“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” — Peter Drucker’s famous quote summarizes well how important a strong culture is for any company’s success. Particularly tech startups have gone to great lengths in consciously shaping their culture and even exposing their cultural Read more…
I often get a bit annoyed at my computer’s user interface. Why, after all these years, are we still interacting with our computers with a primitive keyboard, a simplistic pointing device and a flat glowing rectangle of a 2D screen Read more…
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, 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 Read more…