innovation – Page 2 – Most Awesome Founder Podcast

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 33 – Fostering Corporate Innovation with Christoph Krois

December 22, 2021

In this last episode of Season three of The Most Awesomefounder podcast, we introduce Christoph Krois, mission driven corporate entrepreneur and founder and co-head of the Siemens innovation ecosystem.
Christoph’s mission is both an ambitious and a challenging one, driving innovation projects at one of the world’s largest companies. We’ll be talking open innovation, leveraging the unfair advantages of scale, driving rapid change in naturally slow moving organizations and building innovation teams that can drive change from the inside out.
So if you, like me are fascinated by the topic of corporate entrepreneurship and innovation management, you should really appreciate this episode. Hope you enjoy it!

EP 24 – Building Digital Communities with Cory Warfield

February 16, 2021

In episode 24 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we introduce Cory Warfield, entrepreneur, connector, founder of ShedWool and LinkedIn Leadership Influencer with over 250.000 followers.

Cory and Gerrit met almost 5 years ago when mentoring Cory’s startup ShedWool at an accelerator in Colorado. Since then Cory grew his startup to 20+ employees, built a massive LinkedIn follower base and launched numerous new ventures from his vast professional network.

In this episode, we are discussing Cory’s incredible founder journey from literally the bottom to the top, how faith and humility drive success and some really useful tricks for leveraging LinkedIn to grow both your personal brand and your business.

Hope you enjoy it!

EP 23 – Building meaningful company cultures with Freya Oehle

February 1, 2021

In episode 23 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we introduce Freya Oehle, WHU alumn, co-founder of the online shopping tool startup Spottster, and current co-founder of digital transformation consultancy 3tausendsassa.

We are discussing Freya’s founder journey, from WHU to building Spottster with a school classmate, to a unique exit and to building a new startup with the same team she build her previous one. Freya is a high-energy entrepreneur, with the passion and charisma of a great leader. So it is no wonder, her Spottster team continue their entrepreneurial journeys together.

Get valuable insights into building teams, establishing company cultures that are both meaningful and fun, and what leadership looks like across product and service-oriented startups. Hope you enjoy it!

EP 22 – Decoding Innovation Theater with Steve Blank

January 12, 2021

In this episode of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we introduce Steve Blank – legendary entrepreneur, author, adjunct professor at Stanford University, and father of the customer development / lean startup method. We’re discussing Steve’s founder journey, but more importantly, the concept of innovation theater – those incubators, accelerators and corporate innovation labs that look slick from the outside, but are often lacklustre in producing tangible results.

EP 15 – The Art of Lean with Tristan Kromer

August 25, 2020

In this episode, we introduce Tristan Kromer – San Francisco-based entrepreneur, innovation advisor, and Lean Startup guru. Tristan’s journey is a fascinating one – from touring musician to marketing executive, startup coach to innovation advisor for massive multinational companies.