This Much I Know - The Seedcamp Podcast

On this week’s episode of This Much I Know, we have Cristina Fonseca, co-founder of Talkdesk and Indico Capital Partners, unpacking what it takes to build the next powerhouse enterprise SaaS business. Cristina took Talkdesk, which allows any company to create a call centre in the cloud, from 0-150 employees, raising $24M in venture funding and evolving ‘from engineer to psychologist’ in the process. Cristina also takes us through her transition to the other side of the table, detailing the move from being an operational founder to venture partner at one of Lisbon’s first early-stage VC funds. Tune in to hear Cristina’s tips to founders who are starting out their journey in building enterprise SaaS businesses, why hiring sub-exceptional talent is costly business and the challenges facing the European venture ecosystem today. Links: Cristina Fonseca - twitter.com/cnfonseca Indico Capital Partners - www.indicocapital.com Talkdesk - www.talkdesk.com Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - seedcamp.com

You can’t grow your business when you are super prudent - Sach Kukadia, co-founder and CEO at Secret Sales, the members-only shopping club that provides its users with exclusive access to discounted designer brands. Willingness to take risks has been a key component of Sach's journey, from building a radio station in his early years to creating Secret Sales, the business he co-founded with his brother in 2007. A true family affair, the Kukadia brothers were inspired by their father and his work with major fashion brands, including the likes of Pepe Jeans, to launch Secret Sales - the first ever private online shopping club. In conversation with Carlos, Sach discusses the importance of brand and why excessive discounting can be "worse than burning inventory", along with the highs and lows from over a decade of running Secret Sales and how they managed to overcome one of their biggest business challenges and yet retain profitability. Sach also walks us through his unique experience of buying back a controlling stake in the business a year after having sold to Excalibur Group. Tune in to learn more about building a brand, fundraising and navigating macro socio-economic challenges. Links: Sach Kukadia - https://twitter.com/SachKukadia Secret Sales - https://secretsales.com/ Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - wwww.seedcamp.com

On this week’s episode of This Much I Know, Carlos welcomes Joe Cohen to the hot seat. It would be hard to find someone with more experience in building ultra-successful consumer, entertainment and leisure marketplace businesses than Joe who founded Seatwave (acquired by Ticketmaster) after having served as the global COO of Match.com, and served as GM at Ticketmaster and Citysearch to name just a few. Joe is now an active angel investor and sits on the board of Sofar Sounds, Spektrix and Freda Health. Tune in to hear Joe walk us through his incredible journey - from attempting college six times to no avail and producing a documentary film before getting a job at Disney where he pitched a web-based product for the first time to his boss, all the way to founding and exiting Seatwave, the UK’s leading fan-to-fan marketplace. Joe reflects on the challenges he faced in dealing with fundraising from leading investors, the crucial issue of balancing supply and demand in the formative stages of a marketplace business, as well as the effect that different leadership styles and levels of transparency has on company culture. Links: Joe Cohen - twitter.com/Cohen_Goes_HAM Ticketmaster - www.ticketmaster.com Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

We’ve been investing in Estonia’s breakout talent for close to a decade and were one of the first funds to come to the region, uncovering exceptional founders and investing in the likes of TransferWise, Grabcad, Teleport, Monese, Erply and Nevercode, among others many others. We were super excited to be back in the region last month for a fireside chat with Sten Tamkivi recorded live from Lift99 in Tallinn. Sten is the Founder of Seedcamp-backed company, Teleport, which was acquired by Topia in 2017, and where he currently serves as CPO. Sten's illustrious history also includes stints as an EIR at a16z, GM at Skype and as an advisor to the Estonian president. Tune in to hear Sten and Carlos discussing the talent-pool breaking out of Estonia, the ways founders can tailor their narratives to European versus US investors, as well as Sten’s incredible entrepreneurial journey including how his days at Skype prompted him to found Teleport and ask himself the question: ‘How can one make every single government compete for every single citizen in the world?’ Links: Sten Tamkivi - twitter.com/seikatsu Topia - www.topia.com Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

What role do health-tech startups play in the future in providing integrated and holistic healthcare systems? How can we use the bio-psycho-social model through the lenses of sexual well-being to create openness and to de-stigmatize one of the most fundamental and topics of our lives – sex. In this week’s episode of This Much I Know, Carlos is joined by Dr Anna Hushlak and Hamish Grierson. Anna is the co-founder and Chief Science Officer of Ferly, whose vision is to radically transform society’s relationship with sex – from how we think about it to how we have it. Hamish is the co-founder and CEO of Thriva, who are on a mission to empower millions of people with simple and affordable tools to easily understand and track their internal health data by providing personalized at-home finger-prick blood tests and medical advice. Tune in to hear Anna and Hamish discussing the challenges of building credibility around new technology and blood collection techniques as a startup, the challenges of creating trust and openness in the fundamentally private and personal environment that is sex, how one defines what ‘good’ sexual and mental wellbeing is, and dissecting their lessons learned and tips to founders launching health-tech startups. Links: Dr Anna Hushlak: twitter.com/annahushlak Hamish Grierson: twitter.com/hamishgrierson Carlos Espinal: twitter.com/cee Ferly: www.weareferly.com Thriva: www.thriva.co Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com

With mistrust in the technology sector at an all-time high, rather than asking ‘could this exist’ should we now be asking ‘should this exist’. Caterina Fake is Silicon Valley’s most eloquent commentator and dot-connector on technology and the human condition. As a humanist with a deep passion for history, literature, arts and culture, she has a unique perspective on the myriad unforeseen ways technology can impact our world. And as a celebrated tech pioneer herself, Caterina brings a deep knowledge of technology and an optimistic enthusiasm for entrepreneurs. In the early 2000s, Caterina co-founded Flickr and introduced many of the innovations — newsfeeds, hashtags, “followers,” “likes” — that laid the foundation for modern social media. (Though she’s quick to point out where social media has gone wrong, as you’ll hear in this podcast). As an angel investor, advisor and board member, she helped build companies like Etsy, Kickstarter and Stack Overflow — which defined and nurtured new types of human-centered online communities. She’s now co-founder of Yes VC, an investment fund in search of ideas that elevate our collective humanity. For Caterina, hosting Should This Exist? reflects her career-long dedication to helping technology fulfil its promise. Don’t miss this episode of This Much I Know as Caterina shares her fascinating journey, from the massive highs and lows as a founder and the effects of radical transparency, to supporting early-stage entrepreneurs at Yes VC and why humanising technology has been one of the most important jobs across her entire career. Links: Caterina Fake: twitter.com/caterina Yes VC: https://yes.vc Should this exist podcast: https://shouldthisexist.com Carlos Espinal: twitter.com/cee Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com

What makes up the economy and how does it affect individuals, startups and businesses alike? With ongoing talk and speculation as to whether we’re heading towards another global recession, Carlos is joined this week by Max Rofagha, Founder and CEO of Finimize - providers of jargon-free financial news, information and a community to empower users to make better informed financial decisions - and their VP of content, Carl Hazeley. Along with information regarding the macro-state of play in today's economy and telltale signs that are often indicators of an imminent downturn, Max also shares his personal journey to creating Finimize in a bid to help people like himself, millennials with some savings but no clue what to do with them, to navigate the 'financial jungle'. Tune in as Max and Carl discuss sectors that currently make for an attractive investment opportunity, the benefits - or lack thereof - of Robo-advisors and their mission to do for financial wellbeing the same thing Nike has created for physical wellbeing. Links: Max Rofagha: twitter.com/wholeearthweb Carl Hazeley: linkedin.com/in/carl-hazeley/ Carlos Espinal: twitter.com/cee Finimize: www.finimize.com Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com

Company culture is one of those areas which seems quite simple on a high level, yet only a few businesses excel at. This week we are bringing in Bretton Putter, the founder of CultureGene, a next generation executive search consultancy. In the episode we examine what exactly 'constitutes' company culture, the criteria to look for when hiring, and how to effectively test for cultural fit in the early days. In his most recent book, 'Culture Decks Decoded', Brett has combined his analysis of hundreds of culture decks and tackles the patterns that make up a sustainable culture. The benefits are clear, but the path to success remains vague. As Bretton says, "Probably the most commonly forgotten aspect about creating company culture is that it has to be managed." Links: Bretton - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/brettonputter Bretton - Twitter: twitter.com/brettonputter Bretton - Medium: https://medium.com/@BrettonPutter Carlos - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal Carlos - Twitter: twitter.com/cee Carlos - Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3 CultureGene: www.culturegene.ai Culture Decks Decoded: www.culturegene.ai/books/culture-decks-decoded Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com

Pipedrive has become the dominant player in the sales CRM market, with over 80,000 businesses using it daily. Their story to the top features persistence and overcoming a lot of negative bias towards building 'yet another CRM tool'. In this week’s episode of This Much I Know, Carlos sits down with co-founder, Martin Henk as he shares the journey so far including challenges in product, growth, pricing and fundraising. Tune in to hear how Pipedrive has managed to stand out in so competitive a market and why swapping out marketing hacks for brutal product simplicity has been the key to gaining customers and accelerating growth. Links: Martin - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/martinhenk Martin - Twitter: twitter.com/henkmrtn Martin - Medium: medium.com/@nokkloom Carlos - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal Carlos - Twitter: twitter.com/cee Carlos - Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3 Pipedrive: www.pipedrive.com Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com

In this week’s podcast, we are proud to welcome Michael Wolfe, co-founder of Gladly. Michael is a serial-founder and has been through the full range of experiences from exponential growth, raising hundreds of millions through venture funding, taking companies to IPO and secondaries. Michael is currently an acting portfolio advisor at Point Nine Capital, working on company-building, scaling and recruiting. Tune in to hear the set of patterns Michael has developed through his years of experience, which he refers to as the “startup operating system”. If your company has reached a point with initial traction so you are looking to grow, but feel a bit lost, the concept will help you align the guiding principles for successful growth. Slides: https://www.slideshare.net/MichaelWolfe/the-startup-operating-system Links: Michael - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/wolfemichael/ Michael - Twitter: twitter.com/michaelrwolfe Michael - Website: medium.com/@michaelrwolfe Carlos - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal Carlos - Twitter: twitter.com/cee Carlos - Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3 Gladly: www.gladly.com Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com