Sven Trautner is a Senior Innovation Manager of Munich Re. Sven loves to work towards innovation in the insurance industry with a framework called Business Building.

At Munich Re, with their Business Building practice, they strengthen their partners’ value proposition combining their industry expertise, technology and capacity with the shared goal of building the insurance of tomorrow.

In this podcast episode, Sven tells us his story working as an innovation manager, what is the Munich Re process in the Business Building practice, what are the challenges faced by the insurance industry during these times, what are the skills needed to work as an innovation manager and what resources he uses to keep learning about innovation and the insurance industry.

Some of the resources shared by Sven are:

- Feel free to follow Sven on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sven-trautner-ab0286125/

- Get to know more about Munich Re over here:

https://www.munichre.com/en.html

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Tanja Koch is the Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer of Amplo. Tanja is a mechanical engineer building bridges between product, R&D, and B2B customer success. She is dedicated to B2B growth by triggering human emotions, keeping high standards, and educating customers.

With Amplo, Tanja and her team are working to make maintenance smart with a digital solution and leveraging AI.

In this podcast episode, Tanja tells us the story of Amplo, what is their process of building the software, how they are working to find product-market fit in different markets, what are her responsibilities & advice as a Chief Customer Officer, how to keep her motivation while building her tech startup, and different tips to raise funds from angel investors and VCs.

- Feel free to follow Tanja on LinkedIn:

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

- Get to know more about Amplo over here:

https://amplo.ch/

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Renate Andersen Straume is the founder and CEO of Varig. She has studied property development and facilities management and currently focused on bringing technology as a key enabler for sustainability within the use and ownership of buildings.

With Varig, they are making sustainability reporting easy for commercial real estate.

During our conversation, we got the chance to talk about Renate's process to define the scope of the minimum viable product, her story finding investors, how to make the right questions to the software users / customers, her vision for the software & real estate sustainability, and resources / places to follow if you are planning to start a tech company in Norway.

- Feel free to follow Renate on LinkedIn:

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

- Get to know more about Varig over here:

https://varig.tech/

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Hermann Arnold is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and democracy reformer. He is currently working on 42Hacks - closing the gap between climate promises and protests with actions. Also, Hermann has invested in more than 30 startups in different industries.

During this podcast episode, we're talking about Hermann's journey as an entrepreneur & investor, how 42Hacks is helping to implement actions to reduce the climate crisis, what are the changes he is working towards improving democracy, what is his process and recommendations to invest in startups and the resources & books he follows for aspiring entrepreneurs and investors.

- Feel free to follow Hermann on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hermannarnold/

- Get to know more about 42Hacks over here: https://www.42hacks.com/

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Pavla Lokajova is a senior copywriter & storyteller helping businesses to use storytelling to engage with their customers. She has interviewed more than 500 CEOs and written about their stories.

Currently, she provides copywriting services to eCommerce, FoodTech, and FemTech companies. She loves to create long-format content like blog posts, case studies, whitepapers, and e-books to tell honest, unplugged stories of businesses, their industry, their teams, and customers.

During this podcast episode, we're talking about Pavla's approach to writing stories, the resources & books she follows, why companies must invest in content marketing and storytelling, what's the process companies need to follow to engage better with their customers, and some examples of good approach towards copywriting.

Some of the resources and links shared by Pavla are:

Books

Newsletters

TED Talks

Feel free to follow Pavla on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavlaloka/

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Shawn Drost is the CEO & co-founder of Phoenix Hydrogen based in Berkeley, California, USA. He has previously co-founded and led a company training software engineers called Hack Reactor (https://www.hackreactor.com/) and has an exit of this company with Galvanize (https://www.galvanize.com/).

After selling his startup, Shawn decided to embark on a journey to learn more about climate change and look for potential improvements he could build. He gained significant knowledge about clean hydrogen and then kickstarted Phoenix Hydrogen.

With Phoenix Hydrogen, Shawn and his team are building the first marketplace of clean hydrogen combining his software development skills with the expertise of his co-founder on hydrogen. They have participated in one of the batches of Y Combinator and managed to raise their seed capital during the previous months.

During this podcast episode, we are talking about Shawn's way to learn about climate change and clean energy, the resources & companies he follows, what is green hydrogen, his vision of the use of hydrogen in the upcoming years, advice to aspiring entrepreneurs on finding co-founders, how he has approached fundraising for the company, and what's the process to build his marketplace.

Some of the resources and links shared by Shawn are:

- Feel free to follow Shawn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawndrost/

- To know more about Phoenix Hydrogen, you can visit their website at https://www.phoenixhydrogen.com/

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Øyvind Vesterdal is the Co-Founder & CEO of Norsk Solar based in Stavanger, Norway. He has been working in the renewable energy sector for more than six years.

With Norsk Solar, Øyvind and his team are developing, investing, building, and operating solar power PV plants in emerging markets (LATAM, Africa, and Asia), with a special focus on commercial and industrial clients. The company has an installation track record of 60 MW. They are aiming to have 2 GW in operation or under construction by 2025.

During this podcast episode, we are talking about his starting point to work in the solar energy industry, advice for people to find ideas and execute them in profitable businesses, how does it work the Norsk Solar business model, the thinking behind and process of listing their company on the Euronext Growth Oslo stock exchange, and the resources he uses to keep updated in a constantly changing world.

- Feel free to follow Øyvind on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oyvind-laugen-vesterdal/

- To know more about Norsk Solar, you can visit their website at https://norsksolar.com/

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Silvan Krähenbühl is an entrepreneur and podcast host based in Zürich, Switzerland. He loves to put ideas into action with great teams and hit goals he didn’t think were possible. Currently, he is the host of the podcast Swisspreneur (Switzerland's # 1 podcast for entrepreneurs) and Enterprise Account Director at Rentouch.

During this episode, we are talking about his experience building GymHopper and exiting this startup, how his gym routine has helped in the entrepreneurship path, how Silvan arrives to work as an ecosystem builder in Swisspreneur, key lessons learned from all the interviewees of the podcast, his passion for B2B sales and insights about it.

- Some of the resources mentioned during the conversation are:

- If you want to read really interesting articles written by Silvan, check out: https://www.silvankraehenbuehl.com/things-i-write

- Feel free to follow Silvan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/silvankraehenbuehl/

- To know more about Swisspreneur & Rentouch, you can visit their website at https://www.swisspreneur.org/ and https://rentouch.ch/

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Vaclav Gregor is the CEO & Partner of Soulmates Ventures. His mission is to accelerate bold entrepreneurs building a more sustainable future. Since 2020, the fund has been investing in a portfolio of companies addressing the most urgent and pressing environmental challenges. Some of the portfolio startups are Tesla Medical, Precismo, Perfect-Air, edlab, and sensetio.

During this episode, we are talking about the beginnings of Soulmates Ventures, how Vaclav arrives to work on this mission to accelerate purpose-driven companies, what are his recommendations to aspiring founders while creating their business, what is their criteria to invest in companies, how to approach hiring senior talent for your startup, and what is his next move with Soulmates.

- If you want to read really interesting articles, check out the Soulmates Ventures Journal: https://www.soulmatesventures.com/journal/

- Feel free to follow Vaclav on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vaclavgregor/

- To know more about Soulmates Ventures, you can visit their website at http://www.soulmatesventures.com/.

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Charlotte Melkert is the Co-Founder & CEO of Equalture. She is on the journey to disrupt the HR market with a digital tool shaping the world of unbiased hiring. Since 2018, Charlotte has started this company with her twin sister, Fleur Melkert, and they are currently a team of 37 people with their main headquarter in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Equalture is an HR software that helps SMBs collect unbiased insights on the skills and behaviors of both their team and candidates to hire the best-fits without bias, by using a gamified approach.

During this episode, we are talking about the beginnings of Equalture, how Charlotte arrives to work on this mission to fix the hiring process, what are her recommendations to aspiring founders while creating their tech startups, what has been their process to build the product, and what's the future of hiring.

Also, if you are planning to build a digital product soon, Charlotte recommends checking out this book: Hooked - How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal (https://www.nirandfar.com/hooked/).

- Feel free to follow Charlotte Melkert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotte-melkert-07987b81/.

- To know more about Equalture, you can visit their website at https://www.equalture.com.

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