The Founder Gap

Mathyas is the founder of El Origen a German food startup bringing healthy snacks from Latin America to Europe!

They produce and distribute tasty organic plantain and manioc chips which are currently available in over 6000 stores in Germany. 

Unfortunately, this episode got interrupted by connection issues and I lost the first 20 minutes. But this second half of the podcast is still packed full of value.

Mathyas discusses what it's like to start a company in Germany, the importance of processes to help you manage your company, and the role that short-form content can play in your company and personal brand. 

Enjoy and share if you care!

Connect with Mathyas:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathyas-lopez-redetzki-90b42415/

Check out his TikTok & Instagram pages too

https://www.tiktok.com/@startuptogo?lang=de-DE

https://www.instagram.com/mathyaslr/ 

Check out El Origen

https://www.elorigenfood.de/ 

This week's podcast is a clip from an event I hosted together with Forge Accelerator in 2021.

Most first-time entrepreneurs get overwhelmed in the beginning and struggle to know what their next steps should be.

In this podcast, I go through 3 simple steps that you can use from TODAY to start building your own business. Each of the steps includes a free tool that you can use to guide you on your way.

Enjoy and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss our upcoming podcast episodes!

Sign up for the newsletter below! https://thestrongstartup.com/

If you're struggling with how to start building a start then look no further than this podcast!

Developing deep relationships with your future customers as early as possible is absolutely critical for business success.

And Adam Forbes is an expert in this area helping startups to accelerate their path to product market fit, spend efficiently on marketing and find and nurture real customers. 

In this podcast, Adam and I discuss why hard customer facts in the form of data is a solid foundation for building a business, the type of data you should look for, and the very first few steps you can take this week to start building relationships with your customers.

Connect with Adam below

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamkforbes/ 

Grab a free trial of Adam's customer discovery tool "Familiarize"

https://www.gofamiliarize.com/ 

Share if you care!

If you're looking for a real-life example of how to build a startup, look no further than Alyona Mysko from Ukraine. 

She's the founder and CEO of FuelFinance a FinTech startup making finance cool again for startups and small businesses.

Her journey to date has involved persevering through both COVID and the war in Ukraine. Throughout that time she led her team as a solo founder, remained fully bootstrapped and manage over $250m in their client's ARR.

There are some amazing stories and lessons to be learned from this conversation so enjoy. 

Connect with Alyona below

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alyona-mysko-%F0%9F%87%BA%F0%9F%87%A6-39039766/ 

Check out FuelFinance here

https://fuelfinance.me/ 

Please support Ukraine and donate use these options

https://fuelfinance.me/2022/03/05/fuel-stands-with-ukraine/

Olav Carlsen is a Silicon valley CFO veteran having worked with many startups there for over a decade taking two of those companies public.

The most recent of those companies was PortalPlayer Inc. known for "delivering technology to Steve Jobs". They worked exclusively with Apple and provided almost everything that went into the first generation of their Ipods. 

In this podcast we discuss the two main challenges facing startups as they being to scale their business, we dip into a discussion about how silicon valley has both changed and remained the same over the past 20 or so years.

Finally, we provide an overview of the ScaleUp4Europe program which is an equity-free acceleration program helping startups to scale through access to customers in Europe. 

Check out the 4 startup programs offered by ScaleUp4Europe below

https://scaleup4.eu/

Connect with Olav Carlsen

https://www.linkedin.com/in/olavcarlsen/

In this episode, Dr. Alex Kern and I go deep into the world of Venture Capital discussing how VCs are a lot of more Startups than you might think in terms of their structure as well as how VCs are financed and the competitive nature of the VC market. 

Alex also provides a nice overview of how VC funding is layered from pre-seed to Series A, B, etc, and discusses the process he went through to self publish his very own children's book about Startups and the world f Venture Capital!

Dr. Alex Kern has extensive experience in the world of finance and Venture Capital. He's currently principal at AKX Capital where he helps VCs get setup and grow & Managing Partner of the Deutsches Euro-Institute a consulting firm focusing on M&A, VC/PE, Corporate Restructuring, and Corporate Development.

Alex is also a Professor of Finance (EDHEC Business School) and Management (International University of Monaco) and a lecturer at King's College London. 

Check out Alex's tiktok channel (focusing on Blockchain)

https://www.tiktok.com/@akx_capital

Grab his children's book about VCs on Amazon!

https://tinyurl.com/2hf5tpa2

Franz is the co-founder and head of business development at Sub Capitals a FinTech startup from XPRENERUS Incubator at UnternehmerTUM in Munich

They’re democratizing access to artificial intelligence for everyday investors like me and you.

They've just launched their platform neoland.ai where you can test out their amazing tailored AI experience on the real financial market!

Signup to Neoland.ai for free right now 

https://tinyurl.com/rc4yun8e

Check out Sub Capitals

https://www.subcapitals.com/en/

Connect with Franz Liebermann

https://www.linkedin.com/in/franz-liebermann-335513182/

We're back after a long break! I'm joined this week by Patrick Remerscheid a scholar at the Manage and More program at UnternehmerTUM. 

Patrick gives you the full low down on this amazing program that is helping shape the future leaders and startup founders of Germany!

It's an 18-month program open to bachelor and master's students from either Technical University Munich (TUM) or Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) in Munich, Germany. 

They also do a public pitch competition at the end of each semester (so twice per year) called "Start and Spread" with around €3k in prize money up for grabs as well as access to the UnternehmerTUM network, pithing workshop & 1-on-1 coaching. Best of all this competition is open to any and all entrepreneurs - you don't need to be a scholar from Manage and More!

Check out the next start and spread event on Dec 1st 2021

https://www.eventbrite.de/e/start-and-spread-winter-2021-powered-by-manage-and-more-tickets-194538669397 

Check out the Manage and More program 

https://www.unternehmertum.de/en/services/manage-more

Connect with Patrick

https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickremerscheid/

#20 Startups are really good at running with an idea - usually in any and all directions possible - in a way we’re all good at running with things, going with the flow - but taking a step back to slow down and thinking critically about your business can be the difference between a failed first-time entrepreneur and a true innovator. 

Critical thinking is the topic of this week's podcast with Karl Thomas, a lecturer at Trinity College Dublin on creativity, innovation & entrepreneurship and founder of Creatovation, his innovation consultancy working with large corporates and smaller startups. 

Fun fact Karl is actually my mentor & the first person to help me really start seeing my work with The Strong Startup, which was this podcast, a youtube channel & some social media content as an actual business. I’m still in the process of setting up that business but Karl helped shift my perspective significantly and really set my vision for creating my own profitable business.  

I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside Karl at several innovation workshops - the depth of his reading and knowledge in the areas of innovation, creativity, and critical thinking is really remarkable & I always learn so much from talking with him which is why this podcast is almost 90 minutes long haha

A quick note that this was recorded almost exactly a year ago in august 2020 -  it was that famous day when zoom completely crashed for everyone for a few hours - we switched to Google Hangouts & the audio recording got messed up & it took me forever to clean it up. Just FYI

Anyway in this podcast with Karl we discuss critical thinking & first principles, feedback & ethics & how this all relates to startups.

Show notes and more at: www.thestrongstartup.com/podcast/episode-20-karl-thomas 

The number 1 question I get asked as a startup coach is "How to find a cofounder" - it's not easy. Building relationships, in general, is hard but there are a few key things you can do along the way to improve your chances of finding the right person for your "startup marriage" because let's face it - it really is a marriage with your cofounder!

Damla is a cofounder of Hubviser a platform that connects entrepreneurs with their local startup ecosystem & potential future co-founders. She is a scrum master at BMW coaching teams from the Automated Driving division in agile project management.

On top of all this, she is also completing the Executive MBA in Innovation & Business Creation at Technical University Munich (TUM) & UnternehmerTUM (UTUM) which is where she found her co-founder & started the startup Hubviser. 

In this podcast, Damla gives some insights into the Executive MBA program at TUM & UTUM, shares her own experience with the problems of finding a co-founder, gives 4 essential tips for how to find a cofounder and gives the low down on Hubviser. 

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Connect with Damal Obermeir

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dobermeir/ 

Check out Hubviser

https://hubviser.com/ 

Check out the Executive MBA at Technical University Munich

https://www.unternehmertum.de/en/services/emba 

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