Leap Takers

Ville Vesterinen (@vesterinen) is a serial entrepreneur from Finland. He is one of the original founders of Slush - one of the world’s leading startup & tech conferences, that attracts around 25'000 attendees every year to Helsinki. He also founded Grey Area - a gaming company that was backed by Index Ventures, LVP, Lifeline Ventures. Ville also serves as the chairman of Swappie, an ambitious young company selling refurbished mobile phones, which just raised $40M in June 2020. He is also on the boards of Maria 01, a 70 000 m² campus for tech companies in the heart of Helsinki as well as on the board of Startup Foundation, the organization that owns various initiatives supporting the Nordic startup ecosystem, among them Slush.

Most recently Ville joined Atomico, one of Europe's leading venture capital investors, as an angel investor to support new aspiring entrepreneurs. Ville also just started his own podcast - The Long Map, where he explores how to live an interesting life.

In this episode, we talk about the origin story of Slush, Grey Area, and Swappie. We cover Ville's learnings from being a serial founder and investor, as well as his tips for other aspiring entrepreneurs in Europe.

Show notes:

• 02:07 -- Intro - Who is Ville Vesterinen
• 03:11 -- How Ville became interested in entrepreneurship & tech
• 04:59 -- Retelling the experience of becoming an entrepreneur in the 2000’s
• 07:08 -- The origin story of Slush, Europe’s leading tech conference
• 10:24 -- Ville’s learnings from starting Slush and tips for founding a conference
• 13:27 -- Major milestones and projects that Ville worked on so far
• 15:38 -- Location-based games & Shadow Cities
• 17:57 -- Swappie, refurbishing and selling second hand iPhones
• 20:04 -- Learnings and advice for future startup founders
• 24:46 -- Atomico Angel programme and Ville’s investing focus
• 28:48 -- Ville Vesterinen’s new podcast - The Long Map
• 30:32 -- Ville Vesterinen’s favorite book
• 31:38 -- Ville Vesterinen’s best personal investment
• 33:06 -- Advice to your 25 year old self
• 34:13 -- What courage means for Ville

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Gonzalo (@gonsanchezs) runs and writes Seedtable, one of the leading newsletters focused on European tech. Seedtable is read by tens of thousands every week, and his work has been featured in Wired and Sifted. Gonzalo's writing always provides unique perspectives of developments in technology in Europe and its impact on society. Seedtable is one of my all-time favorite newsletters and I'm super excited that Gonzalo decided to come on the LeapTakers Podcast.

In addition to Seedtable, Gonzalo is Head of Growth at Jobbatical, an Estonian Relocation Service for Tech companies, and he is mentoring startups. His previous experience includes having founded two startups, being a Content Specialist at Piktochart, growing EVELO from $1.2m to $4m as Director of Marketing, and helping to bring The Martec from 2,000 to 50,000 monthly visitors. Gonz likes to read and to fly. He speaks 4 languages and lifts heavy things, plus he seems to be into the occasional burger or ramen.

In today’s episode we talk about practical tips for remote work and working from home, how Gonzalo started Seedtable, what makes a successful newsletter & advice on how to grow your own content, the impact of Covid-19 on various startup sectors, and more.

Please follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and my Website, where I post new episodes, share interesting articles I found, and blog occasionally about cool startups! Sign-up for the mailing list to stay in the loop!

Show notes:

• 01:53: Who is Gonzalo & introduction
• 04:52: Is a certain personality type required to be able to work remotely?
• 06:25: Tips & tricks for remote work
• 10:08: Gonzalo's favorite city to work from remotely
• 12:22: How did Gonzalo become interested in technology and entrepreneurship?
• 15:40: How does website flipping work
• 16:53: Learnings from his experience as a founder & failed startups
• 19:11: How to pick and find your co-founder
• 22:21: The beginnings of Seedtable
• 24:09: How Seedtable got traction
• 27:18: Tips to produce good content and to grow your audience
• 30:19: How to separate a job and a side project
• 33:30: Key facts about Seedtable
• 36:32: Gonzalo's predictions for 2020 and the impact of COVID-19
• 39:18: Discussion of startup sectors that are positively or negatively affected by COVID-19
• 44:20: Gonzalo's understanding of courage
• 45:14: Wrap-up

Remo's Favorite Quote of the Month:

“Discipline equals freedom”

• Jocko Willink

Christian (@chrjantzen) is the founder of Futuristic.vc, a micro-fund investing in Nordic pre-seed companies. He made his first investment at age fourteen when he bought shares in his favorite football club. He later started his first company, a real estate company, in 2011, which he grew while studying at university. Following his masters degree in Finance from Aarhus University , he co-founded another startup “Reunited Esports", which was a player-owned Esports organisation with teams competing in Overwatch and Rocket League.

In 2017 he founded Futuristic VC, an early-stage VC fund investing initial capital into the next generation of Nordic founders. He has invested in +20 companies across the entire region and helped founders secure follow-on funding from some of the strongest investors in Europe.

If you’re interested in starting your own company while studying / after graduating, or if you’re interested in the world of Micro VC’s, I’m sure you will find this episode very interesting and valuable. We talk about Christian’s path to starting Futuristic VC, his experience from starting an eSports company, fundraising advice, his best investment, and more!

Please follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and my Website, where I post new episodes, share interesting articles I found, and blog occasionally about cool startups! Sign-up for the mailing list to stay in the loop!

Quote:

“He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch.”

• Jean-Luc Godard

Show notes:

• 02:43: Who is Christian & Intro
• 03:46: How Christian became fascinated with company and startup investing
• 06:40: Christians favorite football club
• 07:18: How Christian got into startups
• 10:01: Christians first experience as a founder
• 12:20: Christians startup company “REUNITED e-sports”
• 15:23: Christians approach to find an e-sports team and collaborate with them
• 16:42: Business model of an e-sports company
• 17:56: Christians decision to start a VC fund and the origin story of Futuristic
• 21:13: Fundraising and LP base of Futuristic VC
• 24:46: Overview of Futuristic VC
• 28:05: How Futuristic VC built up its deal flow and identifies startups to invest in
• 32:44: Learnings for startup investors
• 34:59: Learnings for startup founders
• 37:34: Best Investment of Christian Jantzen
• 38:52: What does courage mean to Christian
• 39:58: Wrap-up

If you're enjoying the podcast, the best way to support the show is by leaving a review on Apple Podcast or in your favorite podcast app.

Mathias (@ockenrock) eats and breathes marketplaces. He is a partner at Speedinvest, one of Europe’s leading Venture Capital funds. The fund has it’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria and just recently raised its latest fund of €190m. Mathias runs Speedinvest x, a focus fund investing into network effects and marketplaces.

Previously he was a General Manager for the German market at Uniplaces, an international marketplace for student accommodation. Before that, Mathias built out the marketplace-practice at Berlin-based Point Nine Capital, an early stage fund focusing on SaaS and marketplaces, where he was a Principal for 4 years. Previously, Mathias led the M&A-department of Ricardo Group, then a subsidiary of South African Naspers, that operates several online marketplace, classifieds and auction businesses across Europe. Earlier, he started his career as an Investment Manager at Mountain Partners in Zurich where he lead early stage investments in companies such as Lieferando or reBuy.

Mathias holds a German-French double-diploma from European School of Business Reutlingen and Neoma Business School Reims. Knowing Germany’s capital city like the back of his hand, Mathias now leads Speedinvest's Berlin office as a Partner at Speedinvest x.

Please follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and my Website, where I post new episodes, share interesting articles I found, and blog occasionally about cool startups! Sign-up for the mailing list to stay in the loop!

Show notes:

• 03:08 -- Who is Mathias Ockenfels
• 04:40 -- How Mathias got interested in the Venture Capital industry and how he landed his first job in VC
• 08:44 -- Tips for getting a job in Venture Capital
• 13:56 -- What are the most important skills and abilities to work in VC
• 16:30 -- Mathias’ path from Analyst to Partner at a VC firm
• 22:27 -- Intro to Speedinvest and what kind of companies Mathias is interested in and is investing in
• 25:51 -- Key investment criteria to get an investment from Mathias / Speedinvest
• 28:48 -- Books and Resources for (aspiring) entrepreneurs and VCs
• 31:55 -- Mathias’ best financial and personal investment
• 33:28 -- Advice to younger self / someone starting out their career
• 35:23 -- Mathias’ favorite books and movies
• 37:23 -- What does courage mean to Mathias

If you're enjoying the podcast, the best way to support the show is by leaving a review on Apple Podcast or in your favorite podcast app.

Vedika Jain (@vedikaja_in) is an investor and Chief of staff at Weekend Fund, an early stage venture capital fund that is backing your next favorite thing. Previously she worked for high profile startups like Stripe and True Layer.

Weekend Fund was started in 2017 by Ryan Hoover, the founder of Product Hunt (an amazing site to discover new products. Product Hunt was acquired in 2016 by AngelList). While Ryan and Vedika invest broadly, they are particularly excited about distributed/remote working, audio/voice technology, and tools for creators/makers. The fund invests in early stage startups with check sizes ranging from $75K to $200K. Limited partners of the fund include high profile venture capitalists Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Ben Rubin, Chris Sacca, Hunter Walk, Kevin Rose, Garry Tan, and others.

Vedika has a really interesting background story and approach how she made her way into "the wonderful world of venture capital". In this episode you will hear about her tactics how she got into VC and general career advice for picking the right companies & startups to work for. In addition, you will learn more about Weekend Fund, Vedika’s favorite books & blogs, and much more!

Please follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and my Website, where I post new episodes, share interesting articles I found, and blog occasionally about cool startups! Sign-up for the mailing list to stay in the loop!

Show notes:

• 03:48 -- Who is Vedika & Intro
• 04:55 -- How Vedika became fascinated with technology and startup investing
• 07:08 -- How Vedika joined two fast growing tech startups - Stripe and True Layer
• 09:45 -- Vedika’s lessons learnt for picking your first jobs / companies
• 13:00 -- Writing personal investment memos and how to "hustle" your way into Venture Capital
• 18:05 -- Vedika’s investment areas and future trends
• 20:57 -- How Vedika met Ryan Hoover and joined Weekend Fund
• 22:35 -- Starting your own fund vs. joining an existing VC
• 25:16 -- Introduction to Weekend Fund
• 28:16 -- Favorite books and resources for aspiring VCs
• 30:41 -- Vedika’s favorite non-entrepreneurship related books
• 32:07 -- Most worthwhile investment of Vedika

If you're enjoying the podcast, the best way to support the show is by leaving a review on Apple Podcast or in your favorite podcast app.

Sebastian Wahl and Carl-Philipp von Polheim are the founders of mybacs. Mybacs is a direct-to-consumer (D2C), research driven, biotechnology company for gut-health products based in Zug (Switzerland) and Munich (Germany). Their goal is to revolutionize the healthcare market around the human microbiome and thus make a decisive contribution to the health and daily well-being of everyday customers. Mybacs is specialized on the development of innovative and high-dose synbiotic dietary supplements They have two types of products - a Travel and Daily well-being probiotic product.

Sebastian holds a Master's degree with distinction in Pharmacy from ETH Zurich. Carl-Philipp studied business administration and holds a Master of Science in Management from ESCP Europe.

In this episode we talk about the origin story of mybacs, how to start manufacturing a physical product, the emerging direct-to-consumer industry, tools and resources to start your own D2C company, VC fundraising tips, the benefits of probiotics, their key learnings for other aspiring founders, and more.

Please follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and my Website, where I post new episodes, share cool stuff & interesting articles I found, and blog occasionally! Sign-up for the mailing list to stay in the loop!

Show notes: 02:54 -- Introduction of Sebastian, Carl-Philipp, and mybacs 04:02 -- Exploring the origin story of mybacs 06:12 -- Previous work experience before founding mybacs 07:23 -- Thoughts and considerations before taking the leap 08:53 -- Awareness of probiotics and the effect of the human microbiome on well-being in Europe vs. US 10:08 -- Geographies that mybacs operates in 10:22 -- How to manufacture a physical product as a startup 11:53 -- Tips for planning your supply chain 12:34 -- Timing from idea to shipping the first product 13:15 -- Thoughts about assembling the right team in the D2C space 14:40 -- How to incentivize experienced people & experts to join your startup? 15:17 -- Raising outside capital and thoughts about raising money from VCs 16:56 -- How to find a great Venture Capital investor 18:37 -- The advantages of the D2C market and business model 21:45 -- How to ship a product? 23:24 -- Helpful resources, tools, and books to start your own company 24:36 -- The future vision of mybacs 27:28 -- Understanding the mybacs travelers product 27:51 -- Favorite knowledge resources 29:32 -- Hobbies to take your mind off the startup life 30:12 -- Key learnings from starting a company. What would you do differently? 31:07 -- Career advice for ambitious future “leap takers” 32:16 -- What does courage mean to you?

If you're enjoying the podcast, the best way to support the show is by leaving a review on Apple Podcast or in your favorite podcast app.

Holger Seim (@hlgrsm) is the founder and CEO of Blinkist. Blinkist is a book summary app that lets you get the key insights from 3'000+ bestselling non-fiction books that cover leadership, history, psychology and more in 15 minute summaries in text or audio format. Blinkist has over 11million users globally and the book-summarising startup has won positive reviews from the likes of Forbes (“This may be the greatest app you download in 2018”) and The New York Times.

In this episode we talk about how Holger and his co-founders came up with the idea for Blinkist, how they took the leap and started the company, his advice for aspiring entrepreneurs on how to find your perfect co-founder / first employees, the most important marketing channels for startups, as well as the importance of designing a unique corporate culture.

Show notes: 03:13 -- Who is Holger 04:40 -- Startup idea generation and how the concept of Blinkist was born 09:01 -- How Holger and his co-founders took the leap and started Blinkist 09:50 -- Pursuing a startup idea full time vs. side hustle 10:59 -- Initial financing choices at Blinkist 12:36 -- Characteristics of a great startup founding team 18:12 -- How to find your perfect co-founder outside of your personal network (e.g. technical co-founder) 20:30 -- Blinkist’s company culture and why Holger places immense value on culture 24:42 -- The Blinkist operating system 27:07 -- Tips on maintaining a corporate culture while you grow as a startup 29:16 -- How Blinkist grew to the first 1000 clients and discussion of marketing strategies 32:46 -- Alternative marketing channels leveraged by Blinkist 34:41 -- Holger’s book recommendations for new startup founders 37:31 -- General book recommendations of the Blinkist founder 39:14 -- Holger’s best investment 40:42 -- Hobbies and habits to decompress from the startup life 41:40 -- Favorite travel location 43:09 -- Advice for university graduates about to start their career 46:23 -- What does courage mean to Holger

Resources mentioned:

• Blinkist
• Wunderlist
• Holacracy
• Outbrain
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers - Ben Horowitz
• The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever - Michael Bungay Stanier
• Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell - Eric Schmidt
• Who - The A-Method of Hiring - Geoff Smart
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari
• Ready Player One: A Novel - Ernest Cline
• Dune - Frank Herbert

Alisée (@aliseedt) is one of the founders of Seedstars, a global group of companies with a mission to impact people's lives in emerging markets through technology and entrepreneurship. The groups' activities cover over 85 cities with emerging startup ecosystems through a variety of activities, such as hosting one of the world’s largest startup competition “Seedstars World”, organizing training and acceleration programs, offering physical hubs called Seedspace, and doing venture capital investments & company building activities.

Alisée is a board member of the School of Management of Fribourg and a member of the Swiss National Innovation Council. She was nominated Social Entrepreneur Forbes 30 under 30, Innovation Fellow of Wired UK, 50: Europe’s most influential women in the startup and venture capital space and the 29 Powerful Women by Refinery29.

Born in France, she has spent most of her life abroad, from growing up in Singapore, California, and France to studying and working in Italy and Switzerland and finally accomplishing humanitarian missions in Brazil and Cambodia. As of today, she has traveled in 50+ countries.

Show notes: 02:15 -- Introduction "Who is Alisée" 03:50 -- How and why Alisée joined Seedstars / helped to start the company 06:42 -- The early days of Seedstars - Traveling the world and setting up Startup competitions globally 07:40 -- How Alisée approached the decision to take the leap and quit her job at L’oreal to start Seedstars 09:41 -- How to make a decision between corporate job or startup life 13:46 -- How to overcome the chicken & egg problem in entrepreneurship 15:55 -- Alisée’s favorite moments along Seedstars journey and within her time as an entrepreneur 18:01 -- Seedstars today: How the business look like. Raising Series A VC funds for specific regions - e.g. Africa 20:19 -- How startups can become part of Seedstars and general advice for fellow entrepreneurs 23:47 -- Favorite books 25:48 -- Advice to younger self 26:07 -- Routine / Hobby of Alisée to get her mind off work 27:01 -- What does courage mean to Alisée

Resources mentioned:

• Principles: Life and Work - Ray Dalio
• The Human Network: How Your Social Position Determines Your Power, Beliefs, and Behaviors - Matthew O. Jackson
• Seedstars
• Seedstars World - Startup Competition
• Advice to younger self: "Just chill"
• Tip for aspiring entrepreneurs:
• "Surround yourself with people that support you and give you honest advice & feedback (informal mentors)"
• "Figure out what life you don’t want and be sure what specific value-add you can bring."

If you're enjoying the podcast, the best way to support the show is by leaving a review on Apple Podcast or in your favorite podcast app.

Andri Silberschmidt (@andrisilbi) is a 25 years old rising star here in Switzerland. He is a food entrepreneur, equity investor, and politician. At the age of fifteen, he began his banking education and is now responsible at Swisscanto Invest for the management of all quantitative equity funds investing in developing countries. In the summer of 2017, Andri and some of his friends founded kaisin. , a Poké Bowl restaurant and catering chain. He has been politically active since 2011 and became president of the "Jungfreisinnige Partei" of Switzerland in 2016. Recently he was elected to the Parliament of the City of Zurich for the FDP and is now on the list of the FDP Canton of Zurich for the National Council elections in October 2019.

Please follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and my Website, where I post new episodes, share cool stuff & interesting articles I found, and blog occasionally!

Show notes: 02:14 -- Who is Andri Silberschmidt 03:14 -- How Andri started his career and got into entrepreneurship by starting a Poké Bowl restaurant 05:40 -- Opening a restaurant business without outside capital 06:53 -- How Andri started kaisin. & pitched his idea 10:10 -- Andri’s note taking app 10:34 -- Recommended resources & books for starting a business 11:44 -- Expansion plans of kaisin. 13:26 -- How kaisin. launched and promoted their store with little resources 16:04 -- How Andri balances his time and energy between all the different commitments. Why sleep is so important. 20:12 -- Andri’s involvement with “TeamStartup” to foster entrepreneurship in Switzerland 23:23 -- Challenges of entrepreneurship in Switzerland 28:02 -- Andri’s learnings from his startup experience 31:54 -- Book recommendations 35:11 -- Andri’s best investment 37:29 -- Andri’s “hobby” 39:03 -- Andri’s personal advisory board 41:37 -- Andri’s message to the world - "Respect, Create, Enjoy" 44:24 -- What does courage mean to Andri?

Resources mentioned:

• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity - David Allen
• Andri’s high productivity habits: 1. Getting enough sleep (7.5h), 2. No alcohol during the week, 3. Working out regularly
• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams - Walker PhD, Matthew
• Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• TeamStartup
• Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead - Sheryl Sandberg
• The Constitution of Liberty - F. A. Hayek
• Kaisin.
• FDP
• Grünliberale

Andreas Schwarzinger (@a_schwarzinger) is the founder and managing partner of uniboard AG, one of Switzerland’s largest student platforms with over 72k users. Andreas is one of the most down-to-earth people I know and with his work at Uniboard helped thousands of students to successfully pass their degrees. His motto is "Studying together is better"! In our conversation we talk about how Andreas and his co-founder Malte grew uniboard to its current size, community building, winning customers, favorite movies, smelling car waxes and other fun stuff.

Please follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and my Website, where I post new episodes, share cool stuff & interesting articles I found, and blog occasionally!

Show notes: 02:59 -- Who is Andreas 04:13 -- How the uniboard.ch got started 06:53 -- How Andreas made the decision to run uniboard full-time 09:06 -- Growth of Uniboard in Switzerland 10:38 -- Startup vs. Traditional career in Management consulting 15:22 -- Lessons from community building and marketing 19:05 -- Thoughts about monetization of a platform 22:25 -- Challenges and learnings from switching from a student organization to a startup 24:23 -- General challenges of the startup world and how to overcome them (focus on product & focus on sales) 29:08 -- Tips for Selling, building trust, and winning customers 34:04 -- Future goals of Uniboard 35:58 -- Andreas’ favorite book or story 38:20 -- Unique interesting hobbies of Andreas 40:44 -- Personal advisory board 43:45 -- Advice to younger self / listeners in their early 20s/30s 46:35 -- Unjustified fears of entrepreneurship 48:05 -- What does courage mean for Andreas

Resources mentioned:

• Uniboard.ch
• Avengers Endgame
• Waxfinder.com
• Top Gun (Viper)
• Will Smith
• Kevin Feige

If you're enjoying the podcast, the best way to support the show is by leaving a review on iTunes or in your favorite podcast app.