Founders-Meeting

Episode Overview

When Laura Katzensteiner joined Keypitt, she asked whether there was room for another founder. The answer was "not currently." She took the job anyway. She had worked out that she adds the most value once a product exists and there are real problems to solve, not at stage zero with nothing but an idea. Today she's co-founder and COO, and she's leading the company's first fundraise.

Keypitt was founded in Copenhagen by Karla Pitt Winther, with CTO and co-founder André Bergan. It replaces paper cloakroom tickets with the KeyPass, a reusable digital pass for nightclubs, concert venues and conferences. It sounds simple, but investors can't put the company in a box: it's not quite SaaS, not quite fintech, not quite hospitality. We get into what it took to grow from employee to co-founder, how Laura is preparing to raise DKK 2.5–3M from angels, building tech simple enough for her mother, and why AI is making every brand look the same.

🔑 In this episode, we talk about:

• Asking for a founder seat, hearing "not currently," and growing into the role anyway
• Why she didn't want to join a startup at "stage zero"
• Growing up between two very different parents, and a father who offered to work for free to prove his value
• Learning from Karla's pivots from NFC to QR codes and from tablets to phones
• Building a product that's deliberately "not so high tech" so her mother can use it too
• Why Keypitt doesn't fit neatly into SaaS, fintech, e-commerce or hospitality, and what that means for fundraising
• Raising DKK 2.5–3M from angel investors, and why they're looking for "smart money" with payments experience
• Why AI is making every brand look the same, and how to put the human back in

🧠 Key Takeaways

Join where you add the most value, not where it's most glamorous. Laura knew she wouldn't add the most value at the idea stage, so she looked for a startup where her skills would count from day one.

Simple beats impressive when your users are everyone. A product used across a whole society has to work for the 70-year-old concertgoer as well as the tech-savvy one.

Being hard to categorise is a pitching problem, not a product problem. Investors think in verticals, so if you don't fit one, you first have to convince them you're close enough to talk to.

Pitch the vision, not only the proof. Laura noticed she tends to talk about what exists today, while research suggests men pitch what's coming. Founders need both.

Raise for brains as much as money. With paying customers already, Keypitt is raising to grow faster and to get strategic help from people who have built bigger things.

Let AI build the draft, not the personality. Generate the website or the post, then take the time to add one thing that's unmistakably you.

🗣️ Sound Bites

"When I joined, I asked whether they were open to having another founder, and the answer I received was not really, or not currently."

"Most people will be met with a wardrobe in their life. They have received a paper ticket. Why have we not questioned this?"

"For the guest, we want to make the experience forgettable. But for the employee who stands in the wardrobe, that's their everyday life."

📍 Chapter Highlights

00:00 – Cold open

01:00 – Welcoming Laura: the software running the cloakroom

01:43 – Growing up in Vienna, and a father who offered to work for free

04:33 – A rainy boat at Tech BBQ, and asking for a founder seat before day one

08:54 – Why Keypitt: the paper ticket nobody questioned

10:16 – Learning from Karla's pivots, and why resilience matters most

13:02 – High-tech vs. intuitive: building for her mother

15:08 – The company that fits no box, and pitching the vision vs. what exists today

20:07 – Dead phones, lost tickets, and Karla's origin story

23:31 – A last-minute payments partner over Christmas

26:11 – Preparing for a first fundraise, and raising DKK 2.5–3M from angels

31:49 – "Fundraising is a social game," and raising as a female-founded team

37:51 – Expanding abroad, and when the business case works for a venue

42:35 – The through line across customers, and backups for guests without a phone

44:11 – Proudest moments: a big nightclub launch, and happy wardrobe staff

49:56 – Branding to guests and venues at the same time

55:17 – Why Denmark, and why AI is making every brand look the same

1:02:49 – The first full-time hire, a team of Leos, and "freedom under responsibility"

1:10:04 – Where to find Laura and Keypitt, and closing thoughts

🔗 Links & Resources

Keypitt: keypitt.com

Laura Katzensteiner on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/laura-katzensteiner

Keypitt on Instagram: instagram.com/keypitt_official

Keypitt on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/100185831

Keypitt on Facebook: facebook.com/keypitt

🏢 Companies / Organisations Mentioned

Keypitt: Copenhagen startup behind the KeyPass, a reusable digital cloakroom pass for venues

Supervillain: one of Copenhagen's biggest nightclubs and Keypitt's first major customer

Clue: the period-tracking app whose founder, Ida Tin, called fundraising "a social game" in a past Founders-Meeting interview

Tech BBQ: the Copenhagen event where Helga and Laura first met

SERIOUS.BUSINESS host Helga's company

🧡 Why You'll Love This Episode

Laura was told there was no founder seat, took the job anyway, and made herself so useful that the seat came to her. If you're a founder wondering when to bring in a co-founder, or an employee wondering if you could become one, this conversation shows how it can happen.

📣 Connect with Us

This podcast is brought to you by SERIOUS.BUSINESS. If you're scaling fast but your messaging, your story, your brand haven't caught up—let's fix that 👇🏻 👉 Apply for your FREE Brand Masterplan 🦄

Frederik Sally is trying to teach machines to read the parts of a conversation that never make it into words: the hesitation before an answer, the confidence behind a claim, the nervous energy under a smile. If he and his team succeed, one of the first careers their technology could make obsolete is his own mother's. She has spent her life running a communication consultancy and writing books on how people talk to each other. Frederik tells her as much, and she jokes that he might just put her out of a job. He isn't sure the two things are connected. He suspects it's more coincidence than inheritance. But it's hard to ignore that he also has a grandfather still launching ventures at almost 90 and a biological father who ran one of Denmark's first commercial radio stations. Something in the family clearly likes building things other people said couldn't be built.

That instinct led him and two co-founders, Paula Petcu and Line Clemmensen, to found Interhuman AI, a Copenhagen startup building what Frederik calls a "social intelligence layer" for AI. The idea didn't start where it is now. It began as a therapist app, failed to find buyers, and pivoted hard once the founders noticed that companies were far more interested in the underlying technology than in the product itself. That pivot has since raised a €2 million pre-seed round, and Interhuman AI is now betting on sales training and user research as the use cases that prove the technology works before the bigger, harder problems (cultural nuance, healthcare, therapy) are ready to tackle.

Whatever stage you're building at, this conversation will land somewhere familiar: being early to a market that isn't ready yet, discovering your actual business by watching what customers ask for instead of what you set out to sell, and using story and branding to buy yourself time while the technology catches up.

🔑 In this episode, we talk about:

What Interhuman AI's "social intelligence layer" actually reads (tone, hesitation, confidence, body language) and why today's LLMs miss all of it

Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs: a grandfather still starting companies near 90, a mother who built a career teaching communication, and a biological father who ran early commercial radio in Denmark

The pivot from a failed therapist app to licensing the underlying tech to sales-training and user-research platforms

Raising a €2 million pre-seed round, and why deep tech is a harder sell to European investors than American ones

How they collect training data: Creative Commons sources, synthetic data, and recording their own lives, including a rose party, with Meta smart glasses

Competing with hyperscalers like OpenAI and Anthropic and specialists like Hume AI, and why depth beats general intelligence for this problem

Turning down an investor who wanted the technology used for defense and lie detection

Building the company's ethical guardrails around the EU AI Act

A pilot with the Region of Copenhagen helping parents practice hard conversations with kids who have additional needs

Why Frederik thinks a single homemade video did more to open investor doors than any slide deck

The 93%-nonverbal statistic he's been told by his own behavioral scientists to stop quoting

🧠 Key Takeaways

Sell what the market is asking for, not what you set out to build. Interhuman AI's therapist app flopped, but the underlying technology kept generating inbound interest. That signal, not the original plan, became the business.

Being early means testing constantly, not waiting to be proven right. With no playbook to follow, the team treats every week as a chance to pivot, informed by pilots and customer feedback rather than a fixed roadmap.

Sometimes speed beats accuracy. Their new "real-time experimental" model trades some precision for instant feedback, on the theory that a rough first read (much like meeting a stranger) can still be useful while a fuller picture builds over the conversation.

Draw your ethical line before you need the money. The founders turned down a defense-focused investor before they had funding secured, so there was never a moment where the answer might have been different.

Branding can open doors the technology hasn't earned yet. A short, well-made video of signals overlaid on a conversation did more to get early investor meetings than research slides, and the team kept using it for almost two years.

People remember the trust a conversation created, not what was said in it. Two years after meeting at a conference, neither Frederik nor Helga can recall their actual conversation, only that it built enough trust to stay in touch, which is itself the thesis Interhuman AI is built on.

Specialization can beat scale for narrow, deep problems. Frederik doesn't think general models will out-compete focused ones on things like cultural nuance and personal baseline, because that depth isn't what the big labs are optimizing for.

A mismatched skill set among co-founders can be the real fundraising asset. Investors backed the combination of Frederik's storytelling, a technical AI researcher, and a data scientist, not any one of those alone.

🗣️ Sound Bites

• "She tells me that if we succeed in teaching this AI the things we are trying to do, it could potentially take over what she's been doing her whole life."
• "You're nodding right now, for example. That is a signal that is important in this conversation. You're understanding what I'm saying, you're acknowledging, you're listening. All these signals we're trying to teach a model to pick up on."
• "I can remember you, and I can remember maybe two more, out of the maybe fifty people I talk with at these conferences. So that's definitely something."
• "We turned down an investor that wanted us to go the defense route. Because to the bone, we want to do AI for good."
• "Once they saw this very short video clip, they immediately understood it. From that, we just learned that it means something, what you show."

📍 Chapter Highlights

00:03 – Kicking off, and checking the clock before diving in

00:31 – Welcoming Frederik, founder of Interhuman AI: teaching machines to read what's beneath the words

03:07 – Frederik's childhood and a family of entrepreneurs

04:03 – A grandfather still launching ventures near 90, and a mother who teaches communication for a living

07:03 – The original idea: a therapist app

09:23 – The pivot: companies wanted the underlying tech, not the app

10:26 – The €2 million pre-seed round, and why deep tech is a harder sell in Europe

11:51 – The biggest current challenge: data, research, and a field moving week to week

13:55 – Collecting data with Creative Commons sources, synthetic data, and Meta glasses at a rose party

15:28 – Positioning against hyperscalers and specialists like Hume AI

20:29 – Choosing sales training as the first commercial use case

23:11 – Explaining Interhuman AI to someone hearing it for the first time

24:34 – Why it's not a lie detector, and turning down a defense-focused investor

25:41 – The risk of young people leaning on chatbots for emotional support

27:52 – The 93%-nonverbal statistic, and why he's been told to retire it

29:32 – Do companies know how much of their message gets lost beyond the words?

34:48 – Staying motivated and pivoting weekly when the market isn't ready yet

36:18 – Trading accuracy for speed: building an instant "real-time experimental" model

39:56 – Callback to the Tech BBQ in Copenhagen, two years on

41:45 – "We don't remember the words. We remember the trust."

42:56 – Cultural differences, personal baselines, and reading the same signal differently

46:43 – The real-world stakes of getting it wrong: AI interviewers, healthcare, therapy

47:13 – Where Frederik draws the ethical line, and building around the EU AI Act

51:14 – Piloting with the Region of Copenhagen to help parents of kids with additional needs

57:26 – Advice to his younger self, and the sales lessons learned the hard way

1:00:51 – Why demos, not decks, win meetings

1:01:39 – The two-year-old video that opened investor doors

1:06:28 – The co-founder mix that actually got them funded, and growing to 12 people

1:11:58 – Where to find Frederik and Interhuman AI, and closing thoughts

🔗 Links & Resources

Interhuman AI: Interhuman AI

Frederik Sally on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/frederiksally

Interhuman AI's €2M pre-seed coverage: EU-Startups, Sifted

🏢 Companies / Organisations Mentioned

Interhuman AI: Copenhagen startup building a social intelligence layer that reads nonverbal social signals for AI systems

Hume AI: competitor building emotion-focused AI models, referenced as working from a different (basic-emotions) framework

Region of Copenhagen: Danish regional government piloting an Interhuman AI app to help parents of kids with additional needs

Tech BBQ: the Copenhagen event where Helga and Frederik first met, two years before this recording

SERIOUS.BUSINESS: host Helga's company

🧡 Why You'll Love This Episode

This one has a twist most founder stories don't: Frederik is racing to build a technology that could make his own mother's career unnecessary, and he's disarmingly matter-of-fact about it. Underneath the deep-tech talk of data pipelines and hyperscaler competition is a much simpler thread that anchors the whole conversation: the thing that actually builds trust between people, including between Frederik and Helga two years ago, was never really the words. If you've ever wondered whether your pitch, your product, or your brand needs better words or just needs to show up differently, this one will stick with you.

📣 Connect with Us

This podcast is brought to you by SERIOUS.BUSINESS. If you're scaling fast but your messaging, your story, your brand haven't caught up—let's fix that 👇🏻 👉 Apply for your FREE Brand Masterplan 🦄

Aurore Pinon-Jacques has built and let go of things twice over. She shut down her first company after a co-founder partnership fell apart. Four years into Goodvest, she stepped back from the CMO title she'd held since day one. And in between, she had to grieve an entire era of the company itself — the 10-person "family" that a €12M Series B and a 40-person team have now replaced. This episode is about what that letting go actually costs a founder, and what it makes possible.

Aurore is co-founder of Goodvest, a French sustainable investment platform reimagining wealth management for people who want their money to do good, not just grow — now with a sharpened focus on founders who've exited or are about to. Her path there wasn't a straight line: a childhood dream of becoming a war journalist, a detour into luxury marketing, then a first company — sustainable, recycled-fiber tights — built and lost alongside a close friend. Every step forward came with something she had to release.

Whatever stage you're at as a founder, this conversation will feel familiar: the version of your company you're currently grieving, and the one you haven't grieved yet.

• Why "Goodvest" trips up almost every non-native English speaker (and how Aurore turned that into an icebreaker)
• What Goodvest actually does, and why it's now built specifically for exited and exiting founders
• Growing up wanting to be a war journalist, then chasing the glamour of luxury marketing
• Founding — and shutting down — her first company, a sustainable fashion label using recycled fibers
• What she learned about mixing friendship with business after her first co-founder split
• Running two companies and planning a wedding at the same time
• How Goodvest's three co-founders handle conflict, and the compatibility questionnaire she wishes she'd used the first time
• Scaling from a 10-person "family" to a 40-person team after a €12M Series B — and grieving what got left behind
• Recruiting, bias, and onboarding once you're past the early "generalists who can do five things" stage
• Why she stepped back from her CMO role to write a graphic novel about sustainable finance
• Why branding gets more valuable, not less, in the age of AI
• The real problem Goodvest exists to solve, and why sustainable investing is a rational bet, not just an ethical one

• Shared vision isn't enough. Compatibility in values and working style matters just as much as agreeing on the mission — and a simple written questionnaire can surface a mismatch before it costs you a company.
• Similarity between co-founders is its own risk. When communication feels effortless, you stop working at it. Real differences force you to build transparency deliberately, from day one.
• Odd numbers of co-founders break ties. Two people can only push and pull; three (or four) can actually resolve a disagreement.
• Shutting a company down isn't failure — it's an experience. Giving yourself a hard deadline (Aurore gave hers a year) protects you from staying in a broken partnership on hope alone.
• Scaling means grieving what worked before. The intimacy of a small founding "family" has to be let go, on purpose, for the company to grow past it.
• Your value shifts from doing the work to building what outlasts you. Legacy — not daily tasks — is what lets a founder step back and start something new.
• Recruiting bias is real and unconscious. We default to people who feel familiar — same background, same communication style. Naming that bias is step one to hiring well, not just comfortably.
• AI raises the floor on brands, which raises the ceiling on authenticity. When anyone can generate a "clean" brand, the human, personal ones become the ones people actually choose.

"Once you tell yourself my value is not in my everyday tasks anymore, my value is in what I gave as a legacy, you can move on and do other projects."

"It's not sufficient to share the same vision. It's not sufficient to have good communication. You also have to be compatible on some levels."

"You can't do lazy branding with AI. People are going to give value to that."

"In let's say 10, 20 or 30 years, do you think you will be happy that you invested in oil companies?"

"The more personal an experience, the more universal it becomes."

• 00:04 – Kicking off, and getting "Goodvest" pronounced correctly
• 04:55 – What Goodvest does, and its 2026 focus on exited/exiting founders
• 06:24 – The emotional weight of an exit, and why founders need somewhere to turn
• 09:51 – Childhood dreams of becoming a war journalist
• 11:04 – The pivot into luxury marketing, and The Devil Wears Prada pull of it
• 14:02 – Why the luxury job stopped fitting her values
• 14:34 – Founding her first company: recycled-fiber sustainable tights
• 15:38 – The co-founder conflict that ended it, and the hard lesson on friendship + business
• 16:58 – Why being too similar to a co-founder is its own risk
• 18:41 – Running two companies and planning a wedding at once
• 27:02 – How Goodvest's three co-founders resolve conflict
• 30:09 – The co-founder compatibility questionnaire she wishes she'd used sooner
• 33:22 – The €12M Series B, and scaling from 10 people to 35–40
• 36:59 – "Grieving" the early, family-like team culture
• 38:37 – Protecting culture through hypergrowth with transparency
• 43:27 – What role branding plays as you scale past your first customers
• 45:39 – Why AI raises the bar for brands, and the return of "love brands"
• 50:38 – Writing a graphic novel about sustainable finance
• 54:04 – Stepping back from the CMO role, and finding value in legacy over daily tasks
• 57:54 – Why recruiting is the hardest part of scaling, and staying aware of bias
• 1:01:53 – Goodvest's onboarding process
• 1:07:00 – The core problem Goodvest exists to solve
• 1:10:36 – Her pitch to a founder deciding what to do with exit capital
• 1:12:19 – Challenging the unicorn obsession
• 1:14:00 – Her forecast for how brands need to evolve over the next 12 months
• 1:19:08 – Closing thoughts on imperfection, oversharing, and authenticity as a founder's edge

• Goodvest — https://www.goodvest.fr
• Aurore Pinon-Jacques on LinkedIn — https://fr.linkedin.com/in/aurore-jacques
• Goodvest's €12M Series B coverage (Tech.eu) — https://tech.eu/2025/09/24/goodvest-raises-eur12m-to-expand-economic-and-social-impact-offerings/
• Aurore's graphic novel on sustainable finance — extended edition currently in progress with a publisher; release date not yet public

• Goodvest — sustainable investment platform for individuals and, increasingly, exited/exiting founders
• SERIOUS.BUSINESS — host Helga Osk's company, referenced in the co-founder-count discussion

This one goes places most founder interviews don't. Aurore names something most founders feel but rarely say out loud: that growth isn't just building — it's a string of small losses you have to let yourself grieve, from a co-founder partnership to a 10-person "family" to a title you built with your own hands. If you've ever wondered whether letting go of a version of your company is a failure or the thing that finally lets it grow, this conversation will stay with you.

This podcast is brought to you by SERIOUS.BUSINESS. If you're scaling fast but your messaging, your story, your brand haven't caught up—let's fix that

👉 Apply for your FREE Brand Masterplan 🦄

Founders Meeting | Roei Samuel / Connected: Building the Future of Work, One Human Connection at a Time

What if the biggest threat to your career isn't your competition — but your comfort zone?

In this Founders Meeting episode, Helga sits down with Roei Samuel, a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, podcast host, former stand-up comedian, and CEO of Connectd — a platform helping thousands of professionals break free from traditional employment and build fractional careers on their own terms.

Roei's story is anything but linear. From burning CDs in a Scottish schoolyard to exiting a media company, surviving an identity crisis post-exit, and building one of the UK's fastest growing companies — he has lived through every stage of the founder journey. And he's refreshingly honest about all of it.

This conversation goes beyond business. It's about alignment, dopamine, ego death, and why the future of work might just save us all — if we're brave enough to reach for it.

🔑 In this episode, we talk about:

• Growing up between communist Hungary and working class Glasgow — and what that taught Roy about survival
• ADHD, over-medication, and finally learning to work with his brain instead of against it
• Why selling a company can feel like losing yourself — and how to rebuild after an exit
• What fractional work actually means and why it matters more than ever in 2026
• How AI is different this time — and why there's no integration period coming
• The "burner brand" strategy every early stage founder should know about
• Why Connected puts employees above customers — and why it's working
• Building a culture that people don't want to leave
• Angel investing, VC evolution, and why attention is the new unfair advantage
• Personal branding, LinkedIn, and the one channel rule for founders

🧠 Key Takeaways:

• Most pain comes from misalignment. Alignment is happiness — and it's a strategy.
• Building from purpose protects your identity when the commercial chapter ends.
• Fractional work isn't a backup plan — it's a hedge against an uncertain future.
• The gap between AI shifts is so small there's no catching up later. Stay curious now.
• Your first hires need to mirror your values exactly — even 5% drift compounds fast.
• Culture isn't the ping pong table. It's how you treat people when things get hard.
• Brand and network effects are the only defensible advantages left for most companies.
• Niche down to one channel and own it before expanding anywhere else.

💬 Sound Bites:

"Once the to-do list is done, all that's left to face is yourself."

"Most founders are building from lack, not love."

"Borrowing from tomorrow's well to feed today — for years."

"If it doesn't feel right to be the only one winning, open up the table."

"The competitive advantage is no longer venture dollars. It's attention."

"Until your home base is secured, hyper focus on where your community lives."

📍 Chapter Highlights:

00:00 – Introduction to Roy and Connected

01:59 – Free time, weight training, meditation and fringe science

03:41 – Childhood: Glasgow, Budapest and burning CDs at school

07:02 – Managing ADHD without medication

09:20 – Life after exit — and the identity crisis nobody warns you about

11:26 – How to prepare for what comes after

12:04 – Happiness, alignment and why misalignment causes most pain

13:19 – What fractional work actually means

15:55 – Connected: the platform, the mission and the three pillars

18:00 – Coaching, upskilling and bridging the corporate-to-startup gap

19:50 – Why Helga started Founders Meeting — and what 10 years taught her

22:25 – Investors, unicorn founders and the chip on the shoulder

24:26 – How Roy decides who to invest in

26:11 – AI, automation and the 2030 wave nobody is ready for

29:59 – Who Connected is really built for

32:23 – Personal branding, thought leadership and dropping the corporate mask

36:45 – Where to start as a fractional: focus on your fastest value

37:53 – From comedian to CEO — and why stand-up makes everything easier

39:58 – Founder to CEO: the transition that makes or breaks companies

42:03 – The job of a CEO

43:47 – Hiring for values, not just skills

45:57 – What culture actually is

49:23 – Employer branding and caring for your team

49:58 – External branding and why it's everything in the AI age

51:48 – The burner brand strategy

52:26 – VC, term sheets and retaining optionality

55:11 – Community, IRL events and why human connection is the mission

57:00 – Founders Dinner and intentional community building

01:01:14 – Brand advice for founders in 2026

01:02:18 – How to find where your community lives

🔗 Links & Resources:

🔗 Connectd → https://www.connectd.com/ 👤 Roy → LinkedIn 📍 London, UK 🌍 Mentioned: Real Sport, Gfinity, Mucker AI, GreenWeaver AI, Konda Capital, OpenAI, Anthropic

📚 Mentioned:

• Reid Hoffman on default dead startups
• Goldman Sachs & OECD reports on the future of work
• Sunday Times UK Fastest Growing Companies list

🧡 Why You'll Love This Episode:

Roy doesn't talk about entrepreneurship from a safe distance. He talks about the dopamine spirals, the ego death, the hiring mistakes, and the moments where the path completely disappeared. But he also talks about what's on the other side of all of that — alignment, purpose, and building something that actually matters. If you're at any stage of the founder journey and wondering whether there's a better way, this one is for you.

📣 Connect with Us:

This podcast is brought to you by SERIOUS.BUSINESS. If your brand is growing but your positioning, messaging, or differentiation isn't as strong as your product — we'll fix that.

👉 Apply for your FREE Brand Masterplan 🦄

Founders Meeting | Magnus Busch / Nook Society: Reimagining Hospitality as Human Connection

What if a hotel wasn't just a place to sleep — but a space where you truly belong?

In this Founders Meeting episode, Helga sits down with Magnus Busch, co-founder of Nook Society, a Berlin-based hospitality concept that's quietly rewriting the rules of how people stay, work, and connect. Starting with a modest 11-key hotel 60 kilometres outside Berlin, Magnus and his co-founder Ines built something that was never really about selling beds — it was about building stages for people to come alive.

Magnus brings a rare mix of backgrounds — music, real estate development in Brazil, design distribution, and hospitality consulting — all of which fed into one defining question during COVID: what am I actually here to do? His answer shaped everything. Nook Society is the result.

This conversation goes beyond hospitality. It's about identity, intuition, and building a brand that people don't just visit — they invest in.

🔑 In this episode, we talk about:

• Why Magnus left behind a high-earning consulting career to build something human-centred
• The "lipstick renovation" approach to proving a concept with minimal investment
• Meeting co-founder Ines and the 14-hour workshop that launched Nook Society
• Leading with why — and why that's the only way to build a brand people truly identify with
• How AI and remote work are fundamentally reshaping hospitality expectations
• The community investment round open via Konda Capital — from as little as €250
• Nook's evolution: festival programming, Berlin living spaces, and brand partnerships
• Failure, hiring mistakes, and what it means to truly own your decisions
• Why innovation only starts where your comfort zone ends

🧠 Key Takeaways:

• The most important question in building a brand isn't what you offer — it's why you offer it.
• Bringing diverse, unexpected people to the table is where real innovation begins.
• Bootstrapping forces creativity and keeps the product aligned with the mission.
• The line between work, travel, and home is dissolving — hospitality must evolve with it.
• Community investment aligns financial incentives with product integrity.
• Failure is not the end of the road — it's a known stop along the way.
• Innovation requires discomfort. If it doesn't hurt a little, you're not pushing far enough.

💬 Sound Bites:

"If you can answer the question why you're offering it, it comes from within yourself — and then you can create something truly unique."

"I was born to bring people together."

"The separation between business and holidays — for me, it's not there anymore."

"If I don't see the path, I ask myself: do I see the next step? If yes, I take it."

"If it doesn't hurt, you're not innovating enough."

📍 Chapter Highlights:

00:00 – Introduction & Welcome 01:21 – What is Nook Society? 02:26 – From Vision to MVP: Finding the First Property 07:08 – Magnus's Childhood: Berlin, Hockey & Drums 09:30 – The Problem Nook Was Born to Solve 13:16 – Career Journey: Music to Real Estate to Hospitality 17:31 – Meeting Co-Founder Ines 22:24 – The 14-Hour Workshop That Started It All 25:40 – Doubt, Enjoyment, and Staying in the Game 47:36 – AI, Remote Work & the Future of Hospitality 56:20 – Advice for Founders Stuck in Their Comfort Zone 58:51 – On Instinct, Failure, and Moving Forward 01:01:45 – A Real Failure: The Hiring Mistake 01:07:00 – Funding Strategy & the Community Investment Round 01:13:50 – Brand Vision for 2026 and Beyond 01:22:10 – Role Models & Books That Shaped Magnus 01:25:31 – Viva Con Agua: A Brand Worth Watching 01:27:31 – Closing Reflections

🔗 Links & Resources:

🏨 Nook Society → nooksociety.com

💰 Invest in Nook → nooksociety.com/invest

📍 Bad Belzig (Belzig), Germany — 60 min from Berlin

👤 Magnus Busch → LinkedIn

🌍 Mentioned: Conda Capital, Viva Con Agua, Adidas Infinite Trails, Selina, 6O House

📚 Books mentioned:

• The Creative Act — Rick Rubin
• Shoe Dog — Phil Knight
• Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead — David Meerman Scott & Brian Halligan

🧡 Why You'll Love This Episode:

If you've ever wondered whether it's possible to build a business that's commercially ambitious and genuinely human-centred, Magnus is your answer. His story is honest about the hard parts — the sleepless nights, the hiring mistakes, the pressure of bootstrapping — but equally clear about what makes it all worth it. This is an episode for founders who want to build something that lasts, something people belong to, not just buy from.

📣 Connect with Us:

This podcast is brought to you by SERIOUS.BUSINESS. If your brand is growing but your positioning, messaging, or differentiation isn't as strong as your product — let's fix that.

👉 Apply for your FREE Brand Masterplan 🦄

🎧 Episode Overview

In this Founders-Meeting episode, Helga Osk sits down with André Miranda, founder of Musiversal, to explore how music, technology, and entrepreneurship intersect in today’s rapidly evolving creative economy.

André shares his journey from classical musician to tech founder, and how that transition shaped his vision for building a platform that creates stable income for musicians while giving creators instant access to world-class collaborators. We dive into branding, leadership, scaling a two-sided marketplace, and the real implications of AI in music creation.

This conversation is a reminder that while technology evolves fast, human collaboration remains at the heart of great art 🎶🤍

💡 Key Takeaways

• Human collaboration is irreplaceable in music creation
• AI can enhance workflows, but not emotional depth
• Two-sided marketplaces require clarity and trust
• Strong branding is essential in creative tech
• Musiversal is reshaping income stability for musicians
• Letting go is part of growing from founder to CEO
• Emotional clarity strengthens leadership
• Fearlessness and persistence fuel long-term success

🗣️ Sound Bites

• “Human collaboration creates art.”
• “Standing out requires uniqueness.”
• “Start without fear.”

📍 Chapter Highlights

00:00 – Introduction to Musiversal & André

02:53 – From Musician to Entrepreneur

05:35 – The Problem with Traditional Music Production

08:32 – Serving Musicians & Creators

11:16 – Transitioning into Tech

14:20 – AI’s Role in Music Creation

17:10 – The Future of Music & Humanity

20:05 – Branding & Positioning Musiversal

22:58 – Vision for the Future

25:31 – Investment & Growth

27:50 – Funding Challenges

29:26 – Founder → CEO Transition

32:57 – Letting Go & Scaling

37:30 – Building Trust & Teams

38:46 – Authentic Leadership

43:14 – Starting Without Fear

47:08 – Emotional Clarity in Business

49:23 – Community & What’s Next

🏢 Companies Mentioned

• Musiversal

🧡 Why You’ll Love This Episode

If you’re building at the intersection of creativity and technology, this episode will resonate deeply. André’s story shows how staying human, values-driven, and emotionally aware can be a competitive advantage — not a weakness.

📣 Connect with Us

This podcast is brought to you by SERIOUS.BUSINESS.

If you’re scaling fast but your story, positioning, or brand haven’t caught up — let’s fix that 👇🏻

👉 Apply for your FREE Brand Masterplan 🦄

🎙️ From Farm to FinTech: Building the Future of Accounting with Founder Thomas Helms

Episode Overview

In this episode, we sit down with Thomas Helms, serial entrepreneur and founder of Crispa, a modern accounting platform rethinking how startups manage their finances.

Thomas shares his journey from growing up on a Danish farm — where hard work, ownership, and problem-solving were daily realities — to management consulting, and ultimately into entrepreneurship. Along the way, he reflects on the mindset shifts required to move from strategy decks to building real products, teams, and companies.

We dive deep into the inefficiencies of traditional accounting, the role of automation and AI in modern finance, and what it really takes to build and scale a FinTech company across borders. This conversation blends personal story with highly practical insights for founders navigating fundraising, team building, and fast-moving markets.

💡 Key Takeaways

1. Entrepreneurship demands relentless effort, resilience, and curiosity
2. Deep understanding of financial operations is a superpower for founders
3. Automation and AI are essential to scaling modern startups efficiently
4. Small, empowered teams can outperform much larger organisations
5. Fundraising works best when treated as a structured, intentional process
6. Flexibility in technology and workflows enables long-term scalability
7. Authentic leadership builds trust with both teams and investors
8. Experimentation and iteration are critical to sustained innovation

🗣️ Sound Bites

1. “You need to be so much on top of those things.”
2. “Every no brings me closer to a yes.”
3. “Do things that don’t scale.”

🧭 Chapters

00:00 – Introduction to Thomas Helms and Crispa

01:48 – Childhood Influences on Entrepreneurship

05:41 – Transitioning from Corporate Life to Startups

09:33 – Lessons from Consulting and Startup Execution

13:17 – Building a Small, High-Impact Team

16:59 – Why Traditional Accounting Systems Are Broken

21:02 – The Reality of Being a Solo Founder

24:45 – Hiring, Empowerment, and Trust

28:38 – Vision, Values, and Company Culture

32:20 – Vulnerability and Risk in FinTech

36:03 – Fundraising Lessons and Strategy

39:37 – Valuation, Timing, and Investor Alignment

42:21 – Strategic Pivot: Platform vs. Firm Model

45:39 – International Expansion & Regulatory Complexity

49:22 – Cold Calling and Learning Sales

54:50 – Choosing the Right Technology Stack

59:56 – Early-Stage Startup Challenges

01:02:10 – Maximising Long-Term Value and Cash Flow

🧠 Why You’ll Love This Episode

If you’re a founder who wants to actually understand your numbers, not just outsource them, this episode is for you. Thomas offers a rare mix of strategic clarity and operational honesty — from fundraising realities to building tech that truly scales. It’s a grounded, no-fluff look at what it takes to build a FinTech company from scratch, and why financial literacy is one of the most underrated founder skills.

🏷️ Keywords

Entrepreneurship, FinTech, Accounting, Crispa, Fundraising, Automation, AI, Leadership, Team Building, Startup Scaling

🏢 Companies Mentioned

1. Crispa

Founders Meeting | Benjamin / Every: Reviving Shared Mealtimes Through Plant-Based Innovation

What if frozen food wasn’t a compromise — but the future of healthy, sustainable eating?

In this Founders Meeting episode, we sit down with Benjamin, co-founder of Every, a Berlin-based company redefining convenient food with chef-crafted, plant-based frozen meals. Every isn’t just building a food brand — they’re rebuilding trust in the frozen aisle.

Benjamin shares the journey of starting Every with his lifelong friend Casimir, the challenges of sourcing high-quality ingredients, and how shock-freezing technology preserves nutrients, flavour, and integrity. We explore how transparency, sustainability, and shared mealtimes sit at the heart of their mission — and why frozen food deserves a rebrand.

This conversation goes beyond product. It’s about culture, connection, and building a food company rooted in values.

🔑 In this episode, we talk about:

Why Every exists — and the problem with modern convenience food

The cultural importance of shared mealtimes

Building a plant-based brand for everyone, not just vegans

The sourcing challenges within the food industry

How shock freezing preserves nutrients and reduces waste

Transparency in packaging and building consumer trust

Launching a company with a lifelong friend

Financing and early-stage decisions

Community-driven growth and customer feedback

Reframing frozen food as premium, sustainable, and delicious

🧠 Key Takeaways:

Healthy eating should be effortless and enjoyable.

Shared mealtimes foster connection in a fast-paced world.

Shock freezing locks in nutrients and quality.

Transparency builds trust in a sceptical food market.

Plant-based food can appeal to a broad, mainstream audience.

Building a business with a friend requires clarity and shared values.

Sustainability and quality sourcing are long-term competitive advantages.

Community engagement strengthens both brand and product.

💬 Sound Bites:

“The future of frozen food is sustainability.”

“Shared mealtimes foster connections.”

“Trust in the food industry is essential.”

“Healthy eating should never feel like a compromise.”

📍 Chapter Highlights:

00:00 – Introduction to Every and Its Mission

02:21 – Healthy Eating & Convenience

05:23 – Childhood Influences and Food Heritage

08:04 – Starting Every

11:10 – Sourcing & Sustainability

14:17 – Packaging & Direct-to-Consumer Strategy

17:02 – Shock Freezing Explained

20:18 – Challenges in Frozen Goods

23:01 – The Future of Frozen Food

26:06 – Plant-Based Market Perceptions

29:14 – Building a Company with a Friend

48:52 – Early Challenges & Decisions

50:41 – Financing the Journey

51:44 – Strategic Partnerships

55:04 – Shared Values

55:54 – Branding Evolution

01:07:36 – Core Market Focus

01:09:39 – Customer Education

01:20:07 – Shared Mealtimes

01:24:16 – Community Engagement

🔗 Links & Resources:

🥦 Every → https://every-foods.com/

📍 Berlin, Germany

🧡 Why You’ll Love This Episode:

If you’re building a mission-driven brand — especially in a competitive, trust-sensitive industry — this episode is packed with insights. Benjamin shares what it really takes to challenge category assumptions, build with integrity, and create a product that aligns convenience with quality. It’s a powerful reminder that food isn’t just fuel — it’s culture, connection, and community.

📣 Connect with Us:

This podcast is brought to you by SERIOUS.BUSINESS.

If your brand is growing but your positioning, messaging, or differentiation isn’t as strong as your product — we+ll fix that.

1. 👉 Apply for your FREE Brand Masterplan 🦄

🎙️ BONUS Episode 2 with sales coach Matt Essam: Transforming Sales into Connection

Are you approaching sales as a transaction—or as a conversation that transforms your business?

In this second BONUS episode, we’re joined by Matt Essam, business coach and author, to rethink how founders approach sales. Rather than a numbers game, Matt reframes sales as a process of helping clients make decisions through curiosity, compassion, and courage.

Throughout our discussion, we explore the psychology behind buying, the importance of active listening, and why reframing the stigma around sales can unlock transformative conversations. Matt shares insights from his journey, practical strategies for founders, and the mindset shifts that allow sales to become both effective and human.

Whether you’re running a startup, scaling a creative agency, or just navigating client conversations, this episode will help you see sales as a relationship-building tool rather than a necessary evil.

🔑 In this episode, we talk about:

1. Why sales is fundamentally about communication and decision-making
2. Overcoming the stigma around sales and reframing it as service
3. The role of curiosity, compassion, and courage in client conversations
4. Differentiating your offerings in a crowded market
5. Emotional intelligence and the psychology of buying
6. Balancing sales automation with personal connection
7. The Traffic Light Method for understanding client readiness
8. How transformational sales conversations build brand equity

🧠 Key Takeaways:

1. Sales isn’t coercion—it’s facilitation. Helping clients make informed decisions is the goal.
2. Courage is essential: asking the hard questions builds trust and clarity.
3. Emotional intelligence drives buying decisions—understanding your client matters.
4. Differentiation reduces competition and increases demand.
5. Sales conversations can be transformational, benefiting both the founder and the client.
6. Automation is helpful, but human connection remains irreplaceable.
7. Founders can reframe sales from a dreaded task into a relationship-building practice.

💬 Sound Bites / Quotes:

1. “Sales is about curiosity and compassion.”
2. “Sales is not something you do to someone.”
3. “Sales is a transformational conversation.”
4. “The courage to ask difficult questions builds trust.”
5. “Helping clients make decisions is the real art of selling.”

📍 Chapter Highlights:

00:00 – Introduction to Sales and Coaching

02:42 – The Importance of Communication in Sales

05:46 – The Evolution of Sales Perspectives

08:41 – Mastering Sales: A Personal Journey

11:38 – Understanding Sales Conversations

14:22 – Emotional Drivers in Sales

17:10 – The Shift from Marketing to Coaching

19:56 – Finding Purpose in Coaching

22:53 – Courage in Sales Conversations

25:49 – Asking Difficult Questions in Sales

35:28 – Launching vs. Selling: Understanding the Difference

38:13 – Selling Before You Build: The Importance of Validation

41:09 – The Value of Free Time: Sharing Your Expertise

42:47 – Learning from Experience: The Role of Mentorship

45:43 – Challenging Conversations: The Art of Sales

56:00 – The Future of Sales: Automation and AI

58:55 – Differentiation in a Crowded Market: The Courage to Stand Out

🔗 Links & Resources:

🌐 Creative Courage Podcast → https://creativecouragepodcast.podbean.com/

🌐 Matt Essam | Creative Life Website → https://www.mattessam.co.uk/

🌐 Matt Essam on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattessam/

Companies mentioned:

Serious Business | Creative Life | Creative Courage | Daniel Priestley | Key Person of Influence

🧡 Why You’ll Love This Episode:

This BONUS episode is a masterclass in reframing sales for founders. Matt shows that sales isn’t about pressure or persuasion—it’s about empathy, curiosity, and connection. If you’ve ever felt intimidated by selling or struggled to make your offer heard, this episode will transform how you think about client conversations, helping you create relationships that last and grow your business.

📣 Connect with Us:

This podcast is brought to you by SERIOUS.BUSINESS.

If you’re scaling fast but your messaging, your story, your brand haven’t caught up—let’s fix that 👇🏻

👉 Apply for your FREE Brand Masterplan 🦄

🎙️ Vulnerability as a Superpower in Tech with Ahana Banerjee

What does it take to build a tech startup in a crowded market—while staying authentic, visible, and resilient?

In this episode, Helga sits down with Ahana Banerjee, founder of Clear, a skincare-tracking app designed to cut through the noise of an oversaturated beauty industry. From growing up across the UK, India, and Singapore to teaching herself how to code, Ahana’s journey reflects the power of discipline, vulnerability, and intentional personal branding in entrepreneurship.

Together, we explore what it means to be a young female founder in tech, how vulnerability can become a competitive advantage, and why building both a product and a personal brand requires consistency, resilience, and belief—especially when facing bias in fundraising. Ahana also shares how Clear balances a dual business model, serving both consumers and global skincare brands through data-driven insights.

This episode is an honest look at startup life behind the scenes—rejections, resilience, and the long game of building something meaningful.

🔑 In this episode, we talk about:

Growing up across cultures and how it shaped Ahana’s entrepreneurial mindset

The personal skincare struggles that inspired the creation of Clear

Teaching herself to code and transitioning from academia to startups

Using vulnerability as a strength in personal branding

Building credibility as a young female founder in tech

Navigating bias and rejection in fundraising

Balancing consumer value with brand monetisation

Why discipline matters more than motivation in content and growth

Scaling a startup while protecting team culture

🧠 Key Takeaways:

Vulnerability can be a powerful tool for trust and connection.

Personal branding requires consistency, not perfection.

Fundraising resilience means expecting rejection—and continuing anyway.

Strong team culture is critical as startups begin to scale.

Understanding both user and brand needs unlocks sustainable growth.

Entrepreneurship is a long game built on discipline and belief.

📍 Chapter Highlights:

00:00 – Introduction to Ahana and Clear

02:34 – Growing up across cultures

12:35 – Discovering coding and technical confidence

15:31 – The moment that sparked Clear

26:13 – Committing fully to the startup journey

28:06 – Vulnerability and personal branding

31:56 – Credibility challenges as a young founder

33:03 – Consistency and content creation

36:21 – Authenticity on social media

46:16 – Personal support systems

53:16 – Facing bias as a female founder

59:00 – Navigating fundraising realities

01:10:00 – Resilience and leadership

01:20:58 – Balancing consumer and brand needs

01:24:17 – Scaling Clear and future growth

🔗 Links & Resources:

📱 Clear App → getclearapp.com

👤 Ahana Banerjee → LinkedIn

🌍 Companies mentioned: Clear, L’Oréal, Beiersdorf, Unilever, Y Combinator, Forbes

🧡 Why You’ll Love This Episode:

This conversation is a powerful reminder that building a startup isn’t just about technology or traction—it’s about identity, resilience, and showing up honestly. Ahana’s story offers inspiration for founders navigating self-doubt, bias, and the pressure to prove themselves, while still building with integrity and intention.

📣 Connect with Us:

This podcast is brought to you by SERIOUS.BUSINESS.

If you’re scaling fast but your messaging, your story, your brand haven’t caught up—let’s fix that now👇🏻

👉 Apply for your FREE Brand Masterplan 🦄