The Exchanges

Q Okay, so what's the favorite book and why? What must we be reading?

A As a kid, I picked up this, like, cheesy business book. It's called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I'm born in East Germany with, like, normal background, like, working class family, right? And in my youth, my parents were working for a really rich family from Ireland. I met that family constantly. I've spent time with them. Like, because I was a nerd, I basically fixed their computers when I was young. I, I Found that book in their home, Rich Dad Poor Dad, and I read it. For me, it was like my biography when I was like, 14 or so. It was about a kid with poor parents who got told, like, you have to study hard to get a great job, which had a friend with rich parents who constantly told his kids, you have to be smarter than everyone to, like, you have to make people work for you, and I was like, huh, interesting, and it had a god of good wisdom in it, like, Work to learn, not to earn, was a really good quote from the book. It kind of teach me that at the beginning of my career, I shouldn't care about money at all. I should just try to absorb as much as I can, as fast as I can, and I've just lived by it. Later on, I've realized that it's kind of like a cheesy marketing book or whatever. Influenced my childhood so hard, it was phenomenal.

AI assessment note: “It's called Rich Dad, Poor Dad.”

Q case, the car industry isn't over. But I, I do have to ask you, speaking of, like, fundraising and investors there, and you said about your angel investing, on the other side of the table, I think a really interesting element, bluntly, is, like, you raised quite a lot of cash pre-launch with Pitch. What was the strategy on the pre-launch fundraise, and why did you think that was optimal?

A The true story there is we've never wanted to raise any funding. I've made, like, really bizarre experience with investors in the past, and I was really anti-VC when I started my own company. I kind of said, ah, I'm gonna fund this myself, I'm gonna build this my way, no board meetings, nothing, and we started Pitch that way. The first fund that made us an offer made us an offer that I just couldn't believe. I think the seed valuation was twenty million with nothing, no co-founders, no deck, Just the idea, and I was like, holy shit, this is insane. Okay, I'm going to take this offer. I think this makes sense. So that's how the fundraising has started, and then three months later, Index Ventures wanted to chat with me. Sarah Kanna, in fact, and Neil, I just told them what I'm working on. I just said, like, hey, I'm going to build this, like, pitch platform, and we'll have real-time data integrations, and its own distribution platform built in. I really think this can be big, and they loved the idea, and asked Would you raise funding? I said, not really, because I just closed the seat round. I don't really have the need. And then again, they made me an offer I couldn't resist. And then I took it again, and I've noticed, okay, I can really accelerate the development. So I've scaled the team, hired a lot of engineers to build V-One, and the next funding round, by the way, happened …

AI assessment note: “The true story there is we've never wanted to raise any funding.”

Q and final one for the quickfire, but it's like board management. And you said there about like, no one's like born as a product genius. But like, board management is the same. Fucking hard. No one knows how to do it when they start. When you look at how you manage your board today, how do you manage your board, and is it different from the first time with Wunderlist?

A It is definitely different, because as a first-time founder, you have no idea what you're doing. You're really learning with every board meeting, every product launch, every iteration. So I do board meetings every three months, and I'm just trying to have a good time and explain everyone exactly what I'm planning to do on the The product side, tech side, business side, marketing side, and that works really well. I had a really interesting board meeting at Wunderlist, actually. So I had a pretty spectacular board. I've partnered with firms like Atomico and Sequoia and Early Bird, a local fund in Germany, and we were working on a, the next iteration with real-time synchronization. So like, seeing your lists and tasks in real-time while someone else is typing. I really believed that real-time synchronization in software is the future of productivity apps, and I pitched my board the latest version, and one of my board members pretended to fall asleep, so laid down in the board meeting, and I was like, hey, are you sick, man? Are you not doing well? He stood up and said to me, like, yeah, I'm not doing well because of you, man. Like, what you are selling here is nonsense. It makes absolutely no sense. Promoting real-time synchronization to your customers is like promoting Breathing air to humans. It just makes no sense, and I was mentally destroyed. My confidence was at an all-time …

AI assessment note: “It is definitely different, because as a first-time founder, you have no idea”

Q a bit of a fanboy moment here, having been such a wonderless user for many years, but I do want to start today with a little bit on you. So tell me, how did you make your way into the world of startups, and how did you most recently come to found the game changer that makes even, like, terrible PowerPoint users like me great at PowerPoints with pitch? Yeah.

A Yeah, so I accidentally started a company when I moved to Berlin at the age of 18. I'm a programmer myself, and YouTube at that time had no playlists, so I had the idea, like, why don't I build an online music player that uses YouTube API as a back-end to curate music and charts. So I built a simple website, called it Mucelli, put it online on mucelli.com, people could listen to, like, Korean charts, Japanese charts, German charts. I launched it. It got super viral. Free music on the internet, right? People, I think I had, like, 200,000 users within a month, and then I was, like, so scared of getting sued, because for me that was just a tech experiment, like a programmer experiment, and I asked my mother to borrow me money to start a legal entity, or form a legal entity around it, just to avoid having to file personal bankruptcy in case of lawyers suing me. Started a company. One or two months later, an investor approached me, said, like, hey, do you want to take money for this thing? And I was just really honest. Honestly, like, I don't even know if this is a company. I just built a playlist feature for YouTube. I don't think this is a thing, but why don't you want to buy it? So I sold the company, I think four or five months later, and it was right enough money to, like, buy my first car and start my next company, which was an agency business. So I built websites and products…

AI assessment note: “I accidentally started a company when I moved to Berlin at the age of 18.”

Q I'm totally with you in terms of needing to Feel it. The only trouble is I actually have to write investment memos, and saying I feel it isn't quite as, uh, as compelling for our investment committee. Okay, next chronological thing is, you mentioned they're selling to Microsoft. Do you regret selling?

A No, I don't. I know I've created quite some buzz around wanting to buy it back. What really happened there, and I think I've never really told the true story in public, is I got really sick when I sold Wunderlist. Like, I was physically ill, And I didn't know what was happening. I really was shocked by it myself, but I basically got rich by selling Wunderlist, got my first child, and then I got a really bad diagnosis of just being ill. And I'm good today. During the time I've sold Wunderlist, I felt deep regret. I didn't want to sell it to Microsoft, because I really, truly believed I could turn this into a massive company. Now, years later, I can reflect on it, and I can honestly say it was the right moment in time. I think Evernote hasn't worked out. Evernote was kind of the poster child at the time for like productivity apps. Again, I have also trusted my instinct in like the selling process. I felt like this is a good opportunity. I should probably do this. I had a few years to recover and like regain energy. So I am actually incredibly thankful to Microsoft for giving me this opportunity. Am I satisfied about the outcome? Clearly not. I think Microsoft has Screwed up multiple acquisitions like Yammer or Skype, and they promised me when we sold it that they will try their very best not to screw up Wunderlist, and I think they did. I think we could have turned it into someth…

AI assessment note: “No, I don't. I know I've created quite some buzz”

Q totally with you in terms of loving the ecosystem, kind of unpacking two elements there. It's like, often people say it's incredible for founders to angel invest. They gain different perspective, lessons. Others say it's a distraction. How do you think about the benefits or drawbacks of, like, being a founder of Two companies at the same time and angel investing. What are the pros and cons in your mind?

A So angel investing absolutely is a distraction. I think if you as a founder, like run your own like seed fund and raise capital on the side while you are building your own product and business, I think it's a massive distraction. I wouldn't recommend that. What I am doing is I invest four to five times a year, mostly in people I kind of already know. The superlist thing was really just pure passion. I started that company because I really believe this product should exist, and the team was already in place. So I think if you balance it out, it's okay. I spend an hour a week, I would say, on angel investments, maybe one to two hours a week on Superlist, and the rest of my time is pitched non-stop. Before I started Superlist, talked to my board, tried to make sure, like, I'm not gonna build this product myself. I will give feedback on, like, product design and who we should hire, what we should build, but that's about it. The team has the responsibility to Create that company. I am just like the chairman or whatever, so I think there are a lot of founders who do this for, like, fame or personal wealth. I think if you commit yourself to something, starting a company, you should commit your entire life to it. It's okay if you do a few things on the side, that's how the ecosystem works, but there needs to be a clear limit on how much time you spend on angel investments.

AI assessment note: “So angel investing absolutely is a distraction. I think if you as a founder”

Q I'm totally with you in terms of needing to Feel it. The only trouble is I actually have to write investment memos, and saying I feel it isn't quite as, uh, as compelling for our investment committee. Okay, next chronological thing is, you mentioned they're selling to Microsoft. Do you regret selling?

A No, I don't. I know I've created quite some buzz around wanting to buy it back. What really happened there, and I think I've never really told the true story in public, is I got really sick when I sold Wunderlist. Like, I was physically ill, And I didn't know what was happening. I really was shocked by it myself, but I basically got rich by selling Wunderlist, got my first child, and then I got a really bad diagnosis of just being ill. And I'm good today. During the time I've sold Wunderlist, I felt deep regret. I didn't want to sell it to Microsoft, because I really, truly believed I could turn this into a massive company. Now, years later, I can reflect on it, and I can honestly say it was the right moment in time. I think Evernote hasn't worked out. Evernote was kind of the poster child at the time for like productivity apps. Again, I have also trusted my instinct in like the selling process. I felt like this is a good opportunity. I should probably do this. I had a few years to recover and like regain energy. So I am actually incredibly thankful to Microsoft for giving me this opportunity. Am I satisfied about the outcome? Clearly not. I think Microsoft has Screwed up multiple acquisitions like Yammer or Skype, and they promised me when we sold it that they will try their very best not to screw up Wunderlist, and I think they did. I think we could have turned it into someth…

AI assessment note: “No, I don't. I know I've created quite some buzz around wanting to buy it back.”

Q said they're about a hundred to a 160, a 175. Often in startup land, like that hustle culture, and that, you know, work 20 hours a day is kind of idolized. I've heard from some of your investors you have a different take, so I'd love to hear, how do you think about kind of scaling culture within pitch? And what you kind of want to imbue within the team.

A Yeah, I think that all goes back to my Wanderlust days. I had the exact same belief that you need to kill yourself to build a business successfully, especially a startup with, like, that's permanently under-resourced. Getting sick from it, like, truly burning out from it, made me realize that obviously this is not sustainable, and I think I've learned to emotionally disconnect myself From what I'm creating, so I'm, like, trying to view building a business more as a project, so I don't get too attached. I work 10 hours a day or something like that, roughly, so it's a lot, but it's not too crazy. I eat breakfast with my kids. I eat dinner with my kids. I do that every single day. I play games like Minecraft with my kids. I just want to have a good life, and I'm not really sure if I have a detailed philosophy there, but I just want to find a way to Sustainably build a business, and I also want to be a role model for our employees, so I think I'm trying to build a culture where we are a bunch of, like, very ambitious individuals, but we also have a good time. It's the journey, really, that is the most fun, and not, like, the potential exit you might have at some point.

AI assessment note: “trying to build a culture where we are a bunch of, like, very ambitious individuals”

Q I totally agree, especially also when you bring in outside capital, so totally with you there. You mentioned the word ecosystem a couple of times there. You know, you've seen both With European and US investors, you've seen two different ecosystems. How do you think about the two differing ecosystems, and what do you think are the biggest differences, so to speak?

A I had a meeting with, like, a really influential billionaire investor in 2013, and I've asked him, why don't you really invest more in Europe, and why don't you have a team in Europe? He took a napkin, and he wrote down US, China, Europe. For US, he drew a circle, For China, he drew an even bigger circle to, like, illustrate the market cap of tech combined of all companies. And for Europe, he drew a dot. And he said, like, this is Europe. That's why we don't have a team there. Just to explain you the situation. Now, seven, eight years later, I think that has totally changed. So we have multiple Decacorns. I think four in Berlin right now. We have tons of unicorns. I think the startup industry... Is growing like wildfire right now. Everyone wants to start businesses. So I think that is absolutely incredible. We're still behind in terms of the size of the ecosystem. So the amount of companies, the amount of talent, like the amount of people that work in startups, et cetera. But it's clearly on the rise. I think it's our duty now. Our generation has to create that industry. Otherwise the generations after us will really struggle. Like, especially in Germany with the car industry, if that might be gone at some point, I think the tech industry will take over, and it will be the backing bone of Germany in the future.

AI assessment note: “We're still behind in terms of the size of the ecosystem.”

Q are able to angel invest, and you suddenly have more personal love than you have before. One that I love to ask on the show, and I think about it a lot personally, is, like, how do you think about your relationship to money, and how has it changed over time from when you were borrowing money from your mother to set up the legal entity to angel investing today?

A Yeah, it has changed quite a bit. Quite a lot. I think I went through some kind of depression after selling my business to Microsoft because I didn't want that really. And I've never celebrated the exit. I've never hosted a party with the Wanderlust crew. It just was a really weird time. I wasn't happy about it. What money gave me was freedom. I could do whatever the hell I wanted. Through time and overcoming like that kind of like frustration, I've realized, Freedom is amazing. Money doesn't buy you happiness. Money buys you freedom. I'm the luckiest guy on the planet, I feel like. We still live in the same house as we have before the exit. I don't own, like, 10 supercars or something like that, so I don't think my life could be any better because I have, like, wonderful family. I'm living the dream. I can work on whatever I want, and I think that is awesome. If I would gain more wealth, I would just reinvest it faster. I have actually, I think I've taken 50% of my personal wealth and reinvested it into venture capital by investing into funds and startups. I love our ecosystem, right? That's kind of why it grows so fast, and that's my relationship with money.

AI assessment note: “Money doesn't buy you happiness. Money buys you freedom.”

Q I totally agree, especially also when you bring in outside capital, so totally with you there. You mentioned the word ecosystem a couple of times there. You know, you've seen both With European and US investors, you've seen two different ecosystems. How do you think about the two differing ecosystems, and what do you think are the biggest differences, so to speak?

A I had a meeting with, like, a really influential billionaire investor in 2013, and I've asked him, why don't you really invest more in Europe, and why don't you have a team in Europe? He took a napkin, and he wrote down US, China, Europe. For US, he drew a circle, For China, he drew an even bigger circle to, like, illustrate the market cap of tech combined of all companies. And for Europe, he drew a dot. And he said, like, this is Europe. That's why we don't have a team there. Just to explain you the situation. Now, seven, eight years later, I think that has totally changed. So we have multiple Decacorns. I think four in Berlin right now. We have tons of unicorns. I think the startup industry... Is growing like wildfire right now. Everyone wants to start businesses. So I think that is absolutely incredible. We're still behind in terms of the size of the ecosystem. So the amount of companies, the amount of talent, like the amount of people that work in startups, et cetera. But it's clearly on the rise. I think it's our duty now. Our generation has to create that industry. Otherwise the generations after us will really struggle. Like, especially in Germany with the car industry, if that might be gone at some point, I think the tech industry will take over, and it will be the backing bone of Germany in the future.

AI assessment note: “We're still behind in terms of the size of the ecosystem.”

Q said they're about a hundred to a 160, a 175. Often in startup land, like that hustle culture, and that, you know, work 20 hours a day is kind of idolized. I've heard from some of your investors you have a different take, so I'd love to hear, how do you think about kind of scaling culture within pitch? And what you kind of want to imbue within the team.

A Yeah, I think that all goes back to my Wanderlust days. I had the exact same belief that you need to kill yourself to build a business successfully, especially a startup with, like, that's permanently under-resourced. Getting sick from it, like, truly burning out from it, made me realize that obviously this is not sustainable, and I think I've learned to emotionally disconnect myself From what I'm creating, so I'm, like, trying to view building a business more as a project, so I don't get too attached. I work 10 hours a day or something like that, roughly, so it's a lot, but it's not too crazy. I eat breakfast with my kids. I eat dinner with my kids. I do that every single day. I play games like Minecraft with my kids. I just want to have a good life, and I'm not really sure if I have a detailed philosophy there, but I just want to find a way to Sustainably build a business, and I also want to be a role model for our employees, so I think I'm trying to build a culture where we are a bunch of, like, very ambitious individuals, but we also have a good time. It's the journey, really, that is the most fun, and not, like, the potential exit you might have at some point.

AI assessment note: “I'm trying to build a culture where we are a bunch of, like, very ambitious individuals”

Q a bit of a fanboy moment here, having been such a wonderless user for many years, but I do want to start today with a little bit on you. So tell me, how did you make your way into the world of startups, and how did you most recently come to found the game changer that makes even, like, terrible PowerPoint users like me great at PowerPoints with pitch? Yeah.

A Yeah, so I accidentally started a company when I moved to Berlin at the age of 18. I'm a programmer myself, and YouTube at that time had no playlists, so I had the idea, like, why don't I build an online music player that uses YouTube API as a back-end to curate music and charts. So I built a simple website, called it Mucelli, put it online on mucelli.com, people could listen to, like, Korean charts, Japanese charts, German charts. I launched it. It got super viral. Free music on the internet, right? People, I think I had, like, 200,000 users within a month, and then I was, like, so scared of getting sued, because for me that was just a tech experiment, like a programmer experiment, and I asked my mother to borrow me money to start a legal entity, or form a legal entity around it, just to avoid having to file personal bankruptcy in case of lawyers suing me. Started a company. One or two months later, an investor approached me, said, like, hey, do you want to take money for this thing? And I was just really honest. Honestly, like, I don't even know if this is a company. I just built a playlist feature for YouTube. I don't think this is a thing, but why don't you want to buy it? So I sold the company, I think four or five months later, and it was right enough money to, like, buy my first car and start my next company, which was an agency business. So I built websites and products…

AI assessment note: “I accidentally started a company when I moved to Berlin at the age of 18.”

Q totally with you in terms of loving the ecosystem, kind of unpacking two elements there. It's like, often people say it's incredible for founders to angel invest. They gain different perspective, lessons. Others say it's a distraction. How do you think about the benefits or drawbacks of, like, being a founder of Two companies at the same time and angel investing. What are the pros and cons in your mind?

A So angel investing absolutely is a distraction. I think if you as a founder, like run your own like seed fund and raise capital on the side while you are building your own product and business, I think it's a massive distraction. I wouldn't recommend that. What I am doing is I invest four to five times a year, mostly in people I kind of already know. The superlist thing was really just pure passion. I started that company because I really believe this product should exist, and the team was already in place. So I think if you balance it out, it's okay. I spend an hour a week, I would say, on angel investments, maybe one to two hours a week on Superlist, and the rest of my time is pitched non-stop. Before I started Superlist, talked to my board, tried to make sure, like, I'm not gonna build this product myself. I will give feedback on, like, product design and who we should hire, what we should build, but that's about it. The team has the responsibility to Create that company. I am just like the chairman or whatever, so I think there are a lot of founders who do this for, like, fame or personal wealth. I think if you commit yourself to something, starting a company, you should commit your entire life to it. It's okay if you do a few things on the side, that's how the ecosystem works, but there needs to be a clear limit on how much time you spend on angel investments.

AI assessment note: “So angel investing absolutely is a distraction. I think if you as a founder”

Q are able to angel invest, and you suddenly have more personal love than you have before. One that I love to ask on the show, and I think about it a lot personally, is, like, how do you think about your relationship to money, and how has it changed over time from when you were borrowing money from your mother to set up the legal entity to angel investing today?

A Yeah, it has changed quite a bit. Quite a lot. I think I went through some kind of depression after selling my business to Microsoft because I didn't want that really. And I've never celebrated the exit. I've never hosted a party with the Wanderlust crew. It just was a really weird time. I wasn't happy about it. What money gave me was freedom. I could do whatever the hell I wanted. Through time and overcoming like that kind of like frustration, I've realized, Freedom is amazing. Money doesn't buy you happiness. Money buys you freedom. I'm the luckiest guy on the planet, I feel like. We still live in the same house as we have before the exit. I don't own, like, 10 supercars or something like that, so I don't think my life could be any better because I have, like, wonderful family. I'm living the dream. I can work on whatever I want, and I think that is awesome. If I would gain more wealth, I would just reinvest it faster. I have actually, I think I've taken 50% of my personal wealth and reinvested it into venture capital by investing into funds and startups. I love our ecosystem, right? That's kind of why it grows so fast, and that's my relationship with money.

AI assessment note: “What money gave me was freedom.”

Q So I love the values you said there about, you know, breakfast and dinner with your kids, playing Minecraft. How do you imbue that with your team, though? Because, you know, you may do that, and you may say that, but how do you Create that culture with the team where they know that that's acceptable and great and welcomed as part of being a team member at Pitch.

A I think if you're the CEO, everyone kind of looks up to you. Your team members can smell and see if you're killing yourself, and if you are just working in an unsustainable fashion. Most founders I know, and like most first-time founders are like really emotional weirders, I would say, including myself. And I think you just have to find a balance and be a role model. I don't really communicate anything special. I just try to say that I want to provide an environment where people have autonomy, can do their best work, can also take care of their families. I think we have done a pretty good job during COVID, like helping our team in the right way. We've given parents the option to just work less during lockdowns to be able to somehow manage their lives with children. There's nothing special I'm doing. I'm just trying to be a normal human being.

AI assessment note: “you just have to find a balance and be a role model”

Q So I love the values you said there about, you know, breakfast and dinner with your kids, playing Minecraft. How do you imbue that with your team, though? Because, you know, you may do that, and you may say that, but how do you Create that culture with the team where they know that that's acceptable and great and welcomed as part of being a team member at Pitch.

A I think if you're the CEO, everyone kind of looks up to you. Your team members can smell and see if you're killing yourself, and if you are just working in an unsustainable fashion. Most founders I know, and like most first-time founders are like really emotional weirders, I would say, including myself. And I think you just have to find a balance and be a role model. I don't really communicate anything special. I just try to say that I want to provide an environment where people have autonomy, can do their best work, can also take care of their families. I think we have done a pretty good job during COVID, like helping our team in the right way. We've given parents the option to just work less during lockdowns to be able to somehow manage their lives with children. There's nothing special I'm doing. I'm just trying to be a normal human being.

AI assessment note: “I think you just have to find a balance and be a role model.”

Q otherwise my aging brain will forget. You said about kind of the first project being like a feature, and like, is it a company, and as you said, it was playlist for YouTube. Often investors tell founders, oh, I think it's a feature and not a product. How do you feel when you hear that, and how do you think about that feature versus product, and what determines the two?

A Oh, that is such a tricky question. I think my programmer background really helps me there, because I learned the hard way that every line of Code I write will be overwritten by another engineer at some point. Like, even the products that I create might not exist at some point in time. So, like, Wanderlust is a very good example, right? After selling it three years later, it doesn't exist anymore. Nothing is forever, and I think that's how I approach product design and product development in general. I try to really, like, mentor my team in that way. Like, we need to think fast, react fast, and, like, Always be open for new ideas. In terms of figuring out whether something is a feature or a full-blown product, that is a really tough thing. And what I have developed, I think, is just a way to trust my instinct. I'm not a very analytical person. Like, I didn't do a lot of research before I started Pitch. I just felt, I think this product needs to exist, and I don't understand why it doesn't. I'm just going to do this. I think it's a massive market. It has growth built in, because every presentation is meant to be shared with someone else. So if I'm able to build this tool and a platform around it, I think this can be a multi-billion dollar business. So I got started. When I'm looking at investments as like angel investments, I ask myself that every single time I look at something…

AI assessment note: “In terms of figuring out whether something is a feature or a full-blown product”

Q and final one for the quickfire, but it's like board management. And you said there about like, no one's like born as a product genius. But like, board management is the same. Fucking hard. No one knows how to do it when they start. When you look at how you manage your board today, how do you manage your board, and is it different from the first time with Wunderlist?

A It is definitely different, because as a first-time founder, you have no idea what you're doing. You're really learning with every board meeting, every product launch, every iteration. So I do board meetings every three months, and I'm just trying to have a good time and explain everyone exactly what I'm planning to do on the The product side, tech side, business side, marketing side, and that works really well. I had a really interesting board meeting at Wunderlist, actually. So I had a pretty spectacular board. I've partnered with firms like Atomico and Sequoia and Early Bird, a local fund in Germany, and we were working on a, the next iteration with real-time synchronization. So like, seeing your lists and tasks in real-time while someone else is typing. I really believed that real-time synchronization in software is the future of productivity apps, and I pitched my board the latest version, and one of my board members pretended to fall asleep, so laid down in the board meeting, and I was like, hey, are you sick, man? Are you not doing well? He stood up and said to me, like, yeah, I'm not doing well because of you, man. Like, what you are selling here is nonsense. It makes absolutely no sense. Promoting real-time synchronization to your customers is like promoting Breathing air to humans. It just makes no sense, and I was mentally destroyed. My confidence was at an all-time …

AI assessment note: “It is definitely different, because as a first-time founder, you have no idea”

Q Do not worry, I ask many CEOs, and all the board members get very upset, so you are indeed But final one, Christian, is like, when you think about the next five years, what do the next five years hold for you and for Pitch? Like, just how big could this be? And are we unbundling slides? Are we unbundling G-Drive? Help me out.

A I think Pitch has the opportunity to become a massive company, and I don't really want to just bring up numbers, but I think the reason I've started this is because I've realized that most major economic decisions and political decisions are based on the output of presentation software. If you get your morning briefing as a CEO, you often get, like, marketing reports, executive reports of some kind. You can, of course, get, like, memos as well, but I think decks play a substantial role in, like, informing leaders in our world. So I think if I build the right tools that enables the next generation of leaders to build the best decks possible and 10 times faster than ever before, I accelerate humanity. That's honestly my belief. And I think all of us, students in universities, founders, executives, small companies, medium-sized companies, big companies, everyone works with presentations. I agree that presentations, like, kind of got a bad rep in the last years, but I want to fix that. I think the next five years, I will spend on building the product that I'm envisioning, and my co-founders are envisioning, and that's about it, and I hope By doing that, we create one of the most successful businesses Europe has ever seen.

AI assessment note: “I think Pitch has the opportunity to become a massive company”

Q This is totally true. You're right. I look forward to doing Clubhouse with you. Tell me, what three traits do you most want your children to adopt?

A Great question. I think I want my kids just to be happy. Nothing else. I don't want them to become the next generation of tech founders, or like, I just want them to feel Figure out their own careers. Whatever they want to do, I want to support them. I was lucky that my parents teach me to never be scared. That is, I think, the number one skill that my mother taught me. I'm just, like, insanely naive. I think I can build whatever I want and whatever I can dream of, and I think if my kids could adopt that from either myself or my wife or their grandparents, I think that would be the best skill I could forward to them.

AI assessment note: “I think I want my kids just to be happy. Nothing else.”

Q genius, which, um, don't blush, but like, your insight, especially around kind of product design and creation, it made me think, like, when you think about the craft of product design in particular, and product creation, how do you think about that gut feeling, that instinct-driven nature that you have, combined with the new world of granular, metricized, scientific approach to every product iteration? How do you balance the two?

A What I mean by instinct, I don't think you get born and just have a good instinct. I think if you are building software like I am, you have to spend an enormous amount of time with software and hardware of all kinds. Like, I'm a nerd, right? I play most computer games. I know most tools. I use Windows, Mac, Chrome OS, Android, iOS. I know everything in tech. I have the latest gadgets all the time. I'm a super nerd. So I think I developed over time a pretty good sense for how software is evolving, how hardware is evolving, and I'm, I think as a founder, I'm just trying to identify an upcoming trend, like the rewrite of the office suite, for example, and therefore the opportunity to reinvent PowerPoint and to really build the next generation of it. In terms of building a product, I don't think I'm a genius at all. All I provide is Is the idea. I approached my co-founders by just saying, like, hey, I have this idea of building a team first presentation tool, and I've pitched them the product, they fell in love with it, but then we worked with our designers to build a great interface, and we just worked on it really, really hard. I constantly have moments where I feel like we're just not good enough. We're not good enough in, I don't know, certain features we're building, or branding, or Copywriting or whatever. And I think I'm giving my team a very hard time. I want to publicly ap…

AI assessment note: “What I mean by instinct, I don't think you get born and just have”

Q genius, which, um, don't blush, but like, your insight, especially around kind of product design and creation, it made me think, like, when you think about the craft of product design in particular, and product creation, how do you think about that gut feeling, that instinct-driven nature that you have, combined with the new world of granular, metricized, scientific approach to every product iteration? How do you balance the two?

A What I mean by instinct, I don't think you get born and just have a good instinct. I think if you are building software like I am, you have to spend an enormous amount of time with software and hardware of all kinds. Like, I'm a nerd, right? I play most computer games. I know most tools. I use Windows, Mac, Chrome OS, Android, iOS. I know everything in tech. I have the latest gadgets all the time. I'm a super nerd. So I think I developed over time a pretty good sense for how software is evolving, how hardware is evolving, and I'm, I think as a founder, I'm just trying to identify an upcoming trend, like the rewrite of the office suite, for example, and therefore the opportunity to reinvent PowerPoint and to really build the next generation of it. In terms of building a product, I don't think I'm a genius at all. All I provide is Is the idea. I approached my co-founders by just saying, like, hey, I have this idea of building a team first presentation tool, and I've pitched them the product, they fell in love with it, but then we worked with our designers to build a great interface, and we just worked on it really, really hard. I constantly have moments where I feel like we're just not good enough. We're not good enough in, I don't know, certain features we're building, or branding, or Copywriting or whatever. And I think I'm giving my team a very hard time. I want to publicly ap…

AI assessment note: “What I mean by instinct, I don't think you get born and just have”

Q otherwise my aging brain will forget. You said about kind of the first project being like a feature, and like, is it a company, and as you said, it was playlist for YouTube. Often investors tell founders, oh, I think it's a feature and not a product. How do you feel when you hear that, and how do you think about that feature versus product, and what determines the two?

A Oh, that is such a tricky question. I think my programmer background really helps me there, because I learned the hard way that every line of Code I write will be overwritten by another engineer at some point. Like, even the products that I create might not exist at some point in time. So, like, Wanderlust is a very good example, right? After selling it three years later, it doesn't exist anymore. Nothing is forever, and I think that's how I approach product design and product development in general. I try to really, like, mentor my team in that way. Like, we need to think fast, react fast, and, like, Always be open for new ideas. In terms of figuring out whether something is a feature or a full-blown product, that is a really tough thing. And what I have developed, I think, is just a way to trust my instinct. I'm not a very analytical person. Like, I didn't do a lot of research before I started Pitch. I just felt, I think this product needs to exist, and I don't understand why it doesn't. I'm just going to do this. I think it's a massive market. It has growth built in, because every presentation is meant to be shared with someone else. So if I'm able to build this tool and a platform around it, I think this can be a multi-billion dollar business. So I got started. When I'm looking at investments as like angel investments, I ask myself that every single time I look at something…

AI assessment note: “In terms of figuring out whether something is a feature or a full-blown product”