Christoph Jost

What would you wish to have told your 10 year younger self? Here are some pieces of advice. From Christoph Deckert, Strategy Expert at Personio & a16z scout. 1/ Invest in your passion. This is the main driver behind everything. Let it come through. Let us see your passion. 2/ Nurture your relationships. Personal. Professiomal. All kinds. People will always support people. 3/ Trust yourself. Trust your skills. Trust what you can achieve. What about you? What piece of advice would you offer to your younger self? #venturecapital #angelinvesting #startupfunding #europe

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Three biggest learnings from a fundraising journey. Shared by Rainer Märkle, General Partner at HV Capital at EUVC 1/ Have a time box with a deadline attached. Have a defined horizon & create a clear plan. Have some urgency to get things done at some point. Execute very transparently and reliably. 2/ Stick to your narrative. But don't do it blindly. Tweak it when necessary. Adapt it. Don't let yourself be surprised by major changes. Keep focusing on delivering according to your strategy & plan. 3/ Fundraising is a marathon with many sprints. There are moments when you'll ask yourself - Why do I do this? Is it gonna work out? But don't get too negative during the down phases. Adapting and pivoting is part of our job. As it is for the founder of a company. How about you? What fundraising lessons have you learned? Join the conversation. 🔽 #venturecapital #angelinvesting #startupfunding #europe

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Series A Engineering: How does Dreamcraft Ventures support startups towards a successful Series A? 🚀 Find out in our Bits & Pretzels Masterclass in Munich on 30 Sep, which will be hosted by Nico, Founder Enablement Partner, and yours truly 🙌 We will cover how we invest and support portfolio companies. Using Hiber as a case study, I will talk about our collaboration with Michael and his team, and give you insights into how they raised their $15m Series A led by EQT Ventures 🤩 Nico will do a deep dive into crucial building blocks for early-stage startups. Based on his +15 years of experience from VC-backed startups like Trustpilot and Platypus, which he co-founded, Nico will provide hands-on advice for hiring, creating structural trust, retaining talent and building a performance culture 💪🔥 Are you going to Bits & Pretzels? Then join our Masterclass or reach out to myself, Nico or our colleague, Mads, if you want to meet up elsewhere! 💬 #Bits24 #venturecapital #vc #startup

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This table by Antler allows to guide founders on how much to raise in their first round. You can use it to form an initial understanding, but keep in mind: 1. The numbers are German, so they’re conservative. 2. The numbers are from last year. But as a starting point for research, they are definitely useful. #Startups #Fundraising #Entrepreneurship #Founder #Traction

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Tips & tricks for European VCs fundraising right now. From Rainer Märkle, General Partner at HV Capital. Have courage. Step up. Don't let yourself down on some negative. Pursue your goals. Don't just try to do the same things that others have already done. Do something different. Do your own thing. Find your niche. Find your theme. Find your segment. BUT. Don't be overly ambitious at first. It's a long-term game. Don't set the bar too high. Start with a very small fund. Invest the fund for a year or a year and a half. What do you think? Join the conversation below. 🔽 #venturecapital #angelinvesting #startupfunding #europe

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Five Frameworks for Goal setting and they can all be used in conjunction DUMB Goals & Backward Goal setting - Help in creating an aggressive and ambitious path The Four Disciplines of Execution & MASTER Goal Framework - Help it breaking it into smaller achievable sizes keeping in mind the realistic picture today The Wheel of Life - Here the individual can take a step back and create steps he is willing to pursue for improvements holistically

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After closing a Series A funding round, companies enter a pivotal phase where the right approaches significantly influence their journey toward Series B. In brutkasten, Jan Lozek and I recently shed light on the critical strategies companies should adopt after securing Series A funding. 👉🏻 Here are the more top priorities companies should focus on post-fundraise: 📈 Optimize cash flow:  Investors are particularly interested in startups that efficiently manage their cash flow, maximizing growth and revenue while keeping expenses in check. 💰 Show them the money: Show investors how exactly you are making money: real customers, real sales, economies of scale. In other words, show you have a plan and that the plan is working. To outline flexible sales models, and exchange various key parameters, will also be a win. 🚀 Partner up, big time: Leverage your existing networks instead of spending more capital. Corporates can be great partners at this stage and could vouch for your startup. Be it for accessing a market or for increasing your sales, it always pays off to have the right partners. What additional tips would you add for companies navigating this crucial transition? 💡 #SeriesA #Funding #StartupGrowth

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How to Close an Angel Round: Securing angel investment requires strategic planning and building momentum. Here are essential steps to help you close the round: 1. Mass Syndication: Approach multiple investors simultaneously to create urgency and increase social proof. 2. Set Terms Below Market: Start with investor-friendly terms and valuation to gain initial traction with interested angels. 3. Build Social Proof: Mention reputable backers who have shown interest, as this can create momentum among other investors. 4. Rolling Close Strategy: Accept funds as they come, rather than waiting for the full round to close, allowing you to stay agile with cash flow. 5. Use Angel Networks: Platforms like AngelList can connect you with potential investors and streamline introductions. 6. Clear Deadline: Set a timeline to push for commitment, using milestones like holidays or oversubscription to create urgency. #AngelInvesting #StartupFunding #InvestorRelations #Entrepreneurship #VentureCapital PS. check out 🔔 for a winning pitch deck the template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel https://lnkd.in/ejp-Bhnu

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I love the Germans ❤️ Some of their ways and analogies are mind boggling...I completely agree and to the western world might sound insane. Here are my 2 cents. Something shared in transparency and in full openess should not be a problem for the founders or anyone unless its laundered money through fictitious crypto :) But to look at what the Germans produce historically and today - products and services are far more superior than anyone in the world...by miles. They just don't boast on the face advertising like the west. Look at Nike and adidas you would have some of your answers......Or lets say perhaps BMW Group Montblanc HUGO BOSS SAP So their processes, delivery are intact and I don't think that's a bad thing to have. or yes one more - the language and how they pronounce things :) Kraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung is Motor Vehicle Liability Insurance in Deutch. Try doing it and you might just fall of your chair. Take a bow Deutschland. Feel free to agree to disagree. #Deutschland #marketing #venturecapital #startups #Germany

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Want to exit as an early-stage founder? Yes, it is possible. But it requires a different approach to typical M&A dealmaking. A bit of context… I get 5-10 messages per week from relatively early-stage founders (traction, but not massively profitable yet) who are looking to exit. There are many reasons why - one of several projects, need more stable finances, tapped out and unsure what to do next. Etc. This also applies to relatively small businesses (sub-£5M revenue), owner-operated with a good team where the motivation may be a life-style change or retirement. Now. To be blunt and honest, in 90% of cases there isn’t an exit path - usually because of mis-match in expectations. (Eg: “We’re just one small investment away from building a $BN+ company”) But. Most of the time you can salvage a £1-10M outcome over a 12-36 month period. How? By treating it as an investment case to deliver an outcome for a specific target company. For example: You have a software product that helps insurance companies manage supply-chain risk. Let’s say the business does £500k revenue and covers costs. Your average M&A Advisory would try to sell the company based on the revenue/EBITDA and (after many months of false hope) fail to do so. They will get offers - but rarely ones you want to accept. My advice - and what I always recommend founders / owners do below 1M EBITDA - is to approach specific targets with an investment case to deliver outcomes. For example: Making / saving a target insurance company Z benefits over an agreed timescale with milestone payments. Becuase taking supply chain risk. This is a multi-million, even billion, sized problem that all wrestle with - and invest significant CapEx and OpEx into annually. If you can solve that - or deliver X saving … you get Y. Sounds fair, no? This is a very standard deal in enterprise consulting land. And beats shutting the venture down and feeling like you’ve failed. No. It’s not the all-cash deal from Google. Yes. It will require work to implement. Yes. It is a viable path for most owners / founders to realise a good return for creating value in a relatively de-risked way. See. What many founders / owners overlook is that the most valuable thing they have created isn’t IP … software … their service offering … etc … It’s actually their understanding of the problem, how to solve it, and a team who can solve it. So. If you are in this situation and looking for an exit. But aren’t really acquirable yet, why not give this a go? First step is putting together a short-list of targets who you might approach and are already investing in the problem (bigger is better). Hope useful. I wish someone had given me this advice on the dozens of early-stage ideas I walked away from over the years! #exitstrategy #founder #openequity

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Without dismissing the issues raised, I think this is a bit simplistic way of looking at it. Rather than suggesting a ban, shouldn't we all learn to play the game? I don't agree that the best idea comes from far flung people merely because they experienced something - that may happen sometimes but statistically it comes from unique insight and professional exposure (and this is what accentuates the network bias) - to a large extent. I agree with Opeyemi 's submission that successful blacks should get in the game (but not just investing in blacks alone). The more representations you have higher up there the more diverse the allocation becomes. I don't think anyone is stopping blacks from becoming LPs, Angel Investors or starting funds.

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I spent two hours yesterday scrolling social media about the #GPT4o (what a weird name) release—and feeling gutted that my app has not been updated yet. Axel C. ‘s post this morning is the first smart, thought-out critic I read. (See below with more sources 👇). He warns against the coziness we are supposed to feel with human-facing AI algos. We run the risk of slowly disengaging from our social life. *** My reaction to all the promo videos was: “Why do they all ask a machine how it feels?” Have you noticed how all the OpenAI employees start the conversation with “Hey ChatGPT, how are you?” I’m not convinced by the answers I got on X (see pic below). OpenAI is trying to make ChatGPT become another “friend,” but there’s a risk it’ll soon become the closest one—and for some, the only meaningful one. Sam Altman on the All-In Podcast referred to it as a personal assistant, a Jarvis-like figure. But I agree with Axel, it’s not how it feels. *** I use ChatGPT several hours per day. It helps me write parts of blog posts (although I spend considerable time editing, I don’t like its style), answer daily life questions, and discuss research-related concepts during my morning walk. But I noticed I have to fight off an urge to have it think in my place. Thankfully, I had over four decades of doing it alone before the bot arrived. Will it be the same for our kids? I teach my 6 yo to think about answers by herself before asking ChatGPT (“Why do giraffes have long necks?” was her first question). How long before we outsource our thinking to this affable, human-like companion? As I graded my students yesterday, it was obvious some used AI to write their essays. They missed an opportunity to reflect, train their memory and brain cells to come up with a creative answer. The “blank page effect” is a powerful exercise to improve your thinking power. How long will we make the intellectual effort to write something novel in a world where the instant answer is at the tip of our fingers? *** The main risk with AI is not that it destroys us, it’s that we gradually do it ourselves by submitting our thinking and personal companionship to it. It’s a strange feeling to be elated and worried at the same time. #ai #itscomingforus

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👑 Earlybird Venture Capital and HV Capital are considered the best German venture capital funds across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. 🚀 finleap is considered the best FinTech investor, and Point Nine the best in B2B SaaS. 🙌 HTGF | High-Tech Gründerfonds ranks best on Perplexity for GenAI and HealthTech. While the results for "Overall" are quite stable, the sector-specific results have very high variance! Sector-specific funds like Merantix Capital, Laika Ventures, AI.FUND & Heal Capital appear more frequently in AI search results compared to Google search results. The models seem to use "activity" as a main criterion for "best," with many sources referencing the respective deal count of the funds. Gemini's sector-specific variance was so high that we did not include the results (about 25% of answers were not even venture capital funds). Top Perplexity sources include Dealroom.co, EU-Startups, and Seedtable. Top ChatGPT sources include Sifted, Failory, and PitchBook. Sources used are mostly overlapping. If you try to replicate this, please keep in mind that your prior search history may impact your results. For most accurate results test on virtual machines. With a fundamental shift in search on the horizon, the way AI models perceive your brand will become increasingly important. Daniel Drabo and I are very interested in AI search and will continue to explore this space. The future looks really exciting. Follow for more 🫶

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Today I visited the GREENTECH FESTIVAL in Berlin with my dear friend Andreas. 💚 To make it short: Good vibes, busy floors and a big startup space. But tbh I wondered if it's really worth it for startups. I remember from my active time as an exhibitor that we weren't honest about the hard costs per lead. We argued a lot: being there is everything, you have to be seen, brand building is important, it's where the industry meets, serendipity happens, if we just get one big order it will pay off... not to forget the parties! That's all true, but the opportunity cost of attending a trade show is very high, especially for startups. And while this isn't meant to be a trade show bashing at all, here are a few suggestions from my experience, on how to make the most of it... - Train your team to proactively approach people. - Initiate a challenge to see who can get the most leads. - Prepare in advance and market your attendance by actively inviting customers. - Consider a small side event, such as a VIP dinner. - Try to book a package with a speaking engagement at the conference, that has always paid off for us. - Use the exhibitor directory for your own prospecting. - Calculate cost vs. lead conversion after the show with real data and decide whether to repeat. - Push your presence on social in real time. Good luck to all exhibitors and happy selling 🚀 ____________________________ Sharing my experience as an entrepreneur and angel investor. Investing in early stage B2B SaaS startups. Happy to connect 👋

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⏰ "𝗜 𝘄𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗿" 𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴... 🤝 Why is that? Well, successful fundraising takes a lot longer than most founders think. It all starts with building relationships with VCs. 😓 It is very hard to successfully raise venture capital without having built and cultivated relationships with VCs before you go out raising. ⏳ Building relationships takes time. But it is not as hard as you might think. As with most things in life, if you break it down into small steps, it is manageable, even if you start from zero. ➡️ 𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗻𝗼𝘄, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜'𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗩𝗖𝘀 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝗮𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗲. 𝗵𝘁𝘁𝗽𝘀://𝘄𝘄𝘄.𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗼𝗳𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴.𝗶𝗼/

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B2B SaaS Entrepreneurs on Mastering the Exit I wanted to let you know that I will be moderating a panel at ARRtist Summit 2024 in Berlin. The theme is ‘Mastering the Exit’, and I will be joined by three people who have as much up-to-date insight into this subject as anyone in Germany – all three are B2B SaaS entrepreneurs who have recently sold their companies: Nader El Ali, CEO of DemoUp Cliplister, acquired by Bregal Unternehmerkapital Emil Beck, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Remazing, acquired by IK Partners Manuel Hinz, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Cross Engage, acquired by Spotler Group, Founder of Toroleo GmbH, acquired by Delticom AG, and CFO at DailyDeal, acquired by Google. The panel will take place on October 10 at 16:00-17:00 CET. If you’re planning on attending ARRtist Summit, do come along, it will be great to see you and we’re confident you will learn a lot from the discussion. Since space is limited, you’ll need it to indicate it as one of your preferred sessions on the online from ARRtist provides. For those not currently planning to attend, you may wish to consider doing so. ARRtist is the most relevant event for the European SaaS community, bringing together 500 high-profile Founders and CxOs with 125 top-tier investors for a day of networking and knowledge exchange. You can learn more here: https://www.arrtist.net/ Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about the panel or ARRtist Summit. #manda #saas #berlinsaasweek #saasalon

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My saas.wtf newsletter just cracked the 2,500 subscriber mark. 🎉 These were the 5 most popular articles: 1️⃣ My Go-To SaaS Benchmark Reports: https://lnkd.in/eVwEqJPj 2️⃣ SaaS Valuation Myths: https://lnkd.in/e2sA_Bgn 3️⃣ Time to hit $1M ARR: https://lnkd.in/emmyt-Hy 4️⃣ Micro M&A for SaaS Startups: https://lnkd.in/e5sCK2mB 5️⃣ Cohort Analysis using AI: https://lnkd.in/ebAxhdma I hope you enjoyed the others too. 🙂 On to the next 2500 subs! #saas #startups #founders #kpi #analysis #valuation #ai #benchmarks #pricing #newsletter

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What to look for in Co-Founders? Having the right Co-Founders is probably the most important success factor in the early days of a startup. Drawing from my (outstanding) experience with Jonas Hess, here‘s my summary of the top-5 things to look for. 1️⃣Work ethos and commitment This is about each Founder’s willingness to suffer. If things get serious, are all Founders willing to get stuff done even if it means working nights and weekends? 2️⃣Commercial contribution Early startups are simple. The first days are just about generating traction, based on a superior product that is shipped faster and sold better than every competitor does it. Contribution to these things should somewhat feel equal among the Founders. 3️⃣Having fun Many Founders that come from corporates underestimate this point IMO. Co-founders are not like a normal professional relationship, they are more like a marriage. Imagine sitting alone in the office with your co-founder at 11pm or sleeping on his/her couch for a few nights. If this feels wrong, it’s probably not going to work out. 4️⃣Growth culture Do you appreciate your co-founder’s opinion even for your areas of responsibility? The more you treat mutual feedback as opportunity to grow versus personal criticism, the stronger your growth culture. Having a growth culture is just more fun and leads to better outcomes, but it requires Founders to get rid of their ego for the benefit of the startup. 5️⃣Blind trust This goes without saying. If all of the above are given, and you still don’t trust your Co-Founders, you should probably work on yourself first. This picture was taken in 2022 after a sports session.

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