Michael Kamleitner

Always wanted to learn (or play more) tennis yet it's never easy in Berlin? 🤷 Here's the answer! OutFounders in collaboration with The Beyond organizing a Tennis Social 🎾 on May 31st - a bespoke tennis experience, a perfect combo of active workout and tennis training. ​As always - Berlin-based founders, investors, and operators getting together for some active social time. Interested? See details and apply via the link in the comment, see you there 👋 #Berlin #outfounders #learn #tennis

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📢 We launched a new series called "Vendure Voices" I'll talk with founders and decision makers of companies that have built their digital commerce experiences on Vendure, to share valuable insights and learnings of their journey. In the first episode I am speaking with Kevin from fainin | 2-share.de! They have built an innovative marketplace for lenders and renters. A win-win-community powered by a secure sharing environment. A place to connect with people while renting and lending things. Kevin is also one of the most active members of our open source community! In this episode you'll learn more about: ╰ Why they chose Vendure ╰ Insights into their development process ╰ What Kevin values about Vendure ╰ ... and much more! Subscribe to our YouTube channel, this is just start of something great! 💙 Link to the video is in the comments 👇 #HeadlessCommerce #VendureVoices #FoundersTalk

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Being an early stage founder is lonely and fundraising is a hard slog. One thing that I am constant with is that as a founder you are your presentation. It is the core of the relationship between founders and potential investors. On the other side, I think the most important thing investors have for founders is feedback. Too many investors walk away from meetings with founders without giving them real feedback. I often hear investors say there is no upside to feedback. I actually believe the opposite is true. Good founders need feedback to become great. I think it should be part of the founder seed investor bargain. Give direct feedback and make sure that feedback is what you say in private. Of course, I do not hear from the folks I may have offended, But for me, I would rather live with that then not help a founder.

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Should you as a founder show vulnerability/unhingedness in front of VCs and let your guard down? Short answer: 9 out of 10 times, no, unless you're very visibly the sort of founder nobody would wanna bet against (read visibly great results). Longer answer: VCs are in the pattern recognition business. They're not just looking for patterns in your business model and product and market, but in your personal traits, too. If they're gonna have 1 or very few interactions with you, and your guard is down in those few instances, they could perceive you as weak, possibly incompetent or too inexperienced. They may not tell you, but pattern recognition works that way. One may argue that VCs who have been in the game for a long time may have dropped these biases (to adopt new ones), but I'd argue those VCs are less than 10 or 20% of all VCs. Every VC secretly wishes you're the founder they can invest in right now, but subconsciously they kinda have to look for reasons not to. And they do so by thinking of all the past founders they invested in, how those founders looked/sounded/acted like and whether you're kinda similar or different. The traits of a competent person in a low moment may be hardly distinguishable from those of an incompetent person. Add gender, ethnicity, accent, what you're wearing, where you worked at, and the culture of dynamics of the region the VC is in to the mix and boom. It becomes a mess. The only time when it's probably okay to let your guard down might be when you have established a relationship with them over a long time and your results have spoken for themselves or you are extremely in control of your public persona, so your personality, no matter how "differentiated" won't negatively affect the process 😅 It's very common for founders to be...weird, and in places like Southeast Asia this is not very often talked about so I thought I'd share :D The best people to be vulnerable/completely unfiltered with are nobody but other founders. That's why we've built LL. You get your own small tech CEO peer group with frequent video calls, and access to a broader community that's super supportive. Sign up today to get your CEO peer group – link in comments 💥

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During a fascinating conversation with Pippa Short, one topic we discussed was the accelerating trend of publisher diversification. Something we recently wrote about on solli. -> https://lnkd.in/eXfhQNg4 1️⃣ How far will this diversification trend develop? 2️⃣ How are clients capitalizing on these broadening services? 3️⃣ What positive or negative impact does this have on agency/publisher relationships? Thank you for inviting me to be a part of the conversation. #solli #solliglobal #globalpharmamedia

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The SaaS industry is still growing. But much more slowly. Last month I shared an Aleph statistic. Over the last 3 years we have invested in 17 companies. Only 1 out 17 was a classic horizontal SaaS company. SaaS was the single best business model of the last cycle (2008-2021), but the category has since entered a maturity stage (see graph below). This new report from the wonderful software team at Avenir clearly illustrates it. Growth rates for the combined SaaS industry are quickly declining as we are entering the later stages of maturity. In other words, there’s already an established software company in most sectors - and there’s very little room for entirely new software categories. At Aleph we still believe there’s an opportunity to build successful SaaS companies, but new entrants would have to carve out market share in existing industries and displace existing vendors. Vertical software is one area where lesser competition makes it more attractive, but entrepreneurs in crowded horizontal markets would have to work harder than ever before. Another key takeaway from the report - there are only 72 publicly traded companies (with market cap > $5Bn) with a combined market cap of $5.8Tr. However, 56% of this value is attributed to Microsoft alone, followed by a very long tail of lesser performing companies. Moreover, only 2 of the largest 11 companies were funded after the year 2000 (ServiceNow, CrowdStrike). If you are building or investing in SaaS, you should definitely read the full report by Jared Sleeper, Hannah Bao and David Prilutsky (link in the first comment).

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INSRD: Reinventing Business Insurance! Meet INSRD, the Berlin-based insurtech that's changing the game for business insurance and risk management. Raised €500k pre-seed to bring you a smarter solution! Here's how they do it: 1. Adaptive Coverage: Insurance that grows with your business. 2. Expert Advisory: Tailored advice to handle new risks. 3. Tech Power: AI-driven platform to keep you covered. INSRD's Protect & Connect platform keeps your insurance up-to-date, ensuring you stay protected no matter how fast you grow. Why it matters: Accurate coverage means peace of mind and security for next-gen industries like AI, Creator Economy, and Robotics. Have you reviewed your business insurance lately? John Ismailoglu, Evgeny Bezlyudnyy, Stefan Balg, Valeriy Bykanov 🇺🇦 Randolf 🐸 Schürmann, Kevin Halpape, https://lnkd.in/dEhb82Wb #Insurtech #BusinessGrowth #RiskManagement #MondayFunding

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Crafting the perfect pitch: Why deciding between a vision-driven narrative or data-driven results could define your fundraising success 👇 Actionable insights from: ➡ Christina Cacioppo, CEO and Co-founder at Vanta and Mario Gabriele, Founder at The Generalist ✏ “The Founders Guide to Optimizing Your Fundraise” ⭐ Base your fundraising pitch on either a compelling narrative or strong metrics, depending on the state of your business, but avoid trying to do both simultaneously. 💬  "You can raise on numbers or you can raise on story, but you shouldn't raise on both. You should always be clear with yourself about which one you're raising on, and your pitch should make it clear, too. It's hard to do both well: the vision obscures the numbers, and the numbers detract from the vision. The same company can raise on either vision or numbers at different times. At Vanta, we raised on our numbers in the early days because people didn't buy into the market or its potential. As we matured, so did our ability to bring investors along on that vision." – Christina Cacioppo ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

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Let's dive into how we at s16vc approach '𝐇𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 & 𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬'—the most frequent request type, which accounts for about a third of all requests from our portfolio founders. Typically, it goes along the lines of, “Do you know a stellar [product designer] based in [Berlin]?” So, most often it's an opportunistic ask for candidate referrals. Occasionally, founders ask to refer a trusted hiring agency or an advisor to help build their internal people function. On even fewer occasions, it's a request for a reference check of candidates through our community. At s16vc, we've chosen to do a lot deals vs. 1-2 big-bucks bets a year, support all portfolio companies vs. the chosen few, have many individual LPs vs. a couple institutional ones, engage our large community to help founders vs. rely on an in-house group of operators, host a lot of community gatherings vs. one AGM. We appreciate it’s very ambitious. Three years & two fund generations into s16vc's existence, we already have 59 portfolio companies, 92 portfolio founders, and 152 LPs. Now, fast forward ten years into the future? No wonder one of our founding principles at s16vc is “Do things that scale.” This principle pervades everything we do. In the context of 'Hiring & References' support, we ask ourselves, “Can a VC fund help source candidates at scale?” And next, “Should it?” Our belief is that, yes, it can—with the right investment of resources. But should it? As with any strategic bet, you have to focus on your unfair advantage. For some funds, it's a sizable AUM, allowing them to get some great minds to work with their portfolio companies. For others, it's a strong brand name that drives traffic to job boards on their websites. s16vc’s biggest asset is our community. As I often say, we do everything as a community. Hence, for us, the real question is, “Can we source candidates at scale through our community?” The answer is, we may or may not be able to do that; for now, we haven't yet found a scalable way to assist with candidate sourcing. This explains why 'Hiring & References' requests comprise the largest portion, 38% of all requests that didn't progress past the 'Qualification' stage. However, there’s still plenty we as a community can and do help with: * Sharing the most precious people who we have worked with within the community; * Connecting to the most relevant and trusted recruiting agencies and freelance recruiters; * Job description & scorecard review; * Finding a bar raiser for the final interview; * Connecting to advisors who can help build the in-house hiring process; * Finding a trusted connection within our community for a reference check.

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Why now? The most important slide in a pitch deck, but also crucial for my decision to leave a well-paid agency job to test my abilities as a startup CEO and COO. There are many answers to the "why now" question: 1️⃣ I have not been ready until now. Accumulated experience in many roles has given me the self-confidence. 2️⃣ My age. At 53, there is no time to lose. Building the future I want must start with creating the reality I want today. 3️⃣ The two startups. I am involved in two amazing startups with global intentions and potential. I refuse to look back and regret the road not taken 🏔

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Good content? There’s never enough of it. The guys at At fyrfeed, a Berlin based start-up, are very aware of this bottomless need to put something up every once in a while. So they came up with a set of tools that make it effective (and with guaranteed quality) to feed your corporate or personal social network. Fyrfeed, another ZAKA VC's investment via ​Gateway Ventures ​, is led by CEO ​Dr. Thomas Lindemann​ and COO ​Benjamin Zengler​. They call it the next gen content marketing platform and indeed - they take it from the bottom-up. Starting with research, moving to strategy and then reaching out to the best content creators, not to forget the design and management of posting. And it’s no surprise that they use AI to adjust the tailor-made content to make it suit even better at seams. Fyrfeed simply promises to make the whole ordeal of your SoMe management much easier and cost effective with a guarantee of content that is truly yours, relevant, and fresh. And that's a lot. #fromourportfolio #contentcreation #b2b

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Have been seeing way more PWA (progressive web app) games in the last few months. Curious what people think is driving this: improvements to web engine frameworks, difficulties in trad UA, changes to store business model / policies? Main advantage is avoiding the app store fees and regulations, main hurdle is the friction to install (CPI), performance/asset handling, discoverability/payments since you're now off-platform. Want to learn more and see who's building here.

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Learn from OpenAI’s playbook: Prioritizing key projects and empowering a mission-oriented team are essential for startups aiming to make a significant impact 👇 ➡ 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗲: Sam Altman, CEO at OpenAI and Brad Lightcap, COO at OpenAI 🔌 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗿: Harry Stebbings, Founder at 20VC ✏ “20VC: OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Brad Lightcap on The Future of Foundation Models” ⭐ 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗔𝗜 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝗮 𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗱 𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲: "There are two strategies to build on AI right now: [...] (1) to assume the model is not going to get better and then you kind of build all these little things on top of it; [...] (2) to build assuming that OpenAI is going to stay on the same rate of trajectory and the models are going to keep getting better at the same pace." ⭐ 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗮 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀: "At any given point in a company's life, there's only one to three things that really matter. And that spills over into how we run the team because [...] if we can align on what those things are, [...] then it helps me to translate down to the teams that I'm building." ⭐ 𝗘𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗔𝗜 𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆: "I think people criminally underrate how important it is and how much return you really get on just giving people access to the technology. [...] Someone who used to spend two days doing something now spends two minutes doing it and is freed up to do 85 other things in their daily life." ⭐ 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆'𝘀 𝗳𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻: "I watched what has happened to other tech companies when they just become the place you want to work because it's a good resume item. [...] I think companies that lose their mission orientation and get taken over by mercenaries usually come to regret that." ⭐ 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮𝘀 𝗼𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘂𝗻𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲𝘀: "Find a way to make sure that there's this very flat and even playing field when it comes to how you look to the team for perspective, decision-making, judgment, and creativity." ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

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Daniel Hires 🌍 Fabian Pfortmüller I'm curious about your views on investing on a community-led business. The arguement I've hear referring to VCs is that many don't get it, and many who do see it's valuable but hard to assess AND hard to scale (dropping a couple million into a community can make it crumble, while 2 million for ads on a souless saas can work more reliably). the VC arguments feel reasonable yet I keep thinking they miss the mark but struggle to articulate why so convincingly. Something about cocreation and non-directive exponentiality of community, but that requires so many other capabilities few understand, even fewer have implemented. (we're working to commoditise those through our work in RnDAO but still a long way to go) so from your perspective, or if you have any investors who deploy on community basis to recommend, what's the thesis?

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“What is your company actually doing?” This was among the most often asked questions during my last journey to Berlin and Stanford. For the first time, I thought I needed the right pitch to fix it. But for a while, I understood that actually I was lacking focus. I’ve been running Yedynka for 13 years. We have done a lot. ✅ We developed expertise in web development, digital marketing, and design. ✅ We even built and licensed our own CMS system. ✅ We help companies build MVPs for their products and develop and implement go-to-market strategies. ✅ We found a way how to offer services of a cross-functional team on subscription. 🔴 But how do you sell it all in one sentence? This was when I realized I needed to rebuild my company to make it more focused, understandable, and scalable 🚀 But as a creator, I find it hard to cut down on something. I decided to “go out of the building” and talk to the customers to determine what our solution/ offering resonates with them the most. I will gladly share my steps and findings with you. What do you think, what of the listed above resonates with you? Please let me know if you would be interested to talk? 🙌 #yedynka #rebuild #customerdevelopment

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Co-founders vs. sole founders A founding team that doesn't work is one of the top 10 reasons why startups fail. Nevertheless, I would not want to build hypt without Roger Ellenberger and Tobias Wegmüller. Here is why: 1. Building a startup can be tough, so it is important to be able to share the challenges and pressure with others. 2. Everyone has their strengths. Having complementary skills in the founding team increases the value of your startup immensely. 3. I know I'm not always right. That is why it is important to have people around you with whom you can discuss ideas. 4. And the most important thing: While you are working hard and long, it is important to have fun. And let me tell you, we have a lot of fun at hypt, as you can see on the picture. What is your opinion? Co-founders or sole founders? #startup #team #founder

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+5,000 followers on Linkedin! 🎇 👀   Since leaving Amazon two years ago, I'm incredibly grateful for the sheer number of amazing people I have crossed paths with - from sellers and partners at numerous industry events, to investors and fellow founders. I am glad to have you all along with me for this crazy ride.   To celebrate this milestone I'll share some thoughts on KPIs, and the frameworks behind defining the milestones we are actively trying to achieve. My learning since founding Ecomtent is incredible discipline is needed to anchor the entire company around 2-3 core metrics.   In my previous role, leading a team of PMs at Amazon, I was guilty of the inverse of this. On my team, each PM tracked several individual KPIs we set at the beginning of the year, specific to their program. The goal was to give individuals ownership. However, the result was a laundry list, and different team members across the organisation optimizing for different things. Tech prioritisation was a nightmare.   A better framework is one Primary metric, and 1-2 additional secondary metrics. The Primary metric should be a monetary measure - revenue or profitability. Secondary metrics should be more business-specific, inputs to drive this primary metric. For example, in its growth stage, Airbnb had a primary metric of revenue, but the secondary metrics of beds on the platform and responsiveness of hosts. There are a thousand different ways teams across the company could help to drive up these two secondary metrics - initiatives and innovation on product, sales, marketing. Team and individual goals should be structured to contribute to these 2-3 KPIs.   Your KPIs also should reflect the overall strategy. By strategy, I mean specific trade-offs you are consciously making - betting on X and not Y. For example, at Ecomtent, one of our initial secondary metrics was # managed product listings to build defensibility. This dictated our behaviour, e.g. spending dev time building a robust product that could handle catalogues with hundreds of thousands of SKUs; and our pricing. However since filling a patent, our strategy has evolved. We fired this KPI and replaced it with reducing churn. This meant listening to customers, and from their feedback dedicating resources to improving our lifestyle image generation models to ensure it remains best in class in a competitive market. It also meant delighting and surprising customers with innovations such as 'auto prompting' to improve image quality. Since firing # managed product listings, and focusing on reducing churn, we have been able to move the dial on this KPI with a reduction of -51%.   I could imagine as Ecomtent grows, that we grow our number of secondary KPIs from two to 5 or 6. But I vehemently believe discipline is needed, that KPIs should be set by leadership, monitored on a weekly basis by the entire company or business unit and fired if the strategy or landscape shifts. Do you agree? Should large teams fire their KPIs? 

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Token design is one of the most crucial elements of any Web3 project. If done well, even less competitive products can succeed 🚀 If done poorly, even the most competitive products will fail 📛 What resource would I recommend? For starters, Simplicity Group https://lnkd.in/e2VRGJsE Their Telegram has some great content https://lnkd.in/eaE8_7_3

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