blew €1.5M then built a $1.2B fund ~ Oliver Holle

Hey Crew! Oliver Holle founded his first company as a PhD student at Columbia in the late 1990s. Raised money. Opened four offices. Hired 20 people. And nearly went personally bankrupt for two and a half years with three small kids, no salary, and personal debt of €1.5 million.He eventually sold to VeriSign, moved to Silicon Valley, came back to Vienna, and built SpeedInvest. Europe's largest seed stage fund. Now managing over $1.2 billion in assets.This one is full of hard earned wisdom from someone who has been on both sides of the table and paid dearly for every lesson he learned.We get into 👇:★ Dropping out of a Columbia PhD to build a startup nobody understood★ Raising money, blowing it, and nearly going personally bankrupt for two and a half years★ How threatening to walk away flipped the power dynamic and got him back 100% of his company★ Why he passed on Bitpanda and ElevenLabs and what that cost him★ What actually separates founders who make it from those who don't★ Why the AI revolution feels bigger than the internet and mobile combinedFollow us on all platforms!Instagram ~ @fayltalesTiktok ~ @fayltales LinkedIn ~ @fayltales