• [00:01:00] Jared's Journey from sales to building a thriving community of 45,000 revenue professionals and how community saved his life.
• [00:10:00] What makes for a successful B2B community and when companies should think of creating one
• [00:14:00] The Collab: Jared’s New Initiative - a newsletter and community for collaborative growth. How Collab connects creatives, founders and fractionals with founders.
• [00:22:00] Challenges and Misconceptions in Community Building
• [00:32:00] Audience building as the new go-to-market

Links

• Book recommendation: Presence process By Michael Brown
• Join the RevGenius community to connect with like-minded professionals.
• Subscribe to the Collab newsletter for insights on collaborative growth.
• Follow Jared Robin on LinkedIn for more updates and advice on community building.

[2:15] From Classical Music to Tech Startup

• Annu discusses her transition from a classical musician to founding a technology company, highlighting the unexpected path from arts to entrepreneurship.

[12:25] Understanding the Upright Project's Impact Model

• A deeper dive into how the Upright Project measures the net impact of companies, using tangible examples to illustrate their methodology.

[23:05] Brand Building in the Sustainability Space

• Annu shares her thoughts on the intricacies of brand building within the sustainability industry and how it differs from other sectors.

[29:52] The Decision to Operate as a For-Profit Initiative

• Annu explains the rationale behind choosing a for-profit model for the Upright Project, emphasizing the need for practical impact over academic pursuits..

[35:49] Personal Insights: Books, Cities, and Productivity Tips

• Rapid-fire round with Annu, uncovering personal preferences and sources of inspiration.

Links

The Upright Project

Book recommendation: The Non-violent communication 

2:16 - Path from operator to angel investor to Atomico scout

19:09 - Advice on early stage marketing

• Marketing focus by stage of growth
• How do you balance performance marketing and brand/organic marketing?
• How do you balance the marketing for end-users vs decision makers?
• Common mistakes 80% of founders make - working as siloed teams

Resource for angel investing

• Ventures Together
• Alma Angels
• Seae Ventures

Book recommendation: 

On Identity by Amin Maalouf

Guerson Meyer, Co-Founder & Technology Officer of Sophiq Properties, a PropTech company talks about how he uses no-code solutions at Sophiq Properties to locate, evaluate and validate properties in real-time, adapting to the needs of each investment.  In 2023 alone,  they will complete 16 operations totalling 30 million euros. Hear in detail what no-code tools he used to build his core business.

Why all SaaS companies should implement usage-based pricing and
How to run a successful design partner program with your customers to build your early MVP

• [1:49] - Why not having domain expertise can sometimes help entrepreneurs
• [5:45] - Defining your ICP
• [8:31] - Determining your MVP
• [13:06] - Funding your seed and lessons learnt from raising too early.
• [22:48] - GTM
• [30:11] - Building a team and culture; it starts first with language.
• [40:20] - Culture first hiring tips

Links

Company: Digitail.io

Guest: Sebastian Gabor

Book link: Never Split the difference, Chris Voss

[2:16] - 20 years and starting a company in Estonia

[5:08] - Angel investing and what to look for?

[10:01] - First CIO of Estonia

[16:59] - Koos - what is it and why is it important

[29:04] - Advice for other entrepreneurs

[31:35] - ChatGPT and the future

[33:09] - HK Unicorn squad and 

Links

Koos

Sponsors:

Chargebee

E-residency

[2:00] - How the SVB crisis unfolded at Payhawk

[6:23] - The 3 most important ingredients for building a successful unicorn

[16:19] - Validating your company idea

[18:19] - 60 rejections. How Payhawk overcame the biggest objection from VCs

[28:35] - Leading through crisis

[31:54] - Competition - Use data not marketing to assess competition

[36:18] - Trends in Fintech: the payment gap

Company link:

Payhawk

Book recommendation:

Proving Ground: The Inside Story of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Boat Race

[2:24] - Journey to starting Seedstars

[5:31] - Investing and not being local

[10:27] - Seedstars programs

[13:28] - Investor returns from emerging markets

[19:06] - Challenges

[25:12] - Advice for entrepreneurs 

[27:16] - Advice for investors

Links

Seedstars

Book: Where the crawdads sing

[3:16] - Hedgeflows: Managing risk and automating payment runs for SMEs 

[9:51] - Advice for finding early product market fit

[16:39] - How to attract talent in early stages without brand or VC backing

[19:07] - Knowing your investor’s incentives

Links:

HedgeFlows

Books:

Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 steps to successful startup by Bill Aulet

[2:08] - The economics of solar

[7:39] - Challenges and barriers to solar adoption

[11:11] - Where are the different countries when it comes to adopting solar

[14:50] - Erik’s Journey to starting Svea Solar

[19:06] - advice on doing layoffs

[23:13] - Challenges of scaling - its all about recruiting, developing and retaining talent

[29:48] - Continuous people evaluation

[37:40] - 3 things Erik looks for when he interviews people

Links:

Svea Solar

Books:

How to avoid a climate disaster by Bill Gates

[2:07] - Advice on navigating current economic conditions

[6:00] - FTX bankruptcy 

[8:48] - Early-stage due diligence 

[10:59] - Identifying outliers to find the next Uber or Airbnb

[14:13] - Decision-making at Creandum

[16:20] - Funding process 

Links

Creandum

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

[1:44] - About Remofirst and Nurasyl’s journey to starting Remofirst.

[6:49] - The three ingredients for not failing at a startup 

[9:04] - Finding your ideal customer profile

[12:00] - Trends in remote hiring

[14:09] - Funding journey and tips

[21:50] - Making remote working work

Links

Remofirst

Delivering Happiness - Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos

[1:53] - Journey to becoming a venture partner at 29 years

[7:40] - Increasing the number of women in VC

[10:53] - Ideal startups for Sapphire and how they source deals

[21:29] - Common challenges, mistakes and advice for Series B companies

[30:14] - Series B valuation and trends in valuation

[33:51] - Work life balance as a VC

Links:

Sapphire Ventures

The Fearless Organization

[2:15] - Online dating market - is there space for one more?

[4:47] - Lessons learned from previous startups - retention, defensibility, product complexity, and proving pmf outside of your home market.

[16:39] - Never giving up

[20:52] - With 8 rounds of fundraising under his belt, David shares his secret for fundraising.

[29:00] - Seed stage valuation

[29:54] - Iceland as a growing entrepreneurial hub

Links

Smitten

Book Recommendation

Never Split the Difference

Rich dad, poor dad

• 1:55] - Journey to founding TERN
• [4:49] - Refugee problem is a global problem. By the numbers.
• [7:08] - Are refugees are burden to the host country?
• [9:85] - The Rwanda Refugee plan - will it work?
• [21:39] - UK’s support for refugees - asylum seekers vs resettlement
• [28:28] - TERN support for refugees
• [31:45] - Top three businesses started by refugee entrepreneurs and their main challenges

Links

Tern

Refugee market place, Anka

Ben and Jerry’s support page

• [1:53] - Safety in upbringing and why being outside can be a boon to an entrepreneur
• [8:29] - “Never look at the competition, know your customer instead”
• [10:58] - Focus on the product and avoid distractions
• [14:25] - On B2C marketing
• [19:20] - Building the company culture at Vivino
• [23:34] - When should a founder step down and bring in a new CEO
• [27:08] - Fundraising tips
• [30:35] - what Heini looks for in founders for angel investing

Links:

www.vivino.com

Raw Startup youtube channel - how to grow your app distribution

[1:51] - Irish startup scene

[7:41] - How to attract and incentivize talent at a macro level

[11:13] - The best startup ecosystems in Europe

[19:15] - Dogpatch

[24:12] - Norther Ireland/Southern Ireland collaboration

[27:21] - Funding for startups in Ireland

Links

Dogpatch

Changing World Order by Ray Dalio

Midnight’s children by Salman Rushdie

• [2:30]  Idea development when you are not from the industry
• [14:52] - From idea to MVP - DIY or outsource?
• [21:16] - Funding journey pre-seed to seed
• [25:26] - Building your team
• [29:34] - Getting your first customers
• [31:58] - Niche down on a vertical or not
• [37:25] - Fundraising dos and don’ts

Links

Arx Alliance

1:45 - Your journey from operational role to VC

6:16 - Advice for others thinking of moving from operational to VC role.

12:33 - What makes Creandum different to other VC firms?

16:25 - Creandum’s process of finding and investing in companies

25:00 - Timing for approaching Creandum 

27:48 - Metrics for investing

32:59 - Trends in Europe

Links

Creandum