A year ago I became a venture capitalist after 23 years as a startup founder and early-stage startup executive. At the beginning of 2019 I joined btov Partners, one of Europe’s most established VC firms, as a full-time investing partner, and the experience has been quite eye-opening. When you interact Read more…
At the beginning of this year, I switched to the other side of the table. I was an entrepreneur for almost 24 years, and I recently took on a new role as a partner at btov, a European VC firm. It’s a rewarding and fascinating job. The part I like Read more…
Go to any early-stage startup website, and you’ll likely find a page proudly listing advisors, probably half a dozen or more. Advisors are mentioned in most funding pitches and sometimes even in sales presentations. Having a strong group of well-known advisors has become a quality signal for startups, a proof Read more…
Tech startups are not exactly known as bastions of sane work-life balance. Startup jobs have a reputation of requiring very long work hours, and many role models elevate this picture: Elon Musk supposedly works 120 hours a week. Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey by comparison slacks off with just Read more…
The world of entrepreneurship is full of buzzwords. We all want to found the next disruptive game-changing hot startup, leveraging our first-mover advantage in deep tech by thinking outside the box, just before pivoting (in an agile way!) after our A/B tests showed concerns with our UX and product market Read more…
Apologies for the slightly clickbait-y title. But it’s true: Everybody wants to build a platform – the term has become inflationary in startup and innovation circles. That’s understandable because successful platforms are amongst the most profitable and most rapidly growing businesses in the world. However, building a successful platform is exceedingly Read more…
Entrepreneurs and startup investors make bets on the future. That’s the nature of building startups. In order to do that well, you need to make correct predictions about which markets (and specific startup ideas) are going to be successful. It’s well-known that that’s difficult, but how hard is it really? Read more…
One of the worst mistakes a startup can make, particularly at its earliest stage, is to obsess too much about competition. A lot of wise people, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, rightfully suggest that you should focus most of your energy on the customer and the problems you’re solving for Read more…
«How are you different?» — It’s probably the question startup founders hear most frequently. Customers, investors, employees, journalists – they all want to know why they should care about your startup in particular out of the countless other ones out there. Having a good answer to this fundamental question is Read more…
The last forty years have been a spectacular period for technology entrepreneurship. A rapid succession of fundamental technologies from the personal computer to the world wide web to smartphones (and their many underlying layers of enabling technologies) have produced a cornucopia of entrepreneurial opportunity. Today, the five most valuable companies Read more…