they learned what it takes to conquer the next generation of customers.  

In today’s episode, we cover:

• why iterative product development is wrong when launching radically innovative products and why you should focus on product perfection instead
• the importance of customer knowledge and passion across the team when building a category-defining product
• and other important factors when building and scaling a hardware-based company to IPO.

Marcus on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/marcus-stahl-b77a5022b

Tonies (Company): tonies.de

👋 Get in touch with Kilian here: linkedin.com/in/kiliankarrasch

Do you have an innovative idea you would like to validate through market research or rapid prototyping or a validated concept you would like to bring to life (e.g. in form of an MVP)? Then book a free consultation here: http://bit.ly/3Xr0BvG 🚀

Timeline:

0:00 - Introduction

0:19 - Introducing Marcus Stahl & Tonies

1:04 - Topics covered in the episode

2:32 - Marcus Stahl’s background and how he got the idea for Tonies

5:57 - The biggest challenge Tonies had to overcome in the first year

9:44 - The importance of technological development for Tonies 

12:13 - Was the focus on the hardware/physical product or on the storytelling

13:30 - What was the major success factor for Tonies

15:38 - How can you ensure that your product is successful once it hits the market

18:09 - Why you should focus on product perfection before launching radically innovative products

20:23 - Why customer support is so important

22:54 - Being flexible in your daily work as a founder

24:01 - Biggest challenges Tonies faced while building up the company to its size today

26:56 - The importance of customer knowledge and passion across the team when building a category-defining product

29:15 - Advice for staying close to the customer while internationalizing

32:04 - Marcus Stahl’s number one learning during his journey of building an IPO Company

In this episode, I talk to Manuel Müller, Founder & CEO of Emma the Sleep Company, Entrepreneur of the Year 2021, WHU, Kellogg, HKUST, and Harvard alumni, and angel investor.

Manuel went from founding his first business at the age of 19 during his traineeship to building Emma The Sleep Company into the leading D2C Sleep Company in the world that is on the path of reaching $1B in sales - despite only having raised only 7M in total funding and despite facing competition from half a billion funding behemoths such as Casper. 

We'll talk about his 3 core learnings when it comes to building market-leading D2C companies, notably about:

• how a lack of investor funding helped him to build the leading company in the space
• tips on how to stay close to the customers while scaling
• the smartest way to identify opportunities worthwhile pursuing

Plus we cover many more insights on founding teams, inspiring the right culture, etc.

Manuel Müller: linkedin.com/in/manuel-mueller-6300022b

Manuel's company: emma-sleep.com

👋 Get in touch with Kilian here: linkedin.com/in/kiliankarrasch

Do you have an innovative idea you would like to validate through market research or rapid prototyping or a validated concept you would like to bring to life (e.g. in form of an MVP)? Then book a free consultation here: http://bit.ly/3Xr0BvG 🚀

Timeline:

0:00 - Preview

0:37 - Episode Introduction

0:58 - Who is Manuel Müller

1:35 - Topics covered in the episode

3:06 - Manuel’s background and early life that led him to become a founder

6:19 - Why Manuel decided he wanted to start his own venture

9:21 - How Manual overcame critical situations on his founder journey

12:03 - The difficulty of having to be first-order profitable

14:06 - How to deal with the mental pressure of building a company

18:07 - How Manuel and Dennis created a strong co-founder relationship

19:44 - Scaling a business without VC funding

21:15 - The hypothesis that money will make you succeed

22:41 - The core differentiator that made Emma succeed

27:36 - Why Manuel changed the initial business model and built Emma as a side business

33:44 - Transitioning from a side business to a core business

35:04 - How big corporations do innovation

37:10 - The creative way that Emma uses to validate their product

38:15 - The importance of Emma’s product positioning in the market

41:42 - Why one has to change products to the liking of consumer Associations

44:18 - Manuel’s number one suggestion for founders/corporates to create innovative products

In this episode, I talk to serial entrepreneur and super angel investor Stephan Schubert.

Stephan went from bootstrapping his company Onvista to taking it public in 1.5 years and has since exited 3 more companies. As an investor, he has since invested in more than 60 companies including unicorns such as Spotify, Airbnb, Zooplus, and Audibene, and has supported first-hand the rise of many category-leading companies. 

In our episode, we discuss: 

• how you can maximize your chances of building a successful company - and of achieving true financial freedom
• the best indicator for sustainable product-market fit
• how to nail sales and minimize costs as a startup from day 1

Stephan Schubert: linkedin.com/in/stephanschubert1

Investment Anfragen an [email protected]

👋 Get in touch with Kilian here: linkedin.com/in/kiliankarrasch

Do you have an innovative idea you would like to validate through market research or rapid prototyping or a validated concept you would like to bring to life (e.g. in form of an MVP)? Then book a free consultation here: http://bit.ly/3Xr0BvG 🚀

Timeline:

0:00 - Introduction

0:17 - Who is Stephan Schubert

0:50 - Topics of the episode

1:20 - What are “camel” companies and why are they so promising

2:46 - How success should be defined in the startup industry

3:56 - Why the probability of success is higher for camel companies than unicorns

7:32 - The problems of unicorn companies

8:08 - The business models of camel companies

8:30 - Why camels have high contribution margins

12:04 - Why the company “Emma” became so successful as a camel

14:01 - How Stephan managed to make his company “Vista” a success

17:23 - Why sales should be the top priority for every founder

19:11 - Why Stephan defines product-market fit differently

21:29 - Incremental or innovative vs. disruptive or revolutionary products

22:49 - The Mindset of camel companies that makes them successful 

23:06 - What Stephan looks for when investing in B2C businesses 

24:25 - Stephan gives examples of creative ways to reach the end customer

26:15 - Should the evaluation or exit price of founders define success

27:47 - Exit possibilities for camel companies vs. for unicorns

29:26 - Two things you should consider when building a camel company

31:10 - The factors Stephan pays attention to when investing in a company

32:47 - Stephans number one advice to founders who want to build a successful company

34:58 - Why you should consider building a camel instead of a unicorn

37:35 - Why camels lead to more personal wealth