Startup Notes

Startup Notes

By Emil Beck, Ignacio Khalek, Thomas Harsch, Torge SchwandtBusinessEntrepreneurshipTechnologyCareers
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Startup Notes episodes

  • Stephan Heller on Groupon, FinCompare and the role of execution in startups
    Stephan Heller is a true execution-driven entrepreneur of the digital economy who knows how to start a company from scratch and grow it successfully. Since the beginning of 2017, he is Founder & CEO of FinCompare and before had the same role at Watchmaster (a digital marketplace for buying and selling luxury watches that has secured a total of 16m€ in funding). Prior to founding his own companies, Stephan worked at well-known startup Groupon in various roles. As Head of Merchant Marketing & Inbound Sales EMEA helped Groupon to grow tremendously in Europe. After university, he first started his career at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants from where he was recruited by Rocket Internet to join Groupon. Stephan holds a Master in Management degree from ESCP Europe and is active as an Angel Investor (e.g. in Talon.One). He is also a backer of the Founders Pledge.
    Based in Berlin, FinCompare is a FinTech startup with the vision to become Europe’s leading financing platform for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It is using technology to offer small businesses and entrepreneurs a convenient one-stop destination for all their financing needs - enabling their clients to find, compare and close financing options from over 200 lenders. Supported by strong investors, the startup has successfully begun to reform the B2B financing market. Having raised 2.5m€ in funding and provided millions of Euros in financial products to their clients already, FinCompare is well on its way with dynamic growth.
    In this episode, we are talking to Stephan about his exciting time at Groupon and the crazy stories that one can hear about the startup’s journey in Berlin, why he started FinCompare, and what aspiring entrepreneurs should be aware of when it comes to execution and operations in a young company.
    Here is the full list of topics that we cover with execution-driven entrepreneur Stephan Heller:
    [00:29 – 02:42] Introduction of Stephan and the milestones of his career so far
    [02:43 – 04:49] Why Groupon produced so many entrepreneurial talents that went on to start their own companies
    [04:50 – 06:24] What made Groupon special when Stephan worked there
    [06:25 – 09:24] On the type of stories that happened behind the scenes at Groupon [Listener Question]
    [09:25 – 13:02] On Stephan’s journey with Watchmaster and why he left the company [Listener Question]
    [13:03 – 16:49] The key entrepreneurial learnings that Stephan had at Watchmaster
    [16:50 – 20:15] On the importance of fast-paced execution in a startup
    [20:16 – 23:23] How to improve execution skills as a founder for quickly building a company
    [23:24 – 27:03] Best practices for structuring the early operations in a startup
    [27:04 – 30:25] On how to balance fast-paced execution with building a great team culture [Listener Question]
    [30:26 – 35:03] Why Stephan switched from E-Commerce to FinTech when founding FinCompare
    [35:04 – 36:36] Open job positions at FinCompare and ways to get in touch
    [36:37 – 39:28] Stephan’s best pieces of advice to aspiring founders
    40 min
  • Alexander Frolov on increasing your chances of getting funded by a VC like Target Global
    Alexander „Alex“ Frolov is a truly pan-European entrepreneur and venture capital investor. Originally from Russia, he has spent the last five years building up the international VC firm Target Global, which is a comprehensive family of funds and offers investments and support to companies of all stages (from seed to growth). With offices in Berlin, Tel Aviv and Moscow, the company covers the European startup market in great depth - but also bridges the local and US startup scene by having an additional office in San Francisco. Target Global focuses primarily on fast-growing digital-enabled B2C and B2B companies in marketplaces, FinTech, software and mobile segments. The VC firm aims to identify and support great teams that execute on phenomenal opportunities to create true success stories. Since 2012, Target Global has invested into more than 40 startups and currently has more than $500 million in assets under management. Well-known companies like Delivery Hero, Blue Apron, Book A TIGER and Auto1 belong to Target Global’s portfolio.
    As a General Partner, Alex works on all aspects of the VC business and tries to create sustainable returns on investment and support startup success cases alike. Prior to joining Target Global, he worked at the VC firm DFJ Esprit in London and led several private and corporate tech startups himself. Alex started his career as an analyst at Troika Dialog Asset Management, where he covered the telecom and IT sectors.
    In this episode, we are talking to Alex about what makes Target Global unique as a VC, the questions that he asks startups when they seek funding, how entrepreneurs can impress him during an investment pitch, what current industry trends he sees in the European startup scene and what people might not know about the tech scene in Russia.
    Here is the full list of topics that we cover with international venture capital investor Alexander Frolov:
    [01:25 – 02:19] Introduction of Alex and his professional background
    [02:20 – 04:14] On the founding story behind Target Global
    [04:15 – 05:04] The one thing that people don’t know about Alex
    [05:05 – 06:49] What Alex fundamentally disagrees on with other people
    [06:50 – 08:52] On Target Global’s ‚unfair advantage‘ as a VC
    [08:53 - 10:08] On the definition of the term „hustler“
    [10:09 - 12:07] How Target Global assesses if a founder has what it takes to be successful
    [12:08 - 12:52] On Delivery Hero being Target’s most successful exit to date
    [12:53 - 15:14] The ‚secret sauce‘ for Delivery Hero’s success
    [15:15 - 18:01] How the founders of their portfolio companies convinced the Target team to invest
    [18:02 - 22:38] On the investment into Hello Fresh’s US rival Blue Apron
    [22:39 - 23:38] Alex’ view on Amazon being a threat to e-commerce startups
    [23:39 - 27:33] Target’s screening process for identifying opportunities and making investments
    [27:34 - 29:14] How long it takes on average from an introduction to transferring the money for an investment
    [29:15 - 30:46] On the KPIs that Target Global uses to measure its own performance
    [30:47 - 31:12] One question that founders teams should be prepared for to answer during a pitch
    [31:13 - 34:23] Target’s operational involvement in their portfolio companies
    [34:24 - 36:54] How entrepreneurs can ‚wow‘ Alex during an investment pitch
    [36:55 - 38:39] Alex’ worst investment decision as a VC
    [38:40 - 39:44] The best advice that was given to Alex as a VC
    [39:45 - 41:54] The promising industries that Alex himself would found a startup in
    [41:55 - 44:30] What people don’t know about the Russian startup scene
    46 min
  • Roman Kirsch on his exit with Casacanda to Fab.com and building Lesara at high speed
    Roman Kirsch is one of the exceptional talents in the German startup scene. After graduating from business school, he started Casacanda in 2011 and sold it to Fab.com after only six months at a presumed valuation of $10m. After leaving Fab, he started his second e-commerce startup Lesara in 2013 - at the time being only 25 years old. As a digital store for trendy fashion and lifestyle products that is able to identify trends online and to manufacture and ship new products accordingly within only ten days, Lesara is successfully disrupting the fashion industry. The startup delivers latest brand quality products at unbeatable prices, making exclusive fashion and lifestyle trends affordable and available to everyone. Lesara is active in 24 countries and reaches 1.5m active clients with its 100,000 listed products. The company has by now raised funding of 55m€ - among others from well-known VCs like Mangrove Capital Partners, Vorwerk Ventures, Cherry Ventures and Northzone.
    In our episode, we are talking with Roman about his lessons learned from Casacanda's exit and building up Lesara at high speed. Roman explains how he and his team managed to start and sell Casacanda within just six months and why company culture is an important factor for Lesara’s growth and competitive advantage. He also shares his view on the current trends in the e-commerce space and gives insightful advice to aspiring founders.
    Here is the full list of topics that we cover with e-commerce expert and fashion industry disruptor Roman Kirsch:
    [00:59 – 01:33] Introduction of Roman and his background
    [01:34 – 03:02] Who the entrepreneur behind Lesara is in his private life
    [03:03 – 04:38] What Roman fundamentally disagrees on with other people
    [04:39 – 08:55] On the behind-the-scenes process of selling Casacanda to Fab.com
    [08:56 – 10:44] What founders should be aware of when they try to sell their business
    [10:45 – 13:31] On the decline of Fab.com
    [13:32 – 17:58] The disruptive concept of Lesara explained
    [17:59 – 19:25] Advice on how to create a great company culture
    [19:26 – 21:30] On the challenges of setting up a team in China [Listener Question]
    [21:31 – 23:41] How Roman structures his work day and how that has changed over time [Listener Question]
    [23:42 – 25:23] On Lesara’s 45m€ investment into an own distribution centre in Germany
    [25:24 – 26:26] On the VC funding raised by Lesara and the startup’s exit potential [Listener Question]
    [26:27 – 28:12] Current e-commerce trends with big future potential
    [28:13 – 30:25] What to consider when creating an e-commerce company nowadays [Listener Question]
    [30:26 – 32:00] Roman’s advice to aspiring entrepreneurs and first-time founders
    33 min
  • Teaser: Roman Kirsch on his exit with Casacanda to Fab.com and building Lesara at high speed
    Roman Kirsch is one of the exceptional talents in the German startup scene. After graduating from business school, he started Casacanda (an online shopping club for designer products) in 2011 and sold it to Fab.com after only six months at a valuation of $10m.
    After leaving Fab, he started his second e-commerce startup Lesara in 2013 at the age of 25. Being a digital store for trendy fashion and lifestyle products that can identify trends online with its technology and have its products manufactured accordingly through direct cooperation with manufacturers and suppliers within only ten days, Lesara is successfully disrupting the fashion industry. Roman and his team manage to deliver latest brand quality products to its customers at unbeatable prices, making exclusive fashion and lifestyle trends affordable and available to everyone. Lesara is active in 24 countries and reaches 1.5m active clients with its 100,000 listed products. The company has by now raised funding of 55m€ - among others from well-known VCs like Mangrove Capital Partners​, Vorwerk​ Ventures and Northzone​.
    In our episode, we are talking with Roman about his lessons learned from his successful exit with Casacanda to Fab.com and disrupting the fashion industry with his second e-commerce startup Lesara. Roman explains how he and his team managed to start and sell Casacanda within just six months and why speed and company culture are such important factors for Lesara’s competitive advantage. Last but not least, he shares his view on the current trends in the e-commerce space and gives insightful advice to aspiring founders.
    2 min
  • Claude Ritter on his journey as a founder and his criteria for early-stage investments
    Claude Ritter is one of Germany’s online entrepreneurs who can be labelled as to have been quite successful in his career so far. He co-founded online food delivery startup Lieferheld in 2010, which was later sold to the widely known Delivery Hero Group. At Delivery Hero, Claude served as CPO and was in charge of global product and engineering. Law suits, police raids and almost getting into fist fights with his rivals at other Berlin-based food delivery startups were part of that job experience - having him go through extremely tough times and fierce competition while trying to make it as a founder. Prior to his work in the online food delivery market, Claude had already been active as an entrepreneur - he started Aionics (a Swiss-based web agency) and co-founded two companies (The NetCircle, DUQI) in China where he lived for 5 years.
    In 2014, Claude started his latest venture: As co-founder & CPO of Book A Tiger, he is working on digitalizing the cleaning service market ever since. Besides this, he also is a Partner at Cavalry Ventures, a Berlin based (pre-)seed fund, and invests into early-stage startups as a business angel.
    In this episode, we discuss Claude’s journey and his learnings as an entrepreneur so far, how to start a startup and his work on Book A Tiger. During our very insightful conversation, Claude gives advice for aspiring founders, answers some of our listeners’ questions, talks about mistakes and also describes his criteria for investing into early-stage startups as a business angel.
    Here is the full list of topics that we cover with serial entrepreneur and angel investor Claude Ritter:
    [01:20 - 03:33] Claude’s background and the steps of his career as an entrepreneur so far
    [03:34 - 04:10] Why he disagrees that you can learn to be a founder
    [04:11 - 06:19] On the fierce competition in the online food delivery market in Germany in the early 2010’s
    [06:20 - 07:19] What made Lieferheld and Lieferando both a success after all
    [07:20 - 08:14] How the competition in digitalizing the moving services industry today is only a somewhat similar situation
    [08:15 - 09:39 ] On the key moments and actions that defined Lieferheld’s successful journey
    [09:40 - 11:57] The difference between BOOK A TIGER and its competitor Helpling
    [11:58 - 12:45] The competitive advantage that BOOK A TIGER has by employing their cleaners directly
    [12:46 - 14:45] What Claude would do differently if he started over with a new company again
    [14:46 - 16:49] Claude’s advice on how to choose your first job in the startup industry [Listener Question]
    [16:50 - 18:02] Why he would not want to work in the FinTech industry
    [18:03 - 20:08] How business school graduates should get started if they want to found a company
    [20:09 - 22:45] How to identify promising markets and business models
    [22:46 - 23:21] The most common mistake that young founders make over and over again
    [23:22 - 25:21] How founders can ‘wow’ Claude as an investor during a pitch
    [25:22 - 27:08] The best way to get in touch with Claude for pitching your idea to him
    [27:09 - 29:26] His advice on when to best contact potential buyers for exiting your company [Listener Question]
    [29:27 - 30:33] Claude’s most successful investment to date [Listener Question]
    [30:34 - 32:29] The most important advice he can give to aspiring founders
    [32:30 - 34:41] Open job positions at BOOK A TIGER
    36 min
  • Niklas Jansen on how Blinkist built an inspiring high-performance startup culture
    Niklas Jansen co-founded one of the hottest companies in Berlin. His startup Blinkist summarizes the key insights of over 2,500 bestselling non-fiction books in short 15-minute reads and audio format. With this idea that resulted from a personal problem (Niklas and his co-founders wanted to read more books but just didn’t have the time to read them completely), Blinkist has raised over 15 million US$ from German and international VCs (e.ventures, Greycroft Partners) and already reached over 3 million users all around the world.
    Apart from its impressive growth, Blinkist is known for its outstanding company culture. On Glassdoor and on Niklas’ personal LinkedIn profile, you can find comments like “I love going to work every morning” and “This environment helped me to explode in terms of personal development”.
    In this episode, we accordingly dive deeply into the topic of “company culture” with Niklas being the architect of Blinkist’s HR philosophy. We talk about why culture is so important for Blinkist, how they measure it and how the startup’s culture impacts hiring and firing.
    Here is the full list of topics that we cover with successful ‘startup culture’ expert Niklas Jansen:
    [01:05 - 03:12] On Blinkist and the founding story behind it
    [03:13 - 06:04] How Niklas as a founder of Blinkist defines “company culture”
    [06:05 - 10:36] Why culture is so important for Blinkist and how the founders came up with theirs
    [10:37 - 12:36] How the company culture at Blinkist is managed
    [12:37 - 15:10] The KPIs that Niklas and his team use to manage their company culture
    [15:11 - 17:36 ] On the importance of being intentional about culture to be successful as a company
    [17:37 - 19:30] How culture influences business decisions like hiring
    [19:31 - 22:38] How Blinkist executes the importance of its culture during its hiring process
    [22:39 - 24:14] What it means when ‘everyone owns the culture’ in a startup
    [24:15 - 27:41] Niklas’ view and best practices on firing decisions
    [27:42 - 31:12] How Blinkist fosters personal development among its employees
    [31:13 - 34:03] On how to to give feedback the right way
    [34:04 - 35:37] Open job positions at Blinkist and tips on how to apply
    37 min
  • Sebastian Diemer on FinTech, Bitcoin and taking risks as an entrepreneur
    Sebastian Diemer is one of the rockstars within the European startup scene. As one of the founders of Kreditech, he helped to shape the continent’s FinTech scene for years to come by creating a real-time scoring technology that enables 100% automatized, scaleable and big data-based scoring decisions worldwide and 24/7. After leaving the company in 2015, he went on to found his next FinTech startup Finiata, which is an automated European lending platform with the purpose to finance small businesses and freelancers. Supported by leading VCs (Point9, DN Capital, Fly Ventures and RedAlpine), the startup is currently growing at a monthly rate of 80%.
    With Kreditech’s latest financing round of 110m EUR in May 2017, Sebastian eventually also made his personal exit as a shareholder from the company. Being a true entrepreneur by passion, he is using his personal success also to support other founders. As Founding Investor, he helps to build up Digitalkasten - a niche SaaS business that digitalises physical mail and quickly became profitable. Business school-trained, he also invests into cryptos and bricks.
    In this episode, Sebastian discusses ‘everything FinTech’ from founding Kreditech to Bitcoin, explains why speed in execution matters, gives tons of advice for aspiring founders and describes why he wishes he would have read the book ‘The Lean Startup’ earlier.
    Here is the full list of topics that we cover with FinTech and execution expert Sebastian Diemer:
    [00:29 – 05:56] On the different stages of his career so far
    [05:57 – 12:14] His learnings from Kreditech and what he is doing differently now with Finiata
    [12:15 – 15:46] On Finiata’s service and its vision
    [15:47 – 22:15] The impact that a ‘AAA’-rated investor like Peter Thiel has on a startup
    [22:16 – 27:36] On the importance of execution skills and ways how to improve them
    [27:37 – 31:25] Best practices to structure early operations in a startup
    [31:26 – 36:52] On Bitcoin and Blockchain
    [36:53 – 41:10] Sebastian’s advice for taking risks as an entrepreneur when you are looking for growth opportunities
    [41:11 – 44:50] Open job positions at the companies that he is involved in
    46 min
  • Luis Hanemann on online marketing, growth and influencers

    Luis Hanemann is without a doubt one of the biggest names in the European startup scene when it comes to online marketing and growth. Since 2015, he is a partner at venture capital firm e.ventures. Based in the VC’s Berlin office, he develops and implements strategic growth initiatives and provides operational support for e.ventures portfolio companies around the world to ensure their competitive advantage. As a global VC firm, e.ventures invests in early stage and growth stage emerging technology companies across the US, Europe, China and Brazil. The portfolio of e.ventures includes well-known startups like Azimo, Groupon and Angie’s List.

    Prior to e.ventures, Luis served as Chief Marketing Officer at German online startups giant Rocket Internet. While at Rocket, he helped to identify and build proven Internet business models, which were then transferred to new, underserved or untapped markets where he scaled them into leading online companies.

    Before joining Rocket Internet as CMO on a global level, Luis worked for several e-commerce companies like smava and eDarling and also managed own web projects. During his time at Rocket, he additionally founded the online marketing agency Trust Agents, which he still is a Partner of. Given his broad experience, Luis is a regular speaker at industry conferences in the fields of digitalization, internationalization and digital marketing.

    In this episode, Luis talks about ‘everything online marketing’ - giving advice on SEO, sharing his view on the current trend of influencer marketing and answering some of our listeners' questions. He also describes why being a VC is a privilege and shares his learnings from each stage of his career so far with lots of tips for aspiring founders. 

    38 min
  • Friedrich A. Neuman on building companies and making ideas work
    As founder & CEO of the company builder MAKERS, Friedrich A. Neuman truly knows how to start and scale companies and take ideas ‘from zero to one’. Originally from Brazil, he came to Europe at the beginning of his twenties to study Business & Economics in Switzerland. Afterwards, he moved on to Berlin where quickly started to make a name for himself as a serial entrepreneur. Among others, he joined Rocket Internet and co-founded the social gifting platform Dropgifts in early 2012. In the same year, he went on to found e-commerce marketing platform Run a Shop that generates a gross merchandise value of $1bn by now. In 2013, he eventually decided to focus his entrepreneurial spirit within MAKERS, helping other aspiring entrepreneurs to found startups ever since.
    Makers is a Berlin-based investor and company builder that builds and invests in tech startups, offering an ecosystem where founders can focus on shipping early product versions quickly. The company builder gives founders access to seed capital, office space, startup incorporation & accounting, software development, marketing & communications, recruiting & HR and product design.
    In this episode, Friedrich talks about how MAKERS works and identifies companies it would like to support, the challenges of a company builder, exciting industries and the qualities of great founders.
    35 min
  • Olaf Jacobi on the 3 T's of startup success

    Olaf Jacobi is a textbook example of a VC. For eight years, he was a partner and co-owner of Munich-based venture capital firm Target Partners. In 2015, he went on to join Capnamic Ventures to build up its Berlin office. With more than 20 years of experience as a manager, entrepreneur and investor, Olaf has invested in emerging entrepreneurs in the Internet and IT sector. Before switching sides and becoming a VC in 2007, he founded and established multiple prosperous startups, which led to several successful exits.

    29 min

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Startup Notes is the hub for unique entrepreneurial insights. Every two weeks, we publish a podcast interview with an accomplished founder or venture capitalist from Europe. We talk about all things…