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.