"The biggest mistake a company can make is not to communicate at all. As a founder, you need to start in the early stages and continually be strategic and smart about it,“ says Christian Meermann. Together with Daniel Glasner and Filip Felician Dames, Christian has backed some of Europes most game-changing ventures. Their VC Cherry Ventures teams up with founders from all industries, beginning at the (pre-)seed stage. Their impressive portfolio includes the likes of Auto1, Flixbus, Formel Skin, Forto, Flaschenpost, Flink, Amboss, and many more. Prior to Cherry, Christian was instrumental in scaling ecommerce giant Zalando as their long-time CMO. Lacking experience when he started, Christian studied 500-page book "Website Boosting 2.0“ at night and applied what he learnt the next day. Tune in to find out: 🚦When startups should not limit their marketing budget 🪢 What the key skills of a CMO are today 📣 Why a brand name matters so much 🌳 Why entrepreneurship is vital for society 💸 How the world of venture capital is changing in Europe The episodes mentioned in the conversation 125: Taking responsibility as a CEO. Michael Wax, Forto 143: Turning transactions into interactions. Marc-Alexander Christ, SumUp Enjoy the episode and support the podcast by sharing it and posting your review on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/speak-like-a-ceo/id1441419535 #consumer, #foodtech, #earlystage, #europeantech und #venturecapital

Want to know the essentials of branding in 30 minutes? In this special episode, Phil Rumbol walks us through the process of building and re-positioning brands. There is really no better person to ask for guidance on marketing and branding. Phil is a business leader, award winning marketing director, founder and CEO with a broad range of experience from startups to agencies to global brands. He has helped shape some of the world’s most iconic brands including Cadbury, Heineken and Stella Artois. Most recently, he was the CEO of iconic biscuit brand Bahlsen. Tune in to find out: 📌 What are the immutable principles behind a successful brand 💶 Why having a small marketing budget can be an advantage 🌵 The biggest marketing pitfalls 🥇 Why marketers make good CEOs Enjoy the episode and support the podcast by sharing it and posting your review on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/speak-like-a-ceo/id1441419535 Phil’s book tipp: Byron Sharp, “How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know”

Shilpika Gautam is a Guinness World Record Holding climate activist and CEO and founder of SALT Global. Before creating the fintech platform to finance the climate transition, Shilps became the first-ever person to stand-up paddle the river Ganges in India from source-to-sea. 100m people worldwide watched her journey on the Discovery Channel - the result of a cold email. Not one to shy away from big challenges, she is on a mission to close the 100 trillion climate financing gap by unlocking every climate tech project that can move the needle with speed, scale, and equity. One of her advantages: she speaks the language of all her stakeholders, from investors to entrepreneurs to activists. Tune in and find out: 📧 How to successfully pitch in a cold email 💸 How media coverage can help you achieve your goals 💚 What leadership traits are at the heart of every conversation Enjoy the episode and support the podcast by sharing it and posting your review on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/speak-like-a-ceo/id1441419535

Every company faces an existential #crisis as it grows. "As an entrepreneur, you need to speak about the difficulties you are having“, says our guest today. His unconventional view: Start your conversations, your investor pitches and company presentations with the bad news. Klaus Wegener, co-founder und Managing Director of 35up, knows what he is talking about. He has seen companies rise and fall, founded several himself and led his first company Caseable through a severe crisis in 2019. Thousands of customers were waiting for their phone and laptop cases to arrive - thanks to trade barriers erected by the Trump Administration. Caseable's online rankings dropped like a stone to 1 star, usually the end of any e-commerce startup. How Klaus and the team turned it around thanks to excellent crisis communications, holds many lessons for any #entrepreneur. Klaus’s focus is now on his latest venture 35up, together with his co-founders Fabian Louis and Viktor Schröder. 35up recently raised a seven-figure round and aims for category leadership in "embedded cross-selling". Tune in and find out: 🔥 What communications can turn around an existential crisis 📣 How talking about the negatives can strengthen your reputation 📌 How to become a category leader Enjoy the episode and support the podcast by sharing it and posting your review on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/speak-like-a-ceo/id1441419535 Here’s the link to the Robert Ermich episode, Klaus mentions in the episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/speak-like-a-ceo/id1441419535?i=1000532566862 #pitchdeck #startup #funding #communications #crisiscommunication #podcast #speaklikeaceo #ceoinsights

There are many football apps for professionals. And now there is one for the "real football“ - the amateur game played and loved by 190 million Europeans. Lukas Röhle co-founded Prematch App with Fiete Grünter und Niklas Brackmann. This year, the three amateur footballer players stormed the app charts. Shortly after its rollout across Germany last summer, the football community app climbed to the No 1 spot in the Apple app charts, ahead of YouTube, TikTok and WhatsApp. The app offers players and fans everything they need to know about amateur football, even allowing them to check their own market value and performance data. Tune in and find out: 🎻 How to orchestrate a launch that makes you the #1 app ⚽️ Why founding a football team was key to achieving message-market fit 💸 What innovative ways the team used to communicate with their angel investors If you want to dive deeper into Message-Market Fit check out this episode with Oliver Aust: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/96-what-is-message-market-fit-and-why-is-it-so/id1441419535?i=1000511572989

A growth-driven entrepreneur who built ventures in six countries, speaks four languages who is also a comedian in his free time best known for his standup and improv performances? There is only one person who fits this description: Daniel Hanemann, the CEO of wundertax, the startup he co-founded in 2016 and returned to as CEO in 2022. His mission is to make tax returns easier. "It’s all about connection. We don’t pretend it’s a fun thing to do, but we can make it simpler and quicker.“ The key is in the language, according to Daniel. Trash the lawyer speak. Never make your product cool and funky, if it just isn’t. Simply ask, listen and talk to your users - from human to human. In today’s episode we talk about: 🎭 What comedy and business have in common 🌳 What is means to become a "re-founder“ and return to your own creation 🔠 How a tiny copy change led to a 20% increase in conversion 🙊 Why fluency in a language is not always enough to bridge cultural misunderstandings Here’s the link to the episode with Jannes Fisher (vermietet.de) that Daniel mentions: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/150-create-a-market-and-own-it-jannes-fischer-vermietet-de/id1441419535?i=1000562791413  Enjoy the episode and support the podcast by sharing it and posting your review on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/speak-like-a-ceo/id1441419535

We all want more sustainable fashion and ethically produced goods. But greenwashing and wishy-washy information make us unsure which products are really sustainable. Enter Impactbytes (https://www.impactbytes.io), the growth engine for sustainable e-commerce. It’s the brainchild of the impressive Amsterdam-based founding trio Noor Veenhoven and sisters Marcella and Melissa Wijngaarden. The @TechstarsBerlin alumni are building the machine that powers the web with sustainable product data so that ethical businesses thrive. They already partner with the likes of Ecosia and (investor friends, take note) are currently fundraising to bring sustainable goods to bigger and bigger audiences. Tune into this episode to get your weekly dose of CEO insights into: 🚀 How to successfully transition from a customer-facing brand to a new behind-the-scenes product 📸 How to get into the media as an early-stage startup 📣 Whether purpose really helps to get your message out 👭🏻 And what it’s really like to start a business with your sibling! If you want to dive deeper into new ideas and tech around product sustainability, check out: Episode 107: Becoming the Tesla of the fashion industry. Anna Franziska Michel, Yoona. Episode 132: Storytelling Secrets for Start-Ups. Iris Skrami, Renoon  Episode 159: Your Purpose is your Story. Gemma Comabella, COCOLI And here’s the link to the episode with Ecosia’s founder Christian Kroll: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0UoA4bvJLM3c3iDcL4729r?si=Ce4tnGzBQ3im3-rTIE3T1A Enjoy the episode and support the podcast by sharing it and posting your review on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/speak-like-a-ceo/id1441419535

How can you build an emotional connection with your customers? Especially if you have tens of thousands? Certainly not by sending them the same old email, maybe adding their first name from the database 🙄 But by speaking to them as individuals. "Customers want to feel special, like we’ve made the effort to get to know them“, says our guest. What used to be impossible or at best a tedious and time-consuming process is now possible with technology. Pranav Ahuja, CEO of xeno and his growing team have truly simplified end-to-end personalised communication. Pranav co-founded xeno in 2015 to make an impact on the marketing industry by enabling brands to build personalised experiences and marketing for customers. The idea took off after joining Techstars Berlin in 2018. Back in New Delhi, the pandemic hit the company. With no money in the accounts, the team moved closer together. They redefined the Northstar metric to involve every single person in the company, making the goal specific and attainable. Since then xeno is going from strength to strength, with a second funding round in early 2022. Tune in and find out: 🤩 How to elicit emotions through marketing in a way that it induces connection instead of cynicism 🪐 Whether marketing messages are universal or dependent on culture 📚 What happens when you double your team fast 🤝 What makes trust the number one communications goal to achieve Enjoy the episode and support the podcast by sharing it and posting your review on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/speak-like-a-ceo/id1441419535 Company Website: https://www.getxeno.com 

A brand is a statement. But you have to mean it. 🍋 Our guest today was analysing the markets during his studies and had an idea. He dropped out of university and jumped right into it. In 2020, Max Linden co-founded the fintech start-up lemon.markets — a stock trading API that enables developers to program their own trading algorithms, bots or applications. Despite his young age, business angels and fintech investors have been keen to get on board. lemon.markets has already raised 15m Euros from high-profile backers such as Creandum, Lakestar and Lightspeed. The company has big plans, and communications is central to their plans. Find out: 🤝 How to build trust so people trust you with their money 🛗 Why leadership is work in progress and CEO means Chief Enablement Officer 🏔 Why your vision is important when fundraising 🍋 Where the brand lemon.markets came from, and what Limoncello has to do with it Enjoy the episode and support the podcast by sharing it and posting your review on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/speak-like-a-ceo/id1441419535

Why is there no Vestiaire Collective for furniture? Why isn’t there a platform that gives designer furniture the second life it deserves? This was the question Gemma Comabella posed herself while she was Managing Director DACH for MADE.com. And she hit a nerve. Pre-loved furniture is more than just a gap in the market. It is also a solution to reduce the environmental impact of our love for all things interior, which produces million of tonnes of waste every year. Gemma Comabella decided to do her part and founded COCOLI, together with a dream team of five co-founders to tackle a tough problem no one has solved before. Together they have created a platform that reinvents the way we find, buy and reuse furniture. Launched this January, COCOLI already has 4 warehouses in Germany, lots of media interest and 40% month-on-month growth. "It’s not about what you sell,“ says Gemma. "What is your purpose?“ She found hers after a career building global fashion and consumer brands like Zalando, L’Oréal, Vestiaire Collective and Showroom, and then joining the furniture platform Made.com as Managing Director for the DACH region in 2019. This episode is packed with insights including: 🤝 How to convince 5 co-founders to form an all star team 🗞 Why purpose creates PR 💸 What works in fundraising in the current environment Enjoy the episode and support the podcast by sharing it and posting your review on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/speak-like-a-ceo/id1441419535