Leap Takers - Episodes Tagged with “Reading”

Episode 13: Mathias Ockenfels - How to start a career in Venture Capital, from Analyst to Partner at a leading VC firm, Online Marketplaces, and Speedinvest

Remo Kyburz — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 14:30:00 +0100

Mathias (@ockenrock) eats and breathes marketplaces. He is a partner at Speedinvest, one of Europe’s leading Venture Capital funds. The fund has it’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria and just recently raised its latest fund of €190m. Mathias runs Speedinvest x, a focus fund investing into network effects and marketplaces.

Previously he was a General Manager for the German market at Uniplaces, an international marketplace for student accommodation. Before that, Mathias built out the marketplace-practice at Berlin-based Point Nine Capital, an early stage fund focusing on SaaS and marketplaces, where he was a Principal for 4 years. Previously, Mathias led the M&A-department of Ricardo Group, then a subsidiary of South African Naspers, that operates several online marketplace, classifieds and auction businesses across Europe. Earlier, he started his career as an Investment Manager at Mountain Partners in Zurich where he lead early stage investments in companies such as Lieferando or reBuy.

Mathias holds a German-French double-diploma from European School of Business Reutlingen and Neoma Business School Reims. Knowing Germany’s capital city like the back of his hand, Mathias now leads Speedinvest's Berlin office as a Partner at Speedinvest x.

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Show notes:

03:08 -- Who is Mathias Ockenfels
04:40 -- How Mathias got interested in the Venture Capital industry and how he landed his first job in VC
08:44 -- Tips for getting a job in Venture Capital
13:56 -- What are the most important skills and abilities to work in VC
16:30 -- Mathias’ path from Analyst to Partner at a VC firm
22:27 -- Intro to Speedinvest and what kind of companies Mathias is interested in and is investing in
25:51 -- Key investment criteria to get an investment from Mathias / Speedinvest
28:48 -- Books and Resources for (aspiring) entrepreneurs and VCs
31:55 -- Mathias’ best financial and personal investment
33:28 -- Advice to younger self / someone starting out their career
35:23 -- Mathias’ favorite books and movies
37:23 -- What does courage mean to Mathias

If you're enjoying the podcast, the best way to support the show is by leaving a review on Apple Podcast or in your favorite podcast app.

Special Guest: Mathias Ockenfels.

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Episode 12: Vedika Jain - Hustle your way into VC, picking your boss, from Stripe to Weekend Fund, and More

Remo Kyburz — Tue, 11 Feb 2020 07:00:00 +0100

Vedika Jain (@vedikaja_in) is an investor and Chief of staff at Weekend Fund, an early stage venture capital fund that is backing your next favorite thing. Previously she worked for high profile startups like Stripe and True Layer.

Weekend Fund was started in 2017 by Ryan Hoover, the founder of Product Hunt (an amazing site to discover new products. Product Hunt was acquired in 2016 by AngelList). While Ryan and Vedika invest broadly, they are particularly excited about distributed/remote working, audio/voice technology, and tools for creators/makers. The fund invests in early stage startups with check sizes ranging from $75K to $200K. Limited partners of the fund include high profile venture capitalists Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Ben Rubin, Chris Sacca, Hunter Walk, Kevin Rose, Garry Tan, and others.

Vedika has a really interesting background story and approach how she made her way into "the wonderful world of venture capital". In this episode you will hear about her tactics how she got into VC and general career advice for picking the right companies & startups to work for. In addition, you will learn more about Weekend Fund, Vedika’s favorite books & blogs, and much more!

Show notes:

03:48 -- Who is Vedika & Intro
04:55 -- How Vedika became fascinated with technology and startup investing
07:08 -- How Vedika joined two fast growing tech startups - Stripe and True Layer
09:45 -- Vedika’s lessons learnt for picking your first jobs / companies
13:00 -- Writing personal investment memos and how to "hustle" your way into Venture Capital
18:05 -- Vedika’s investment areas and future trends
20:57 -- How Vedika met Ryan Hoover and joined Weekend Fund
22:35 -- Starting your own fund vs. joining an existing VC
25:16 -- Introduction to Weekend Fund
28:16 -- Favorite books and resources for aspiring VCs
30:41 -- Vedika’s favorite non-entrepreneurship related books
32:07 -- Most worthwhile investment of Vedika

If you're enjoying the podcast, the best way to support the show is by leaving a review on Apple Podcast or in your favorite podcast app.

Special Guest: Vedika Jain.

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Episode 11: Sebastian Wahl & Carl-Philipp von Polheim - The story of mybacs and how to start a direct-to-consumer company

Remo Kyburz — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 07:00:00 +0100

Sebastian Wahl and Carl-Philipp von Polheim are the founders of mybacs.
Mybacs is a direct-to-consumer (D2C), research driven, biotechnology company for gut-health products based in Zug (Switzerland) and Munich (Germany). Their goal is to revolutionize the healthcare market around the human microbiome and thus make a decisive contribution to the health and daily well-being of everyday customers. Mybacs is specialized on the development of innovative and high-dose synbiotic dietary supplements
They have two types of products - a Travel and Daily well-being probiotic product.

Sebastian holds a Master's degree with distinction in Pharmacy from ETH Zurich. Carl-Philipp studied business administration and holds a Master of Science in Management from ESCP Europe.

In this episode we talk about the origin story of mybacs, how to start manufacturing a physical product, the emerging direct-to-consumer industry, tools and resources to start your own D2C company, VC fundraising tips, the benefits of probiotics, their key learnings for other aspiring founders, and more.

Please follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and my Website, where I post new episodes, share cool stuff & interesting articles I found, and blog occasionally! Sign-up for the mailing list to stay in the loop!

Show notes:
02:54 -- Introduction of Sebastian, Carl-Philipp, and mybacs
04:02 -- Exploring the origin story of mybacs
06:12 -- Previous work experience before founding mybacs
07:23 -- Thoughts and considerations before taking the leap
08:53 -- Awareness of probiotics and the effect of the human microbiome on well-being in Europe vs. US
10:08 -- Geographies that mybacs operates in
10:22 -- How to manufacture a physical product as a startup
11:53 -- Tips for planning your supply chain
12:34 -- Timing from idea to shipping the first product
13:15 -- Thoughts about assembling the right team in the D2C space
14:40 -- How to incentivize experienced people & experts to join your startup?
15:17 -- Raising outside capital and thoughts about raising money from VCs
16:56 -- How to find a great Venture Capital investor
18:37 -- The advantages of the D2C market and business model
21:45 -- How to ship a product?
23:24 -- Helpful resources, tools, and books to start your own company
24:36 -- The future vision of mybacs
27:28 -- Understanding the mybacs travelers product
27:51 -- Favorite knowledge resources
29:32 -- Hobbies to take your mind off the startup life
30:12 -- Key learnings from starting a company. What would you do differently?
31:07 -- Career advice for ambitious future “leap takers”
32:16 -- What does courage mean to you?

If you're enjoying the podcast, the best way to support the show is by leaving a review on Apple Podcast or in your favorite podcast app.

Special Guests: Carl-Philipp von Polheim and Sebastian Wahl.

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Episode 10: Holger Seim - The origin story of Blinkist, growing to 11 million users, and creating a unique company culture

Remo Kyburz — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 11:45:00 +0100

Holger Seim (@hlgrsm) is the founder and CEO of Blinkist.
Blinkist is a book summary app that lets you get the key insights from 3'000+ bestselling non-fiction books that cover leadership, history, psychology and more in 15 minute summaries in text or audio format. Blinkist has over 11million users globally and the book-summarising startup has won positive reviews from the likes of Forbes (“This may be the greatest app you download in 2018”) and The New York Times.

In this episode we talk about how Holger and his co-founders came up with the idea for Blinkist, how they took the leap and started the company, his advice for aspiring entrepreneurs on how to find your perfect co-founder / first employees, the most important marketing channels for startups, as well as the importance of designing a unique corporate culture (such as the one of Blinkist), and much more..

Show notes:
03:13 -- Who is Holger
04:40 -- Startup idea generation and how the concept of Blinkist was born
09:01 -- How Holger and his co-founders took the leap and started Blinkist
09:50 -- Pursuing a startup idea full time vs. side hustle
10:59 -- Initial financing choices at Blinkist
12:36 -- Characteristics of a great startup founding team
18:12 -- How to find your perfect co-founder outside of your personal network (e.g. technical co-founder)
20:30 -- Blinkist’s company culture and why Holger places immense value on culture
24:42 -- The Blinkist operating system
27:07 -- Tips on maintaining a corporate culture while you grow as a startup
29:16 -- How Blinkist grew to the first 1000 clients and discussion of marketing strategies
32:46 -- Alternative marketing channels leveraged by Blinkist
34:41 -- Holger’s book recommendations for new startup founders
37:31 -- General book recommendations of the Blinkist founder
39:14 -- Holger’s best investment
40:42 -- Hobbies and habits to decompress from the startup life
41:40 -- Favorite travel location
43:09 -- Advice for university graduates about to start their career
46:23 -- What does courage mean to Holger

Resources mentioned:

If you're enjoying the podcast, the best way to support the show is by leaving a review on Apple Podcast or in your favorite podcast app.

Special Guest: Holger Seim.

Support Leap Takers