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EP 51 – From entrepreneur to enabler with Sebastian Pollok

September 28, 2022

In episode 51 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we introduce Sebastian Pollok, WHU alum, Co-Founder of Amorelie. He is currently Founding Partner at Visionaries Club, a Berlin-based VC.

In this episode, Sebastian shares his journey with us, which was filled with many ups and downs. Sebastian has been through everything from declining a job offer at BCG to interning at Google in the USA to finally living in a dorm to work on his startup. He will share how he disrupted a complex and fragmented market through Amorelie and eventually made a big exit. He will also walk us through his VC firm – Visionaries Club and give us a sneak peek of how they are supporting startups who are trying to make a huge dent in the world.

We hope you enjoy listening to the episode as much as we had while producing it.

EP 50 – Managing corporate innovation with Andy Binns

August 31, 2022

In episode 50 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we are happy to welcome Andy Binns to the show. Andy co-founded the innovation consultancy change logic and has more than 20 years of extensive experience overcoming innovation barriers in big corporates. Apart from his merits as a practitioner, he also published relevant academic work regarding disruptive innovation and CEO ambidexterity.

Andy shares his insights into how corporations can drive disruptive innovation from within. He also talks about how corporate innovation explorers differ from classical entrepreneurs and the challenges of idea scaling.

We hope you have fun exploring this exciting episode!

EP 49 – The Most Awesome Founder Talent Recordings #6 with Elena Tsemirava

August 17, 2022

In Episode 49 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we are happy to introduce our sixth talent out of this year’s accelerator cohort. After years in the corporate scenery, Elena Tsemirava recently decided to take the matter into her own hands and build her own start-up Listerly, to fulfill her entrepreneurial potential.

Listerly wants to leverage artificial intelligence to automate listing products on multiple online channels, so far a primarily manual and cost-intensive process. Tune in to hear how Listerly intends to change that to contribute to a more automated and scalable e-commerce business with a special eye on the fashion industry.

We hope to enjoy you enjoy this episode!

EP 48 – Unpacking Innovation Ecosystems with Ron Adner

August 10, 2022

In episode 48 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we introduce Ron Adner, Professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He is one of world’s leading thinkers and an award-winning researcher. he is also an advisor to companies around the world and the founder of the Strategy Insight Group.
In this episode, Ron shares his research and experience with us on innovation ecosystems and throws light on how today’s businesses need to approach value creation to build great ecosystems around their business. He argues how ecosystem-based strategies have alignment at the core and how today’s leaders need to have a coalition-first approach. He also throws light on the concept of minimal viable ecosystems and how today’s startups especially need to pay more attention to their ecosystem dynamics to increase their chances of success.
You can access all the chapters discussed in the episode as well as other amazing literature at ronadner.com.
Hope you enjoy listening to the episode as much as we did producing it.

EP 47 – The Most Awesome Founder Talent Recordings #5 with Sufyan Osamah

August 3, 2022

In Episode 47 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, Dries talks to Sufyan Osamah, who just finished the latest WHU accelerator program. With his co-founder Nikolaus Ridder, he developed HonestDog, a platform to connect reputable breeders and shelters with people who want to buy their dogs more responsibly.

Man’s best friend is far from a mere platitude when Sufyan speaks about how the presence of dogs, even in adverse circumstances, impacted him as a child. Unfortunately, this also brought some tragic experiences as a dog owner for the first time.

Luckily, he could keep his remarkable compassion and interest for dogs and turn it into a business with the overarching goal of improving the lives of dogs by changing the intransparent way they are sold in Germany.

We hope you enjoy this pawsome podcast!

EP 46 – The Most Awesome Founder Talent Recordings #4 with Raphael Derstappen

July 20, 2022

Episode 46 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast and we are thrilled to introduce Raphael Derstappen, co-founder of the live-learning platform Kursinsel.
Today’s parents can keep their children busy with a bunch of electronic devices, games, or apps. However, Kursinsel wants to offer more than temporary entertainment for kids. The platform assists parents in letting their kids explore their passions and interest independent of location or time via live & guided online courses.

How to understand parent’s problems without being a parent yourself, how to build two-sided platforms, and how to reject academic job offers; tune in to find out what our next entrepreneurial talent has to say about it.
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We hope you enjoy the show!

EP 45 – The Awesome Founder Inspiration Session #4 with Gerrit McGowan & Dries Faems

July 13, 2022

In episode 45 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we are back with the fourth episode of the Awesome Founder Inspiration Sessions with Gerrit McGowan and Dries Faems.
Continuing the format from the previous episode, they discuss a few thought-provoking topics:
– How does virtual work affect creativity?
– Do flexible work opportunities have inherent biases?
– Can the introduction of a middle management layer actually drive innovation in startups?
– How can startups become more competitive when hiring tech talent?
– A curious case of robots being given rest days in Germany!
– Has A.I. finally become sentient? Does A.I. finally have feelings?

The episode is full of interesting insights and takeaways. So hopefully, you’ll enjoy listening to it as much as we did producing.

EP 44 – The Most Awesome Founder Talent Recordings #3 with Ege Gündüz

July 6, 2022

In episode 44 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we interview Ege Gündüz, another young and driven entrepreneur from our WHU accelerator. Ege is co-founder of liftOS (formerly 10lift), a startup that wants to foster collaborative and more engaging HR processes.

Join to hear how Dries and Ege discuss work experiences during Covid-19, issues with B2B business models, and the challenges driving digitization in HR.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

EP 43 – Exploring Organisational Ambidexterity with Julian Birkinshaw

June 29, 2022

In episode 43 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we introduce Julian Birkinshaw, a leading researcher in the field of entrepreneurship and a Professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the London Business School.
In this episode, Julian will discuss his research on how companies need to balance alignment and adaptability to keep up with a rapidly changing world. He will also walk us through his findings on what made big successful companies like Oracle adapt to changing market conditions and the concept of contextual ambidexterity – behaviors and practices in a business that enable organizations to adapt to changing markets but still remain aligned to their existing activities.
Hope you enjoy listening to the episode as much as we did producing it.

EP 42 – The Most Awesome Founder Talent Recordings #2 with Chenchen Cao

June 22, 2022

In episode 42 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we interview another exciting entrepreneurial talent from the WHU accelerator. Chenchen Cao is co-founder of Power Mind Club, a startup that wants to improve couple relationships through counseling offers and a caring community. Chenchen and Dries discuss mental health as a vital part of Power Mind Club and the day-to-day entrepreneurial business.

Tune in when Chenchen tells how her startup is trying to overcome the stigma many still have against couples counseling because long-lasting, happy relationships should be worth working on!

We hope you enjoy this lovely talk!