Consumer VC: Venture Capital I B2C Startups I Commerce | Early-Stage Investing I Brands Max Niederhofer (Heartcore) - Investing in happiness and the differences scaling in Europe vs. U.S.
Thank you Marc Nathan for the intro to our guest today Max Niederhofer. Max is a Partner at Heartcore Capital. Heartcore Capital is europe's consumer tech VC focusing on investing in happiness investing in seed and Series A. Some of his investments include Italic, LastFM, and One Fine Stay. Previously Max was an investor at Accel and founded MyBlog. In this episode, we focus on investing in communities, the meaning of consumer, and some of the differences when investing in Europe vs. U.S. Without further ado, here's Max.
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And there you have it. It was pleasure having Max on the show, highly recommend following him on Twitter @maxniederhofer.
Some of the questions I ask Max:
- What was your initial attraction to startups and innovation?
- Internet in 98 became part of your life?
- Interested in sub communities
- What are some of your learnings since when you founded Myblog and Qwerly?
- What does consumer investing mean to you and why did you choose to focus on it?
- What are some of the regions punch above their weight
- Excellent talent in Europe, it is raw.
- Way you build talent organically
- After you sold your companies, why did you decide to become an investor?
- Why do you enjoy investing at the early stages vs. growth stages?
- How do you analyze founders
- For American investors who want to invest in Europe - especially consumer focused companies - what have been some of the biggest misconceptions?
- How has the European startup ecosystem evolved since you began investing?
- Are there certain regions that have grown faster than others?
- What are some of the hurdles when investing in European consumer focused companies?
- How should European based companies think about growth expanding to other parts of the continent?
- What makes Europe complex?
- There's been alot of influx from American VC money into Europe. Do you think there's going to be a rise of more domestic based funds.
- Has Brexit changed anything so far related to the startup landscape?
- What are categories and markets that you think are big opportunities in technology that haven't come online?
- When you think about trends, do you think about what is exciting and interesting in other parts of the world that could be translated and work for Europe?
- What's your approach to analyzing consumer behavior and habits?
- How do you analyze founders?
- What's one thing you would change about venture capital?
- What's the best piece of advice you have for founders?
- What is next in consumer, what are you excited about