The Exchanges

Q When you look back at your management through COVID, is there anything that you would change?

A The very first week, again, I'm in New York, and one of our angel investors, Daniel Graffi, told me, you know, just be close to the team. Like, and most of our team was in Berlin, so I said I'd go back to Berlin. And I arrived Monday morning. We were like, like, what are we supposed to do? Like food distributors are not working and restaurants are closed. Like what? And so we said, okay, first week of COVID, everyone gets a week off. And I said, okay, it might be great. Everyone can adjust the new situation. Like the opposite was the case. Like purpose was gone. So I think that was a, that was a mistake. It certainly helped us to regroup and then to actually play offense and to give a lot of purpose to the team thereafter. But I think that week, Was not, was not appreciated, and we should probably have thought about this earlier.

AI assessment note: “I think that was a mistake... we should probably have thought about this earlier.”

Q When you look back at your management through COVID, is there anything that you would change?

A The very first week, again, I'm in New York, and one of our angel investors, Daniel Graffi, told me, you know, just be close to the team. Like, and most of our team was in Berlin, so I said I'd go back to Berlin. And I arrived Monday morning. We were like, like, what are we supposed to do? Like food distributors are not working and restaurants are closed. Like what? And so we said, okay, first week of COVID, everyone gets a week off. And I said, okay, it might be great. Everyone can adjust the new situation. Like the opposite was the case. Like purpose was gone. So I think that was a, that was a mistake. It certainly helped us to regroup and then to actually play offense and to give a lot of purpose to the team thereafter. But I think that week, Was not, was not appreciated, and we should probably have thought about this earlier.

AI assessment note: “everyone gets a week off... So I think that was a, that was a mistake.”

Q So I want to just dive right in. You were a SaaS company. You were a darling of the traditional SaaS market, raised a lot of venture money. Why did you decide to pivot from SaaS to a hundred percent of your revenue coming from AI?

A I think what kind of gave the spark was just a couple of sleepless, sleepless nights in a row. Because like this new technology came out, GPT and I like chat GPT and I played around with it. And then at some point I just couldn't sleep and I was literally sitting on my couch in the dark staring into nothing because I was like, man, this thing is going to learn how to code in no time. And maybe not now, maybe not next year, maybe 27, maybe in 28, like where's our technological mode is going to be? Like it might just be gone, like anyone maybe able to replicate what we have built over years within days. And so I'm like, wow, that's going to be a big shift in company building and how are we going to position ourselves to win in such an environment? And, and while, while I believe that there is some modes, Um, I think there were like three things that, um, that made us go, made us go AI first. And I think the first thing was, is like, hey, like, there's two scenarios that are gonna happen. First scenario is someone is gonna come, gonna replicate our technology, do maybe things in a better way, create more user value, and it's gonna disrupt us. Scenario two is, it's actually us doing that. Us disrupting ourselves, um, and hopefully also our, our, our, our competition. One of our core values is always play offense, and so we got to play offense also on that, and we actually have to b…

AI assessment note: “I think there were like three things that made us go AI first”

Q And I was like, what the fuck is that? Can you help me understand that?

A I think the cold war probably has, uh, has two components, and one is infrastructure, and two is talent, but we can start with talent, and so we're in London right now, I've been in London together with some other AI founders sometime this summer for conference. We got an, an, an invitation from someone, you know, let's say fairly high up in the US government to meet up for dinner. And we only, AI founders, and then of course it was a lovely dinner. It was a fantastic opportunity for us. But essentially they were making it very attractive for us to move our AI talent over, but we are in the UK here. But the next day there was a similar event. From someone from the British government. And last, no, so maybe two weeks ago it was an, um, a conference in Berlin and same, same UAE and Saudi Arabia. So people are really fighting for this talent. They've understood how vital it is. And, um, I mean, you go in a different country fighting for talent, like, that to me is Cold War, and I think it's very interesting.

AI assessment note: “fighting for talent, like, that to me is Cold War”

Q Lions don't lose sleep over sheep. I love that. I haven't heard that before. Uh, listen, I've loved doing this. I want to do a quick fire with you. So I say a short statement, you give me your immediate thoughts. So what do you believe that most around you disbelieve?

A I do believe only AI first companies will win. And by AI first, I mean that a majority of your total revenue or of your new revenue, which will lead into a majority of total revenue, Has to come from an AI product. Why? Because you're going to be more capital efficient. You can provide more, more, more, more, more user value. It's just fast adoption curve. On top of that, kind of using AI internally. So revenue is kind of more external to product, but using it internally to get more productive to automate things. It's just going to be the required status quo. A company with a social media account, it's not, it won't become a social media company, it's just a requirement of an Instagram account just to hold the status quo of a company, and we, companies that automate the process of AI, we don't call them AI enabled, we just call them a company in the future.

AI assessment note: “I do believe only AI first companies will win.”

Q And I was like, what the fuck is that? Can you help me understand that?

A I think the cold war probably has, uh, has two components, and one is infrastructure, and two is talent, but we can start with talent, and so we're in London right now, I've been in London together with some other AI founders sometime this summer for conference. We got an, an, an invitation from someone, you know, let's say fairly high up in the US government to meet up for dinner. And we only, AI founders, and then of course it was a lovely dinner. It was a fantastic opportunity for us. But essentially they were making it very attractive for us to move our AI talent over, but we are in the UK here. But the next day there was a similar event. From someone from the British government. And last, no, so maybe two weeks ago it was an, um, a conference in Berlin and same, same UAE and Saudi Arabia. So people are really fighting for this talent. They've understood how vital it is. And, um, I mean, you go in a different country fighting for talent, like, that to me is Cold War, and I think it's very interesting.

AI assessment note: “you go in a different country fighting for talent, like, that to me is Cold War”

Q Talk to me about COVID. COVID you have, I mean, dude, you're a restaurant platform, and you'll hate that description, but like, you serve restaurants at the end of the day. What happens?

A So COVID hit, we had, we're about to turn two years old. Um, we had two years old, so probably we've been like, what, like, 18 months live. We're probably up to three, four hundred million annualized GMB, growing very fast. Having a good time. And then COVID hits. And I was in New York back then. I'm like, I'm not gonna do COVID in my shoebox apartment in New York. I'm gonna go back to Berlin. And it's a direct flight from Newark to, to Berlin. It's a seven hour flight. I bought that plane. I still remember. I opened my phone. I checked Looker. And I see, oh, GMV. And it's a Sunday and I land Monday morning, seven AM Berlin on the runway. I put out my phone. I checked locker. 90, 98% of our dream is just gone and lockdown hits and our business is just gone. It's, it, it vanished overnight. Lockdowns everywhere. A lot of uncertainty in the market. Um, and it, and it was, it was a tough time and I started smoking. Smoked two packs cigarettes a day, got a beard like this, got, got, got gray hair, was lost. My humor was, was, was horrible. Um, was, was tough. And also because was, was such a big break from like, Hey, no, which we just, we just, we just, we just growing and working hard with product market fit. Okay. Stop. Not only stop, but go to negative, like lose your business essentially.

AI assessment note: “90, 98% of our dream is just gone and lockdown hits and our business is just gone.”

Q Can I ask a final one, which is, you said you raised 303 130, whatever. Yeah. What did you spend on that you wish you hadn't spent on first?

A We had a team of really great people in there. So it's not the people's fault. Um, it's more like my fault. And it was a special projects team. And it's kind of like, okay, like here's our core business and here's a special projects team. Figure out great things. And once they're great, bring it back to the core and then the core is going to scale it. And I think today I'm convinced that that that's the wrong way to think about company building. Um, actually this AI would be another example. Like we could give it like to a special project kind of skunk works kind of team. You figure out AI and then, then you give it back. So that doesn't work. And the reason is that if you're, if the core of your company doesn't have the skills, the capabilities to innovate, then you have a problem in the first place. Like your core needs to be able to innovate, you know, to get it there. So the skunkworks team might, might, might just be an excuse to not being able to do it in your core. That's one too. Let's, let's say your special project team figures something out and it's fantastic. And then you give it to other people and you say, oh, what they did is fantastic. Now can you please like Productize it and roll it. No, like I want that person who figures it out. I want to allow this person to own it, to be the responsible individual for it, to, to scale it, to build it together with, with, w…

AI assessment note: “it was a special projects team... we should not have spent money on that.”

Q So when I summarize this respectfully, are you saying that we're seeing the end of SaaS and the agentification of all software in business as a fundamental transition?

A A hundred percent. I think SaaS is dead. It's, I call it agentification of, of SaaS. Um, in some industries it might happen sooner and in some later, but, but naturally Why do we have user interfaces? So, so I like kind of the HR example because I still remember before all of these great HR tools came out, we were managing all of HR on Excel sheets. Not Google sheets, but Excel sheets. And there was kind of every single employee and when they joined and how many holidays they took and what they earned and yadda yadda yadda. And then these great tools came up, which make the job much easier. But you still need to learn how to use that software. Whereas in the future, we're just going to prompt that you don't need to learn anything because you communicate with that machine, like you communicate with a human in voice, in written form, in many different things. And so it's just the adoption curve will just be faster because there's nothing to learn.

AI assessment note: “A hundred percent. I think SaaS is dead. It's, I call it agentification”

Q Why did you let that party happen? Like straight away there, I'm like, oh, like, you know, we closed the four hundred million fund. We did not have a celebratory dinner, but I had a walk and then dinner with my mum.

A Yeah, and I think that's a fantastic mindset. I think for us, And, and it's, maybe it's more of an excuse, but, you know, Dan Rose, one of our board members at, at CodeU, and he told me once I met him the first time in flash again after COVID, he told me, you were the only company in our portfolio that suffered from COVID. All of the others went bonkers. Food delivery and, and, and quick commerce at that, that point in time. And many other companies just had so much growth, um, and so much equity value was built. Our equity value was destroyed because of COVID. Like, we just came out of a really, really tough patch. We were working 17 hours a day. Again, we started smoking, and it's, it's just, it's been tough for most of our, our people, and, um, and we probably also did party just because, like, okay, like, it's over. Like, like, we survived. Um, so I guess it's partly as an excuse how we did the party.

AI assessment note: “we probably also did party just because, like, okay, like, it's over. Like, like, we survived.”

Q People need purpose. I totally agree with that. Do you believe at all in work life balance?

A I think it's bullshit. Um, you know, what I always tell our people is like, like, like we have to be a hundred percent present and a hundred percent intense. So when you're at work, I expect you to be a hundred percent here, like not on Instagram, not with your head somewhere else, but like a hundred percent present with all of your intensity. But when you're at home, I expect the same. That you give to a hundred percent at work to beat a hundred percent at home. And, and I think that's, that's way more important because like work life balance is like, yeah, you know, I'm going to work every day until like, you know, seven PM.

AI assessment note: “I think it's bullshit.”

Q Lions don't lose sleep over sheep. I love that. I haven't heard that before. Uh, listen, I've loved doing this. I want to do a quick fire with you. So I say a short statement, you give me your immediate thoughts. So what do you believe that most around you disbelieve?

A I do believe only AI first companies will win. And by AI first, I mean that a majority of your total revenue or of your new revenue, which will lead into a majority of total revenue, Has to come from an AI product. Why? Because you're going to be more capital efficient. You can provide more, more, more, more, more user value. It's just fast adoption curve. On top of that, kind of using AI internally. So revenue is kind of more external to product, but using it internally to get more productive to automate things. It's just going to be the required status quo. A company with a social media account, it's not, it won't become a social media company, it's just a requirement of an Instagram account just to hold the status quo of a company, and we, companies that automate the process of AI, we don't call them AI enabled, we just call them a company in the future.

AI assessment note: “I do believe only AI first companies will win.”

Q Can I ask a final one, which is, you said you raised 303 130, whatever. Yeah. What did you spend on that you wish you hadn't spent on first?

A We had a team of really great people in there. So it's not the people's fault. Um, it's more like my fault. And it was a special projects team. And it's kind of like, okay, like here's our core business and here's a special projects team. Figure out great things. And once they're great, bring it back to the core and then the core is going to scale it. And I think today I'm convinced that that that's the wrong way to think about company building. Um, actually this AI would be another example. Like we could give it like to a special project kind of skunk works kind of team. You figure out AI and then, then you give it back. So that doesn't work. And the reason is that if you're, if the core of your company doesn't have the skills, the capabilities to innovate, then you have a problem in the first place. Like your core needs to be able to innovate, you know, to get it there. So the skunkworks team might, might, might just be an excuse to not being able to do it in your core. That's one too. Let's, let's say your special project team figures something out and it's fantastic. And then you give it to other people and you say, oh, what they did is fantastic. Now can you please like Productize it and roll it. No, like I want that person who figures it out. I want to allow this person to own it, to be the responsible individual for it, to, to scale it, to build it together with, with, w…

AI assessment note: “we should not have spent money on that.”

Q Ah, I completely disagree with all forms of regulation and government intervention as a venture capitalist. Okay, so we have this. Does that mean that we will see essentially what Klanow said, which is the removal of Salesforce, the removal of Workday, we're building all of the tools internally ourselves? Is that what's gonna happen?

A I don't think so. Because, okay, like AI today, like even the best LLM won't enable you to build something like Salesforce fairly quickly. There's so much code, so much customization in there. And then plus, even if it would, then you would have to maintain it. And suddenly you need engineering resources to maintain an internal tool as opposed to engineering resources like building useful stuff for customers. But the people using it Uh, I think maybe, um, and you know, what, what Klana, I think part ways with 700 people in, in, in customer care. And I think these are very, very tough and horrible conversations that are there to be had, but, and, and the same would help for us really. Like we also automate a large part of our customer care, large part of our kind of more account management can, uh, kind of work and replace it with, with AI.

AI assessment note: “I don't think so. Because, okay, like AI today, like even the best LLM”

Q So when I summarize this respectfully, are you saying that we're seeing the end of SaaS and the agentification of all software in business as a fundamental transition?

A A hundred percent. I think SaaS is dead. It's, I call it agentification of, of SaaS. Um, in some industries it might happen sooner and in some later, but, but naturally Why do we have user interfaces? So, so I like kind of the HR example because I still remember before all of these great HR tools came out, we were managing all of HR on Excel sheets. Not Google sheets, but Excel sheets. And there was kind of every single employee and when they joined and how many holidays they took and what they earned and yadda yadda yadda. And then these great tools came up, which make the job much easier. But you still need to learn how to use that software. Whereas in the future, we're just going to prompt that you don't need to learn anything because you communicate with that machine, like you communicate with a human in voice, in written form, in many different things. And so it's just the adoption curve will just be faster because there's nothing to learn.

AI assessment note: “A hundred percent. I think SaaS is dead. It's, I call it agentification”

Q Talk to me about COVID. COVID you have, I mean, dude, you're a restaurant platform, and you'll hate that description, but like, you serve restaurants at the end of the day. What happens?

A So COVID hit, we had, we're about to turn two years old. Um, we had two years old, so probably we've been like, what, like, 18 months live. We're probably up to three, four hundred million annualized GMB, growing very fast. Having a good time. And then COVID hits. And I was in New York back then. I'm like, I'm not gonna do COVID in my shoebox apartment in New York. I'm gonna go back to Berlin. And it's a direct flight from Newark to, to Berlin. It's a seven hour flight. I bought that plane. I still remember. I opened my phone. I checked Looker. And I see, oh, GMV. And it's a Sunday and I land Monday morning, seven AM Berlin on the runway. I put out my phone. I checked locker. 90, 98% of our dream is just gone and lockdown hits and our business is just gone. It's, it, it vanished overnight. Lockdowns everywhere. A lot of uncertainty in the market. Um, and it, and it was, it was a tough time and I started smoking. Smoked two packs cigarettes a day, got a beard like this, got, got, got gray hair, was lost. My humor was, was, was horrible. Um, was, was tough. And also because was, was such a big break from like, Hey, no, which we just, we just, we just, we just growing and working hard with product market fit. Okay. Stop. Not only stop, but go to negative, like lose your business essentially.

AI assessment note: “98% of our dream is just gone and lockdown hits and our business is just gone”

Q But do you buy that? I don't buy that. I think it increases distractions. It reduces capital efficiency. Uh, it gives you more runway, which does not increase execution speed.

A So here we come to the downsides, right? So I think everything you say is true. Um, I think, however, we also outlived something like COVID because we were doing this strategy. We also kind of came, I don't want to say smooth sailing, like we had our tough patches certainly during the high interest rate area, but also through that we came because we just took the money. Now the real downside to me is that it's at one billion mark, because once we become unicorn and people think, oh, we've made it. Like, like we've done, we, we, we're great now. Kind of people get less hungry. And then you get applications of people who look for a safe space to work. It's like, no, fuck it. We're not safe. Like we're at high risk. We're gonna work our butts off. We have to take risks. It's gonna be chaos and you're gonna need to thrive in it. And it's gonna be a lot of change. We're not a little change company now, just because we crossed. And also, like, who the fuck wants to be a rainbow colored pony? Like, I don't want to be a unicorn. And so just, just that cultural component is, and I remember we made the mistake and we did a unicorn party. I wish we would have never done it. It's like, oh, blah, blah, blah, blah. Unicorn started so, so, and then we had like flags. And then I realized what had changed in people. And then like two weeks later, I told everyone, remove those flags in all of ou…

AI assessment note: “I think everything you say is true. Um, I think, however, we also outlived”

Q Why did you let that party happen? Like straight away there, I'm like, oh, like, you know, we closed the four hundred million fund. We did not have a celebratory dinner, but I had a walk and then dinner with my mum.

A Yeah, and I think that's a fantastic mindset. I think for us, And, and it's, maybe it's more of an excuse, but, you know, Dan Rose, one of our board members at, at CodeU, and he told me once I met him the first time in flash again after COVID, he told me, you were the only company in our portfolio that suffered from COVID. All of the others went bonkers. Food delivery and, and, and quick commerce at that, that point in time. And many other companies just had so much growth, um, and so much equity value was built. Our equity value was destroyed because of COVID. Like, we just came out of a really, really tough patch. We were working 17 hours a day. Again, we started smoking, and it's, it's just, it's been tough for most of our, our people, and, um, and we probably also did party just because, like, okay, like, it's over. Like, like, we survived. Um, so I guess it's partly as an excuse how we did the party.

AI assessment note: “we probably also did party just because, like, okay, like, it's over.”

Q like, do you think you're, and this is where I mean it in a nice way, do you ever think, like, am I doing something big enough? It's like, shit, you could reinvent how a million Germans get to work every day, ten million Germans, twenty million, how fundamentally children learn with respect. Do you ever think, God, am I, am I doing big enough? Like, I have one life.

A I think about it every single day. There's not a night where I don't think about it. I think what we do is massively, one of the symptoms of our work is this massively decreased food wastage, as an example. And food wastage from after one, major drivers, carbon dioxide of climate change and of inequality in particular developing countries and so on and so forth. So, so I think it's contributing to that. Do I think, are we going fast enough every single day? Um, but, but do I think that it fundamentally needs a different economic model? Yes. And I think, you know, we've been growing, we've been essentially transitioning through three different generations of companies and generation one is like, okay, what I do is completely disconnected to what's good for society or for the environment. So I might be an oil company and at the end of a year I have a profit and then I plant some trees through it. Fantastic. But by no means I'm incentivized to actually do that. And if, and if business is bad, that's the first thing I'm, I'm gonna cut. So that's generation one. Generation two is I actually recognize that every single human being and every organization as such, every company has first a negative impact, and I'm gonna strive to go for zero impact. And that's already fantastic. And very few companies actually manage, manage to, to, to achieve that. And now I think we're approaching ge…

AI assessment note: “I think about it every single day. There's not a night where I don't”

Q So just so I understand, so we will have, we will still have single sources of data truth, which is like your Salesforce, which is your repository of sales data, correct? And then we will have like application layer on top of them, which will just be prompt engines. And it'll be the same for HR, the same for payroll. Is that it?

A Could be. It could also be that, um, kind of in that example, Salesforce should be the application layer itself. There should not be a layer above Salesforce. It should be the application layer. And what's underlying might, might just be a database. And so, so like, you know, salespeople hate Salesforce. Like go on there, update every single lead. Oh, I spoke to that person. Upload the presentation that, uh, that, that you have done. Change the lead status. Who did I talk to? Or like the points of context was like, okay, like here are my notes that I took anyways. Okay. Do the rest. So obviously it's, it's, it's a, and you can imagine if you, if you ask a sales rep, hey, you have two options, fill the form, copy paste your notes. Like what are they going to choose and which tool is going to find more adoption? And which tool makes your sales rep more efficient?

AI assessment note: “Could be. It could also be that... Salesforce should be the application layer itself.”

Q Ah, I completely disagree with all forms of regulation and government intervention as a venture capitalist. Okay, so we have this. Does that mean that we will see essentially what Klanow said, which is the removal of Salesforce, the removal of Workday, we're building all of the tools internally ourselves? Is that what's gonna happen?

A I don't think so. Because, okay, like AI today, like even the best LLM won't enable you to build something like Salesforce fairly quickly. There's so much code, so much customization in there. And then plus, even if it would, then you would have to maintain it. And suddenly you need engineering resources to maintain an internal tool as opposed to engineering resources like building useful stuff for customers. But the people using it Uh, I think maybe, um, and you know, what, what Klana, I think part ways with 700 people in, in, in customer care. And I think these are very, very tough and horrible conversations that are there to be had, but, and, and the same would help for us really. Like we also automate a large part of our customer care, large part of our kind of more account management can, uh, kind of work and replace it with, with AI.

AI assessment note: “I don't think so. Because, okay, like AI today, like even the best LLM”

Q Ok, so it takes longer, and it's hard, and then you said there's foundation models, there's obviously chips, and there's energy, the three factors. Ok, so if we just go through them, I'm a European, you're a European, you're in Germany, I'm in London, I want to stay a European. So, one by one, chips. What can we do that would make you happy and make us not lost?

A You know, very interesting example. A German government wanted to fund Intel to put a chip production plant in Germany. I forgot if it's 10 or twenty billion, which is obviously too little, but it's a, but it's a great start. And because obviously the problems that Intel is having, they said, okay, no, sorry, we won't do it. So someone is offering them 10, 10, 10, 10, ten billion, and they say, no, sorry, we won't do it. First of all, Intel is the wrong company to fund. So the first step you ask me is like, put it to the right company. Put it to Taiwan Semiconductor. Put it to, to, to, to, to NVIDIA. People that can actually produce GPUs. And we need to make it fairly easy for them to come. And what those companies need is obviously, uh, energy. They need, they need the government support and they need a lot of clean water. And actually we can provide that in Europe. Um, so I think that's one we need to, we need to bring them here. Electricity, obviously, um, or energy is obviously like a, a way bigger challenge in particular of the shift, um, to, to renewables. To me, it's an unsolved problem. I also see an ethical problem there because it should be like, from a German perspective, should we go back to nuclear?

AI assessment note: “put it to the right company. Put it to Taiwan Semiconductor. Put it to, to, to, to, to NVIDIA.”

Q What did you not, final one, before you do a quick file, what did you not spend on that you wish you had spent on?

A At the very, so we were lucky. We found product market fit for our first product very early on in our, probably even actually before we started coding, to be fair, um, because we just did a trillion iterations just on design, always with user feedback. So we, we, we product marketed early on. And then, um, And then we went out to the market, and it was growing, and then, you know, we launched, like, Berlin, and then Germany, and then France, and the US, and so on and so forth, and city by city. And it was working well. And I think, you know, something working is actually very rare. And so once you have something that's working, like, you gotta go all in. Like, I wish you would have, you know, spent double the amount of money, have tripled the amount of burn probably in the first 24 months of our company. And just, just go big because.

AI assessment note: “spent double the amount of money, have tripled the amount of burn”

Q Some people say, you've got to raise two. You've got to compete. Others say, the money will dry up. What matters is actually not getting involved in the frenzy and playing your own game. Which one makes sense?

A You know, I'm not sure if it's an, if it's an either or, like, I'm not saying you should, like, Just triple your burn. I say you should triple your burn and something's working really well, right? Within, within the constraints of, of good economics and capital efficiency. But once you've figured that complete thing out, not only the product market fit, but also like a go to market of good economics, then just go as fast as possible because that's when you actually will attract copycats. It needs to be the, the, the complete thing. And then I think we can also answer this question in isolation. Like we also need to look at the competitive situation. And the competitive situation.

AI assessment note: “I'm not sure if it's an, if it's an either or”

Q like, do you think you're, and this is where I mean it in a nice way, do you ever think, like, am I doing something big enough? It's like, shit, you could reinvent how a million Germans get to work every day, ten million Germans, twenty million, how fundamentally children learn with respect. Do you ever think, God, am I, am I doing big enough? Like, I have one life.

A I think about it every single day. There's not a night where I don't think about it. I think what we do is massively, one of the symptoms of our work is this massively decreased food wastage, as an example. And food wastage from after one, major drivers, carbon dioxide of climate change and of inequality in particular developing countries and so on and so forth. So, so I think it's contributing to that. Do I think, are we going fast enough every single day? Um, but, but do I think that it fundamentally needs a different economic model? Yes. And I think, you know, we've been growing, we've been essentially transitioning through three different generations of companies and generation one is like, okay, what I do is completely disconnected to what's good for society or for the environment. So I might be an oil company and at the end of a year I have a profit and then I plant some trees through it. Fantastic. But by no means I'm incentivized to actually do that. And if, and if business is bad, that's the first thing I'm, I'm gonna cut. So that's generation one. Generation two is I actually recognize that every single human being and every organization as such, every company has first a negative impact, and I'm gonna strive to go for zero impact. And that's already fantastic. And very few companies actually manage, manage to, to, to achieve that. And now I think we're approaching ge…

AI assessment note: “I think about it every single day. There's not a night where I don't think about it.”

Q So just so I understand, so we will have, we will still have single sources of data truth, which is like your Salesforce, which is your repository of sales data, correct? And then we will have like application layer on top of them, which will just be prompt engines. And it'll be the same for HR, the same for payroll. Is that it?

A Could be. It could also be that, um, kind of in that example, Salesforce should be the application layer itself. There should not be a layer above Salesforce. It should be the application layer. And what's underlying might, might just be a database. And so, so like, you know, salespeople hate Salesforce. Like go on there, update every single lead. Oh, I spoke to that person. Upload the presentation that, uh, that, that you have done. Change the lead status. Who did I talk to? Or like the points of context was like, okay, like here are my notes that I took anyways. Okay. Do the rest. So obviously it's, it's, it's a, and you can imagine if you, if you ask a sales rep, hey, you have two options, fill the form, copy paste your notes. Like what are they going to choose and which tool is going to find more adoption? And which tool makes your sales rep more efficient?

AI assessment note: “It could also be that Salesforce should be the application layer itself.”

Q What did you not, final one, before you do a quick file, what did you not spend on that you wish you had spent on?

A At the very, so we were lucky. We found product market fit for our first product very early on in our, probably even actually before we started coding, to be fair, um, because we just did a trillion iterations just on design, always with user feedback. So we, we, we product marketed early on. And then, um, And then we went out to the market, and it was growing, and then, you know, we launched, like, Berlin, and then Germany, and then France, and the US, and so on and so forth, and city by city. And it was working well. And I think, you know, something working is actually very rare. And so once you have something that's working, like, you gotta go all in. Like, I wish you would have, you know, spent double the amount of money, have tripled the amount of burn probably in the first 24 months of our company. And just, just go big because.

AI assessment note: “spent double the amount of money, have tripled the amount of burn”

Q Do they give you credits for opening offices there?

A They certainly give us, give us some sort of support. Yes, but not in terms of, of, of money. Um, more like in terms of visas and stuff like that and cooperation. But so, so how I view is when I, when I look at, okay, so we got US, we got Europe, and then we got, let's say Middle East. And so this is our portfolio of markets. And then how I look at it is that, okay, we got US that's a large software market on the planet. And, and if, if you want to build globally, you got, you got to win the US and that's kind of where dollars come from. Then you have the Middle East in particular UAE and, and Saudi. And it's like, these are just very fast growing economies, very ambitious economies, very little legacy, which is obviously for SaaS to your point, implementation is so hard, usually because a lot of legacy, but they have very little legacy and, and they want to be the best, but they want to show the world we can do something great. And they're actually on a fantastic trajectory. So, so that's kind of the growth market. And then you have Europe, and Europe is just that kind of like, almost like post-competitive, robust market in which you can grow. And if you have the US dollars because you're active in the US, you can likely build a great business out of Europe. It's kind of like that more like stagnant kind of thing in the middle. So I think you, you need to think portfolio and y…

AI assessment note: “They certainly give us, give us some sort of support. Yes, but not in terms of, of, of money.”

Q Some people say, you've got to raise two. You've got to compete. Others say, the money will dry up. What matters is actually not getting involved in the frenzy and playing your own game. Which one makes sense?

A You know, I'm not sure if it's an, if it's an either or, like, I'm not saying you should, like, Just triple your burn. I say you should triple your burn and something's working really well, right? Within, within the constraints of, of good economics and capital efficiency. But once you've figured that complete thing out, not only the product market fit, but also like a go to market of good economics, then just go as fast as possible because that's when you actually will attract copycats. It needs to be the, the, the complete thing. And then I think we can also answer this question in isolation. Like we also need to look at the competitive situation. And the competitive situation.

AI assessment note: “I'm not sure if it's an either or”

Q There's a very sad moment for me in a Jensen Huang interview where they said, you know, would you do this again? And he goes, no, if I knew how hard it was, I wouldn't do it again. Respectfully, Daniel, you know, you're in a great place now with the AIG, but with COVID, with the transition, with everything that we've been through, would you do it again?

A Um, I ask myself this question often. Um, there were, there were years when I said, What I would say, fuck no. Um, and there, there are years where I said like, yeah, and, and, and, and with pleasure. And I, and I think that you gotta be realistic about like, it's gonna be tough. And every cell in your body has to tell you start and build that company. And if, if one cell in your mind and your body is telling you, yeah, maybe then don't do it. Like don't, but if every cell tell, tells you to do it, um, then you gotta do it. And I think, you know, people say, You know, some people jump in the pool and they get out and they're still dry. And I think a real founder is wet before they even jump into the pool. And like, you gotta sweat. It got, it has to be part of you. Um, and, and then I think you might, you might do it again.

AI assessment note: “there were years when I said, What I would say, fuck no.”