As the pace of funding seems to be ever-accelerating, the role of a sound legal structure becomes increasingly important. Beginning from founder agreements and cap tables all the way to funding rounds and stock option schemes, what should founders look out for from a legal perspective? Joining us to unpack what this all means is Anthony Rose, Founder and CEO of SeedLegals. Through founding SeedLegals, Anthony has seen first hand just how valuable it is to have a solid legal foundation - both as a founder and through helping thousands of startups navigate their first funding rounds. Expect to learn how to structure option pools, talk about valuations, establish founder agreements and approach dilution.

Any fundraising process requires a pitch, but building the perfect pitch is more of an art than science. Joining us to explain what investors look for in a pitch and how founders should think about communicating their ideas is Ted Persson, Partner at EQT Ventures. With a background that combines product design and storytelling with investing, Ted is a master at understanding what a fantastic pitch involves, from the deck to the demo.In this talk Ted walks us through how he has constructed pitches himself and gives practical insights into what the best pitches utilize - from understanding how the pitch will be viewed, to crafting the first slides of the pitch, and to managing the flow until the very end. Importantly, Ted recommends leaving a hook for the end of the pitch, so that it surprises the audience - you can expect the same from his talk!

Investor relations undoubtedly become different the further a company scales. What are investors looking for before and after Product Market Fit? What should you emphasize in your Series B fundraise? Joining us to help understand how investors evaluate startups at all stages is Jonathan Sibilia, Partner at Molten Ventures. In this talk Jonathan uncovers what investors look for, whether it is a seed, Series A, Series B or a growth round you are raising. What you’ll come to find is that the perspective is very different based on the stage of the company - the vision and team matter most in the beginning, with defined metrics driving investment decisions only later with defined benchmarks that are important to know.

As most early employees of startups inherently take a risk when they hop onboard, how should they be rewarded for their ambition? How should you think about your company’s stock option pool? Joining us to make sense of pay and incentives is Katharina Wilhelm, Partner at Index Ventures. Index started their database on startup compensation a decade ago - by today they have amassed enough data to provide valuable benchmarks. In this talk Katharina gives insight into the thinking behind deciding on an appropriate stock option pool and salary base. Talent is a crucial bottleneck for startups and rewarding talent plays a key role for sustained growth.

Video game rooms and ping-pong tables – everyone wants to have a great company culture, but few really understand what it means and how to build one. On a foundational level culture can be seen as your values and beliefs in action –joining us to talk about culture is Nina Carøe, VP of People and Culture at Dixa. Having led culture at Dixa during its intense growth in past years, Nina will be enlightening founders on how they should think about culture and act on it from Day 1 onwards to enable sustainable growth and ensure culture scales with the company as well.

A scaling company needs to ultimately scale its people as well. However, this is no easy feat. Joining us to talk about recruiting at scale is Sarah Manning, VP of People of Hopin. Hopin’s growth is nothing short of miraculous - they’ve gone from 0 to 1000 employees in just over two years. In this talk Sarah shares her insights on how to attract, recruit and develop employees at scale. With examples from Hopin’s journey, she’ll walk us through why maintaining your employer brand is crucial, what character traits to look for when hiring to a high-growth startup, and how to ensure a successful onboarding of new employees. Central to this is maintaining your employer brand through focusing on the candidate experience – everything from the first interview to onboarding has to be smooth as word gets around.

The early employees of a company can make or break it. Thus, the real question is: who should you hire,  and how do you convince them to join? Joining us to talk about how to ensure your early employees can facilitate scaling is Eleonore Crespo, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Pigment.As a VC turned founder, Eleonore has a unique perspective on getting your first hires right. In this talk, Eléonore highlights how in the early days your team will be the most valuable asset you have, and as such, you should only hire the best people –  the quality of the team is a signal on the ambition of the company.

In the beginning of any founders’ journey is problem selection, but how does one go about choosing one? Joining us to disentangle the problem selection process is Job van der Voort, Co-founder and CEO of Remote. Having led product at Gitlab from 5 to 450 people, Job founded Remote incredibly successfully in 2019. In this talk, Job walks us through how he ended up identifying a problem worth solving. You’ll learn how to validate your problem through talking to customers on day 0, how to narrow down to what customers really want, ways to identify your ideal customer profile, and finally, when to start building.

What do the most successful founding teams have in common? How do you identify potential co-founders?  How  many should there be? Joining us for a deep dive into founding teams is Ilkka Paananen, Co-founder and CEO of Supercell. Ilkka has not only founded two startups in Sumea and Supercell but has also invested in some of the most successful companies in the Nordics and Europe, such as Wolt and Hopin. In this talk Ilkka shares the defining characteristics of world-class founding teams, outlines how the role of the founding team evolves as the company scales and gives advice on decision-making.