This Much I Know - The Seedcamp Podcast

In a post-pandemic world, early-stage founders have multiple options for building their teams and choosing their ideal work mode(s). However, the decision between on-site, hybrid, and remote can be a complex one, involving multiple factors; such as access to talent, legislation, and people operations. While remote work became the default at the height of Covid-19, post-pandemic life has seen many organisations revert to old behaviours, pulling people back to offices and causing a fair deal of controversy in the process. April Hoffbauer, Vice President of People at Maze, Seedcamp-backed global and fully distributed startup Maze, still believes that remote and fully distributed offers an excellent opportunity for early-stage startups to tap into the global talent pool from day one. In conversation with our Director, Natasha Lytton, April shares her insights on everything that goes into how to think about and set up building a remote, fully-distributed, and asynchronous team. Tune in! Show notes: April Hoffbauer - linkedin.com/in/aprilhoffbauer Natasha Lytton - linkedin.com/in/natasha-lytton Maze - maze.co Seedcamp - seedcamp.com

Learn from branding expert Joanna Christie about the importance of building a strong startup brand, its role in customer acquisition and retention, brand equity, and the challenges faced by double-sided B2B2C marketplaces. Discover how to attract senior talent and integrate brand throughout the business.

In this Seedcamp Deep Dive, Carlos is joined by Virgile Raingeard, co-founder and CEO of Figures, a Seedcamp-backed company providing the only compensation benchmark product for European start-ups and scale-ups. Carlos and Virgile discuss the current trends in hiring, talent retention and development, local vs. global pay, as well as compensation transparency. Virgile emphasizes the factors that lead to more compensation transparency in the tech industry. Furthermore, he shares why early adopters have a first-mover advantage from an employer branding perspective. Show notes: Virgile Raingeard - twitter.com/vrraingeard Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Figures - figures.hr Seedcamp - seedcamp.com This episode is brought to you by Stripe. Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. Millions of companies—from the world's largest enterprises to the most ambitious startups—use Stripe to accept payments, grow their revenue, and accelerate new business opportunities. Headquartered in San Francisco and Dublin, the company aims to increase the GDP of the internet. Contact their team to learn more: https://bit.ly/39TVMrT

In our latest Seedcamp Firsts edition, Victor Riparbelli, co-founder of our portfolio company, Synthesia, speaks with our Venture Partner, Devin Hunt, about making big bets, how to get comfortable with long-term product decisions, and learning from mistakes. Synthesia is the world's largest AI video platform. Using anthropomorphic AI avatars, the company helps people make video content without the need for cameras, studios, actors, and any other physical recording process. Key Takeaways: - The early days are about survival and getting to product-market fit. As the company grows, you can take bigger bets. - Think about new markets as opposed to an incremental solution in an existing market. - Plan and think out the potential scenarios before starting to code. Learn more here: https://sdca.mp/Big_Bets Show notes: Victor Riparbelli - twitter.com/vriparbelli Devin Hunt - twitter.com/hailpixel Synthesia - synthesia.io Seedcamp - seedcamp.com

In Part II of our Seedcamp Firsts series on customer operations, Rona Ruthen and Natasha Lytton delve into Scaling - a phase when change is the only constant. Rona shares her incredible experiences scaling operations across various roles, including VP of Customer Operations at Monzo, where she helped the company grow from 1 million to six, all largely over the Covid pandemic. With more than 15 years of experience in FinTech financial services and payment solutions in companies in Israel and the UK, she is a seasoned expert in scaling up customer service and operations. Learn why communication, clear goals, and single-threaded leadership are essential and how to get buy-in from people across the company. If you missed Part I, catch up here: sdca.mp/Customer_Operations_Podcast Show notes: Rona Ruthen - twitter.com/RonaRuthen Natasha Lytton - twitter.com/Natashalytton Seedcamp - seedcamp.com Check out our growing Seedcamp Firsts Content Library here: sdca.mp/SeedcampFirsts

In our latest edition of Seedcamp Firsts, our Head of Brand and Network, Natasha Lytton, speaks with one of our fantastic mentors, Rona Ruthen, about setting up customer support and operations in early-stage startups. Rona is one of the best possible people to learn from on this topic following her experience scaling Fintech unicorn Monzo among other well-known startups, including Seedcamp portfolio company Curve. Learn why setting up customer operations is a strategic decision, why customer experience is critical for every product that we use and care about, and why you want customers to engage with the product and make that whole experience easy, end to end. Furthermore, find out why, as you start scaling customer support, you need more consistency and standardisation in how you respond to customers and how you interact with them. Read our Deep Dive Q&A with Rona: sdca.mp/Customers_Operations Stay tuned for Part II, where Rona will join us to go much deeper into everything around scaling, where change is the only constant. We'll be delving much more into how you can bring teams on the journey with you and whole companies and embrace change, which becomes different challenges, but no less change as you go on that scaling journey. Show notes: Rona Ruthen - twitter.com/RonaRuthen Natasha Lytton - twitter.com/Natashalytton Seedcamp - seedcamp.com Check out our growing Seedcamp Firsts Content Library here: sdca.mp/SeedcampFirsts

Learn all things content from the masterminds behind Juro’s and tl;dv’s content strategies - from why content was first determined to be an essential part of the business and shaping the early strategy to execution measurement and key learnings for early-stage founders. For Juro and tl;dv, content has been an integral part of their strategies from the early days. Find out why and how they set the ground for successful content strategies. Show Notes: Raphael Allstadt - twitter.com/rallstadt Tom Bangay - twitter.com/tombangay Natasha Lytton - twitter.com/Natashalytton tl;dv - tldv.io Juro - juro.com Seedcamp - seedcamp.com Read our written Q & A - sdca.mp/Content_QA Check out our growing Seedcamp Firsts Content Library here: sdca.mp/SeedcampFirsts

We’re excited to kick off our new Seedcamp Firsts series with Jo Widawski, co-founder and CEO of Maze. In conversation with our Venture partner, Devin Hunt, Jo shares the founding story of Maze and his top insights into early-stage product development. Our ultimate goal with Seedcamp Firsts is to help support the next generation of exceptional entrepreneurs navigate those critical first steps in building a business. We want to open up the hard-won knowledge and insights across the Seedcamp Nation – from the exceptional founders we’ve backed to our mentors, Experts in Residence, Venture partners, and our core team. Stay tuned!

In the latest Seedcamp Deep Dive, Carlos is joined by Itxaso del Palacio, Partner at Notion Capital and Sammy Rubin, Co-founder of YuLife. Their discussion revolves around making employees healthier, happier, and more productive. Sammy shares his inspiration to build the world's first lifestyle insurance company to have personal well-being at its core. He also emphasizes why it is essential to enable companies to build a well-being culture and help employees live their best selves. Itxaso highlights why she backed Sammy and his co-founders and explains the difference between product-led and customer-centric businesses. She also emphasizes how YuLife's well-being challenges have been transformative for the Notion Capital team. Itxaso del Palacio - twitter.com/ItxasoLondon Sammy Rubin - twitter.com/SammyRubin Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Notion Capital - notion.vc YuLife - yulife.com Seedcamp - seedcamp.com Further reading: Game Changers: The impact of hiring amazing people - and how to hire them by Notion Capital [https://www.notion.vc/resources/game-changers-the-impact-of-hiring-amazing-people-and-how-to-hire-them]

In this episode, Carlos Espinal is joined by Karel Obluk, a cybersecurity expert, former CTO and interim CEO at AVG Technologies (a cybersecurity software company listed on the New York Stock Exchange and ultimately acquired by Avast Software) and now a Partner at Evolution Equity Partners. They kick off the conversation with Karel's early career in tech, his leadership roles at the cybersecurity firm AVG and the history of the cybersecurity industry. They then discuss the risks and opportunities in the cybersecurity space, his firm's investment strategy, and what it takes for high-growth companies to expand internationally. Show notes: Karel Obluk - twitter.com/karelobluk Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Evolution Equity Partners - evolutionequity.com Seedcamp - seedcamp.com Recommended read: Spam Nation: The Inside Story of Organized Cybercrime-from Global Epidemic to Your Front Door, by Brian Krebs