EP 34 – The Awesome Founder Inspiration Sessions With Gerrit McGowan and Dries Faems 
Episode Stream
Biography
In episode 34 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we introduce a new format of the podcast with Gerrit McGowan and Dries Faems. Being well connected in the academia and startup ecosystem of Germany, they often receive requests from their network to share suggestions about interesting research, books, and podcasts on entrepreneurship that are current and relevant.
In this episode, they discuss few hidden gems of thought-provoking information where each speaker would identify three items to discuss – one item that made them learn something, one item that made them think and one item that made them laugh.
This format was absolutely awesome – full of interesting ideas, current entrepreneurship trends and humour. So hopefully, you’ll enjoy listening to it as much as we did producing.
References
Something that made you learn
Dries
Gerrit
Meyers-Levy, Joan & Zhu, Rui Juliet. (2007). The Influence of Ceiling Height: The Effect of Priming on the Type of Processing That People Use. Journal of Consumer Research. 34. 174-186. 10.1086/519146.
Something that made you think
Dries
The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019)
Gerrit
Honma, M., Masaoka, Y., Iizuka, N. et al. Reading on a smartphone affects sigh generation, brain activity, and comprehension. Sci Rep 12, 1589 (2022).
Something that made you laugh
Dries
Gerrit
https://www.investopedia.com/coinbase-super-bowl-ad-crashes-its-app-5218985
Chapters:
(02:25) Introduction of new format
(04:08) Something that made Dries learn – Do accelerators work? If so, how?
(05:05) Gerrit’s perspective on what makes accelerators successful
(06:52) The “learning effect” of accelerators
(08:39) Does getting into an accelerator make a startup successful?
(11:10) How is success defined?
(13:20) First time founders vs serial founders and their effects on success of accelerators
(15:36) Do accelerators add value? Do they belong to the ecosystem?
(17:14) Something that made Gerrit learn – “Cathedral effect” : How does ceiling heigh influence cognitive processing?
(24:40) Something that made Dries think – Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos story
(25:52) How could Elizabeth Holmes pull off the Theranos saga – an experimental justification
(30:45) Gerrit’s perspective – More than meets the eye
(35:58) Something that made Gerrit think – smartphones and their physiological effects
(42:49) The concept of “innovation washing” and changing ways of working
(46:03) Something that made Dries laugh – how humor can influence your status in the workplace
(52:30) Humor and its role in pitching
(54:47) Are Americans better at storytelling? If so, why?
(59:05) Something that made Gerrit laugh – Cryptocurrency and the Crypto.com Superbowl advertisement
(01:05:35) Dries’ take on cryptocurrency and blockchain
(01:09:02) Cryptocurrency and the ethical conundrum
(01:13:42) Gerrit outro