Feed Your Brain Podcast
By Max Elster and Mike Mahlkow
In order to document which technologies will change the way how we enjoy living and which leadership tactics will be needed, Max and Mike interview different thought leaders on the topics.
Feed Your Brain Podcast May 05, 2019
147 - Jonas Rinde: Building a hardware-software company in the audio industry, how to evaluate career opportunities, designing products and career advice for young people
Today, we are introducing Jonas Rinde. He is the co-founder and CEO of Nomono, a cloud-based audio collaboration, and processing company built specifically for podcasters, broadcast journalists, audio storytellers, and many more. Audio workflow of the future.
He has a long history of working in different industries and started working in the automobile industry due to his interest. Later, he led the R&D department at Tandberg, which was sold for 3.3 billion to Cisco where he became a board member of Cisco Systems in Norway. Continuously built and sold companies, and lastly with Huddly as the CEO.
We talked about his way of choosing opportunities to work on, designing products, his new company Nomono, his thoughts about books, and his career advice.
146 - Macro Situation for Startups and Founders, Useful Resources to read about it and Availability Cascades
Everyone's talking about it.
The economy has not been looking good.
Max and Mike discuss the current macro situation and what it means for startups, employees, and society as a whole.
Recommendations
READ
Andreesen Horowitz:
https://future.a16z.com/framework-valuation-navigating-down-markets/
Y Combinator:
https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/19/yc-advises-founders-to-plan-for-the-worst/
Sequoia:
https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/24/sequoia-capital-plays-nostradamus-again/
LISTEN
Craft ventures:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBkzm4a7iY4
All-IN Podcast or YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezOIBfZcwbQ
All-IN Podcast or YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcyec3pvAEY
Let’s Connect!
145 - Stephan Heller: A crazy 15-year startup journey incl. IPO and Scaling at Groupon, Building Watchmaster.com, Angel Investing and building a fund of fund vehicle now
"There was so much pain that just went into this and so much blood, sweat, and tears, personal commitment, you know, working really for three, four years, not sleeping, not having a personal life in that sense. And suddenly this whole thing, that's to fall apart."
It didn't take long for founder and entrepreneur Stephan Heller to move on and start something new after selling his previous company. In this episode, Stephan reflects on his experiences working with startups over the years and shares the lessons he's learned. We also learn about his current project, AlphaQ, which was founded with the goal of creating an innovative, unique fund of funds structure that has the vision of being listed on the stock exchange and thus democratizing access to venture capital.
Learn more about AlphaQ Venture Capital:
https://www.aqvc.com/
Stephan’s Recommendations
To read:
Ray Dalio Books
The Score Takes Care of Itself
To watch:
Let’s Connect!
Connect with Stephan
144 - Pascal Bieri, Founder of Planted: Building a Food-Tech company through plant-based protein with over 150 people across Europe
As the population grows exponentially and the demand for meat grows, producing meat has become increasingly unsustainable.
Hungry to change that, Planted Foods has been revolutionizing the food chain. Pascal Bieri, one of its founders, joins us today and inspires us to rethink what we eat as he shares with us the whys and hows of producing meat from alternative proteins.
Be part of the food revolution:
https://en.eatplanted.com/karriere
Where to find Pascal’s recommendations: NPR
Let’s Connect!
Connect with Pascal
143 - Saket Kumar, Founder of Vitt: Future of SaaS Financing, VC, Writing a novel
Is getting a novel published comparable to getting a startup funded?
Saket Kumar answers this question in this week’s episode. He freely takes us on an unexpected journey, from creating a novel to founding his current company. We also find out why he went from being a venture capitalist to becoming a founder and why he intends to stay for the long haul.
Saket is the co-founder and CEO of Vitt, a company that provides fast and non-diluted funding for growing SaaS businesses. For three years, he worked as an early-stage venture capitalist.
Learn more about Vitt:
Read Saket’s short stories:
Book Recommendations:
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
How Music Works by David Byrne
Let’s Connect!
142 - Favorite Gadgets and Managing Focus and Energy
“I can now focus on things that I'm more uniquely suited to and that I'm just way better at that bring me more joy.”
That is one thing that effective energy management can do for you. This week, Max and Mike talk about energy management. They talk about what they do, including how they structure their day to be the most productive. In this episode, they also let us take a peek at some of their favorite gadgets!
Read about Narratives, Commitments, and Tasks (NCTs): https://www.reforge.com/blog/set-better-goals-with-ncts-not-okrs
Get the Gadgets:
Razer Blackshark V2 Pro Gaming Headset
Let’s Connect!
141 - Morning Routines, Yearly Goal Settting, Differences NYC and San Francisco
Unfortunately one of our guests needed to cancel last minute, we decided to record a duo episode with Mike and Max about things we're passionate about!
We share thoughts on our morning routines, yearly goal setting, differences between NYC and San Francisco and many more things!
Follow us on Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, and wherever you would like to :)
140 - Jay Rosenkrantz: One of world's-leading online poker player to now building a Web3 playground for writers, artists an collectors
Jay Rosenkrantz is using the Web3 world to build a playground for writers, artists,s and collectors. With his company Heroic Story, Jay and his brother are creating a new game, where players build stories and fantasy worlds together.
Before, Jay was one of the leading online poker players in the world, coached poker player all over the world, created the most popular comedy series about poker which was featured on ESPN, and built the largest online poker training platform.
139 - Vaitea Cowan, Co-Founder at Enapter, about their way of making green hydrogen accessible and affordable for everyone
Our guest today tries to prevent the climate crisis using the power of Green Hydrogen. Vaitea is a co-founder of Enapter, an award-winning company that is productizing the usage of hydrogen.
Enapter is hiring. If you want to help save the world and work with amazing people like Vaitea, apply here: https://www.enapter.com/careers
Other things that were mentioned during the call:
- The Earth Shot Prize: https://earthshotprize.org/
- The Wise Heart: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1920089.The_Wise_Heart
138 - Albert Gajsak: Building an AI-powered Batmobile Hardware Product with Warner Bros, Educating Kids about Technology through Electronic Devices, Covid impact on Supply Chains
We have Albert Gajsak as a guest on the podcast today. Albert is a young founder who combines hardware and software with a team of 20 to develop electronic devices. Essentially with the purpose of teaching kids more about technology.
Since its launch in 2017, Circuitmess has sold over 50,000 products to over 30000 customers - all over the world. Currently, they are working with Warner Bros on a special launch of a Batmobile toy, called CircuitMess Batmobile™. The product raised over $100,000 on Kickstarter in just a few hours.
Their products give kids the opportunity to learn about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in a fun way.
Together, Mike, Max, and Albert talked about the following topics:
- about CircuitMess' early beginnings and its passion for combining software and hardware.
- the joint project to develop a hardware product with Warner Bros and what it was like for him to work with a big corporate as a small startup
- Current challenges in the supply chain by Corona
- His first steps in VC fundraising
We look forward to hearing from you. Feel free to get in touch with us on any channel.
137 - Finding Language Market Fit and Web3
Everyone knows finding product market fit. But what about the Language? There's a concept which was presented by OpenView about Language-Market Fit - we found it inspiring and shared it with you through this way here.
Furthermore, we talk about first insights into Web3 and our viewpoint on it.
Language Market Fit Model by OpenView
Beginner Guide to Crypto:
https://creatoreconomy.so/p/curious-beginner-guide-to-crypto
https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/-guide-1-starting-with-bankless
Book recommendation: Continuous Discovery by Teresa Torres
Interview with Tim Ferris and Chris Dixon and Naval Ravikant
136 - Michael Bervell: Writing a book, Interviewing Jack Ma and leading entrepreneurs, African's Startup Ecosystem, Angel Investing and building a non-profit in his early days
The nest guest is on board - Michael Bervell. MIchael is a Ghanaian-American angel-investor, entrepreneur, and author. He's the author of "Unlocking Unicorns", a book about the stories and habits of leading entrepreneurs in Asia, Africa and the Middle East (e.g. he personally interviewed Jack Ma for the book).
In 2007, he co-founded the non-profit "Hugs for" where he funraised over 500,000 $ in materials and monetary donations and impacted over 300,000 youths around the world. Because of his work, Bervell was awarded the National Caring Award in 2015 (alongside Pope Francis, Dikembe Mutombo, and 7 others).
He became the youngest President of the Harvard Club of Seattle and a former member of the Harvard Alumni Association after he studied in Harvard himself.
His various efforts led to a diverse set of awards, such as the GE-Lloyd Trotter Scholar (2018), World Internet Conference Wuzhen Scholar (2017), Walter C. Klein Scholar (2017), United Health Foundation Scholar (2016), Deutsche Bank Rise Into Success Scholar (2016), Blacks at Microsoft Scholar (2016) and many more.
We talked about this new book "Unlocking Unicorns", African's tech ecosystem, angel investing and many more topics.
Source: Michael's Website
135 - Mathias Klenk, Passbase Founder: The Role of identity verification in today's world, winning first investors, comparison US and German Universities
We had the chance to interview another Founder again, namely the Founder and current CTO of Passbase, Mathias Klenk. Passbase's goal is to "empower the world with a digital identity system that puts you, the individual, first".
Mathias and we talked about the role of a human identitity, the importance of it in today's world, winning the first investors and the differences between studying at Stanford vs. studying in a German university.
Find out more about Passbase here: https://passbase.com/
And connect with Mathias on Linkedin here.
134 - Asynchronous Working, Hiring, Books
133 - Eli Bressert, CEO & Co-Founder Origin: Building a travel company during COVID, San Francisco vs. Europe, Evaluating Machine Learning Opportunities in Products, Importance of Data Science
Welcome back to the Feed Your Brain Podcast.
Max and his co-host Mike interviewed another guest this time. Eli Bressert, Co-Founder and CEO of Origin. Origin provides you with the most personalized luxury trips based on who you are and what you want to experience next. Eli was a mentor at Singularity University, Head of Siri Platform Science & Insights at Apple, Head of Data Science at Convoy and worked in Data Engineering and Analytics.
He studied Mathematics and Astronomy and did his PhD in Astronomy.
Together with Eli, we talked about
- Eli studying Mathematics and Astronomy and his move into tech
- Building a travel company during COVID times
- Integrating Machine Learning into a new product and evaluating the opportunities of ML
- San Francisco vs. Amsterdam (Europe) as a startup hubspot
- ... any many more topics!
Connect with Eli on all channels, find his Linkedin here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elibressert/ - and check out his new company Origin here: https://www.origin.me/
132 - How to raise a Seed Round
Hi friends!
For this episode we have chosen a little different format. For one reason. Mike just raised a 6.3 million seed round with his startup Blair.
Since we have a lot of founders as listeners, we thought it would be exciting to take a look behind the curtain and understand how Mike and his team made it happen.
So Max took the chance to ask him all the important questions about the round!
Feel free to let us know on the social media channels if you enjoyed it. You can find us everywhere as @MaxElster and @MikeMahlkow.
Talk soon!
131 - Finding Your Personal Mission Statement
Hey listeners,
Mike and I talk about the value of finding your personal mission statement and how it can help you with staying focused on the things that actually drive value and happiness for you personally - especially when building companies and products.
We'd be glad to get your feedback and hear about strategies and methodologies of you finding your personal mission statement. Let us know via DMs or on Linkedin/Twitter how you found your vision/purpose!
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Max and Mike
130 - Nikolaus Volk, CEO of Kyte: Uber for Rental Cars, Mobility, Machine Learning at Kyte, Studying at Stanford
Nikolaus Volk is the Founder and CEO of Kyte, a San-Francisco based Startup that delivers rental cars to your home. They help everyone to access rental cars with the simplicity of Uber.
A few facts about Nik:
- He studied at Stanford and TU Munich
- He worked at Uber for a few years
- Kyte raised 9m for their expansion
- Offices in Munich and San Francisco
We talked about:
- The current mobility market and delivering an Uber for rental cars to the US market
- Importance of Machine Learning at Kyte
- Studying at Stanford vs. Studying in Germany
- Hiring the right people
In case you like it, feel free to subscribe. :)
129 - Hey friends, I'm back & What we can learn from AirBnB
I haven't been here for while, however, I thought of publishing this episode to keep you up to date on what's happening.
Startups, Sparks and Serendipity Podcast with Mike Mahlkow and myself
128 - ULTRALEARNING (focusing on entrepreneurs) with Scott Young
128 - ULTRALEARNING (focusing on entrepreneurs) with Scott Young
127 - PR For Startups with Carl Kronika
Carl Kronika is the 19-year-old founder of Copus. Copus is a leading PR agency, specialized on startups, in the Nordics and in Europe. Copus has around 10 employees and helps startups from all over to build up their PR strategy.
Carl and I talk about
- the upsides of PR
- when to start PR as a general topic in a company
- how and when you can approach journalists for PR
- how to build relationships with journalists and PR people
Did you enjoy the show? Leave us a comment on the socials, give a review or share it on your platforms! Would mean a lot :)
SHOWNOTES
126 with Wall-Street Bestselling Author Nir Eyal
Nir Eyal is a known face in the tech- and entrepreneurship scene. He is a Wallstreet-Bestselling Author of the book 'Hooked - How To Build Habit Performing Products', a long-time entrepreneur and an angel investor in different tech startups like Anchor, Eventbrite or ProductHunt. In addition to that, he has been teaching at Stanford Graduate School of Business and has helped different tech companies take their way around building products.
Besides all that, he has just published a new book a couple of days ago called 'Indistractable - How To Control Your Attention And Choose Your Life'. It's all about understanding the psychology of us not doing the right things and clear ideas on how we can become more productive and more focused in what we do every single day. I have had the chance to read it and I was blown away by the way he breaks down distraction to major concepts and helps with definite methods to bring more traction in life when it comes to doing the right tasks.
Enjoy the ride!
Shownotes:
You can find Nir @nireyal and me @maxelster.
124 with Long-Time Marketing Icon Ted Rubin
Ted Rubin has been been in the marketing space for decades now. In 1997, he started out working for Seth Godin at Yoyodyne where his career in the online industry began. Besides learning a lot from Seth, he went through the whole process of Yoyodyne being acquired in 1998 by Yahoo as well.
He served as the Social Media advisor to Big Fuel Communications which was also acquired in 2011 to the Publicis Group, OpenSky (also acquired by Alibaba) and many others where he either took part as the CMO or led his marketing view on the Advisory Boards of several companies. In addition to that, he was named Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers and has written books about the "Return on Relationships" and "The Age Of Influence". He is currently writing another book with John Andrews, titled Retail Relevancy.
We chat about
- his path and his personal learnings working together with Seth as well
- the power of building long-term relationships
- his concrete tips of building a startup through the power of marketing practically
Enjoy the chat!
123 - A World Of Digital Assistants - My Thoughts
New Podcast EP: My Thoughts on A Future World Of Digital Assistants
Digital Assistants such as Amazon Alexa or the Google Assistant have become a big role in the daily life’s of millions of people. Every 5th person in the US has access to a smart speaker nowadays. But - how will a future of digital assistants look like? And what do they have to with a shift happening in regards to human-machine interaction and Transhumanism?
I conducted my thoughts in a short 20 minute podcast since I also researched and wrote my thesis about the topic of digital assistants. I would be honored if you check it out and let your thoughts on here now... what is your view on the future of digital assistants? Comment below…
122 mit Jan Halberstadt von TIER Mobility: Wie baut man eine E-Scooter Firma operativ in den Städten auf?
Was muss operativ beim Roll-Out einer E-Scooter Marke in den Städten beachtet werden?
E-Scooter und die Mobilitätslösung für die letzte Meile sind nun allen bekannt. Um operativ in die Prozesse der letzten Wochen und Monate tiefer einblicken zu können, habe ich Jan Halberstadt von TIER Mobility angefragt.Nach seiner Zeit als Head of Sales Germany bei Deliveroo fing er bei TIER an, um die Städte Köln und Bonn aufzubauen - in einer brutalen Geschwindigkeit natürlich..
Jan und ich bauen darauf auf und sprechen
- über sein Interesse, nach der spannenden Rolle bei Deliveroo ins nächste Startup zu springen,
- über die operativen Prozesse, die notwendig sind und waren, um die E-Scooter tagtäglich in die Städte zu bringen und
- über die Aufgaben, die notwendig waren mit der Politik, der Stadt und vielen anderen Kontaktpunkten, um die E-Scooter wortwörtlich überhaupt "ins Rollen zu bringen"
Viel Spaß mit der Episode. Geb uns gerne eine Bewertung auf iTunes oder verlinke uns auf den Socials.
121 with Taylor Ryan: Marketing in 2019, Connecting Corporates and Startups, Learnings from building different startups
121 with Taylor Ryan: Marketing in 2019, Connecting Corporates and Startups, Learnings from building different startups