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The Launch Stories podcast gives you a taste of what it takes to launch a global startup. Listen to founders share their personal ups and downs, their professional wins and losses, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way to building an international company. You’ll also hear from accelerators and investors that support entrepreneurs along their journey around the world and what they think is the recipe for startup success. Zoltan Vardy is a business growth mentor and helps B2B tech startups scale globally by applying his 9-step business development framework called The Launch Code. Subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your friends! Check out zoltanvardy.com and send guest inquiries to launchstories@zoltanvardy.com **************************************** Soundtrack: Wake Up by MBB https://soundcloud.com/mbbofficial Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0 Free Download / Stream: http://bit.ly/2CDshIl Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/6lqS34C4DCg
Episodes
Tuesday Apr 19, 2022
Tuesday Apr 19, 2022
On this episode of Launch Stories, Yoram Wijngaarde, founder & CEO of global startup data platform Dealroom.co, shares how the “Flywheel Effect” has accelerated startup growth in top-tier European ecosystems like London, Berlin, Paris and Estonia. You’ll hear about what differentiates the European and US startup investment environments, and how the lack of credible data on startups inspired Yoram to launch his company.
Links:
Monday Apr 04, 2022
Monday Apr 04, 2022
Nenad Marovac is co-founder and managing partner of DN Capital, a leading venture capital and growth investor with 58 exits under his belt, including six IPOs on the London or Frankfurt stock exchanges. He was recently named to Forbes’ “Midas List” – the definite ranking of the top 25 VC investors in Europe and the Middle East. In this episode, you’ll learn the one key skill that leads founders from concept all the way to IPO, why the most successful startups lean on both a strong team and rigorous analysis and what role Nenad’s mother played in his first breakout success – his seed investment in Shazam.
Links:
https://www.dncapital.com/
https://www.shazam.com/gb
https://www.gostudent.org/en
https://www.hometogo.com/
https://www.quandoo.com/
https://www.cherry.vc/
https://www.londonstockexchange.com/
https://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/en
https://www.forbes.com/midas/
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
On this episode of Launch Stories, my guest is Stoyan Yankov, productivity and performance coach and co-author of "PERFORM: The Unsexy Truth about (Startup) Success". You’ll learn how having structures in place helps you build momentum, and why as a founder you need to focus not only on your own performance but on the productivity of your team.. You’ll also hear why good planning is like taking a shower, and building positive habits is a key to success.
Links:
https://stoyanyankov.com/
https://gettingthingsdone.com/
Tuesday Mar 08, 2022
Tuesday Mar 08, 2022
On this episode of Launch Stories, Joe De Sena, founder and CEO of Spartan, shares how he created the world’s leading endurance sports brand with a community of over 10 million athletes globally – a business he calls the ‘Louis Vuitton of hard stuff.’ You’ll hear how he moved himself and his family to six countries to oversee Spartan’s global expansion, why Japan was the toughest market to crack, and why he’s happier being called a ‘force of nature’ than ‘warm and fuzzy.”
Tuesday Mar 08, 2022
Tuesday Mar 08, 2022
On this episode of Launch Stories, my guest and fellow Cornellian Joe De Sena ’90 – founder and CEO of Spartan – shares how his path from Ithaca led him to creating the world’s leading endurance sports brand with a community of over 10 million athletes globally. He talks about what coming from a family that didn’t attend college and being accepted to Cornell after this fourth attempt taught him about persistence, how what he learned on campus made him a better entrepreneur and how he has applied these experiences to creating the ‘Louis Vuitton of hard stuff.’
Monday Feb 14, 2022
Monday Feb 14, 2022
On this episode of Launch Stories, I speak to Michael Schuster, Co-founder and Partner at Speedinvest, one of Europe’s most active early-stage venture capital firms with over 600 mil EUR of assets under management. You’ll learn why founders need to balance product and sales to scale quickly, and why a successful investor behaves like a good music producer. You’ll also hear how a venture capital firm can make a positive ‘dent’ in the Universe.
Links:
BitPanda: https://www.bitpanda.com/en
GoStudent: https://www.gostudent.org/en
TIER Mobility: https://www.tier.app/en/
WeFox: https://www.wefox.com/de-ch
Shpok: https://www.shpock.com/en-gb
Wednesday Feb 02, 2022
Wednesday Feb 02, 2022
On this episode of Launch Stories, my guest is serial entrepreneur Matteo Berlucchi, Co-Founder & CEO of Healthily - a medically approved self-care platform that enables people to assess and manage their health with over 2 million users worldwide. You’ll hear why you must create a business with high margins and scalability, and why building a healthcare startup takes more time than you would think. You’ll also learn why you should never compromise on the quality of the people you hire, and why Matteo calls himself the “Chief Anti-Asshole Officer.”
Links:
https://www.livehealthily.com/
https://ec.europa.eu/info/index_en
https://www.amazon.com/Asshole-Rule-Civilized-Workplace-Surviving/dp/1600245854
If you like it, subscribe, leave a review and share it with your friends!
https://www.facebook.com/zvthelaunchcode/
Tuesday Feb 01, 2022
Tuesday Feb 01, 2022
On this episode of Launch Stories, I speak to Jonas de Cooman, Co-founder & CEO of Spott, a marketing platform that helps brands sell more by adding interactivity to videos and images on their digital channels. You’ll hear what Jonas had to ‘unlearn’ after a career at Coca-Cola and Unilever to build a successful global business as an entrepreneur and why he had to develop a ‘bullshit detector’ to make sure he hired the right people. You’ll also hear what pivotal change in sales strategy led to Spott generating 2,000 customers in 90 countries.
Links:
https://polsky.uchicago.edu/programs-events/new-venture-challenge/
If you like it, subscribe, leave a review and share it with your friends!
https://www.facebook.com/zvthelaunchcode/
Monday Nov 22, 2021
Monday Nov 22, 2021
On this episode of Launch Stories, I talk to Ondrej Bartos, co-founder and general partner of Credo Ventures. You’ll hear the ‘behind the scenes’ story of how he joined a $1.6 million seed investment round in Romanian unicorn UIPath. You’ll also learn the key ingredients that eventually led to UIPath’s staggering $35 billion valuation on the New York Stock Exchange, and how the Central European startup ecosystem has evolved since Ondrej’s pioneering role in the early 2000s.
Links:
https://www.credoventures.com/
https://www.accel.com/
If you like it, subscribe, leave a review and share it with your friends!
https://www.facebook.com/zvthelaunchcode/
Monday Nov 08, 2021
Monday Nov 08, 2021
On this episode of L(a)unch Stories, you’ll hear from Agata Kwaśniewska, CEO of the ReaktorX acceleration program and ambassador of Startup Poland. She explains what role an accelerator plays in the startup ecosystem, how ReaktorX helped Polish startups Renderro, Lofty and Hashiona to grow and when founders should start thinking about building a global business.
Links:
https://www.reaktorx.com/
If you like it, subscribe, leave a review and share it with your friends!
https://www.facebook.com/zvthelaunchcode/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoltanvardy/
https://www.instagram.com/zoltanvardy/