Fayl Tales

Anton Roe thought he was doing everything right - growing fast, hitting targets, building teams. But somewhere along the way, things broke. People started leaving. The board lost confidence. And Anton had to face the kind of feedback no one wants to hear.

In this episode, he opens up about what it’s really like to lead through failure, and how those moments reshaped his approach to leadership, growth, and culture. From early days in the UK recruitment scene to launching businesses in Texas and Australia, Anton’s story is packed with honest insights for anyone navigating the messier side of growth.

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At 15, Michael Reitzenstein was already selling games. By 21, he’d helped build one of the first web-game businesses with in-game payments - pulling in thousands per day - while hiring fast, navigating co-founder tensions, and learning on the fly from an island off Auckland.

In this Fayl Tales episode, Michael opens up about:

• Early wins and why product-market fit isn’t passion
• The dangers of scaling too soon
• How not knowing your audience kills conversion
• Luck vs. skill, and the discipline to keep going
• What he’d tell his 21-year-old self

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In this episode, entrepreneur and technologist Dietmar Gombotz shares the story of founding UGP Materials, a spin-out built around a novel high-performance polymer with a greener, water-based production process. Early traction with aerospace partners and major corporates suggested a clear path forward - until COVID hit, timelines stretched, and co-founder dynamics shifted.

Dietmar opens up about:

• How to test co-founder fit (and why it’s tougher than marriage)
• The dangers of betting everything on one “perfect” partner
• Why controllers and gatekeepers can stall the best technical sales
• What a thoughtful shutdown looks like - and the emotions behind it

A candid, practical conversation for founders, spin-outs, and anyone navigating the messy middle of deep-tech entrepreneurship.

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 In this episode, we sit down with Katja Lisanskaya, a talented software engineer and creative thinker, who shares the story behind Everent, her ambitious peer-to-peer tenting platform for everyday items. Katja rapidly built a sleek, functional product, but soon discovered a hard truth many creators face: a great solution doesn’t matter if it’s not solving the right problem. 

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Dieter Rappold has been at the forefront of the digital and startup scene for over two decades - as a serial entrepreneur, business angel, and founder of one of the DACH region’s largest independent agencies. In this episode, we dive into Value Lab, his venture aimed at solving Europe’s SME succession crisis. Dieter also reflects on the growth engine behind Speedinvest Pirates and why taking risks is essential to meaningful innovation.

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Krisztina Szarvas always knew she wanted to build something of her own—but she didn’t expect to take over a family medical business while caring for a newborn. In this episode, she shares how that unexpected challenge shaped her as a founder and led to her next big venture: rethinking respiratory machines during the pandemic. It’s a story of resilience, rapid learning, and turning vision into tangible impact.

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What happens when two industry heavyweights—one from high finance, the other from cutting-edge tech—join forces to create a revolutionary startup? In this episode of Fayl Tales, I sit down with a guest who has worn some of the most prestigious titles in finance: Vice President at Morgan Stanley, Director at Merrill Lynch, and a guiding force behind multiple IPOs.

Together with a tech visionary, he built a product before WhatsApp even existed—an innovation that could have changed the way we communicate. So, why did it fizzle out instead of taking off? 

Join us for a deep dive into what went wrong, what could have been, and why sometimes, playing it too safe can be the biggest risk of all.

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 In this debut episode of Fayl Tales, I sit down with Nasib Fathi, co-founder of AristoQuant, a startup that aimed to disrupt the hedge fund industry. While pursuing his Master’s in Finance, Nasib and his team quickly gained interest, built a team of over 10 volunteers, and pivoted multiple times in just a few months. But in their rush to shake up the industry, they realized they had taken on too much, too soon, and with too little experience. Tune in as we unpack the lessons from this ambitious but short-lived venture. 

Please note that a reference about Blackrock having $11.2 million in investment is actually $46 billion.

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