Founders

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 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!

EP41 – From Toddlers to Tonies with Marcus Stahl

June 15, 2022

In episode 41 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we introduce Marcus Stahl, WHU alum and Co–Founder of Tonies. Marcus had a long stint in the telecommunication and automotive industry before becoming a founder and co-founding Tonies.
In this episode, Marcus goes through his journey from taking 3 years to perfect the Tonies box to eventually taking the company public via SPAC. He emphasizes how being naive helped him and his co-founder in building the business and how it is extremely important to have the heart and conviction in your product in a product led business. He also shares the mistakes Tonies made during their global expansion and his key learnings from that experience.
Hope you enjoy listening to the episode as much as we did producing it.

EP 40 – The Most Awesome Founder Talent Recordings #1 with Anand Raj

June 8, 2022

In episode 40 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we proudly introduce our first entrepreneurial talent of this year’s WHU Accelerator cohort. Anand Raj, co-founder of Joyon, wants to do his part to democratize education by building a platform for small content creators of live online courses.

In this episode, Anand talks about the long journey that led him from being a software engineer in India to being a first-time founder in Germany. Find out what role Covid-19 and the Kellogg-WHU Executive MBA Program played in turning his desire to start a business into reality.

Hope you enjoy listening to the episode as much as we did producing it.

EP 39 – Curating Emotional Experiences with Christian Gaiser

June 1, 2022

In episode 39 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we introduce Christian Gaiser, WHU alum and Co – Founder at Numa. Christian is a serial founder and an angel investor and is currently changing the way people travel by curating emotional experiences.
In this episode, Christian goes through his journey as a founder and an investor and talks about his itch to build things. He also talks about the founder – market fit, how he draws inspiration from sports for his business and the delicate balance of expectation management in the tourism industry.
Hope you enjoy listening to the episode as much as we did producing it.

EP 38 – Learning From Your Customers with Jochen Ziervogel

May 18, 2022

In episode 38 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we introduce Jochen Ziervogel, WHU alum and Co – Founder at Enpal GmbH. Jochen had a short stint in investment banking before entering the startup ecosystem and eventually founding Enpal – a unicorn disrupting the renewable energy industry in Germany.
In this episode, Jochen goes through his founder journey and shares key learnings with the listeners. He throws some light on how the founders came up with the idea behind Enpal, the importance of founders spending time on building great products and why it is essential to listen to your customers.
Hope you enjoy listening to the episode as much as we did producing it.

EP 35 – Unpacking Venture Capital with Christian Meermann

March 29, 2022

In this episode of WHU’s Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we introduce Christian Meermann, Founding Partner at Cherry Ventures.

In this episode, Christian goes through his journey from being a WHU student to CMO at Zalando and eventually founding Cherry Ventures. He shares a few learnings from his journey and throws light on the German venture capital ecosystem. He also discusses what VCs are looking for in a founder and what founders should look for in a VC.

Hope you enjoy listening to the episode as much as we did producing it.

EP 32 – The Love of the Game with Nathan Evans

July 27, 2021

In episode 32 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we introduce Nathan Evans, Kellogg-WHU eMBA alum, Director of the Founder Institute Munich, and cofounder of eCommerce financing startup, fulfin.

We’re discussing Nathan’s journey from studying physics to the trading floors of London, from FinTech product management to building his own high-growth venture.

This conversation with Nathan was absolutely awesome – full of rich stories, metaphors, and wisdom. We even discussed the similarities between poker and entrepreneurship! So hopefully, you’ll enjoy listening to it as much as we did producing.

EP 31 – Peak Performance for Entrepreneurs with Eric Partaker

June 9, 2021

In this episode of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast we introduce Oliver Aust, one of Europe’s leading communications and personal branding experts, and former Head of Communications at Easyjet. He is the founder and CEO of Eo Ipso Communications and co-host of Speak Like a CEO, the category-defining podcast on CEO communications.

Oliver helps CEOs and leaders build unignorable personal brands and businesses, drawing from his experience advising a wide range of organizations from high-growth startups to Fortune 50 and DAX30 companies. He is also a Techstars and WHU Accelerator mentor, and author of three books on communications, including the international bestseller, “Unignorable”.

EP 30 – WHU Accelerator Team Introduction (2/2)

May 18, 2021

As in our last episode, we’re doing things a little bit different in this week’s Most Awesome Founder Podcast. Today, we introducing not one founder, but many.

If you tuned in for episode 29, you know that on May 17 we launched the first cohort of the inaugural WHU Startup Accelerator. This intensive 7-week, mentor-driven, and equity-free program provides the best and brightest startups from the WHU community with rocket fuel for their new ventures, all culminating in a July 2 Demo Day event where the teams pitch their ventures to investors.

So today, we introduce the 4 remaining startup teams selected to participate in this year’s accelerator, the founders behind them, the problems they are tackling, and the paths they have chosen to get to market as effectively and efficiently as possible.

This week, you will meet the founders of…

PreMatch – a data-driven content aggregator for non-professional football

CIMK – a deep-tech data platform for investors interested in the Chinese market

About My Horse – a social commerce platform and online community for equestrian-focused fashion

And Happy Burning – a functional beverage company producing a one-of-a-kind brain boosting focus drink.

Each of these teams are led by incredible founders with unique backgrounds – all driven by a profound desire to improve peoples lives. And as you know, there are few things more inspiring than the stories of mission-driven entrepreneurs!

Hope you enjoy this unique episode of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast!