Frederik Pfisterer

Good morning, Dearest Readers, I've been saying for some time now that SaaS has its challenges. Namely it is capital inefficient, has a low to negative profit margin, and is one size fits all. This morning, I came across this headline on Techmeme: German grocery delivery app Flink raised $115M in equity and $35M in debt, sources say at a valuation just under $1B; Flink has raised $1.5B+, per PitchBook I wonder what the terms were. Onerous for sure. Please note that they have already raised $1.5B 😱 - underwriting 'market demand' for food delivery is expensive. Now they have to accept what is most likely a down round, with more stringent terms. How do the investors ever get their money back let alone out of the company? I have no idea. What I do know though is that SaaS needs an improvement to its business model. I would start looking for tech that makes it capital efficient, increases mind and wallet share, and enables a holistic customer experience. We have just the solution if they're interested, and it's 100% web standard (sadly I doubt it. It's a mindset thing).

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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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Philipp Klöckner - Could you give us some insights into how your personal brand positively impacted your VC investment opportunities? Is it more important than SEO these days? ➡ 1) Aka running the Doppelgänger Tech Talk Podcast ➡ 2) Getting more people to know you ➡ 3) When someone needs VC money they'll talk to you. ➡ ... and start again with 1) For everyone else not knowing him - Philipp Klöckner and Philipp Gloeckler started the wonderful 🇩🇪 German language Doppelgänger Tech Talk Podcast a couple of years ago. Great tech topics. Great insights into companies trading on the public market. Highly recommended! #seo #personalbrand #socialmedia #podcast #vc

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𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐚 𝐒𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫! 🚀 With this, I am super excited to announce that Scripe closed its pre-seed fundraising round – with a group of amazing, experienced angel investors! 🙌 Since day one, I am a huge fan of the product. Scripe is a is a content workspace that enables companies to position their whole team on LinkedIn – from the intern to the CEO. Imagine everyone having a personal high-end ghostwriter assistant in their pocket. Their mission: Empowering the world's professionals to share their stories. And they are doing everything they can to get there. My favorite features so far are: - YouTube uploads turn into endless content ideas. - Plan your content week in advance with ease. - Reports are 1000X better than LinkedIn's native tools. (Sorry, LinkedIn! 😉) I look super forward to being part of their journey and to support them with my experience in Sales, Content Creation & Scaling 🙌 I am very happy about the other investors who are working with me to make scripe the next Unicorn 🦄 : Glenn Miseroy, Daniel Frese, Richard van der Blom, Robert Heineke  Laura Raggl, Nina Kani, Tony E. Kula, 👋 Michael Kamleitner, Julius Göllner, Roman Geugelin, 🛠 Nico Axtmann, Michael Streit, Emanuel Jöbstl, Stefan Smulders, Nicoleta Danu. If you want to give Scripe a try and get an extra month for free, comment SCRIPE in the comment section. 👇 #Scripe #Contentcreation #AI #PersonalBranding

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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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📣 Free founders-only event below! I often see founders get a lot of early traction in signing customers and then hit a wall when trying to scale that repeatedly. Why?? Maybe it's because: 1️⃣ that 1st group of customers came through warm intros from your accelerator batch 2️⃣ you've already combed through industry connections from your previous career 3️⃣ you're just good at brute-force selling but you're only one person 4️⃣ you are still narrowing in on product market fit Next week I'm hosting a free, founders-only candid discussion with two people who have had to break through this wall out of necessity and now coach countless founders on this. More on our speakers: 📈 Ian Illig took his 1st job out of college at a friend's startup (employee #1). He quickly found himself trying to sell a product that was still finding its market fit. Fast forward years later and Ian had completely built out the sales team and revenue, allowing the company to get acquired. And then he turned around and did the same thing again with the same founding team. 👀 Sonia Baschez was one of the 1st employees at Atmos, a consumer & builder-facing product for homebuilding. She developed early marketing channels & helped the company grow from Pre-seed to Series A. Sonia optimized product launches to reach the right customers, a challenging feat given their core customers are actively NOT in the tech bubble (aka Techcrunch and a thread on X are not going to do the trick). Whether they know it or not, both Ian and Sonia have been secret superpowers for me as I've grown The Council Fund and supported portfolio companies. I'm excited to share their playbooks & expertise with founders for FREE next Wednesday. Join us 12-1pm Pacific! Link to RSVP in comments below ;)

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As part of the Startup Incubator Berlin's Lean Startup program, I've talked to many inspired and motivated individuals, and we all make the same critical mistake (myself included!). We're trying to solve something too big at once, and so we're building a solution with multiple parts. What's worse is that when we talk to each other, we're extremely convinced that we have to deliver the whole piece or our solution doesn't make sense. But the person we're talking to is often able to quickly see that that's not true and point out how independent each part can be. This is actually the best part of participating in these programs: the insights gained from sharing with others. What I'm talking about here is nothing new: it's the very concept of the Minimum Valuable Product (MVP). And when you think you have it, think again and slice again. This applies not only to new companies, but also to new product development and features: What is the thinnest slice I can deliver that already provides value? The next time you're about to deliver something, ask yourself if you can split it, but also ask someone how they would split it, and don't forget to slice, slice, slice!

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In Startup Growth The Biggest Barriers Are Often Unseen 🚧 Startups thrive on innovation, speed, and adaptability. 🌟 But what happens when outdated or excessive regulations slow them down? Recently, I learned about a law in Germany 🇩🇪 requiring notaries to read out every single word of VC funding documents aloud during notarization. Imagine sitting through hours of legal text being read aloud before you can close your funding round. 😳 While this might ensure transparency, it clearly doesn’t align with the pace and agility startups need. This got me thinking: what are other regulations worldwide that inadvertently stifle startups? Here’s my top 10 list of questionable laws and policies that preclude startups from achieving their full potential: 1️⃣ Germany 🇩🇪: Notaries must read all funding docs aloud—slowing down critical deals. 2️⃣ India 🇮🇳: Angel tax laws that discourage early-stage investments by taxing funds as income. 3️⃣ France 🇫🇷: Burdensome labor laws making it hard to hire or fire employees, especially for scaling startups. 4️⃣ China 🇨🇳: Strict data localization rules requiring businesses to store data within the country. 5️⃣ United States 🇺🇸: H-1B visa caps limiting startups’ ability to hire global talent. 6️⃣ Japan 🇯🇵: High minimum capital requirements for starting a business. 7️⃣ South Korea 🇰🇷: Extensive licensing requirements for fintech startups, delaying market entry. 8️⃣ Italy 🇮🇹: Bureaucratic delays for registering new businesses—often taking weeks to months. 9️⃣ Australia 🇦🇺: Complex R&D tax incentive processes that make claiming innovation grants difficult. 🔟 Brazil 🇧🇷: Heavy import taxes on tech and hardware, driving up startup costs. These regulations highlight the gap between governance and innovation. While some rules are designed to protect stakeholders, others desperately need modernization to foster entrepreneurial growth. What crazy or unnecessary startup-related laws have you encountered? Let’s discuss below 👇

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🚀 Exciting News in the SaaS World! 🚀 I'm excited to share insights from the latest State of German SaaS Pricing 2.0 report, where I had the privilege to contribute my thoughts. The brilliant analyst team at Valueships and ARRtist did an incredible job, analyzing over 1000 SaaS companies across Germany to dive deep into their pricing strategies, market positioning, and growth opportunities. 📊💼 🔑 Key highlights from the report include: 📈 Year-over-year comparisons revealing evolving pricing trends 🏷️ In-depth analysis of pricing structures across various industries 💡 Strategic insights to refine your own pricing strategies Here are a few practical lessons from the report to help guide your next P&P strategy change: Good-Better-Best vs. Modular: If you have a simple product with clear customer segments, GBB can work. But for multiple use cases or an SMB/Enterprise mix, Modular or Core & More models could be more effective. 🛠️ User/Seat-Based vs. Usage-Based: If most of your customer’s employees use your product regularly, seat-based makes sense. Otherwise, it may be time to explore usage-based pricing, like transaction volume or data processed. 👥💾 Add-ons vs. Additional Plan: If a big portion of your customers are already on the highest plan, maybe it’s time for a new premium plan. Otherwise, add-ons might be the way to go—just be careful not to dilute your core offering. 🛒📊 A special thank you to Krzysztof Szyszkiewicz, Maciej Wilczyński, Ph.D. , and Julius Göllner for their leadership in crafting this insightful report. 🙌 #SaaS #PricingStrategy #BusinessInsights #GermanMarket #Shiftmove Link to download in the comments

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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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#Germany's Funded Startups Directory. You can view the list of startups funded in #Germany whenever you need it. Access the directory here https://lnkd.in/dc9emGbb #startup #startups #vc #venturecapital #investmentbanking #privateequity #managementconsulting #b2b #founders #entrepreneurs

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Definitely more interested in building “Mittelstands” first over “unicorns”.

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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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I study daily because it’s the best investment with the highest ROI in the long run. A recent lecture from Jeff Becker wasn’t just inspiring for many founders at Antler, but also gave me a lot to think about: 1. Know your strengths and focus on them 2. Create a workplace where you’d want to work I’m already aware of my strengths, but this was a powerful reminder to double down on what I do best—and to do the same for the people around me, helping them maximize their potential too. As for creating a workplace where I’d want to work, that’s a HUGE topic—especially when there’s no boss to complain about! Any thoughts or best practices on HOW to do that?

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7 reasons why you should be at SaaStock Europe: 1. Connections  - Whether you are a SaaS Founder, C-suite operator or investor. Your peers will be there and you will meet them through our structured meeting program & our AI powered matchmaking. Outside of the structure and tech, every person is relevant, so the person on your left, right, at the bar, sitting next to you at the centre stage etc, they will be a good connection. 2. ROI - We hear it every year, from the very first session or meetings attended that our attendees have gotten ROI from the outset. Whether the ROI is learning something new from our expert speakers and mentors to help you get out of a rut, or fix the problem you’ve not been able to, or whether it’s meeting a new customer, hire or investor. ROI hits early at SaaStock. 3. The best will be there - we’ve 105 expert speakers this year. Mostly net new, that have never spoken at a SaaStock event or shared their stories to our community. Tomasz Tunguz one of the leading VCs and thought leaders in SaaS for over a decade, is making his first ever appearance at SaaStock Europe. David Politis a serial entrepreneur who most recently scaled BetterCloud to $80M+ and then exited to Vista Equity Partners is joining. Mikita Mikado, CEO of PandaDoc who’s just passed $100M ARR. Guillaume Moubeche who bootstrapped Lempire to $26M ARR in just a few years. Just 3 of 105 amazing founders, Investors and C-suite operators that you’ll learn from. 4. Achieve your Sales Targets - It’s the golden opportunity in B2B SaaS in europe for lead gen. With 4000+ attendees over three days, that are all decision makers, whether CEO, CPO, CFO, CRO, CMO, CTO, the quality bar this year of audience has been raised even higher. Buyers will be there whether you are exhibiting or just attending. If you need that pipeline for Q4 & Q1 & you sell to SaaS, then you really need to be at SaaStock Europe. 5. Keep up to date with the SaaS Industry - From the talks, the meetings, the conversations, you’ll walk away with the knowledge to help define your strategy for 2025. 6. Community - The community vibe at SaaStock remains strong & not only will it provide you comfort in attending for the first time, it will provide you with a welcoming embrace and a stronger network. You’ll walk away feeling like you are part of the community. 7. Inspiration - It’s been a tough time in SaaS over the last two years and whilst things appear to be getting better, we understand that a lot of you have been feeling the headwinds and the challenges. If you don’t step out of the office & try and figure everything out alone, it can often be harder. Connecting with your peers, knowing you are not the only one, getting the advice (or kick up the backside) you may need right now and hearing stories of those that are overcoming and finding a way to win. You’ll leave with the inspiration needed to boost your Q4 and be ready for 2025 Join us to connect and thrive at #SaaStockEurope

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4️⃣ SaaStock Fundraising Chatter: Finding the Right VC for You. A key takeaway from Tuesday’s post was how important it is to qualify your investors. With so many options, here's how to be strategic: 🔎 Qualify ruthlessly. Treat your investor funnel like a sales funnel. AlbionVC, for example, invests $1-10M in UK-based B2B software and deeptech. If you’re a Paris-based consumer marketplace raising $20M, it’s a non-starter. Founders waste precious time crafting outreach to funds outside their scope. 🥇 Prioritise Smartly. Rank your target funds by both appeal and likelihood of success. 💘 Find a Warm Intro. If you don’t know the fund directly, network like you would for sales. Get a concise, compelling intro via a mutual connection. Remember a “pass” could even lead to a referral to another, better-fit fund. 🎮 Sequence Pitches. Start with lower-priority VCs to refine your pitch with early feedback. Then, approach your top picks with a polished narrative. Generating interest early creates momentum in your process. ⚠️ Requalify Your VCs! It’s as important to assess us as it is for us to assess you. ➡️Ambition Alignment: Are their expectations aligned with yours? ➡️Personal Fit: Grab a coffee, breakfast, lunch, go on a walk: will you enjoy working with them for years? ➡️Support: What do you need? Do your diligence to ensure they deliver it. ➡️References: Talk to portfolio companies, successes and struggles. Were they fair? were they kind? ➡️Partner Stability: The partner who leads your investment will be emotionally and intellectually invested in you and your vision. They will be on call. They will fight for you when things get tough (bridge rounds, etc)…far more than someone who replaces them later. Also, high turnover at a fund could signal cultural issues. #SaaS #Fundraising #VC #AlbionVC

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Is the conventional wisdom about startup growth even close to the truth? Marc von Brockdorff challenges the status quo with insights drawn from his journey co-founding Hotjar, a SaaS powerhouse that reached a whopping €15M in ARR. One take that stands out: stop trying to solve problems you have no personal stake in. Too many entrepreneurs chase ideas because they look good on paper, neglecting the core of their own experiences and needs. A product must resonate with you, or it’s a tough uphill battle. Another point that deserves a spotlight is the distinction between building a product and running a business. Turns out, those two roles require entirely different skill sets. Many founders cling too tightly to their original vision while losing sight of essential business metrics. Understanding your CAC, churn, and LTV is not just a suggestion; it’s a necessity. If you think you can launch a product, sit back, and watch the profits roll in, think again. Feedback isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s the lifeline of your growth. This isn't just theory; it's backed by lived experience. For those looking to navigate the rocky landscape of entrepreneurship, heed the lessons from someone who's made the climb. What do you think? Is it time to reconsider what we accept as startup gospel? https://lnkd.in/ev9u3atp

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