The European Startup Show

[1:52] - Why did you start Akoni? What pain does it solve? [8:00] - How did you achieve product-market fit? [11:18] - What are the key trends you are seeing in financial services and fintech? [15:13] - How has the pandemic changed the expectations and needs of the consumer and business user? [21:13] - How do you balance innovation from open banking and open finance with ensuring adequate protectio...

[0:48] - What need does Trint solve beyond transcription? [2:45] - How does Trint differ from other transcription services? [6:14] - How did you go from being a war journalist to becoming an entrepreneur? [14:49] - What have you learned as a war correspondent that you were able to use to become the entrepreneur and CEO you are today? [21:09] - What advice would you give someone starting a company...

Show Notes: [0:43] - Why did you start Dashboard and what problem is it trying to solve? [5:06] - How did you refine your initial value proposition and find your focus? [6:54] - There are big companies with deep pockets in the energy space - why can’t they solve this problem on their own? [10:05] - Is there a VC arm inside most of these large energy companies and who are the right people to build...

Show Notes : [2:57] - How does Anote work? [6:32] - How do you convince investors to invest in music as an asset class where timeline and expected cash flows are unpredictable? [10:44] - What songs or artists make ideal suppliers in Anote? [16:37] - How do you value music and does it require a certain sophistication on the investors side? [18:40] - Since you launched the platform, what are you see...

Show notes: [1:03] - Journey from documentary filmmaker to startup founder [3:41] - What was your strategy as a first-time founder for attracting people who are really motivated and engaged to work with you? [4:52] - What does Panion do and why is it called Panion? [9:05] - How do you build engaged communities? [14:53] - What are you seeing as successful monetization strategies for community-based...

Show notes: [3:53] - Why is now the right time to have a carbon removal marketplace? [5:57] - How did you launch a marketplace from idea to first auction in 71 days? [11:21] - If I am a carbon emitter, why can’t I buy carbon offsets? Why do I need carbon removals? [12:47] - What regulations are needed for carbon removal to become mainstream? [13:59] - How do I as a carbon emitter verify the amount...

Show notes: [4:39] - What are the trends you see in the travel sector? [7:20] - Will anything change fundamentally in the travel industry because of the pandemic? What will be its impact, long term? [8:53] - Is there a difference in the way people consume online travel services in Africa vs Europe? [11:56] - How did you build such a strong brand in Africa? [16:10] - How do you recruit people that...

Show notes: [1:05] - Childhood and background that contributed to your entrepreneurial drive [3:21] - What led you to see an opportunity in digital UX analytics? [5:06] - What does Contentsquare do? [6:39] - How is Contentsquare different from Hotjar, Google Analytics etc? [8:13] - How does consumer behaviour differ between regions based on the data you are seeing? [9:48] - What did you do in the...

Show Notes [0:50] - What does Garden.io do? [2:16] - How did you go from being technical to becoming an entrepreneur [3:45] - How do you balance your desire to be technical with the other aspects of running a business? [5:47] - How has software development changed since you started? [8:30] - When does it make sense to have an open source offering? [14:00] - Is selling to devops different in US vs...

Show notes: [2:35] - How has tech hiring been affected by covid and where are you seeing hiring picking up again? [5:50] - What is a typical hiring process like? How do you find the right hire for a role? [9:28] - When should founders be thinking of making the key commercial team hires? [11:12] - What is the toughest role to fill today? [13:23] - How do founders/CEO think of candidates with unconv...

Show Notes: [ 2:46] - How do you think of the business of sustainability and the need to do good and make money? [6:37] - Why is education the biggest part of sustainability? [10:37] - Can you break down the landscape for online education? [17:07] - How do you keep children motivated and engaged with online education? [19:17] - What is Valenture institute and what is their educational offering? [2...

Show Notes [1:46] - Why BlueYard and the vision for the fund [3:33] - How the thesis received by the LPs and people you were trying to raise funds from? [5:10] - Is there a breakdown of where the current funds come from and does it impact your investments? [6:22] - Your investments by region [9:44] - What stage do you invest in and why are there no multi-stage VCs today? [12:06] - What kind of VC...

Show Notes: [1:15] - How Chris went from being the #1 employee at Hearsay to now being Chief Product Officer at Hearsay  [4:22] - What does Hearsay do? [6:16] - How has the current pandemic affected Hearsay's business. [7:51] - What criteria did Hearsay consider when it decided to expand into Europe. [10:47] - How to prioritize different markets in Europe. How did you pick where to go? [12:40] - W...

In this episode, I sit down with Adrien Nussenbaum, co-founder and US CEO of Mirakl. Mirakl is part of France’s 40 most promising startups and widely seen as the next French “unicorn.” Their online marketplace technology today powers over $1.5B gross margin value (GMV).  In our talk, Adrien discusses the big trends in eCommerce, how companies need to do to adapt, and how they built a $100M ARR bus...

[5:29] - When hiring for Europe, is it better to hire natively or focus on expertise [8:28] - 3 strategies for thinking about Europe expansion [13:42] - How should European companies think about European expansion [15:34] - How should you hire for European expansion [21:40] - Who are the first core people we should hire for each region? [23:28] - How long is reasonable to expect in establishing a...

[1.11] -  How I became a serial entrepreneur. [5.0] - Entrepreneurial nature of Icelandic people [5.54] - Why did you move from Boston to Iceland for starting your latest venture [7.52] - Story of Data Market (data-as-a-service): from a startup in Iceland to IPO in the US [15:02] - what stage of the company was Data Market in when they moved to the US and why Boston [18:40] - How did you get acqui...

[1:53] - the personal journey from conservation scientist to founding Carto [4:50] - what did you have when you went for VC funding [6:24] - How Carto is helping governments map the spread of the coronavirus [9:45] - Privacy and location data mapping. How do you deal with it? [14:42] - How Carto built its brand and the importance of making your product accessible [20:05] - Go-to-market - which cha...

Hey and welcome to the European Startup Show. This show is dedicated to helping you to become a better entrepreneur. Each week I will interview different startups from different regions in different stages of growth to understand the challenges they face and strategies that have helped them to grow and scale quickly.  You will hear from CEOs, founders, heads of sales, and heads of marketing on how...