founder stories

EP 53 – Shaping company culture with Moritz Weisbrodt

November 2, 2022

In Episode 53 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we are happy to interview Moritz Weisbrodt, a serial entrepreneur with experience in various industries like food, health, and logistics. His latest company Alaiko, a fulfillment-as-a-service company, just announced a 30 million series A funding round this year.

Talking as a generalist, Moritz knows the importance of corporate culture in different market environments and along different lifecycle stages. How can culture be actively shaped, and what are ways to implement it? Tune in when Moritz shares his key learnings about the essential value basis of Alaiko and gives advice to aspiring entrepreneurs.

We hope to fulfill your expectations with this episode!

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 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 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 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.