Index Audio

Guests:

*Jack Conte* co-founder and CEO of Patreon, *Dylan Field* co-founder and CEO of Figma & *Danny Rimer* Partner at Index Ventures

Creators are a new class of worker. They work in our growing digital economy, building and sharing their creations across the internet. They are defining the future of art, the future of self-expression, and the future of work. But what's driving this new economy, and why is it at an inflection point today?

Hear two of the founders of today’s creator economy discuss its past, present and future: Jack Conte, co-founder and CEO of Patreon, and Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO of Figma.

Moderated by Index partner Danny Rimer, an early investor in both companies, Conte and Field begin by debating the core attributes of creators. They move to the importance of community and monetisation, and the possibilities of NFTs – non-fungible tokens based on cryptocurrency blockchains, which creators are now using to sell digital artworks such as memes, videos, image files and songs. They discuss the nascent and as-yet-unimagined business models that will support media and arts in the 21st century, allowing creatives and their fans to capture more value than advertisers and intermediaries such as record companies and social media networks. Finally they turn to the size and influence of global ‘niches’, the consequences of democratising the creator mindset, and the future of global celebrity.

This week, Index partner Danny Rimer speaks to Farfetch founder José Neves.

Farfetch is the world’s biggest online marketplace for independent fashion boutiques. Jose founded Farfetch in Porto and London in 2007 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018.

Danny & Jose discuss Farfetch and its global journey, what Formula 1 has in common with entrepreneurship, entering the US via a partnership and much more.

Thank you for listening to DestinationUSA from Index Ventures. This is the last episode in our series that explored how Europe's leading entrepreneurs and operators expanded their businesses to the US. If you missed any of the episodes you can go back and listen to the stories of Spotify, Adyen, Nexthink, Collibra, Codat, ComplyAdvantage, Peanut, Wise & more.

In this episode, Index’s VP Insights, Dominic Jacquesson speaks with Trustpilot founder, Peter Holten Mühlmann.

Peter founded Trustpilot in Denmark in 2007 with a vision to create an independent currency of trust. Trustpilot hosts over 120 million consumer reviews and has 700 employees (23% of whom are in the US).

Over the last thirteen years, Peter has led Trustpilot from a small Danish startup to an international, multi million-dollar company which just listed on the London Stock Exchange in March 2021.

Peter shares how Trustpilot got started in Denmark and his approach of expanding across Europe before taking on the US. The conversation covers the dynamics of raising money, distributed leadership, cultural differences between the US and Denmark and much more.

Pedro and Peter share their experiences of relocating to the US. They discuss the East vs West Coast, the impact on hiring senior leadership, relocating during COVID, family life and building US networks.

Pedro founded Nexthink in 2004 in Lausanne (Switzerland) which is still the main engineering and product hub. He relocated to Boston in March 2020.

Pete founded Codat in 2017 in London to connect the internal systems of small businesses to banks, fintechs and other financial institutions. He relocated to New York in 2020 to lead the company's US expansion.

In this episode, Michelle, Christian and Joe talk marketing in the US. They cover branding as a universal human truth, the role of PR, changing tactics for the US market, breakthrough moments and more.

Michelle is the founder of Peanut, which is the first social network for women to build strong ties from the moment they consider motherhood - enabling women at similar life stages to connect.

Christian is the founder of Pitch, a software technology company started in January 2018 in Berlin, which is building a new platform for presentations and content collaboration for individuals and teams.

Joe is the former GM US of Wise and was also the Global Head of Marketing and Comms. Wise was launched in 2011 with the vision of making international money transfers cheap, fair, and simple.

How can European tech companies attract and hire the best US talent?

Today we have two guests with two different perspectives; one a founder of a European startup who relocated to Silicon Valley, the other, a corporate executive who joined a European startup post Series B.

Nicolas Dessaigne is co-founder and former CEO of Algolia, a Y-Combinator backed, AI search and discovery platform founded in Paris.

Elizabeth Bramlage is an American executive who led US marketing for Swedish startup Klarna and is now Chief Marketing Officer of ComplyAdvantage, a British born anti financial crime AI platform.

Journalist Soheb Panja leads us through the conversation where Nicolas and Elizabeth discuss hiring wrong, builders vs scalers, why a US A-player would join a European startup, Y Combinator, evaluating candidates, cultural differences, giving feedback and much more.

How did Adyen achieve spectacular global success while anchored in Amsterdam? Index's Jan Hammer speaks to Adyen's founder Pieter van der Does to discuss what it takes for a European fintech to take on the US market.

Adyen is a payments company that allows merchants to accept e-commerce, mobile, and point-of-sale payments. Pieter founded Adyen in 2006 and it listed on Euronext in 2018.

Jan and Pieter talk about how being a second time founder nuanced Pieter’s approach, the journey from Boston to San Francisco to New York, Adyen's approach to culture and how Pieter thinks about building a company for the long term.

When and how should European enterprise software startups target the US? Today, Index’s VP Insights, Dominic Jacquesson speaks with Collibra founder, Felix Van de Maele about what it takes to succeed in the US.

Collibra builds data intelligence cloud products and was founded in Brussels in 2008 by Felix and his co-founders. It has now become one of Europe's most successful software companies with over 700 employees globally.  Half the workforce, and almost all the leadership is now in the U S. Engineering, however, remains almost entirely in Europe

Dominic & Felix cover the end-to-end story of how Collibra succeeded in the US, talking about risk taking, finding and following your first customers and the importance of leading with a mixture of humility and high conviction.

How did Spotify expand to the US and what did Daniel Ek learn along the way?

Today, Index's Danny Rimer speaks with Daniel Ek, the CEO and founder of Spotify. Spotify is the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service with more than 350 million users and 155 million subscribers.

Danny and Daniel talk about their 16-year history, the contrasting cultures of the US and Sweden, Spotify's delayed entry to the US, and Daniel's mindset and personal growth journey, alongside Spotify's US expansion. They also talk about Daniel's investments with Prima Materia and his vision for Europe.

If you want to read more about Spotify's US expansion, check out the case study in our Expanding to the US handbook.

How do you expand your tech startup to the US? Index Ventures takes you behind the scenes with Europe's leading entrepreneurs to find out. In this podcast series you'll hear from Daniel Ek, CEO & co-founder of Spotify, Pieter van der Does, CEO & co-founder of Adyen, Michelle Kennedy, CEO & co-founder of Peanut, José Neves, CEO & founder of Farfetch and many more. We'll talk about the unique journey of each founder and company, alongside how they tackled hiring, branding, company culture and many other aspects of US expansion.