Episoder
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Interesting episode guest in the Making It Real Podcast for all the product enthusiastists out there: Malte Scholz, product manager specialized in the SaaS and mobile tech space. He is Co-founder and CEO at airfocus, a prioritization and roadmapping software for product teams and decision makers. Malte shares with us his top techniques to prioritize features, to decide on the first product version and to build the best-possible roadmap for your product. We also cover the tricks of balancing customer needs and the challenges of scaling development teams. https://www.linkedin.com/in/maltescholz
https://airfocus.com
linkedin.com/in/janbrinckmann00:00 Intro
00:50 How Malte joined the entrepreneurship space
3:50 Building a first version of a product
5:10 Time until launching a first version
6:25 What does airfocus do?
8:10 Feature prioritization as a product manager
11:35 What framework should I use for prioritization
13:10 Staying on track with the product roadmap
14:55 Challenges that founders face in product development
16:40 What should go into a first version?
19:15 Balancing customer needs
21:15 Assessing the impact of the next release
24:20 Hiring and sustaining a great team
27:55 Quick fire round: Person Malte admires the most | What is so broken that entrepreneurs should fix immediately | Technology that will transform the future | Favourite management concept
32:50 Closing
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In today's episode we welcome Stephan Schambach, serial entrepreneur building market changing companies in the e-commerce space. Prior to his current software NewStore, providing Ominchannel-as-a-Service, Stephan launched Intershop and Demandware that was acquired for $2.8 billion by Salesforce. They say timining is everything, when launching a business. But what is the secret to get it right? How to narrow down focus and go big, when there are so many exciting opportunities? And once launched, how to find your first customers? He answers all these questions and shares his take on the NFT space as well as on the European investment ecosystem.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanschambach
https://www.newstore.com
linkedin.com/in/janbrinckmann0:00 Intro
1:00 The energy that powers Stephan
03:03 Stephan's passion for building companies internationally
06:20 The challenges of starting international companies in Europe
09:30 Finding ideas for new ventures and executing them
14:00 How to determine the right time for launching a startup
18:10 The influence of the first customer
21:10 How to find the first customer
22:30 Trends to watch out for in the ecommerce space
25:30 Stephan's take on opportunities with NFTs
27:45 Raising venture capital in Europe and building a European tech stock exchange
32:45 Quick fire round: Middlename | Something broken that entrepreneurs should fix immediately | Technology that will transform the future | Core concept
33:52 Closing
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Manglende episoder?
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This episode presents David Heinemeir Hansson, Founder and CTO of Ruby on Rails, HEY, and Basecamp. David is not just a prominent entrepreneur but also the author of four best-seller books as well as class-winning race-car driver. We take a deep dive into building up one of the leading web development tools as well as the core activities to stay relevant in the tech community. He shares with us his take on work-life balance while handling several projects at the same time. Listen to the full episode to hear more about his journey and insightful tips.
linkedin.com/in/janbrinckmann
https://dhh.dk
https://rubyonrails.org
https://basecamp.com
00:00 Introduction
01:05 David's journey as a business student to open-source web development
04:30 Core ingredients for a successful web development framework
06:55 Most effective way to showcase a tech product
10:30 Staying relevant in a community
14:00 David's passion for Ruby on Rails
16:45 Focusing on one vs. balancing several projects
25:30 David's take on the 80 hours work week and his experience as a book author and competitive race car driver
30:45 Quick fire round: middle name - what entrepreneurs should fix immediately - technology that will transform the future - software recommendation - core concept
33:25 Closing
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In this episode we welcome a female founder in the tech space, Vivien Dollinger who co-founded ObjectBox, a database management provider for developers. Vivien's entrepreneurial journey started as a side project that became a high-growh potential company and was along the very few of #Techstars cohorts. Some of the questions we cover: When is the right moment to turn side project to launch? How to get traction in the tech community at start? Why is a tech co-founder important despite the fast growing world of no/low code tools for early product development? If you are about to turn your idea and make it real, this episode is definitely worth to listen!
linkedin.com/in/janbrinckmann
linkedin.com/in/vivien-dollinger
https://objectbox.io00:00 Intro
00:55 Does research qualify one for entrepreneurship?
02:53 Vivien's journey to the startup space
07:50 Financing and building a successful team
08:55 Vivien's pitch for ObjectBox
10:05 The need for having great technical people in-house
13:05 Obtaining traction and the long way to getting first sustainable revenues while keeping the motivation high
17:45 Finding and selecting a first investor through Techstars
19:55 What it takes to grow adoption and foster growth with an open source product
25:55 How to develop a great developer community
28:45 Vivien's advice to her younger self - the right balace between focusing on the venture and other parts of life
31:19 Quick fire round: Favourite management concept - underdog software tool - dream job if not heading a tech company
35:01 Outro
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Jeff Clavier began investing into early stage ventures more than twenty years ago and have supported several teams that have reached successful outcomes, among others Eventbrite, Fitbit or Postmates. He has founded Uncork Capital in 2004, one of the most prominent seed funds based in Palo Alto with over $500m under management. In today's episode, he shares with us the current and hottest investment areas he focuses on and why he is passionate about B2B SaaS enterprises. Also, he gives us his take on the current state of the European start-up ecosystem and his advice on avoiding the three most common mistakes made by early stage founders both in the ideation as well as in the product building phase.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffclavier
https://uncorkcapital.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janbrinckmann
00:00 Introduction
0:50 Why and how Jeff joined the entrepreneurship world
02:35 Jeff's reasons for moving to the US & becoming a VC
05:45 The first investment in the time of the Web 2.0 & impressive returns
11:25 Investment hypothesis: Coming from seed investments to also having a growth fund
13:55 On which sectors Jeff focuses his investments
15:35 The opportunity for B2B SaaS companies
17:05 Jeff's view on the European start-up ecosystem
22:50 Advices for founders in the early stage
25:30 How to find the right idea for starting a start-up
27:10 Common mistakes made by founders
29:35 After having the idea - how to build the product
32:45 Jeff's personal advice for getting into the entrepreneurship space
34:28 Quick fire round: Thing Jeff is most proud of; most useful software tool; what would Jeff be if not a VC
38:15 Closing
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Saul Klein, serial entrepreneur and prominent seed investor in the global tech scene, has co-founded numerous game-changing businesses such as LocalGlobe, Seedcamp, Kano, Zinc or Lovefilm (acquired by Amazon). Prior, he had a VP role at Skype and was General Partner at Index Ventures. He shares with us his journey to the entreprenurial space and talks about the transition from working at an established company to starting your own business. He highlights the first steps to take as founders to really see the exciting opportunities and elaborates on the way LocalGlobe evaluates investments and helps improve their performance.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janbrinckmann
https://www.linkedin.com/in/saulklein
https://localglobe.vc
00:00 Introduction
1:31 Saul's journey into the entrepreneurship world
3:40 Disrupting the newspaper industry as a 22 year old
6:25 Seeing entrepreneurship in a new light at netscape
08:55 Making the transition from working at an established company to starting an own business
11:20 First startup experiences at a MIT spinn-off and getting to know the VC and M&A space
13:55 Founding LoveFilm
16:00 Being an Marketing Executive at Skype
19:10 Advice on finding THE entrepreneurial opportunity
23:55 First steps to take as a founder to really see the exciting opportunities
29:53 How to enhance the performance of the start-up as a VC
37:55 How LocalGlobe finds the startups to invest in
43:56 Quick Fire Round: who Saul admires the most | biggest risk currently | #1 recommendation for aspiring entrepreneurs
44:38 Closing
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This time our special guest is Fabian Wesemann, Co-Founder and CFO of insurance unicorn WeFox. Wefox recently secured $650 million in capital, giving the firm a $3 billion valuation. Fabian shares with us how they closed their funding round and his take on building relationship with investors. He also gives us advice on finding tech engineers in the start and and making decisions in a team. And if you wondering how to enter and build trust in a regulated industry, this episode is also for you!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janbrinckmann
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabian-wesemann-6036a629
https://www.wefox.com
0:00 Introduction
1:18 They way investment banking helped Fabian to grow into the startup ecosystem
2:30 How Fabian & the team found the idea for WeFox
4:42 The first version of WeFox
6:20 Evolution of the business model and why the first idea never stays
11:25 How to build trust as an InsureTech
13:15 Convincing a strategic partners as a young startup
15:00 The first rounds of raising venture capital
17:03 Finding tech engineers as business people when founding a startup
19:20 How to build deep domain knowledge, in this case insurance
22:10 Advice on building an amazing team and how to make decisions in a team
25:48 Closing a VC round at a 3 billion valuation
29:50 Communicating effectively with investors: unit economics, data room, pitch deck, etc...
33:58 Building trustful relationships with investors over time
37:05 Quick fire round: trading live with someone for a day, most useful & so far not well known software tool, what should entrepreneurs fix immediately, personal highlight of the day
40:15 Closing
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This episode features Jasper Masemann, partner at HV Capital, one of the most iconic VC firms in Germany. HV Capital invested in more than 200 companies, including market leading companies such as Zalando, Delivery Hero and Flixbus. He shares insider tips for first-time founders, such as the dilemma of bootstrapping or initial hiring without an HR person, and reveals the main criteria that they take into consideration before making investment decisions. Our discussion also covers the recent developments in the European Venture Capital space.
https://www.hvcapital.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janbrinckmann
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmasemann
0:00 Introduction
0:50 Jasper's road to join HV Capital
3:50 Why Jasper started a venture first before joining VC
7:15 Should a first-time founder start with a scalable project which can be VC backed?
10:45 Is bootstrapping a better way to get experience at first?
12:25 Why you have to make mistakes with your startup
13:35 What is the core ingredient of a successful venture?
17:25 Why Jasper enjoys to do early investments - but why other companies need some traction so that Jasper invests
19:10 Customers have to be willing to pay for your product
22:13 The importance of customer acquisition and pricing strategies
24:25 Discussion about churn
25:40 Biggest mistakes from which Jasper learned
28:15 How to hire a great team as a founder when you do not have someone for HR
30:05 Why you should use headhunters and how to find the right one
31:20 Current developments in the EU VC space - is there a bubble?
36:40 What is sustainable for a startup - should you always listen to the VC trend projections?
38:40 Quick fire round: who you admire the most | most useful software for entrepreneurs that is underappreciated | something broken that entrepreneurs should see differently | life-long dream
42:07 Closing
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David Nothacker is co-founder of Europe’s leading digital freight-forwarder platform, Sennder. The Berlin-based unicorn has recently raised an additional $80 million in funding at over $1 billion in valuation and will use this funding to expand into new regions. David started Sennder 1.0 as an MBA graduate but failed, as his co-founder left him five minutes after signing the investors term sheet. After overcoming this difficulty and setting a clear vision with new co-founders, he managed to turn the company into a unicorn with a team of 800 employees. If you want to find out more about how to excel in #winnertakesitall markets, whether it is a good idea to exit a built-up venture and how to build effective teams, then listen to the full episode!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janbrinckmann
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janbrinckmann
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-nothacker
https://www.sennder.com
0:00 Introduction
1:12 What is sennder?
2:44 All about the numbers: employees, revenue expectations, valuation of sennder
4:06 How David started sennder
7:40 What is harder to get as a platform business - demand or supply?
11:02 How to find co-founders and how working together works best
16:04 What David thinks about having luck as an entrepreneur and his exit strategy
20:19 Lessons learned on how to grow faster than the competition
23:20 How to onboard talent in a fast growing company (from 200 to 800 employees in one year!)
26:14 Organizing digital teams and sharing the culture
28:31 Quick-fire round: favorite activity | method to stay productive | personal hero
32:14 Outro
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Quim Sabria is the Co-Founder and CEO of Edpuzzle, a crowdsourced video-lesson-platform in the K12 space, one of the top of cohort YCombinator startups in the EdTech industry. Edpluzzle combines simple video-editing tools with analytics so that a teacher can take a video and make it personal for their classrooms. Quim started as a math teacher without any tech or business know-how to run a company. He used to make his educational videos that he shared with other teachers who loved the idea and wanted to personalize them on their own. Started as a side project with childhood friends, the business made it to Silicon Valley and received a seed round which resulted in $800.000. In this episode Quim shares with us his insights on the main steps to create and accelerate high-growth companies.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janbrinckmann/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joaquimsabria/
https://edpuzzle.com/
0:00 Welcome back & introducing Quim Sabrià
1:14 How Quim started EDpuzzle
3:06 How to find co-finders
3:57 Pros and cons of founding a venture with friends
8:23 How to working effectively in bigger founding teams
10:05 Quim's top 3 learnings from his participation in the Y Combinator
15:48 Quim's number 1 metric
17:55 Many people say "don't sell to the government" - How Quim managed this challenge
20:27 Steps after finding the product-market fit
23:17 Growing a startup in a lean way
25:19 The process of going fully remote as a company at the US west coast
27:56 How to organize a remote sales team
30:48 Quick fire round: New middlename | What should entrepreneurs fix immediately | Technology that will transform the future
31:50 Outro - until next time :)
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Javier Darriba is the Co-Founder & CEO of Bloobirds. Bloobirds is a sales empowerment platform that guides SDRs and closing reps to convert more prospects into customers. Prior to Bloobirds, Javier also co-founded and led UserZoom as the Co-CEO. Furthermore, he is the Founder & Chairman of The SaaS Institute and an Investment Comittee Member at Encomenda VC. Javier is an enthusiastic entrepreneur, not only in business but in everyday life. He's striving for change, innovation, and creating new things - he raised more than 40 millions funds from Business Angels and VCs and built international operations with offices in Spain, US, UK and Germany. The greatest pleasure for him is going to work every day where he's part of a team of inspiring professionals who are also nice people. He enjoys spending his free time with his family, books and on meditation.
Javier Darriba, Co-Founder & CEO of Bloobirds | Making It Real Podcast with Jan Brinckmann | Episode #20
00:00 Javier's first steps into the entrepreneurship domain
04:00 Founding companies in economic crises
06:10 The problem of building service companies
08:46 Turning consulting into a software business
13:00 How did you build the software for UserZoom and Bloobirds?
15:10 Learnings about hiring a great team
17:25 Thoughts about building product
19:10 How do you think about building a tech team?
20:21 How long should a launch take?
22:15 Co-developing your product with the customer together
23:23 Sell it before you make it?
27:21 How did you get the first customers with UserZoom?
28:18 Building global companies from Barcelona
31:30 How do you determine which markets to go to?
35:27 How do get the first customers in new markets?
39:39 Top mistakes founders do when trying to sell their product
45:21 What keeps you going?
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Pau Rodriguez is the CEO of Methinks AI, a software company to unlock life-saving treatments potential worldwide. He is an industrial engineer and MBA graduate by background. Prior to leading Methinks AI, Pau was also a professional rugby player, was a member of the U17, U18, U19 and U20 Spanish Rugby National Team, participated in the Rugby World Cup 2005 and Rugby European Cups 2004 and 2006. He also was the captain of the Senior Catalan Rugby National Team in 2010. Pau is passionate about how technology can change people’s lives for the better.
Pau Rodriguez, CEO Methinks AI | Making It Real Podcast with Jan Brinckmann | Episode #19
00:00 How did you decide to start a company?
02:54 Starting a Health Care company, what was your background?
04:19 You were a professional rugby player - did that help in your entrepreneurial career?
05:55 How important is it to have an entrepreneurial mindset?
07:10 How to be successful in Health Care without a background in biology
08:50 About Methinks AI
11:26 Collaborating with hospitals
15:08 What Pau loves most about his work
16:07 Regulations in Health Care and main things to watch out for
18:13 How did you reach out to experts in the field?
20:15 Trusting your gut feeling
22:08 Combining a great vision with a top team and doing your best work
23:15 Monetization in Health Care
26:32 How to build a business focusing on value delivery
29:52 What are the next steps for Methinks AI?
33:10 How do you learn?
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Richard Schenke is Co-Founder & MD at Priceloop AI. Prior to Priceloop, Richard also co-founded Contorion, a fast-growing online shop for professional industrial and trade supply. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Richard was a Senior Consultant at McKinsey and with a project focus on non-food retail, sales & pricing strategy and automotive. Richard is an MIT and RWTH Aachen graduate.
Richard Schwenke, Co-Founder & MD Priceloop AI | Making It Real Podcast with Jan Brinckmann | Episode #18
00:00 How did you get into the entrepreneurship domain?
01:52 Did you start your venture in parallel during your consulting job or went all in?
04:05 How did you find your first investors?
06:51 The idea behind Contorion
08:16 Getting both the supply and demand side right on a platform model
13:05 Evolving your venture one step at a time
14:59 What to do if you lose money per transaction
19:00 How merchants can bring value to suppliers
22:03 How to set your prices right
27:46 Advice for collecting quality data
32:20 Filtering data for machine learning
39:55 Exiting Contorion and starting Priceloop AI
41:49 Richard's top 3 learnings for aspiring founders
46:28 What do you enjoy the most about creating startups?
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David Casellas is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Pridatect and Co-Founder of Redpoints, both enterprising and successful SAAS LegalTech Companies. Heading up the Business side of the companies, David nurtured their growth and expanded their business from startups to successful Million€ companies and has been prominent and influential in internationalising business worldwide.
David came from a two year spell at FC Barcelona where he was a driving force in the Digital Business team, working on a global scale.
David started his first business at 19 years old whilst still studying Business Management and Marketing in the digital sector, specialising in digital business.David Casellas, Co-Founder & MD of Pridatect | Making It Real Podcast with Jan Brinckmann | Episode #17
00:00 How did you got started in the entrepreneurship space?05:24 What was the trigger to go for your own entrepreneurial venture?
09:20 How did you start the venture without having clients?
12:49 Closing first customers
16:34 How to deal with rejection
19:20 How did you go about building your product?
23:29 Advice on finding a technical co-founder
26:38 Hiring a professional CEO
33:19 What's next for you?
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Robert Wetzker is the Founder & CEO of Aklamio. Founded in 2011, Aklamio has become Europe’s most successful referral marketing solution, trusted by companies such as Virgin Media, Vodafone, PayPal, Endesa, o2, and over 300 international brands. Aklamio believes that a company’s best assets are its customers, their networks, and the power of incentive marketing. Their mission is to empower brands to succeed in a customer-centric world by building the world’s #1 platform for customer incentivization. Their 80+ employees work in our HQ in Berlin and London, with teams in Madrid and Paris. Aklamio was ranked 2nd fastest growing technology startup in Germany (Financial Times, Europe’s 1000 Fastest Growing Companies, 2019) and continues to expand internationally. Robert has a background in engineering. Prior to founding Aklamio, he led the research team at TU Berlin’s Competence Center for Information Retrieval and Machine Learning.
Robert Wetzker, Founder & CEO of Aklamio | Making It Real Podcast with Jan Brinckmann | Episode #16
00:00 What's your personal journey into the entrepreneurship space?
01:32 From a researcher to starting a company - how did it come about?
03:49 How did you take the first steps to build your product?
06:30 How did you get in touch with your first customers?
08:49 Doing sales as a founder
11:12 When is the right time to start contacting your target customers?
12:35 What's the best way to reach out to people when you have nothing to show for yet?
14:52 How many customers do you need to determine a common base for a scalable product?
17:23 How can technically strong people be a sales-driven CEO and find a specialized sales person?
20:01 What are your core lessons learned in the process from doing the first sales to building Aklamio as an impactful company?
24:08 How to approach internationalization
26:14 Should you start with one country manager first or build a small team early on?
30:46 For people looking into referral marketing, what are the core lessons learned that you can share?
33:48 Besides the size of incentives, what are other components of a successful referral campaign?
36:39 What's next for Aklamio?
38:54 What is your core advice for people who want to make it real?
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Michael Brehm is the Founder & Managing Director of i2x who helps sales and customer support agents to excel at their job by providing the most intuitive, productive and personally tailored learning to improve each individual’s skill-set. Prior to i2x, Michael has run and founded multiple internationally successful companies in the last 15 years. His last company, Rebate Networks, was an e-commerce and daily deals network. He also was Executive Director & Investor at VZnet Netzwerke Ltd. (schülerVZ, studiVZ, meinVZ). Apart from building companies himself, Michael also enjoys supporting founders as a Partner of Redstone, a Berlin-based VC firm managing multiple corporate venture funds through their unique VC-as-a-Service approach.
More about i2x: https://i2x.ai
More about Redstone: https://www.redstone.vc
Michael Brehm, Founder & MD of i2x | Making It Real Podcast with Jan Brinckmann | Episode #15
00:00 What's your personal story into the entrepreneurship domain?
03:46 The studiVZ success story: Why did you decide to take on the challenge to battle Facebook?
07:59 How did you meet your co-founders?
10:01 What was the game plan of studiVZ having huge competition like Facebook?
13:36 Do you have to put in an incredible amount of hours to get your venture going in the beginning?
18:15 Painting schools pink as a marketing hack for schülerVZ
19:29 Getting users for a consumer app
23:01 Core mistakes you see in other ventures
28:33 After having launched Rebate Networks and a VC, how did you determine the opportunity for i2x?
31:59 Development of i2x
34:25 How can you finance a technology venture before revenues?
38:39 Convincing potential customers to sign a letter of intent
41:13 Passion, resilience and timing
43:44 How can you judge if it's the right timing for your product?
46:17 What do you personally enjoy the most in entrepreneurship?
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Colin McElwee is the Co-Founder of Worldreader. He has a degree in Economics from the University of Manchester and a MBA from ESADE Business School, where he also was the Executive Director of Marketing and Communication from 2001-2010. From 2012-2014, Colin was an invited member of the Global Agenda Council for Africa of the World Economic Forum. Colin has extensive for-profit and not-for-profit experience around the globe. He was an economist for several Brussels-based lobbies to the European Commission. Colin was also the Global Marketing Controller for Scottish & Newcastle where he oversaw Formula 1 sponsorship and product distribution to over 150 countries. He co-founded Worldreader in 2010 with the vision of creating 100's of millions of readers in sub Saharan Africa.
More about Worldreader: https://www.worldreader.org
Follow Worldreader on Twitter: https://twitter.com/worldreaders
Contact Colin: [email protected]
Colin McElwee, Co-Founder of Worldreader | Making It Real Podcast with Jan Brinckmann | Episode #14
00:00 What is Worldreader about?
01:28 Is Worldreader an NGO?
02:44 How did Worldreader get started and what did you do before it?
06:58 Going from a vision to making it real
09:27 How did you get started with Worldreader?
14:52 Advice on how to form first relationships when you're starting out
16:47 Networking in times of Covid
19:33 Approaching developing markets
22:28 How did you get Worldreader to where it is now?
25:17 Taking Worldreader to the next level
28:23 From the first few hundred readers to 300,000 users
32:55 Making high-quality content accessible in Africa
37:21 About content contribution
40:38 Do you have a guiding concept to make things real?
44:29 What is for you personally most rewarding about entrepreneurship?
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Spain is a serial entrepreneur who has founded or co-founded four Web-enabled companies that transformed their industries. Presently he is the CEO of First Stop Health an online and on-call telemedicine and advocacy service used by employers and their employees.
Co-founder and long-time chairman and CEO of Hoover’s, Inc., Spain led the company from a small book publisher in 1992 to a profitable, publicly traded online business information services company with $31 million in revenue in 2001 with a sale to D&B in 2003 for $119 million.
Spain was also the founder, chairman and CEO of HighBeam Research, which he started in 2002 and sold to Cengage Learning in December, 2008. He also co-founded and is CEO of Newser, a news curation and summarization service with an audience of seven million readers each month.
Spain serves as a board member of Owler a Silicon Valley-based company information service that is using crowd sourcing to revolutionize data collection, quality and delivery. He is also on the Board of a Chicago-based Occasion, an event scheduling platform for smaller merchants. Spain also serves on the Board of Community Health, the largest free clinic in the U.S. Chicago. He is also a member of the Board of Governors of Opportunity International, the largest and best capitalized micro-lender in the world. Spain serves on the advisory boards of several technology startup companies.
Past board positions include service at Televerde a rapidly growing, socially responsible marketing services company, SmartAnalyst, a research company that serves the pharma industry and GuideStar, the largest and most trusted database of information on the not-for-profit sector.
Spain has worked in the technology industry since 1979 and has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago and a law degree from Boston University. He splits his time between the Chicago and Austin, TX areas.
Patrick Spain, Serial Entrepreneur | Making It Real Podcast with Jan Brinckmann | Episode #13
00:00 When did you decide to co-found a company?
02:04 How did you approach starting your first business?
02:58 Leaving behind a nice salary for your startup
05:14 Democratizing information as a business model
07:40 How could you get into volume distribution?
09:34 How important was market timing for Hoovers.com?
10:38 What would have been your plan B if Hoovers.com didn't work out?
12:25 Is there a common scheme you're looking for when founding a company?
15:19 Intuition vs validation before making large purchases for your business
16:22 After selling two companies, how did you decide on your new venture?
19:10 Core lessons learned in a declining market
21:02 Would you advise founders to only go into high-growth markets?
24:04 How do get started when trying to fix fundamental market issues
26:58 How important is it to have at least one co-founder with deep domain knowledge?
28:28 Starting First Stop Health
30:18 Putting components together instead of building everything from scratch
32:18 Building a sales team as a company who made it to the INC 500 list twice in a row
36:10 Is there a guiding concept to decide things as an entrepreneur?
38:51 Being a very active business angel, what are the common mistakes you're seeing?
42:40 First Stop Health is your fourth venture - what keeps you going?
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Katrina Walker is the CEO & founder of CodeOp, Barcelona's first coding school for women and the TGNC community. Prior to that, Katrina worked on the central data science team at eDreams. Being originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, she immigrated to Barcelona in 2016 to explore the rising tech scene from a data science perspective. Katrina comes from a multidisciplinary background starting first as a social worker for the largest provider of reproductive health services in the United States. She has carried out social research with institutes such as the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Ber'Sheva Israel as well as presented on "Pedagogy and Postmodernism" at the University of Florence, Italy.
Katrina Walker, CEO & Founder of CodeOp | Making It Real Podcast with Jan Brinckmann | Episode #12
00:00 How did you get started in the entrepreneurship space?
03:08 Triggering moment to start the venture
04:15 Lead time from validation to launch
04:55 How did you approach your validation?
05:46 About CodeOp's start and vision
07:47 When did you decide to incorporate?
08:32 Were you considering bootstrapping the company?
10:44 Tips to find the perfect investors
12:15 About ‘Women in Tech’ support
12:45 Solo-founding vs co-founding a company
14:00 How did you structure the core task areas of your company?
15:31 How do you get your board members committed and get the speed on the ground internally?
17:33 Mistakes while building CodeOp
20:13 How did you approach to take CodeOp globally?
23:01 CodeOp approaching Latin America as an international market
23:42 How does CodeOp's business model actually work?
26:10 Personally, how do you live entrepreneurship?
27:39 Learning how to use external advice
29:12 About the skill of decision-taking
30:08 What do you enjoy personally most in entrepreneurship?
33:31 What's next for CodeOp?
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Aimie is the co-founder and CEO of Realtainment, which covers the brands ArtNight, ShakeNight, PlantNight and BakeNight. Her team brings more than 30,000 people together every month. The platform enables 1,000 artists, bakers, and confectioners, florists & bartenders to make a living doing what they love. Realtainment’s vision is to combat digital loneliness with a new brand of “edutainment”, bringing communities together offline again.
Aimie-Sarah Carstensen, CEO of Realtainment | Making It Real Podcast with Jan Brinckmann | Episode #11
00:00 How did you get started?
01:30 Did you want to start your venture with a co-founder?
02:09 How did you know that your co-founder is the right one?
04:45 Bootstrapping the venture
05:45 From a corporate job to the triggering moment to start your own venture
07:08 What was your biggest concern that your venture would not work?
08:55 First steps to get ArtNight going
12:20 How did you pick the artists to start out with?
13:50 Approach to start a completely new concept
16:11 What “edutainment” means for Aimie
18:25 Best channels to get customer feedback
19:18 Expanding ArtNight and tips for scaling
22:46 Event ventures during Covid
26:45 Next steps for Realtainment
28:31 Lessons learned while managing the team completely online
30:45 Tools to increase efficiency & productivity
32:26 What are the things you're most excited about?
34:08 What are you enjoying the most being a founder?
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