Herman Knevel

Exciting times in M&A! A recent piece by Ben Ellencweig, Mieke Van Oostende, Rui Silva, and Julia Berbel dives into how generative AI transforms how deals are done. Imagine speeding up target searches or streamlining the due diligence and negotiation phases. That’s the potential of Gen AI, already beginning to transform these processes. But it’s not smooth sailing because with great tech comes great responsibility. Careful oversight is key to making the most out of its potential. What are your thoughts on using gen AI in M&A? Full article here: https://lnkd.in/gPiUz9hg #MergersAndAcquisitions #GenerativeAI #Innovation #TechTrends

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𝗜'𝗺 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝘄𝗲𝗯𝟯 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁-𝗠𝗩𝗣, 𝗽𝗿𝗲-𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲, 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝘁 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗼’𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱. 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆, 𝗮𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗲-𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 £𝟱 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 If only ChatGPT could show me startups raising funds that matched this exact search. Luckily, Chainvest can. For investors: Imagine describing your ideal startupand having a variety appear. Chainvest’s AI-driven platform makes that a reality. Finding the right startup shouldn’t feel like finding a needle in a haystack. For founders: Forget endless cold emails and repetitive pitches. With Chainvest, the right investors will find you. Real connections, no guesswork. We’re launching soon. Investors and founders—join our waitlist at www.chainvest.io Tag a founder who needs a better way to connect with investors. Sam Simpson Ekaterina Manoilenko, MBA Jan McGinley Cait Pilkington Ricardo Pascual Duc Zambrini Vasily Alekseenko Kristina Pereckaite David Levine Samuel Izzard Ed Prior

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Before AI there are Humans. Today I want to help a friend. And i want you to help him too. My friend Pieter Slegers is launching his book. So I want our community to help him I have two asks: 1) If you love investing: tell me below your favorite stock! 2) If you want to invest in yourself, you can check Pieter's book here: https://geni.us/SlNoKQL

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Most founders juggle many roles, but here’s why 𝐈 𝐩𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬... As a founder, I often get asked: "Which department do you focus on the most? The truth is that every department matters. Every team needs to perform well to run a company successfully, and coordination between them is crucial. 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐈 𝐟𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬. Why? Because we are a bootstrapped company. We grow with the money we make from our customers. And if my sales team isn’t performing, it’s a big red flag. It affects everything—operations, marketing, and even the team's confidence. When revenue dries up, it impacts everyone. That’s why, for me, sales comes first. Other departments are important, but they can't function well without sales. What department as a founder do you focus on more? Follow me Nikunj Adeshra for content on sales and building bootstrap businesses. #sales #founder #bootstrap #proptech #cleardeals

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All founders and only 1 problem! Just one! ‌ Last week, I sat down with several startup founders. Their biggest challenge? Sales and growth. ‌ ✨Despite their hard work, their products weren't selling as expected. The main takeaway was clear: knowing your audience is crucial. ‌ ‌ As a founder, it’s natural to focus on your product. But, understanding your audience is even more important. Your customers decide if your product succeeds or fails. ‌ Ask yourself Why would customers buy or refuse our product? Understanding this helps you improve your approach. ‌ ‌ 👂🏻 Listen Actively- Talk to your customers. Use surveys and feedback forms. Find out their needs and concerns. ‌ 🧑🏻‍💻 Analyze Data- Look at customer data. Track their behavior and preferences. Identify patterns in their decisions. ‌ 🗺️ Customer Journey Mapping- Map out the customer journey. See every step from discovery to purchase. The spot where they hesitate or buy. ‌ 🧪 A/B Testing- Test different marketing messages and features. See which ones work best for your audience. ‌ 🔁 Feedback Loop- Continuously collect and use customer feedback. Improve your product and marketing strategies based on this. ‌ ‌ Knowing your audience is not just about research. It’s about building a relationship. ‌ A customer-centric approach boosts sales and fosters long-term growth. Let’s shift our focus from just the product to also understanding our customers. ‌ Comment tips on getting to know your audience Follow Sanjay Pekam for such more updates

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Artificial intelligence has been a big boon for San Francisco real estate. But not enough of one to make up for the broader struggle across the market. The vacancy rate for San Francisco office space reached a fresh record of 34.5% in the second quarter, according to a report Monday from commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield. That’s up from 33.9% in the first quarter, 28.1% in the same period a year ago and 5% before the pandemic. Meanwhile, the average asking rent dropped to $68.27 per square foot in the quarter, the lowest since late 2015, down from $72.90 a year earlier and a peak of $84.70 in 2020. San Francisco is reeling from the twin challenges of bringing people back to the office after the Covid pandemic and a slowdown in the tech market that’s led to mass job cuts across the industry. Tech companies have laid off more than 530,000 employees since the start of 2022, according to the website Layoffs.fyi, with major downsizing at Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Tesla, Microsoft and Salesforce. Softening the blow of late has been the soaring popularity of generative AI and the decision by fast-growing startups to open large offices in San Francisco. OpenAI, the market leader with a private valuation that’s topped $80 billion, announced in October that it was leasing about 500,000 square feet of space in the Mission Bay neighborhood, the biggest office lease in the city since 2018. Robert Sammons, senior research director at Cushman & Wakefield, said OpenAI is continuing to look for more space in the city. Also last year, OpenAI rival Anthropic subleased 230,000 square feet at Slack’s headquarters. In May, Scale AI signed a lease for a reported 170,000 to 180,000 square feet of space in Airbnb’s office building. “San Francisco is certainly the center of AI, but AI is not going to save the San Francisco commercial real estate market,” Sammons said. “It will help.” While richly capitalized AI startups are signing large leases for new space, the bigger trend is that tech companies, law offices and consulting firms are looking to reduce their footprint when existing leases come up, Sammons said, reflecting the widespread move to hybrid work. In many cases, companies are looking to relocate to higher quality space in more desirable parts of the city, because prices have come down and employers need to be near restaurants and shops to get staffers to come back, Sammons added. “The best quality trophy space continues to perform well, because tenants want to be in the best locations with the best amenities around them,” Sammons said. Some of the city’s top employers, including Salesforce, Uber, Visa and Wells Fargo, have brought employees back to offices for part of the week.

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🚀 Entrepreneurial Insight: Build a Painkiller, Not a Vitamin 🚀 One of the key lessons I shared in my recent keynote speech at the University of the Witwatersrand was all about focusing on solving real problems. Here’s why it’s crucial: 🔍 Painkillers vs. Vitamins: In the world of startups, your product or service should address a pressing need—a "pain" for your customers. A painkiller provides immediate relief, while a vitamin is a nice-to-have but not essential. 💡 Why It Matters: When you solve a significant problem, you create real value and a strong demand for your solution. This approach not only drives growth but also ensures you’re meeting a genuine need in the market. 🔥 Actionable Tip: Always ask yourself, “What problem am I solving?” Make sure your solution is indispensable, not just an enhancement. Stay tuned for more insights from my keynote! For a deeper dive into this and other key lessons, check out the full video https://lnkd.in/d34JfAFY ! #Entrepreneurship #Startups #Innovation #BusinessAdvice #PainkillerNotVitamin

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Some of my takeaway from the #DPWAmsterdam; Honestly, even being miles away I could feel the energy and vibe from the event. Great event ! 1. For startups: a) For a VC to trust your company, build a company survival plan for next 3- 4 years b) Avoid those distractions from the big logo. I am hearing it second time in this week. One from my network and from Eva Arh from 3VC. 2. Is SaaS overshadowing AI or is it going to co-exist? Another conversation with Spencer Penn from LightSource also mentioned about SaaS vs Agentic workflows - Something to ponder about for us Procurie 3. Great potential for products to solve the pain points/challenges in the direct procurement area. There are so many problems to solve in this area - I agree to it. 4. The one I loved the most, use technology to make your process simpler and spend that time in making your employees learn your core business. 5. Finding the sweet spot/comfort zone for personal development. 6. Lastly, The talk from Jason Busch about data asset was eye opening. What are some of your key takeaways? Keen to know. #DPWAmsterdam #Procurie #LearningsfromDPW #procurement

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How to structure your venture studio SaaS portfolio company right from the start Venture studios are keen on creating SaaS portfolio companies. If structured right, SaaS companies can become profitable cash machines for venture studios. Combining fifteen years of experience with SaaS business models and researching venture builders for a PhD project, these are my five major learnings: 🔗As most SaaS products may be copied. Excellent distribution and long-term customer relationships are crucial. Long-term and strong relationships impact many important KPI's including ARR growth, Churn, NPS and eNPS. ➡️For venture studios, that means building on the existing network to creating legitimacy for the portfolio start-up. ---- 🚥A streamlined organization where everyone knows what to do makes recruiting during scaling much easier. Hiring too fast, before the need of more team members occurs, may hinder efficiency. Create job descriptions, routines and procedures for the organization open enough not risking losing founder mode. ➡️For venture studios, that means knowing what competence to look for in different states. Use accumulated knowledge timing and managing recruitment as best as possible. ---- 📈 Keep track on the blended CAC ratio. Inefficiency and high cost in acquiring new ARR will eat up your EBITDA margins. Most B2C SaaS gets scalable through higher numbers of customers. In B2B SaaS, expansion, cross-selling, and price increases are fundamental for fast growth. ➡️For venture studios, that means share customer databases, cross-sell as much as possible, and develop a value-based pricing structure as soon as possible. ---- 🔁 Having routines and procedures in place capitalizing from a management quality system (we used ISO) helps bringing your start-up from a healthy creative chaos to an efficient scale-up. ➡️For venture studios, that means creating a management quality system and put it in place in each portfolio company will help increase speed of development and growth. ---- 💻 An understanding that an intuitive and ‘friendly’ user interface with few bugs in the product, allow support and customer success to be part of the sales organization focusing on the core product, rather than being a business unit trying to help customers handle an in-efficient product to avoid churn. ➡️For venture studios, that means accumulate knowledge in software development in relation to user friendliness and learn from previous start-up attempts to avoid churn. From your experience, what other learnings should be added here? #venturestudio #venturebuilder #entrepreneurship #scaling #saas ________________________________ Did you like this post? Connect or Follow @john-erik hassel

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We’ve all heard the warnings that AI is going to take our jobs. That’s certainly a possibility in the long term, but the story emerging, at least for now, is looking a little different. Instead of thinking about AI as a cheap way to replace people, David De Cremer invites us to use AI as a tool to augment human intelligence. That’s a key distinction he shared on this week’s episode of the Coaching for Leaders podcast. David is the Dunton Family Dean of the D'Amore-McKim School of Business and professor of management and technology at Northeastern University. He recently released his newest book: The AI-Savvy Leader: Nine Ways to Take Back Control and Make AI Work. Key points from his conversation with Dave Stachowiak: 1. AI is substantially different than prior digital transformations, and adoption efforts are failing at alarming rates. 2. Instead of leading, too often leaders are being too deferential to data and analytics teams. 3. Your expertise is exactly what your organization needs to deploy AI successfully. 4. Leaders who learn the fundamentals of AI will play an essential role in narrating dialogue between the technology experts and everyone else. 5. Get just enough foundational knowledge with statistics and modeling to communicate with the data and analytics folks better. The full transcript, audio, and notes are linked in the comments. Your turn: how are you working to learn more about AI? #leadership #management

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Finding the SME needle in the haystack is tough. This is what I learned so far… It is clearly a numbers game with a lot of setbacks. #consistency #persistence On-market deals are limited. Especially if a broker is involved, the initial enterprise values and multiples are higher as the broker is incentivized to sell at a higher price. But it is validated that the business is for sale, with relevant information already curated for evaluation. Less effort. Off-market deals are super hard to find, and it still needs to be validated if the business owner is open to sell. More effort. Relevant channels: On-market:  1️⃣ DUB: A broker platform 2️⃣ Nexxt-Change: A marketplace organized by a public institution 3️⃣ Broker websites 4️⃣ DealCircle: A broker platform Off market: 1️⃣ Fairs & events of e.g. IHK  2️⃣ Networking with bankers 3️⃣ Databases like Bundesanzeiger, northdata or paid company databases (which are expensive) 4️⃣ Social: LinkedIn direct search and especially Facebook  5️⃣ Local company directories, e.g. from the chamber of commerce (IHK) 6️⃣ Check what I spend my money on each month and follow the rabbit to find business types with recurring customers (like me) 7️⃣ Work out loud and tell everybody you are searching for SMEs (also works for finding an apartment in Berlin 😉) 🤓 Learnings & Challenges: 1️⃣ It is though. Really though. It feels like Cold Sales on steroids. In a bad way. 2️⃣ The goal is to have a consistent deal flow and track the amount of listings reviewed, owners contacted, NDA signed etc. Every day. 3️⃣ It is a high effort to identify companies and create a lead list (manually) 4️⃣ The data, especially of smaller companies, is not really accurate, and you operate on low accuracy in the beginning. 5️⃣ The marketplaces are very fragmented. 💡 Possible ideas for product/services to solve these problems: ➡ Service for automated lead list creation via web scraping of company databases. Already had a very engaging conversation with ChatGPT about my moral/ethical code to create a lean web scraping tool aggregating data from other data sources. Obviously, we talk about public data and nothing that would breach the law ➡ A “meta” platform aggregating from other marketplaces, broker websites etc. → Example US: https://www.withkumo.com/  ➡ Create a people based service for consistent deal flow based on target profile → kinda like an external lead gen service including consulting, not for product or service sales but company acquisition. Example US:  https://www.indiepe.com/ How would you solve these problems in a creative way? 

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“When you invest in venture actually matters.” Jaap Vriesendorp is a legend. There’s no doubt about it. Whether you believe me or not, Episode 6 of this season of Superclusters is a must-watch. By far, one of the most deliberate guests I’ve had on the podcast so far. Not only does he break down the three pillars of building a community of entrepreneurial LPs, but also shares 3 facts that led him to create Welt Ventures’, now Marktlink Capital’s portfolio construction model. My 3 biggest takeaways: 🚪🏃 Exit windows matter more than entry windows. “The truth of the matter, when we look at the data, is that entry points matter much less than the exit points. Because venture is about outliers and outliers are created through IPOs, the exit window matters a lot. And to create a big enough exit window to let every vintage that we create in the fund of funds world to be a good vintage." 🏆 The Champion's League Effect “85% of returns flow to 5% of the funds, and that those 5% of the funds are very sticky. So we call that the ‘Champions League Effect.’" Jaap and his team constantly spend time looking at the data behind venture and is probably one of the most data-informed teams out there. He breaks down in the episode as well why his portfolio construction is 80% established, and 20% emerging managers. 🤗 Great communities all have 3 things: fun, value, uniquely organized knowledge. You need all three to create a community where each node of the network creates compounding effects. And much much more, including how much individual LPs often allocate to venture. Full episode in the comments!

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GEE - almost 20 years: VR/AR In 2005, I gave an interview to GEE-Mag, where we discussed the future of Augmented Reality. I envisioned a Holodeck-like experience within 20 years. Now, 19 years later, we are on the brink of realizing that vision. Immersive AR/VR it's a tangible reality. With devices like the Apple Vision Pro, the Quest 2 and 3 (Q3 available for just €550), the living room transforms into part of the play world.  Castles rise on kitchen tables, and VR/AR sports have become a daily routine for millions. It already feels like playing on a Holodeck.  With the next gen (Quest 4 and Apple Vision V2), these experiences will become even more immersive: smaller and lighter. Dream big, innovate always, and the future will exceed your expectations. #visionpro #Meta #quest #vr #AR #games #Toys #trends #Innovation

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Congratulations and many thanks for this work First Momentum Ventures, Dr. Maximilian Ochs, David Meiborg, Lena Späth, Reinhardt Karpenko ! Tach2yone GmbH as a Growth Equity investor in the Green Energy Transition and related areas is looking to invest in more mature Deep Tech companies (Series B and later). One of our most important investment criterion is (positive) EBITDA: we believe, that in industries with high CapEx, EBITDA is useful because it eliminates the distortions caused by significant depreciation and amortization expenses, providing a clearer view of operational profitability. Thus, EBITDA is an essential tool for us to assess a company’s core profitability and financial health. First Momentum Ventures and community: what are your thoughts on this approach and would you consider to take also EBITDA into your napkin for later stage companies?

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Giving Back: Empowering Startup and Scale-Up CTOs! To support and empower the startup and scale-up community, I’m offering three FREE coaching sessions each to 5 individuals who are current or aspiring CTOs. Interested? 👉 Nominate yourself or someone else in the comments below. How to Participate: 1. Comment with the nominee’s name and why they’d benefit. 2. Share this post to spread the word. 3. Message me if you feel more comfortable. I’ll reach out to nominees and select the 5 best suited. Let’s strengthen tech leadership together in 2025! Looking forward to your nominations!

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Absolutely love this, Namrata! This is exactly what The Octopus Movement is all about—turning nonlinear brilliance into tangible change. The way we are harnessing AI to capture, organize, and validate ideas is a game-changer. It's like we've found a way to connect the wild creativity of our non-linear brains with the precision and depth of AI's pattern recognition. This isn't just ideation—it's about creating a constant flow from thought to think tank, to white papers, to startup potential, and beyond. We are unlocking new possibilities, making sure no brilliant idea slips through the cracks. I'm excited to see how this synergy between human creativity and AI's capabilities will lead to world-changing outcomes. Let’s bring those ideas to life and redefine how we create in this age of chaos!

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If everybody goes after bigger clients, what about the small ones.. Arnaud Belinga 🧊🔨 from Breakcold is doing the opposite of 'what you should do' as a founder. They set out and entered one of the most competitive markets - CRM - and succeeded. We talked about: 🚣‍♂️ How to break into an extremely competitive market (CRM) 🚣‍♂️ Don’t create your own market, enter one with a crystal clear niche 🚣‍♂️ Bootstrapping a lean startup (PS. Skip the seed stage) 🚣‍♂️ Look at competitors and do the opposite, cuz food is left on the table 🚣‍♂️ 2 advice on creating good content: Write like you talk & use your own images Available where you listen to pods and watch videos. Search for Hot SaaS or climb the linktree in my profile #HotSaaS 🌶🚀

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