Startup Milestones Podcast

Olivier Hamel, cofounder and CEO Prodibi based in Geneva, Switzerland; They develop technology to optimize and share images over the web. After founding in 2014 they have raised 400.000 Euros. Olivier has won a series of awards for his startup – and he

Nicolas Granatino is cofounder and director of Cronycle, based in London. They develop a content curation and collaboration platform. Founded in 2013 by Nicolas and his cofounder Mark Wilson, they have raised a total of 2.6 million € in funding and thei

Peter Buchroithner is cofounder, CEO and CPO of Swell, based in Vienna. Swell develops an app that lets you vote on all kind of stuff in a fun way. Peter has quite an interesting story of the businesses and ideas he went through, before discovering the product behind Swell, which really took off. He will tell us how he struggled when juggling several projects and side-jobs in parallel, and at what point and why he fully committed to Swell.

Rudolf Ball, cofounder and CEO Symvaro based in Klagenfurt, Austria. They offer smart city solutions for water and waste. After bootstrapping for a couple of years, he raised 300.000 Euros from a group of angels in 2015, and he is currently raising his VC round. We talk about bootstrapping, how to find the right accelerator, and how to handle investors and their opinions. And Rudolf emphasizes that every entrepreneur must take one painful step, in order to set himself up for success – and he will tell us what that is.

Ben Wynn is founder and CEO of DAD, based in London. DAD is an on-demand service for Home Repair experts via video call. When Ben founded DAD in June 2015, he already had 2 Million Pounds of funding secured from a strategic investor. We talk about how he managed to get 2 million Pounds with just an idea, the advantages and disadvantages of a strategic investors, how to build your professional network so you can quickly recruit the best people, and we talk about how important it is to actively shape the company culture early on.

Michel Willems, cofounder and CEO of BimBimBikes, based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands; They are the booking.com for rental bikes. Founded in May of 2015, they have raised 250.000 Euros so far. Michel tells us how he managed to expand into 60 countries with a small team and only 250.000 Euros of funding. And the cultural differences he encountered along the way. And we talk about the challenges of starting BimBimBikes out of a web agency, which he and his cofounder had started some years before – how to split roles, responsibilities, budget and time.

Hanno Lippitsch is cofounder and CEO of Eversports, based in Vienna. They are an online marketplace for sport activities. Founded in 2013 by Hanno Lippitsch and his cofoundersAndreas Woditschka, Emanuel Steiningner and Stefan Feirer, they have raised a total of 1 million € in funding and their team is 50 people strong. Hanno holds degrees in business administration, as well as Innovation and Technology Management. Hanno Lippitsch will talk to us about howTechstars Berlin changed everything for his company; and how Angels help his business.

Yasir Khokhar is cofounder and CEO of Connecterra, based in Amsterdam, an IoT company that builds sensors and a machine learning platform to analyze real-world objects. Their first product, the dairy monitor, is a 'fitbit for cows' that helps farmers improve milk productivity. Founded in 2014 by Yasir Khokhar and his cofounder Saad Ansari, they have raised a total of 1.8 million € in funding and their team is 9 people strong. Yasir is a very experienced technology manager, with over 10 years in various roles at microsoft. And he had founded and run a company even before that. With connecterra he won the Alpha Pitch competition at WebSummit 2015. In this episode, Yasir Khokhar will talk to us about how to find the right problem to solve; and the strategy behind and benefits of launching at WebSummit.