This Much I Know - The Seedcamp Podcast
290 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsThis Much I Know is the podcast from Seedcamp, Europe’s seed fund.
Tune into hear the inside story from startup founders, investors and leading tech voices: the people who’ve built businesses, scaled globally, failed fantastically and learnt massively.
Seedcamp invests early in world-class founders attacking large, global markets and solving real problems using technology. Seedcamp provides the infrastructure to fast-track a founder’s vision and create value through immediate access to smart capital, a lifelong community of support and a global network built upon a decade’s experience backing exceptional talent.
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Episodes
Notion VC's Chris Tottman on company building, strategic pricing, and understanding customer needs
March 26, 2024 16:15 - 1 hour - 63 MBIn a new episode of This Much I Know, Carlos's guest is Chris Tottman, General Partner at Notion VC, one of Europe's top-tier VC firms. Chris shares insights on: - his journey as an entrepreneur and Venture Capital investor - the evolution of venture capital in Europe - how founders can become successful in company building. - the role of mentorship in the VC industry. He also highlights the significance of founder-led sales, strategic pricing, understanding customer needs, fundraising...
[Seedcamp Firsts] How to A/B Test Product Changes and Set up Good Data Science Practices
March 07, 2024 09:10 - 26 minutes - 23.9 MBIn a follow-up to their Seedcamp Firsts conversation on data, our Venture Partner Devin Hunt and Candice Ren, Founder of analytics agency 173Tech and a member of the Seedcamp Expert Collective, dive deep into A/B testing and good data science practices. With new and exciting AI technology emerging around recommendation engines, how can product leads evaluate which solution is better and how to really measure a “better recommendation”? Focusing on a specific case study - a furniture market...
Di Cooke on the Societal and Security Implications of Artificial Intelligence
February 23, 2024 07:54 - 47 minutes - 43.4 MBIn a new Seedcamp Deep Dive, Carlos's guest is Di Cook, AI Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), research affiliate at the Center of the Study for Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, and a doctoral candidate in war studies at King's College in London. Her research interests lie at the intersection of defense, intelligence, and AI. Their conversation revolves around the societal and security implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI), from the exi...
The Power of Communities in Early Stage Startups
February 01, 2024 10:00 - 1 hour - 62.2 MBIn the latest Seedcamp Deep Dive, Carlos is joined by Kyran Schmidt, co-founder of Outverse, a community-first solutions platform; Jonathan Reimer, co-founder of crowd.dev, a developer data platform; and our Partner Sia Houchangnia. They discuss: - the importance of community-building for tech startups; - why intentionality and fostering a sense of belonging in community development are essential; - types of communities namely product and practitioner communities; - challenges, and strategi...
How data relates to building a great product at your startup. Lessons from Bumble and 173Tech
January 16, 2024 08:36 - 33 minutes - 30.9 MBIn a new episode of Seedcamp Firsts, Candice Ren, Founder of 173Tech and a member of the Seedcamp Expert Collective, talks with our Venture Partner Devin Hunt about how data relates to building a great product at your startup. Candice, who contributed to building Bumble's data analytics function and team, explains the importance of understanding and utilizing company data effectively in startups. She provides insights into establishing Northstar metrics, user journey analytics, feature anal...
Balderton’s James Wise on AI, Entrepreneurship and the ‘Start-up Century’
December 19, 2023 09:33 - 48 minutes - 44.6 MBIn the latest episode of 'This Much I Know,' Carlos's guest is James Wise, Partner at Balderton and author of the newly published book "Start-up Century." They discuss: - the global movement of entrepreneurship and its role in today's world and the decades to come - the evolving nature of work and how AI is accelerating its transformation the Five C's of AI Integration - the new technological frontiers, including health, housing, and energy - James's 'Entrepreneur's Manifesto,' a policy recom...
Convelio's Edouard Gouin on Innovating at the Intersection of Arts, Tech, and Logistics
December 07, 2023 08:53 - 39 minutes - 35.9 MBThe latest Seedcamp Deep Dive focuses on the intersection of art, logistics, and technology. Carlos's guest is Edouard Gouin, co-founder and CEO of Convelio, a tech-led global logistics startup specialised in fine art shipping. They discuss: - the journey and challenges of building Convelio; - Convelio's position in and interactions with key players within the art ecosystem; and its innovative value proposition; - the critical elements of customer service; - the importance of forming cultura...
The Impact of AI Innovations and Why We Need to Prioritise Responsible AI
November 24, 2023 08:52 - 1 hour - 68.6 MBIn a new episode of This Much I Know, Carlos and his guests Aaron Rosenberg (Radical Ventures, previously at DeepMind) and our Partner Tom Wilson explore the current state and impact of AI innovations and future developments, as well as AI's broad-ranging impacts on society, job market, and geopolitical landscape. They also reflect on the ways machine learning reshapes the dynamics in various industries, such as law and software development, and how AI-powered interfaces, like Humane's AI pi...
ClearBank’s Thomas Knowles on Cybercrime Prevention and Monitoring and Cybersecurity Measures
October 27, 2023 07:42 - 55 minutes - 51.1 MBIn the latest Seedcamp Deep Dive, our Managing Partner Carlos Espinal chats with Thomas Knowles, Head of Security Operations at ClearBank about all things cybersecurity - from essential cybersecurity foundations for early-stage companies to cybersecurity certifications and threat intelligence management. Show Notes: Thomas Knowles - linkedin.com/in/thomas-knowles-77a3509/ Carlos Espinal – linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal ClearBank – clear.bank Seedcamp – seedcamp.com Cybersecurity Ce...
Pleo's CTO Meri Williams on Scaling Engineering, Open Source and Risks and Opportunities of GenAI
October 05, 2023 07:19 - 46 minutes - 42.6 MBListen to a wide-ranging conversation about scaling engineering and technological innovation, between Meri Williams, CTO at Seedcamp-backed Pleo (previously CTO at Healx and Monzo, a.o.) and our Managing Partner Carlos Espinal. They cover: - Meri's career journey from building satellites as a teenager in South Africa to becoming one of Europe's most renowned CTOs; - The importance of applied learning and deliberate practice in keeping up with the fast-paced changes in technology; and how to...
How to create and scale an iconic community. Lessons from Sorare
September 29, 2023 06:17 - 39 minutes - 36.2 MBIn a new Seedcamp Firsts podcast episode, our Partner Sia Houchangnia chats with Dan O'Kelly, an early Community Lead at Seedcamp-backed fantasy sports unicorn Sorare. They cover all things community building, including: - the importance of community in a fast-growing startup; - founders' key role in setting up the vision and building the foundations of an authentic community; - the early tactics Sorare used to build their community; - how to kickstart and nurture your community; - how to nur...
receeve's Paul Jozefak on the Current State of SaaS Businesses
August 31, 2023 07:40 - 53 minutes - 48.8 MBThis episode of This Much I Know, features Paul Jozefak, co-founder and CEO of Seedcamp-backed receeve, a Germany-based end-to-end debt collection and recovery platform. In conversation with our Managing Partner, Carlos Espinal, Paul reflects on: - his career trajectory in VC and entrepreneurship; - the current state of SaaS businesses; - reeceve's role and vision in the debt recovery and collection ecosystem; - the importance of luck and good timing in business; - how receeve navigatigated...
Accel's Philippe Botteri on His Key Learnings in VC Investment and the Potential of Generative AI
July 20, 2023 07:16 - 42 minutes - 38.6 MBListen to an excellent conversation between our Managing Partner Carlos Espinal and Philippe Boteri, Partner at Accel and a co-investor in companies such as UIPath (NYSE: PATH) and Synthesia. Philippe shares the story of his foray into tech during the dotcom boom, how he became an investor and the key learnings of his 15+ years-long career in VC. He also reflects on some of the most iconic investments he has made over the years, including UIPath and DocuSign. Philippe and Carlos explore the...
Hadrian's Rogier Fisher on Cybersecurity in the New Age of AI
June 20, 2023 08:00 - 48 minutes - 44.7 MBIn this new episode of This Much I Know, our Managing Partner Carlos Espinal chats with serial entrepreneur Rogier Fischer, Co-founder and CEO of Hadrian, about the global state of cybersecurity, how companies of all sizes can mitigate risks, and how AI might change the game for the cybersecurity industry. Show notes: Rogier Fischier - linkedin.com/in/rogierfischer/ Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Hadrian - hadrian.io Seedcamp - seedcamp.com
Welcome to Seedcamp VI
May 24, 2023 14:08 - 13 minutes - 11.9 MBWelcome to Seedcamp VI! We are incredibly excited to invest at the earliest stage in the next 100 most ambitious European companies, from Angel to Seed rounds. The power of Seedcamp truly comes from the impact and reach of the ever-growing Seedcamp Nation. Now with a portfolio of 460+ companies including 9 unicorns that span different sectors and originate from all over the Continent, our belief that European entrepreneurs can compete on a global scale has never been truer. If you’re looki...
How to set up a fully remote and distributed team. Lessons from Maze and Gitlab
April 27, 2023 15:05 - 24 minutes - 22 MBIn a post-pandemic world, early-stage founders have multiple options for building their teams and choosing their ideal work mode(s). However, the decision between on-site, hybrid, and remote can be a complex one, involving multiple factors; such as access to talent, legislation, and people operations. While remote work became the default at the height of Covid-19, post-pandemic life has seen many organisations revert to old behaviours, pulling people back to offices and causing a fair deal ...
How to Lay the Foundation For Your Startup Brand
March 28, 2023 07:30 - 27 minutes - 25.6 MBIn the latest Seedcamp Firsts episode, Joanna Christie, a VP of Brand & Marketing at Seedcamp-backed company Gaia, shares her best insights on how to lay the foundation for your startup brand and think strategically about the brand as you scale up. In conversation with our Head of Brand and Network, Natasha Lytton, Joanna emphasizes the essential role Brand plays in company building, from customer acquisition to retention. Key takeaways: 1. Brand is the first building block for anythin...
Compensation Transparency, Employer Branding, and Trends in Hiring & Talent Retention
January 18, 2023 09:21 - 32 minutes - 29.8 MBIn this Seedcamp Deep Dive, Carlos is joined by Virgile Raingeard, co-founder and CEO of Figures, a Seedcamp-backed company providing the only compensation benchmark product for European start-ups and scale-ups. Carlos and Virgile discuss the current trends in hiring, talent retention and development, local vs. global pay, as well as compensation transparency. Virgile emphasizes the factors that lead to more compensation transparency in the tech industry. Furthermore, he shares why early ...
Making big bets as a DeepTech startup with Victor Riparbelli, Co-founder & CEO of Synthesia
November 30, 2022 13:50 - 33 minutes - 30.7 MBIn our latest Seedcamp Firsts edition, Victor Riparbelli, co-founder of our portfolio company, Synthesia, speaks with our Venture Partner, Devin Hunt, about making big bets, how to get comfortable with long-term product decisions, and learning from mistakes. Synthesia is the world's largest AI video platform. Using anthropomorphic AI avatars, the company helps people make video content without the need for cameras, studios, actors, and any other physical recording process. Key Takeaways: ...
Scaling Customer Operations: Change is the only constant
November 16, 2022 08:00 - 19 minutes - 18 MBIn Part II of our Seedcamp Firsts series on customer operations, Rona Ruthen and Natasha Lytton delve into Scaling - a phase when change is the only constant. Rona shares her incredible experiences scaling operations across various roles, including VP of Customer Operations at Monzo, where she helped the company grow from 1 million to six, all largely over the Covid pandemic. With more than 15 years of experience in FinTech financial services and payment solutions in companies in Israel and ...
How to set up customer support and operations as an early-stage startup
November 09, 2022 16:00 - 21 minutes - 19.9 MBIn our latest edition of Seedcamp Firsts, our Head of Brand and Network, Natasha Lytton, speaks with one of our fantastic mentors, Rona Ruthen, about setting up customer support and operations in early-stage startups. Rona is one of the best possible people to learn from on this topic following her experience scaling Fintech unicorn Monzo among other well-known startups, including Seedcamp portfolio company Curve. Learn why setting up customer operations is a strategic decision, why custo...
[Seedcamp Firsts] How to first kickstart your content strategy
November 02, 2022 15:07 - 28 minutes - 26.2 MBLearn all things content from the masterminds behind Juro’s and tl;dv’s content strategies - from why content was first determined to be an essential part of the business and shaping the early strategy to execution measurement and key learnings for early-stage founders. For Juro and tl;dv, content has been an integral part of their strategies from the early days. Find out why and how they set the ground for successful content strategies. Show Notes: Raphael Allstadt - twitter.com/rallstadt ...
How to test, explore and validate your first product ideas as an early-stage startup
October 19, 2022 15:48 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBWe’re excited to kick off our new Seedcamp Firsts series with Jo Widawski, co-founder and CEO of Maze. In conversation with our Venture partner, Devin Hunt, Jo shares the founding story of Maze and his top insights into early-stage product development. Our ultimate goal with Seedcamp Firsts is to help support the next generation of exceptional entrepreneurs navigate those critical first steps in building a business. We want to open up the hard-won knowledge and insights across the Seedca...
How to Make Employees Healthier, Happier, and More Productive, with Itxaso del Palacio & Sammy Rubin
September 07, 2022 11:00 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBIn the latest Seedcamp Deep Dive, Carlos is joined by Itxaso del Palacio, Partner at Notion Capital and Sammy Rubin, Co-founder of YuLife. Their discussion revolves around making employees healthier, happier, and more productive. Sammy shares his inspiration to build the world's first lifestyle insurance company to have personal well-being at its core. He also emphasizes why it is essential to enable companies to build a well-being culture and help employees live their best selves. Itxaso ...
Karel Obluk of Evolution Equity Partners, on Cybersecurity Risks & Opportunities, Growth Investments
August 10, 2022 10:25 - 40 minutes - 37.4 MBIn this episode, Carlos Espinal is joined by Karel Obluk, a cybersecurity expert, former CTO and interim CEO at AVG Technologies (a cybersecurity software company listed on the New York Stock Exchange and ultimately acquired by Avast Software) and now a Partner at Evolution Equity Partners. They kick off the conversation with Karel's early career in tech, his leadership roles at the cybersecurity firm AVG and the history of the cybersecurity industry. They then discuss the risks and opportun...
Hiring, Motivating & Transitioning High Performing Talent, with Sophie Adelman and Siahdal Magos
July 27, 2022 12:15 - 51 minutes - 47.1 MBIn the newest Seedcamp Deep Dive, Sophie Adelman, co-founder of Multiverse and The Garden, and Siadhal Magos, co-founder of our portfolio company Metaview, join Carlos and our Talent Manager Alex Lewis to discuss all things talent in early-stage startups - from hiring to motivating and transitioning during market downturns. Tune in to learn best practices for interviewing and selecting candidates, why and when expertise is needed in startups, and why compassion is essential when letting empl...
Stripe's David Singleton on Technology Innovation, Putting Customers First and the CTO Role
July 13, 2022 11:02 - 34 minutes - 31.6 MBIn the latest episode of 'This Much I Know,' Carlos is joined by David Singleton, the CTO of Stripe. David shares valuable insights and lessons from his decades-long career at global technology companies such as Symbian, Google, and Stripe. In a vivid conversation, he and Carlos explore: - the essential nature of timing in technological innovation; - the fast-paced changing financial world; - the importance of putting customers first; - the evolution and definition of the CTO role; - Stripe...
Regenerative Farming: Harmonising Environmental and Financial Incentives
May 11, 2022 15:15 - 46 minutes - 42.2 MBIn this Seedcamp Deep Dive, Carlos speaks with author and farmer Sarah Langford and Sward's Co-founder and CEO Reuben Saxon about the crucial role of regenerative farming in food supply and carbon capture. Carlos kicks the conversation off with an insightful review of Sarah's upcoming book "Rooted: Stories of Life, Land and a Farming Revolution." They also trace the evolution of farming in the UK from the post-war era to Brexit and the current generational shift in farming. They are later j...
The Future of Hybrid Workspaces, with the Co-Founders of HubbleHQ and Kadence
April 13, 2022 10:33 - 36 minutes - 33.2 MBIn this Seedcamp Deep Dive, Carlos is joined by Dan Bladen, Co-founder of Kadence, and Tushar Agarwal, Co-founder of HubbleHQ as they share their founder stories and experiences with pivoting their businesses during the Covid -19 pandemic. Listen in to learn more about the latest trends in hybrid workspaces and the commercial real estate market along with what it means to create employee-centered work environments. Show notes: Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Dan Bladen - Co-Founder & CEO ...
Why Sequoia came to Europe, with Sequoia Partner Matt Miller
January 26, 2022 07:44 - 49 minutes - 44.9 MBIn this episode of This Much I Know, Carlos Espinal is joined by Matt Miller, a Partner at Sequoia Capital. Matt started his entrepreneurial journey at a young age, first as an avocado seller and eventually when he took two years off university to work on a restaurant tech product. Today, he helps lead Sequoia’s initiative in Europe, where he works on finding great companies to partner with. Throughout this episode, Matt talks about his favourite sectors, shares some stories about working w...
How Digital will Healthcare become, with the Founders of Ezra
January 13, 2022 10:25 - 33 minutes - 30.6 MBIn this episode of This Much I Know, Managing Partner Carlos Espinal speaks with Emi Gal and Diego Cantor, co-founders of Ezra, about how digital healthcare will become. Every year, 20 million people are diagnosed with cancer, 10 million of which are detected late. Ezra's core mission aims to change this equation through their next-generation cancer screening technology that uses AI & MRIs. Carlos kicks the discussion off with an observation: healthcare solutions are now increasingly moving f...
The Power of Consumers and The Future of Sustainable Materials
December 02, 2021 14:12 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MB“Consumers of today like to have a dialogue with their brands...consumers can now ask the harder questions.” Ingvar Helgason, Co-Founder of VitroLabs In this week’s TMIK, Managing Partner Carlos Espinal and Seedcamp team member Polina Stavrovski chat with two very exciting guests, Ingvar, and Joy Howard who are both building companies in the sustainable fashion space. Ingvar’s mission with VitroLabs is to decouple the leather industry from the meat industry by creating a new source of leathe...
The Intersection of Mental Health and Tech
October 28, 2021 15:29 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBIn this Seedcamp Deep Dive, Head of Brand Natasha Lytton speaks with Maria, Head of Product at Spill about the intersection of technology with mental health, and the growing opportunities that exist when offering accessible mental health services moving forward for both patients and clinicians. Spill’s mission is to “put high quality talk therapy in the pocket of every person on Earth” by not using a traditional finger-wagging approach. Maria and Natasha dive into discussing what it means to ...
Setting-up product and tech teams
October 13, 2021 16:16 - 56 minutes - 51.3 MBSeedcamp EiR David Mytton and VP Devin Hunt have both been successful, technical founders (Server Density, Lyst). As they scaled respective internal teams, they gathered a plethora of experiences on the matter. On this week's TMIK, our Managing Partner Carlos Espinal chats with David and Devin about "Unpacking the Stack", and the various angles to consider across product, engineering and design teams. The three dig into a range of topics, starting with hiring, and whom to hire first for both...
How Accelerating Technology is Transforming our World
September 16, 2021 08:18 - 46 minutes - 42.7 MB“Technology alone is not enough. Without the right governance, it may still lead us down the road of overconsumption and environmental catastrophe.” — Azeem Azhar, Author of Exponential: How Accelerating Technology Is Leaving Us Behind and What to Do About It Azeem Azhar knows a thing or two about what direction exponential technology is heading toward, and how it's challenging our well-established social, economic, and political systems. On this week’s TMIK, Managing Partner Carlos Espinal ...
Scaling for Success: Andrew Bartlow on High Growth Startups
September 08, 2021 13:24 - 38 minutes - 35.6 MB“Keep it simple. Be brilliant at the basics”. This is the advice that Andrew Bartlow, Founder of Series B Consulting gives to small, high-growth organisations looking to scale rapidly on this week’s This Much I Know episode. Managing Partner Carlos Espinal chats with Andrew about Andrew’s recently published book, “Scaling for Success: People Priorities for High-Growth Organizations.” The two discuss common challenges related to rapid growth, including the brilliant jerk’ phenomenon, along wi...
HBS's Tom Eisennman on why startups fail
August 25, 2021 10:14 - 39 minutes - 36.5 MB90% of startups fail. For early-stage founders, this can come from both false positives or negatives. Two factors include: bias towards early adopters vs. mainstream customers, that are mostly necessary to scale, or giving up too early on a project that turns out to be a billion-dollar business idea a couple of months later. Tom Eisenmann, Professor at Harvard Business School, discusses this and much more in his recently published book '*The Fail-Safe Startup'*. In this episode of This Much I...
Building International Organisations with BoundlessHQ's Dee Coakley
August 12, 2021 16:02 - 38 minutes - 35.5 MBThe landscape of working and hiring remotely has drastically changed. Recruiting some of the best global talent as an employer requires a lot of knowledge on highly locally specialized topics because doing the statutory minimum is simply not enough anymore. Dee Coakley, the CEO and co-founder of BoundlessHQ, is on a mission to make it easy to employ anyone, anywhere. In this episode of This Much I Know, our host Carlos Espinal has a chat with Dee to cover topics at the heart of global organis...
The Business of Restructuring and Transformation
July 21, 2021 12:34 - 46 minutes - 42.3 MBRestructuring a company can happen on all scales. Whether it’s within a founding team or a huge corporation, there are important common threads that are applicable across all business sizes to ensure value creation. On this episode of This Much I Know, we have a very special guest, Managing Partner Carlos Espinal’s father, Carlos Espinal Sr, Business Transformation & Restructuring Specialist, to discuss restructuring lessons that founders and CEOs can apply to their startups. Carlos Senior sh...
Precious on Community: Managing and Growing Community with On Deck
July 09, 2021 11:11 - 42 minutes - 38.6 MBThe power of community lies in the ability to thrive virtually and scale across borders. Behind these communities, lie powerful and dedicated leaders whose intrinsic motivation to connect and support members creates compounding value. On the final ‘Precious on Community’ episode, Precious speaks with Erika Batista, VP International at On Deck on managing and growing their communities. On Deck is an ecosystem of founders, investors and angels providing programmes and creating communities tha...
Precious on Community: Curating a Community Solo with Hung Lee
July 09, 2021 11:10 - 43 minutes - 39.5 MBThe power of community lies in the ability to thrive virtually and scale across borders. Behind these communities, lie powerful and dedicated leaders whose intrinsic motivation to connect and support members creates compounding value. On the second-to-last ‘Precious on Community’ episodes, Precious speaks with Hung Lee, Curator at Recruiting Brainfood on managing and growing communities. Recruiting Brainfood is an industry newsletter for talent professionals that Hung Lee started in 2017 an...
The Diversity Playbook
June 23, 2021 15:26 - 43 minutes - 39.6 MB"Diversity of the leadership... is the number one thing you should be doing as a founder at the early stages. Because that is going to pull in more diversity over time — that's how networks operate." — Hephzi Pemberton, Founder at Equality Group Diversity and inclusion within startups is essential in innovating and adapting in our fast-paced world. Bringing people with distinctive life experiences into the room to make decisions is key, whether in leadership meetings, the board room, or inve...
Building for the future of work with Moonfire's Mattias Ljungman and Humaans' Giovanni Luperti
May 27, 2021 09:46 - 41 minutes - 37.7 MBWe've said it before and we'll say it again: the world of managing people and organising teams is brimming with changes. COVID-19 and new societal views on working in the 21st century (90% of Generation Z, for instance, want a human element when it comes to their job role and interactions with their coworkers) are changing workplaces of all types. Founders and investors are picking up on these trends and putting their money and time towards solving these issues. HR, a department which we reme...
COO Stories — Building Community through Consistency
May 11, 2021 16:00 - 36 minutes - 33.1 MBBeing a leader is a lonely journey. COOs, due to their incredibly diverse job descriptions, are particularly at-risk of feeling lonely and unable to confide in people within their teams. This is what seasoned COO-turned-CEO Ben Branson-Gateley from Seedcamp portfolio company CharlieHR and Kelsey Traher from Marvel felt. In search of a community that didn't exist, they teamed up to start their own support group. What started as a small pub meet-up in 2015 has now evolved into COO Stories, a Lo...
Precious on Community: The Business of Community
April 14, 2021 14:02 - 44 minutes - 41 MB"If you try to grow too quickly, you miss a really critical opportunity to create the foundation of community and figure out a model that works really well and is repeatable. Don't try to do too much too quickly." David Spinks, Co-Founder @ CMX A decade ago, the term 'community' didn't strike most as a central component of company-building, even though it was. Fast-forward to today, where the internet has transformed communication in our professional and personal realms, and community manage...
Attracting the Best People Faster than your Competition with True's Duncan Finlayson
April 07, 2021 14:50 - 37 minutes - 34.2 MB"[When hiring,] you're asking someone you've just met to effectively babysit your child. That's the sort of trust you need to have...you're effectively giving them your baby to help it scale." — Duncan Finlayson, Partner @ True Hiring top-tier talent for your startup is arguably as important as developing a good product. A new hire is a big investment that affects a team's productivity and a company's culture. Startups can't afford the cost of a bad hire so recruiting wisely is essential, al...
Introducing Precious on Community: What does community mean?
March 10, 2021 17:08 - 19 minutes - 17.4 MBHumans are innately community-seeking. It's why we section off into groups on playgrounds, congregate around political leaders, and build families, biological or otherwise. Communities add value, and membership goes far beyond group identity; it even drives purchasing decisions. From clothing and bottled water to open-source software, community is a powerful tool for company building, and one that no founder should underestimate. "No two communities are the same," Seedcamp's community manage...
Point Nine's Ricardo Sequerra Amram on spotting a B2B diamond in the rough
March 03, 2021 17:09 - 37 minutes - 34.5 MB“That’s what gets us super excited — being able to see a product that fits a very specific need in the market, that even if it’s built super roughly, already exposes the needs that the founder has identified.” Few know the B2B venture space in Europe better than Point Nine Capital. From Delivery Hero and Zendesk, which both IPO’d, to Typeform, Clio, and Vend, the Point Nine team knows how to spot a startup poised for growth. As an early-stage investor at Seedcamp, Cherry, and now as a partne...
La Famiglia’s Jeannette zu Fürstenberg and Judith Dada on the Picasso painting that is a startup
February 17, 2021 18:14 - 44 minutes - 40.3 MB“B2B is all about social science and social context. It’s counterintuitive because you’d think that is B2C but in B2C, it’s more about the vision and brand and riding on this huge wave that is building up in the viral market. In B2B it comes down to people. If you have the ability to observe, listen, shut-up, and work your way from that, that’s the biggest asset that founders can have in terms of catering their solution to what is needed in the market.” — Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, Founding Pa...
Evan Frank, Co-Founder of onefinestay, on servant leadership & OKRs
February 03, 2021 17:26 - 42 minutes - 39.2 MBNot many people know that Evan Frank introduced our now-managing partners Carlos Espinal and Reshma Sohoni to each other during Seedcamp’s infancy. Even fewer are aware that Reshma was his first boss in NYC. And virtually no one (likely not even the Seedcamp Team) knows that Evan was single-handedly responsible for onboarding Seedcamp onto Gmail. But Evan Frank’s accomplishments far surpass his influence on Seedcamp’s leadership and tech-stack. After leaving a career in growth equity in 2010...