Startup Notes

In our seventh #FromScratch masterclass, David Okuniev taught our audience how to build a product that users love.

David is Co-Founder of Typeform. Based in Barcelona, the startup is making the filling in of forms and surveys awesome by helping users to collect data in a conversational way. A passionate creative and musician, David is a full-fledged product designer specialized in UI & UX design. As technical director for the product, he focuses on further developing the successful SaaS platform. Typeform has raised more than $50M in funding from investors like Index Ventures since it was founded in 2011.

In this episode, David and moderator Christian Miele (Partner at e.ventures) elaborate on the approach of designing for a „human experience“ (HX), the right data for assessing your product-market fit, and how to align your team to deliver a product that customers build an emotional relationship with.

Dmitri Uvarovski is Co-Founder & CMO at Homeday. Started in 2014, the Cologne-based startup is on a mission to revolutionize the way people sell and buy property. With its platform, Homeday offers data-driven pairing between real estate agents and private property owners to ensure a more transparent, efficient and overall smoother experience for all parties involved. Supported by prominent VCs like Project A Ventures, Paua Ventures, Picus Capital and Axel Springer Digital Ventures, the company has raised more than 20m€ in funding so far.

In this episode, Dmitri shares his insights on how he and his team are changing the way people buy and sell properties, the challenges, and opportunities that he sees in the real estate sector, and the role of legislation for enabling innovation.

Tobias Tschötsch is Founder & Managing Director of Contorion. The Berlin-based startup offers a B2B online marketplace for maintenance, repair and operations products. Started in 2014 with the help of investor Project A Ventures, Contorion exited only 3 years later in a presumed $100m+ acquisition to high-quality tool producer Hoffmann Group. Previously, Tobias was Co-Founder & COO of Groupon UK.

In this episode, Tobias shares his insights on how to successfully make an exit with your company. Among others, we discuss exit strategy, how to make a deal, and founders' incentivisation.

Susann Hoffmann is Co-Founder of EDITION F, the first business-lifestyle platform for career-interested women in Germany. Started by Susann and Nora-Vanessa Wohlert in 2014, EDITION F has grown into a community-focused platform with 600,000 unique users per month that provides women with the insights, tools and network they need to grow both professionally and personally.

In this episode, we talk to Susann about her journey with EDITION F, the differences between men and women when it comes to building companies, the challenges for women to balance family and career, and how to foster female entrepreneurship.

Daniel Krauss is Co-Founder & CIO of FlixBus, which is one of Europes's biggest recent startup success stories. After starting operations in 2013, FlixBus has quickly established itself as Europe’s largest intercity bus network provider that offers an affordable, alternative, and green way to travel. The startup recently entered the US market and started to also offer travel options via FlixTrain. FlixBus has raised several funding rounds from leading VCs like Silver Lake Partners, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures and General Atlantic.

Before founding the company in 2011, Daniel worked in different roles at e.g. Siemens and Microsoft. He is also active as a Business Angel, including an investment into klarx.

In this episode, Daniel shares the story of FlixBus' success and explains how to put your customers first, use your data the right way, and grow faster than your competition.