Latest / Blockchain Germany – Web3 Startups, Crypto Innovation & Venture Capital by Startuprad.io™ / Xaver Lehmann (e-bot7) on Burnout After a $60M Exit
Transcript
- WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:03.600 If you're chasing the startup dream, here's the part no one 2 00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:06.800 talks about the crash that can come after the big win. 3 00:00:06.880 --> 00:00:10.600 Xava Lehmann built AI startup ebot7 into a 4 00:00:10.600 --> 00:00:14.160 130 person rocket ship and sold a gymnastic 5 00:00:14.160 --> 00:00:18.000 listed live person. But behind the headlights, he was falling 6 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:21.480 apart, grieving, burning out and questioning everything. In 7 00:00:21.480 --> 00:00:25.280 today's episode, we unpack what really happens after the exit, 8 00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:29.140 how Xava found meaning again, and what every 9 00:00:29.140 --> 00:00:32.500 founder needs to hear before scaling the next company. 10 00:00:38.500 --> 00:00:41.540 Welcome to startup Rad IO, 11 00:00:42.100 --> 00:00:45.620 your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German 12 00:00:45.620 --> 00:00:49.140 startup scene with news, interviews and 13 00:00:49.380 --> 00:00:50.580 live events. 14 00:00:53.140 --> 00:00:56.980 Today's guest is a rare voice in the startup world, someone who 15 00:00:56.980 --> 00:01:00.660 has won big and burned out even bigger. Xavier 16 00:01:00.660 --> 00:01:04.460 Lehmann is the co founder and former CEO of Ebol7. By the way, 17 00:01:04.460 --> 00:01:08.260 we have an interview with the co founder that we link here. One 18 00:01:08.260 --> 00:01:11.980 of Europe's fastest growing AI startups, he scaled the company to 19 00:01:11.980 --> 00:01:15.700 130 employees, partnered with major enterprises 20 00:01:15.860 --> 00:01:19.380 and exited to live person, a NASDAQ listed leader 21 00:01:19.540 --> 00:01:23.260 in conversational AI. The company's hybrid AI plus 22 00:01:23.260 --> 00:01:26.680 human agent model pushed the frontier of NLP 23 00:01:26.680 --> 00:01:30.400 driven automation. Xava was recognized by Forbes 24 00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:33.920 30 under 30 Europe and backed by top tier investors. 25 00:01:34.240 --> 00:01:37.760 But the story didn't end there. After the acquisition, he was 26 00:01:37.760 --> 00:01:41.320 forced to lay off much of his team. At the same 27 00:01:41.320 --> 00:01:44.920 time, he lost his mother to cancer. The mental and emotional 28 00:01:44.920 --> 00:01:48.640 toll nearly broke him and made him question everything about startup 29 00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:52.140 success. Today he's rebuilding not a company, but 30 00:01:52.140 --> 00:01:55.420 movement through the honest founder, his fast growing 31 00:01:55.420 --> 00:01:58.860 substack and his work coaching founders. 32 00:01:58.940 --> 00:02:02.460 He's turning pain into perspective and lessons into 33 00:02:02.460 --> 00:02:06.300 leverage. This is a conversation about what happens when the hype 34 00:02:06.300 --> 00:02:09.620 ends and real life begins. It's raw, it's real and 35 00:02:09.620 --> 00:02:13.260 urgently needed in today's startup economy. Xava, welcome to 36 00:02:13.260 --> 00:02:16.700 Startup Radio. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm glad to be here. 37 00:02:17.410 --> 00:02:20.450 That is really an interesting story and 38 00:02:21.090 --> 00:02:24.810 I totally think a lot of people will get a lot out of 39 00:02:24.810 --> 00:02:28.250 that. So let's rewind the tape. What was the 40 00:02:28.250 --> 00:02:31.450 original spark that led to the founding of 41 00:02:31.450 --> 00:02:35.210 ebot7? What did you and your co founders believe about the 42 00:02:35.210 --> 00:02:38.370 world of customer communication that others didn't? 43 00:02:39.490 --> 00:02:43.290 Yeah, good question. I mean, back then, in the days as I was 44 00:02:43.290 --> 00:02:46.690 a child, I wanted to be an investment banker actually. And 45 00:02:47.540 --> 00:02:50.880 so I did an internship in investment banking when I was like 21, 46 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:54.660 22. And I quickly realized that, you 47 00:02:54.660 --> 00:02:58.380 know, it was kind of exciting, it was dynamic. I loved 48 00:02:58.380 --> 00:03:01.860 capital markets because everything is unpredictable, everything is new 49 00:03:01.940 --> 00:03:05.660 every day. But Somehow, like, getting to the 50 00:03:05.660 --> 00:03:09.060 office every day, seeing my bosses, you know, how they 51 00:03:09.220 --> 00:03:12.990 work, how they live, it kind of, you know, 52 00:03:13.310 --> 00:03:17.150 kind of made me question if I want to pursue that dream. You know, 53 00:03:17.550 --> 00:03:21.270 investment banking is something completely different. It's all about numbers. You go 54 00:03:21.270 --> 00:03:24.870 to the office every day. It is dynamic, but also it's kind 55 00:03:24.870 --> 00:03:28.510 of, you know, the same every day. And so what I did after 56 00:03:28.510 --> 00:03:32.310 the internship, I actually studied again because I didn't know exactly what 57 00:03:32.310 --> 00:03:35.950 to do. So I studied finance and Maastricht in the Netherlands. And there 58 00:03:35.950 --> 00:03:39.630 I met my, you know, oldest friend, actually, who I've known for like 59 00:03:39.630 --> 00:03:43.390 15, 16 years. And he coincidentally also 60 00:03:43.390 --> 00:03:47.210 studied Maastricht. And on the way to Kings Day, we had a 61 00:03:47.210 --> 00:03:50.970 conversation about what we want to do, you know, at some point because he 62 00:03:50.970 --> 00:03:54.450 had done internships at Red Bull and Adobe, and I had done some 63 00:03:54.450 --> 00:03:58.290 internships in M and A and investment banking. And then we thought, to 64 00:03:58.290 --> 00:04:01.930 be honest, like, I can't imagine in life working for someone. 65 00:04:02.650 --> 00:04:06.490 I mean, also my parents have been entrepreneurs their whole life, 66 00:04:06.490 --> 00:04:10.170 and somehow I couldn't really imagine working for someone else above 67 00:04:10.170 --> 00:04:13.610 me. And he had the same feeling. And then on the way to Kings Day, 68 00:04:13.610 --> 00:04:16.630 which is kind of the big celebration once a year in the Netherland where they 69 00:04:16.630 --> 00:04:20.390 celebrate the king, we kind of coincidentally, or like 70 00:04:20.390 --> 00:04:23.950 we just went, we scrolled through his Facebook feed and saw 71 00:04:23.950 --> 00:04:27.670 a Facebook developer conference. Really random because we couldn't 72 00:04:27.670 --> 00:04:30.790 code or something. We just coincidentally saw this. And 73 00:04:31.750 --> 00:04:35.110 what they actually said in that conference was actually that you could, 74 00:04:35.350 --> 00:04:39.030 you know, now is the time to actually integrate bots into Facebook 75 00:04:39.110 --> 00:04:42.630 Messenger. So people could, or actually companies could integrate 76 00:04:43.030 --> 00:04:46.840 into Facebook messenger and then reach their clients through. Through Facebook or 77 00:04:46.840 --> 00:04:50.480 WhatsApp. And we found it a really good idea because, you 78 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:54.240 know, everyone knows about the bad, you know, customer service 79 00:04:54.640 --> 00:04:58.280 situations where you stuck in a hotline or wait days for reply for an email. 80 00:04:58.280 --> 00:05:01.840 And we thought. Did you say yes? No, no, no. 81 00:05:02.640 --> 00:05:06.480 Yeah. I mean, honestly, like, like everyone had, had. Has 82 00:05:06.480 --> 00:05:10.000 had like an experience with bad customer service, right? And we just thought, 83 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:13.800 like, if customers can actually reach their clients exactly where 84 00:05:13.800 --> 00:05:16.800 they are, I mean, all of the people are spending time on what. 85 00:05:18.060 --> 00:05:21.900 On all these social media channels, but companies are not present where they actually, 86 00:05:21.980 --> 00:05:25.500 you know, spend most of their time. So that was kind of where we thought, 87 00:05:25.500 --> 00:05:28.460 okay, that might be a good idea actually, to kind of 88 00:05:29.100 --> 00:05:32.940 go to companies, you know, tell them, hey, we have this new 89 00:05:33.100 --> 00:05:36.660 technology where you can actually instantly reach your clients through the 90 00:05:36.660 --> 00:05:40.380 channels they are already using. Instead of opening A new channel or hotline or email. 91 00:05:40.700 --> 00:05:44.550 And that was kind of the initial spark. And to be honest, like, 92 00:05:44.550 --> 00:05:48.310 customer service is just really bad. I 93 00:05:48.310 --> 00:05:52.110 think if you want to change something in departments and companies, it 94 00:05:52.110 --> 00:05:55.590 would have been customer service. Really manual processes, really 95 00:05:55.910 --> 00:05:59.669 recurring questions. Always the same waiting days for 96 00:05:59.669 --> 00:06:03.470 apply for an email getting redirected into the wrong person. I hated 97 00:06:03.470 --> 00:06:07.230 it. And if we can make something better in that kind 98 00:06:07.230 --> 00:06:11.070 of field, we are definitely in for that. And so what we did 99 00:06:11.070 --> 00:06:14.630 is actually we drafted several emails, was like 10 emails, and we 100 00:06:14.630 --> 00:06:18.270 shoot shot them out to different companies like Domino's Pizza in 101 00:06:18.270 --> 00:06:22.070 like bigger companies and smaller companies. And we pretended to have 102 00:06:22.710 --> 00:06:26.390 the technology already and we just said like, hey, we 103 00:06:26.390 --> 00:06:30.030 have this technology. You can create bots. You can link them 104 00:06:30.030 --> 00:06:33.590 and connect them to Facebook messenger and WhatsApp, and you can reach your clients. 105 00:06:33.910 --> 00:06:37.390 And then all of a sudden from these 10 emails, three or four came back 106 00:06:37.390 --> 00:06:40.810 and said like, hey, that's super interesting. And that was kind of the 107 00:06:40.810 --> 00:06:44.570 initial spark that led us to founding the company. Honestly, two days 108 00:06:44.570 --> 00:06:48.330 later. Two days. Well, that's not 109 00:06:48.330 --> 00:06:51.490 a lot for strategic planning. I have to admit. 110 00:06:52.610 --> 00:06:56.250 At the time, conversational AI was still emerging. What 111 00:06:56.250 --> 00:07:00.010 did, like the everyday look back 112 00:07:00.010 --> 00:07:03.770 then for a powered customer support, it 113 00:07:03.770 --> 00:07:07.090 was admittedly the time before LLMs and ChatGPT 114 00:07:07.530 --> 00:07:11.240 was what was broken and how did you fix it? Yeah, I 115 00:07:11.240 --> 00:07:14.840 mean it was back in 2016, so there was no OpenAI, no 116 00:07:14.840 --> 00:07:18.400 ChatGPT, no LLMs in this form. So the technology 117 00:07:18.480 --> 00:07:22.280 was really basic, to be honest. And the thing was customer 118 00:07:22.280 --> 00:07:25.920 support, I always thought like, you know, they have some automation 119 00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:29.760 tools already. They must have, like, if you look at O2 120 00:07:29.760 --> 00:07:33.080 Germany, for example, there's like millions of requests of support 121 00:07:33.080 --> 00:07:36.840 questions coming in every kind of month. So I thought, of course there 122 00:07:36.840 --> 00:07:40.620 must have something. But then once we went into like a 123 00:07:40.620 --> 00:07:44.260 customer support center and looked at how they work, it was 124 00:07:44.260 --> 00:07:47.900 crazy. They, you know, they manually type the answers they 125 00:07:47.900 --> 00:07:51.060 have. You know, sometimes they do copy paste, but then they have to go into 126 00:07:51.060 --> 00:07:54.620 different systems. Then for different questions, they need to go to 127 00:07:54.620 --> 00:07:58.420 different systems and then they needed to copy paste that answer. And in order 128 00:07:58.420 --> 00:08:02.060 to make it work for the client, it was a disaster. So once we 129 00:08:02.380 --> 00:08:05.740 kind of got a feeling of how the current customer support 130 00:08:05.980 --> 00:08:09.300 works, we knew exactly, that's a big pain point. 131 00:08:09.940 --> 00:08:13.700 So we can definitely make something work. And so 132 00:08:13.780 --> 00:08:17.500 the only problem was that AI or the 133 00:08:17.500 --> 00:08:21.300 things that we wanted to build bots were pretty much at the beginning. So 134 00:08:21.300 --> 00:08:24.900 the technology was really early, really not working 135 00:08:24.900 --> 00:08:28.420 well. It Couldn't understand detailed or 136 00:08:28.420 --> 00:08:32.180 complex requests. The only thing that it could do, or at least our 137 00:08:32.180 --> 00:08:35.860 system could do, is actually FAQs. So there was one question from, 138 00:08:36.219 --> 00:08:40.059 from a client and we could deliver the answer. And what we 139 00:08:40.059 --> 00:08:43.899 built because of that, because it could only like not understand 140 00:08:43.979 --> 00:08:47.579 any context in a conversation. It could just do like FAQs. 141 00:08:47.819 --> 00:08:51.619 We kind of build a hybrid solution which means that the 142 00:08:51.619 --> 00:08:55.379 technology is not, you know, automating the whole time, 143 00:08:55.379 --> 00:08:59.099 but it's only automating if a specific threshold is actually met. 144 00:08:59.659 --> 00:09:03.139 So you can set it up yourself. Every company could set it up yourself. You 145 00:09:03.139 --> 00:09:06.939 could say, for example, the system needs to be 95% sure 146 00:09:06.939 --> 00:09:10.000 that this is going to be the right, that answer. And only then it automates. 147 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:13.360 But if not, then what the system does, it provides a 148 00:09:13.360 --> 00:09:17.160 suggestion to the agents so the agent can actually say, hey, that's the 149 00:09:17.160 --> 00:09:20.960 right answer, that's the wrong answer, that this needs to be edited. And 150 00:09:20.960 --> 00:09:24.400 then the system learns over time through the agent's 151 00:09:24.400 --> 00:09:28.240 input, which is, which was back in the days a really, you 152 00:09:28.240 --> 00:09:31.960 know, good system. Because if you work with Deutsche Bahn or BMW 153 00:09:31.960 --> 00:09:35.570 or something, the big brands, they didn't want any wrong answer 154 00:09:35.810 --> 00:09:39.570 sending out to clients, right? And so with our 155 00:09:39.570 --> 00:09:43.370 system, they could go live instantly. And through the 156 00:09:43.370 --> 00:09:47.090 input of the support agents, the system kind of trained itself automatically, 157 00:09:47.330 --> 00:09:51.090 which was kind of quite new at the time. And I think that was also 158 00:09:51.090 --> 00:09:53.810 one of the reasons we were. Reasons we were successful. 159 00:09:56.850 --> 00:10:00.530 Interesting. What 160 00:10:00.530 --> 00:10:04.010 was your, like, one day moment, the 161 00:10:04.010 --> 00:10:07.690 turning point where you knew this 162 00:10:07.690 --> 00:10:11.530 startup was going to scale really fast? I 163 00:10:11.530 --> 00:10:14.850 think there wasn't a specific one moment 164 00:10:15.570 --> 00:10:19.250 where I knew exactly now it's going to be, you know, scaling. It was 165 00:10:19.250 --> 00:10:22.730 more like, I mean, we were just working day and night. We kind of tried 166 00:10:22.730 --> 00:10:25.650 to make it work. And, you know, I think 167 00:10:27.250 --> 00:10:30.650 if you are stuck in a moment, if you're working day and night, you don't 168 00:10:30.650 --> 00:10:34.050 look left or right. You don't even know what's happening. You don't even know like, 169 00:10:34.050 --> 00:10:37.310 that it's actually going in the right direction, you know, 170 00:10:37.790 --> 00:10:40.910 back. If you look at it from like two years 171 00:10:41.390 --> 00:10:45.150 after that and you look back, then you think, okay, crazy what I 172 00:10:45.150 --> 00:10:48.950 kind of achieved. But if you're in the moment, if you're working day 173 00:10:48.950 --> 00:10:52.470 and night for months, for years, you don't even realize if there was a 174 00:10:52.470 --> 00:10:56.070 specific moment or something. But if you want to pin me down on like a 175 00:10:56.070 --> 00:10:59.870 specific moment, it would definitely be, I think, like the Series A. Like once 176 00:10:59.870 --> 00:11:03.350 we kind of got the Series A We got 6.5 million in US 177 00:11:03.350 --> 00:11:07.110 dollar funding. That was the moment where I thought, okay, now we're going to 178 00:11:07.110 --> 00:11:10.650 have and we can spend a lot of money and hire a lot of people. 179 00:11:11.370 --> 00:11:14.690 You know, that was the time where I could relax a little bit and, you 180 00:11:14.690 --> 00:11:18.490 know, kind of go on holiday also for the first time. So I think 181 00:11:18.570 --> 00:11:21.330 that was kind of the moment where I thought, okay, this is going to be 182 00:11:21.330 --> 00:11:24.450 scaling fast now because we can hire a lot of people, we can get a 183 00:11:24.450 --> 00:11:27.610 lot of clients. So probably in 184 00:11:27.610 --> 00:11:31.290 2019 then three years after we founded the company. I was 185 00:11:31.290 --> 00:11:34.570 actually, when I was looking at this question, I was going 186 00:11:34.890 --> 00:11:38.690 for a picture when you standing there in front 187 00:11:38.690 --> 00:11:42.310 of an Excel sheet, seeing all the data and 188 00:11:42.310 --> 00:11:45.270 realizing, I need a new scale because it's going so well. 189 00:11:46.230 --> 00:11:49.830 Yeah, I mean, honestly, like over the whole 190 00:11:49.830 --> 00:11:53.670 years, over the five years, it, it went pretty well. So we had 191 00:11:53.670 --> 00:11:57.150 really good growth rates in the beginning, 200% and then it went back to 192 00:11:57.150 --> 00:12:00.710 150 and 100% because the, you know, the threshold is 193 00:12:00.710 --> 00:12:04.390 higher. But I mean, it was also, 194 00:12:04.630 --> 00:12:08.470 you know, planned in the business plan. So like if investors expect 195 00:12:08.470 --> 00:12:12.290 something and we expect something from our, like, even 196 00:12:12.290 --> 00:12:15.970 if you get a new client and get like 500k in AR, you 197 00:12:15.970 --> 00:12:19.690 kind of expected it to happen. Right. And this is also kind of the, 198 00:12:19.690 --> 00:12:22.930 the bad thing about it because you need to celebrate more and you need to, 199 00:12:23.010 --> 00:12:26.570 you know, once you get a new client, you know, you need to really like 200 00:12:26.570 --> 00:12:29.330 do a big party. And I don't know, but we didn't do that. We just 201 00:12:29.330 --> 00:12:33.010 expected it to come and we just, once the contract came 202 00:12:33.010 --> 00:12:36.690 in, we just, you know, woke up the next day and worked again 203 00:12:36.850 --> 00:12:39.440 like nothing happened before. So 204 00:12:40.320 --> 00:12:43.960 it's. Yeah, that's the thing. I think in hindsight I would 205 00:12:43.960 --> 00:12:47.520 have done it a little bit, you know, different, like 206 00:12:47.520 --> 00:12:51.120 celebrate the small wins even more and do a little party 207 00:12:51.120 --> 00:12:54.760 or like, you know, do something with the team. But we're just like focused on 208 00:12:54.760 --> 00:12:58.480 making this work and making it successful. So any new deal 209 00:12:58.640 --> 00:13:02.320 wasn't, you know, moving the needle for us in the 210 00:13:02.320 --> 00:13:05.520 sense of now it's actually getting super successful. 211 00:13:06.660 --> 00:13:09.940 Let us talk a little bit about the struggle behind the growth 212 00:13:10.420 --> 00:13:14.180 scaling from 130 employees across five countries. 213 00:13:14.660 --> 00:13:18.420 There's really no joke. What were your toughest operational 214 00:13:18.420 --> 00:13:22.260 or leadership challenges as the team grew? Like 215 00:13:22.740 --> 00:13:26.460 30, then 60, then 100. Yeah, 216 00:13:26.460 --> 00:13:29.940 it's a good question because of course it changes over the time. Right. 217 00:13:30.020 --> 00:13:33.780 So I think once you hit like 20 or 30 employees, it's still 218 00:13:33.780 --> 00:13:37.450 super cool. It's really startup vibey. You have. 219 00:13:37.520 --> 00:13:41.280 Have a couple of people that help you in some directions in some ways, 220 00:13:41.280 --> 00:13:45.120 but it's more about creation, right? So you're really like, 221 00:13:45.680 --> 00:13:49.360 you know, you build something new, you break something, and you just try it 222 00:13:49.360 --> 00:13:52.920 all over again. Once you hit, like, I would say 50, 223 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:56.720 60 people, it changes a little bit because that's the time 224 00:13:56.720 --> 00:14:00.240 when you need to delegate, right? You need, you know, to hire people. 225 00:14:00.480 --> 00:14:03.840 You know, in my case, I was actually hiring a CFO 226 00:14:04.220 --> 00:14:07.500 that takes over the. Or took over the whole financial and accounting 227 00:14:07.500 --> 00:14:11.260 processes. And so that's where it changes a 228 00:14:11.260 --> 00:14:14.900 little bit. It was still fun, but it was completely different because you 229 00:14:14.900 --> 00:14:18.140 delegated a lot and it wasn't more. 230 00:14:18.540 --> 00:14:22.140 Much more creative anymore. But once you hit 100 231 00:14:22.140 --> 00:14:25.660 people, like 110, 120, the whole game 232 00:14:25.660 --> 00:14:29.220 changes completely because you're kind of, you're maintaining, you're 233 00:14:29.220 --> 00:14:32.950 managing. You have all these people kind of below you. 234 00:14:33.030 --> 00:14:36.830 You're just doing recurring meetings. You have these, you know, 235 00:14:36.830 --> 00:14:40.390 like, kind of weekly calls. That's where it kind of. 236 00:14:41.990 --> 00:14:45.670 It was still fun, but it was completely different than when I 237 00:14:45.670 --> 00:14:49.310 created the company in the first place. So it was kind of a 238 00:14:49.310 --> 00:14:52.990 development, not in the, in the 239 00:14:52.990 --> 00:14:56.670 best way for me because I thought like, you know, I'm not the perfect 240 00:14:56.670 --> 00:14:59.790 manager. I'm a startup founder. I want to be creative. I want to, you know, 241 00:14:59.790 --> 00:15:03.410 break things. And once you hit 100 people, you can't 242 00:15:03.410 --> 00:15:07.250 break things anymore at that level. And you can't be so creative anymore because you 243 00:15:07.250 --> 00:15:11.010 put everything in the hands of your people. But what you get is the 244 00:15:11.010 --> 00:15:14.570 worst problems on earth. Like if your team 245 00:15:14.890 --> 00:15:18.730 can't handle a specific problem, then it lands at your desk. 246 00:15:18.730 --> 00:15:22.410 And it's most likely the worst problems, like the biggest 247 00:15:22.410 --> 00:15:26.090 customer threatens to leave, or the best employees 248 00:15:26.250 --> 00:15:30.010 threatens to leave, or like big salary 249 00:15:30.250 --> 00:15:33.710 negotiations or like, you know, you just 250 00:15:33.790 --> 00:15:37.150 handle and solve big pain points, big problems, 251 00:15:37.630 --> 00:15:41.430 which you need to like. I didn't like it as much as 252 00:15:41.430 --> 00:15:43.870 like building the company from the ground up, to be honest. 253 00:15:45.310 --> 00:15:48.990 I actually know how you feel. It's when you get from a founder to 254 00:15:48.990 --> 00:15:52.790 manager, right? Exactly. Yeah. That's 255 00:15:52.790 --> 00:15:56.550 a big transition, to be honest. And I haven't. Hadn't 256 00:15:56.550 --> 00:15:59.790 planned really with that transition because I've never done it before. 257 00:16:00.340 --> 00:16:03.300 But it's a completely different life, completely different, you know, 258 00:16:03.940 --> 00:16:07.780 kind of working environment. And you also need different kind of people. 259 00:16:07.860 --> 00:16:11.340 Right in the beginning you need like, people that are trying things out, being 260 00:16:11.340 --> 00:16:14.620 creative and stuff like that, and break things and at some point you need kind 261 00:16:14.620 --> 00:16:18.460 of managers, you need people that have, you know, done it before, have done 262 00:16:18.460 --> 00:16:22.260 it perhaps like for the last 10 years, 15 years already. You need experience, you 263 00:16:22.260 --> 00:16:25.780 need skills. It's not only about so much 264 00:16:25.780 --> 00:16:29.380 mindset or attitude anymore. It's more about skills and experience. And that 265 00:16:29.380 --> 00:16:33.070 changes a lot. I think personal opinion, before we get into the next 266 00:16:33.070 --> 00:16:36.630 question, I do believe entrepreneur is part of your 267 00:16:36.630 --> 00:16:40.430 personality. That's what you enjoy. But if you turn into 268 00:16:40.430 --> 00:16:43.990 a manager, then personal feeling, it's 269 00:16:44.310 --> 00:16:48.030 best if you have seen this. If you worked in a corporate environment, if 270 00:16:48.030 --> 00:16:51.670 you've done some jobs there, then the transition can go 271 00:16:51.670 --> 00:16:55.470 smooth. You've raised venture 272 00:16:55.470 --> 00:16:59.120 capital, signed enterprise customers, and scale tech 273 00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:02.400 across borders. What was the first big 274 00:17:02.400 --> 00:17:05.880 pivot you had to make and what did it 275 00:17:05.960 --> 00:17:09.720 teach you about your assumptions in product market 276 00:17:09.720 --> 00:17:13.280 fit? So when we founded a company, we 277 00:17:13.280 --> 00:17:17.120 didn't know exactly if we wanted to actually build a product around it. So 278 00:17:17.120 --> 00:17:20.840 what we set up the company for was actually an agency kind of 279 00:17:21.400 --> 00:17:25.080 system. So we just wanted to be the middleman in 280 00:17:25.080 --> 00:17:28.700 between companies that wanted to connect and 281 00:17:28.700 --> 00:17:32.540 build bots or integrate bots and developers who could actually build 282 00:17:32.540 --> 00:17:36.340 bots. So we just wanted to pay, you know, get a commission and, you know, 283 00:17:36.340 --> 00:17:39.540 to connect them, and then we're out of the game. But then at some point 284 00:17:39.540 --> 00:17:43.340 we thought like, okay, we actually need to kind of create our own 285 00:17:43.340 --> 00:17:47.140 product, because AI is much more difficult to scale 286 00:17:47.140 --> 00:17:50.860 and much more difficult to build. It's not like a setup system where 287 00:17:50.860 --> 00:17:54.140 you can, like a website. You build a website for three weeks, it's finished, you 288 00:17:54.140 --> 00:17:57.970 hand it over to a client and then it's done. With AI, with chatbots, it 289 00:17:57.970 --> 00:18:01.650 was more like a continuous process which you needed to optimize. 290 00:18:01.650 --> 00:18:05.290 You know, every time something broke, every time some, some wrong 291 00:18:05.290 --> 00:18:09.130 answer got out and stuff like that. So the agency problem or 292 00:18:09.130 --> 00:18:12.770 the agency company kind of concept didn't really work. So what we did, 293 00:18:13.090 --> 00:18:16.930 because we didn't have a developer yet, we didn't have a CTO yet, we 294 00:18:16.930 --> 00:18:20.690 kind of transformed it into a consulting company where we did 295 00:18:20.690 --> 00:18:23.650 monthly workshops in different cities across Europe 296 00:18:24.440 --> 00:18:28.040 just to get insights on how customer support actually works. So they 297 00:18:28.040 --> 00:18:31.800 paid for their tickets to spend a day with us talking about AI. 298 00:18:31.880 --> 00:18:35.600 And for us, it was really valuable because we could get their feedback in 299 00:18:35.600 --> 00:18:39.160 order to build a product that's actually worthwhile. So in the 300 00:18:39.160 --> 00:18:42.800 meantime, we hired a CTO who was then also one of our co 301 00:18:42.800 --> 00:18:46.520 founders, and we kind of built a product. So from that point in 302 00:18:46.520 --> 00:18:49.480 time, it was Clear. We wanted to build something in customer support, 303 00:18:51.130 --> 00:18:54.890 but we also had some shift sometimes. You know, at some point, we wanted 304 00:18:54.890 --> 00:18:58.650 to build something in E commerce because we thought it's a better, you know, 305 00:18:58.650 --> 00:19:02.330 kind of vertical. We didn't want to spend too much time in customer support 306 00:19:02.410 --> 00:19:06.090 centers. But, like, at the end of the day, we knew 307 00:19:06.090 --> 00:19:09.850 customer support is the biggest pain point, so we actually went for customer support at 308 00:19:09.850 --> 00:19:13.570 the end. But it taught me that, you know, when you start a 309 00:19:13.570 --> 00:19:17.290 company, it's not only about the first idea that's going to 310 00:19:17.290 --> 00:19:21.050 be successful. You will change it a lot of times, and probably you have 311 00:19:21.050 --> 00:19:24.470 to change it over time because you get more knowledge, you get more, you know, 312 00:19:24.470 --> 00:19:28.110 people that actually test your product, and you will kind 313 00:19:28.110 --> 00:19:31.950 of change it in different directions more than you think 314 00:19:31.950 --> 00:19:35.390 and more than you want to. But it's a good process. It's. It's good actually 315 00:19:35.390 --> 00:19:38.950 for the company. I think if you turn around a little bit and, like, adjust 316 00:19:38.950 --> 00:19:42.630 it on different ends. So for me, it taught me, like, 317 00:19:42.630 --> 00:19:45.990 you know, it's actually good to pivot. I think you should 318 00:19:45.990 --> 00:19:49.790 pivot if you feel like it's. It's worthwhile and gives you 319 00:19:49.790 --> 00:19:53.500 a better direction. And we've done it a couple of times and was really successful. 320 00:19:53.570 --> 00:19:54.450 Successful at the end. 321 00:19:58.530 --> 00:20:02.090 I was. I was wondering, when you 322 00:20:02.090 --> 00:20:05.250 scale that rapidly, if you promise that to investors, 323 00:20:05.810 --> 00:20:09.170 you get some. You get some pressure to scale 324 00:20:09.170 --> 00:20:13.010 rapidly. The faster, the better. How did 325 00:20:13.010 --> 00:20:16.050 this affect you personally as founder and human being? 326 00:20:16.850 --> 00:20:20.650 Was there something like a moment where you felt the 327 00:20:20.650 --> 00:20:24.450 warning signs of a burnout creeping in? I 328 00:20:24.450 --> 00:20:28.090 mean, so the thing is, the first three years we've 329 00:20:28.090 --> 00:20:31.730 worked day and night, to be honest, like, every day, every weekend, 330 00:20:31.730 --> 00:20:35.210 every birthday, you know, every kind of family event. 331 00:20:35.610 --> 00:20:39.050 So we didn't have one time off. But then at some point, after three years, 332 00:20:39.130 --> 00:20:42.890 you know, my body was pretty, pretty bad. So, like, 333 00:20:42.890 --> 00:20:45.930 my kind of. My parents forced me to go on holiday, 334 00:20:46.700 --> 00:20:49.820 and that was the first sign where I thought, okay, 335 00:20:51.020 --> 00:20:54.620 because on holiday I didn't recover. And that is always 336 00:20:54.620 --> 00:20:58.340 a bad sign. Once you go on holiday and you feel like it's actually 337 00:20:58.340 --> 00:21:02.020 getting worse than better, that was kind of the first sign that I needed to 338 00:21:02.020 --> 00:21:05.780 change something. So once I came back, I felt a little bit better. But 339 00:21:05.780 --> 00:21:09.260 I thought. I talked to my co founders and said, hey, I can't do that 340 00:21:09.260 --> 00:21:11.820 anymore. Let's, you know, try to, 341 00:21:13.360 --> 00:21:17.080 you know, break, like, do the weekends off. I can't do it on Saturday, on 342 00:21:17.080 --> 00:21:20.840 Sunday, every week. You know, let's also put in some holidays. For 343 00:21:20.840 --> 00:21:24.000 the next couple of months. And that was the first kind of 344 00:21:24.320 --> 00:21:27.999 change that I did in the company. And 345 00:21:27.999 --> 00:21:31.800 then we kept on working. We did some holidays, we did some take, you 346 00:21:31.800 --> 00:21:34.560 know, some time off on the weekends and was much better. 347 00:21:35.360 --> 00:21:39.010 And then it kind of hit me when we were 348 00:21:39.010 --> 00:21:42.690 actually doing our CSB. So we wanted to raise capital 349 00:21:42.850 --> 00:21:46.530 around US$30 million. And we had done a fundraising 350 00:21:46.530 --> 00:21:50.250 process for a couple of months already. And at the end, we found an investor 351 00:21:50.250 --> 00:21:54.089 who wanted to invest 30 million from the US but then at the same 352 00:21:54.089 --> 00:21:57.930 time, an offer from Life Person, the company that had 353 00:21:57.930 --> 00:22:01.650 bought us at the end, came in. And so we had to decide 354 00:22:01.810 --> 00:22:05.370 what to do now, right? And, you know, at the end of the day, we 355 00:22:05.370 --> 00:22:08.940 had a gut feeling that kind of selling the company was actually a much 356 00:22:08.940 --> 00:22:12.740 better decision than staying and getting that funding in. 357 00:22:14.820 --> 00:22:18.220 And so for a couple of months, we were super 358 00:22:18.220 --> 00:22:21.220 uncertain what to do. And at the end of the day, we kind of 359 00:22:21.460 --> 00:22:25.220 declined the investor. And the investor was gone then, of course, because the 360 00:22:25.220 --> 00:22:28.500 investor didn't want to wait for weeks and months until we decide. 361 00:22:28.980 --> 00:22:32.820 So this investor, who we found after a couple of months was gone. 362 00:22:33.370 --> 00:22:37.170 And so we put everything at stake to make that M and A 363 00:22:37.170 --> 00:22:40.730 happen, to actually sell the company. But of course, we needed money. 364 00:22:40.730 --> 00:22:43.930 That's why we wanted to fundraise in the first place. So it took longer. 365 00:22:44.330 --> 00:22:48.050 And the problem was that we needed extra funding in order to make that M 366 00:22:48.050 --> 00:22:51.810 and A process happen, right? So it was a really uncertain kind 367 00:22:51.810 --> 00:22:55.570 of time because we also needed to come to our old investor and 368 00:22:55.570 --> 00:22:59.050 say, hey, we want to sell the company. But our investors said, like, why do 369 00:22:59.050 --> 00:23:01.970 we actually want to sell the company? So we had kind of an internal conflict. 370 00:23:01.970 --> 00:23:05.810 Our investors wanted to keep moving. We wanted to sell a company. And so 371 00:23:05.810 --> 00:23:09.410 our investors didn't want to really, like, you know, support us, help us in, like, 372 00:23:09.410 --> 00:23:13.170 selling the company. And so it was a little bit of a struggle, but at 373 00:23:13.170 --> 00:23:16.810 the end of the day, they, you know, pushed in some money so we could 374 00:23:16.810 --> 00:23:19.530 actually do the M A. But 375 00:23:20.090 --> 00:23:23.610 honestly, every day we felt like the 376 00:23:23.610 --> 00:23:27.250 acquirer, the potential requirer, he could always, you 377 00:23:27.250 --> 00:23:30.330 know, go, you know, retract from. From kind of 378 00:23:30.810 --> 00:23:34.610 buying us and like, you know, we would have been bankrupt within 379 00:23:34.610 --> 00:23:38.270 a couple of if, if. If they had done it. So having 380 00:23:38.270 --> 00:23:41.750 this uncertainty for months, and then in parallel, my mother 381 00:23:41.830 --> 00:23:45.110 got sick and got worse and worse by the week, and I had to kind 382 00:23:45.110 --> 00:23:48.870 of, you know, kind of take care of her too. And all of this 383 00:23:48.870 --> 00:23:52.630 happened in kind of the same months. And weeks in the same 384 00:23:52.630 --> 00:23:56.430 time. And then my mother died. And like, you know, there 385 00:23:56.430 --> 00:24:00.070 was some time where kind of the life person actually 386 00:24:00.070 --> 00:24:03.390 wanted to get out of the deal and then they went in again. So it 387 00:24:03.390 --> 00:24:06.670 was, was always a back and forth and we almost lost the whole company 388 00:24:07.310 --> 00:24:11.070 having to fire 130 employees at the end of the 389 00:24:11.070 --> 00:24:14.870 day. We were lucky and, and it happened. We actually reached the point where 390 00:24:14.870 --> 00:24:18.590 we went to the notary, but I was completely burned out. Like I was 391 00:24:18.590 --> 00:24:22.270 completely done after, you know, six, seven, eight 392 00:24:22.270 --> 00:24:26.110 months of, you know, fundraising and a process taking care of my mother. 393 00:24:26.670 --> 00:24:30.270 And so after that, after we sold the company, I was just 394 00:24:30.270 --> 00:24:34.030 completely, you know, destroyed. I couldn't like sleep 395 00:24:34.030 --> 00:24:37.750 anymore, I couldn't work anymore, I couldn't read 396 00:24:37.750 --> 00:24:40.230 any books anymore. I was completely destroyed. And 397 00:24:41.430 --> 00:24:44.830 it took ages until I got better. So that was kind of the 398 00:24:44.830 --> 00:24:48.550 burnout, you know, situation. It took me a couple of months to actually feel 399 00:24:48.550 --> 00:24:51.670 better and be able to work in and to work again. 400 00:24:54.390 --> 00:24:57.750 What no one saw was that during the four year of our 401 00:24:57.750 --> 00:25:01.600 acquisition, I was also watching my mother die. That's 402 00:25:01.600 --> 00:25:05.200 not a headline, but that's a real story. You actually wrote very 403 00:25:05.200 --> 00:25:08.640 powerful about losing your mother during the exit and hitting burnout post 404 00:25:08.640 --> 00:25:12.480 acquisition for board members. You'll take us behind the scenes. 405 00:25:12.720 --> 00:25:16.160 What you hid publicly and how did that 406 00:25:16.240 --> 00:25:18.160 disconnect shape your recovery? 407 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:23.680 I actually know the feeling. It's kind of like all 408 00:25:23.680 --> 00:25:27.400 your energy get drained out when you see somebody getting worse and worse and worse. 409 00:25:27.400 --> 00:25:31.220 Right? Yeah, exactly. It was horrible. To be 410 00:25:31.220 --> 00:25:34.580 honest, it was the worst time in my life because it was almost like 411 00:25:35.060 --> 00:25:38.780 losing like not only my mother, but also the company that 412 00:25:38.780 --> 00:25:41.780 I've been building up for five years. It was also kind of my baby that 413 00:25:41.780 --> 00:25:45.460 I sold. Like it was just horrible, the whole process 414 00:25:45.460 --> 00:25:49.220 and also having this uncertainty around my mother, but also around the company 415 00:25:49.220 --> 00:25:52.780 that it might not happen. And at some point, you know, it felt like it 416 00:25:52.780 --> 00:25:56.490 didn't happen and like they we kind of needed to kind of 417 00:25:56.490 --> 00:25:59.530 decline the deal at some point. But then they came back after a week, but 418 00:25:59.530 --> 00:26:03.250 we didn't know that. So it was an, you know, honestly it 419 00:26:03.250 --> 00:26:07.050 was back and forth, but we were pretty open like with how we 420 00:26:07.050 --> 00:26:10.530 were feeling. I was super open with my co founders, how I'm feeling, how, 421 00:26:10.770 --> 00:26:14.490 you know, the thing is I couldn't really take a time off when my 422 00:26:14.490 --> 00:26:18.290 mother died. So I jumped straight into lawyers calls and 423 00:26:18.290 --> 00:26:22.010 stuff like that. So it wasn't like I could, could some could do some 424 00:26:22.010 --> 00:26:25.250 time off or like I could Recover a little bit. It was in the midst 425 00:26:25.250 --> 00:26:28.530 of. And the M and A process. I couldn't just, like, leave for two or 426 00:26:28.530 --> 00:26:32.170 three weeks. It was crazy. And I'm pretty 427 00:26:32.170 --> 00:26:35.930 open about it because I think that's part of who, you know, 428 00:26:35.930 --> 00:26:39.650 who. Who I am and, like, part of the entrepreneurial journey. Right. 429 00:26:39.890 --> 00:26:43.690 It's not only about the highs and the best things that happen and the good 430 00:26:43.690 --> 00:26:47.010 things and, you know, it's also about the bad things that can happen. And, 431 00:26:47.470 --> 00:26:51.110 like, for me, it's also kind of a relief to talk 432 00:26:51.110 --> 00:26:54.910 about it. The more you talk about it, the more you write it down. 433 00:26:54.910 --> 00:26:58.590 That's why I also started the newsletter. The more, 434 00:26:58.670 --> 00:27:02.190 you know, kind of I can also hear from it. So 435 00:27:02.190 --> 00:27:05.870 I'm. That's why I'm pretty open with it. I'm super happy to talk about 436 00:27:05.870 --> 00:27:09.150 it, and I've been that, you know, 437 00:27:09.550 --> 00:27:12.430 so open from the beginning on, and I think it's a good thing. 438 00:27:15.420 --> 00:27:18.700 Next question would actually be to ask you how you felt 439 00:27:19.340 --> 00:27:22.300 after the exit. But I think we already talked about it. 440 00:27:23.180 --> 00:27:26.860 You've once said that the burnout didn't start after the exit. 441 00:27:26.860 --> 00:27:30.540 It started long before. What were signs you 442 00:27:30.540 --> 00:27:34.220 ignored? What can you give others, other founders, 443 00:27:34.220 --> 00:27:37.820 as a warning system? And what should founders watch for 444 00:27:37.820 --> 00:27:41.350 before it's already too late? Yeah, it's a very good question. 445 00:27:41.510 --> 00:27:45.350 And I've been thinking about this a lot, and my 446 00:27:45.350 --> 00:27:49.110 essence, or my kind of resume is actually that it's not about 447 00:27:49.670 --> 00:27:53.270 the hard and long hours that you work it. That's. 448 00:27:53.430 --> 00:27:56.630 That's not the reason why I got burnout. Burnout you get 449 00:27:57.110 --> 00:28:00.750 once you do something for a long period of time, which you actually 450 00:28:00.750 --> 00:28:04.590 don't like to do. Right. Which is completely against your will, against 451 00:28:04.590 --> 00:28:07.570 your values, against everything you actually stand for. 452 00:28:08.130 --> 00:28:11.770 So for me, that was the M and A process. So that's where it actually 453 00:28:11.770 --> 00:28:15.530 started. I had some burnout symptoms before, too, but 454 00:28:15.530 --> 00:28:19.130 I always could actually recover by making holidays, by, you 455 00:28:19.130 --> 00:28:22.930 know, you know, kind of doing sport and meeting friends and stuff like that. 456 00:28:23.090 --> 00:28:26.770 I was never, you know, kind of, you know, in that 457 00:28:26.770 --> 00:28:30.570 kind of feeling that, oh, I might get burnout now and I need to really 458 00:28:30.570 --> 00:28:34.330 stop. It was actually only when, you know, 459 00:28:34.330 --> 00:28:38.090 the whole fundraising process turned into an M and 460 00:28:38.090 --> 00:28:41.810 A process. My mother on, you know, in parallel. That's 461 00:28:41.810 --> 00:28:44.770 where, you know, the burnout signs actually started. And, 462 00:28:45.490 --> 00:28:48.210 you know, this. The signs are like, you know, 463 00:28:49.090 --> 00:28:52.770 for me, it was like doing something of a month. Like, 464 00:28:52.770 --> 00:28:56.450 anyone who has done a fundraising round knows what I'm 465 00:28:56.450 --> 00:29:00.220 talking about. It's not nice. Like you're talking to a hundred 466 00:29:00.540 --> 00:29:04.060 investors, you always asked or you know, 467 00:29:04.140 --> 00:29:07.820 reply to the same questions. It's always about negative things. Why you. 468 00:29:07.980 --> 00:29:11.780 And look at this competition. And you know, then it's about term sheets and 469 00:29:11.780 --> 00:29:15.540 contracts and it's always about negative things. And also during the M and A 470 00:29:15.540 --> 00:29:19.380 process, it's always about, you know, how can the buyer protect itself from, 471 00:29:19.380 --> 00:29:22.700 like if something happens, how can we protect ourselves? And something bad 472 00:29:22.700 --> 00:29:26.440 happens. You know, it's always about, you know, protection, about 473 00:29:26.440 --> 00:29:30.000 bad things that could happen, about worst case scenarios. So that's, 474 00:29:30.320 --> 00:29:34.080 and if you do that over like nine months or so and 475 00:29:34.080 --> 00:29:37.800 you don't, you're not creative, you're not working on your startup, you're just 476 00:29:37.800 --> 00:29:41.560 purely in these processes, talking to lawyers the whole time, talking to investors 477 00:29:41.560 --> 00:29:45.200 the whole time, you get, you know, really drained from these 478 00:29:45.200 --> 00:29:48.880 conversations and from these processes. So at some point, you 479 00:29:48.880 --> 00:29:52.520 know, I just thought, like, I'm, I'm just a machine. Like I'm, I'm, 480 00:29:52.520 --> 00:29:55.710 I don't live anymore. I just, I'm just running these 481 00:29:55.710 --> 00:29:59.110 processes. On, on the other hand, I had to take care with my mother. 482 00:29:59.510 --> 00:30:03.070 It was horrible. Like it's, you know, and, and the 483 00:30:03.070 --> 00:30:06.390 signs are like, you feel like a machine. You don't recover anymore. You, 484 00:30:06.630 --> 00:30:09.750 you're super drained. You wake up and you have this like 485 00:30:10.070 --> 00:30:13.870 clouds in front of your eyes and you can, you, you can't 486 00:30:13.870 --> 00:30:16.950 breathe. And I had heart problems during that time. I had, 487 00:30:17.670 --> 00:30:21.150 you know, like headaches all the time, but really strong 488 00:30:21.150 --> 00:30:24.810 headaches, which I've never had before. And I had them for months, like 489 00:30:24.810 --> 00:30:28.530 every day for months. So that was pretty, pretty bad. And 490 00:30:28.610 --> 00:30:32.410 so that was the time where I thought, okay, this is definitely going 491 00:30:32.410 --> 00:30:35.730 in the wrong direction. But I couldn't stop. I couldn't just leave the process and 492 00:30:35.730 --> 00:30:39.530 leave everyone behind. I was too much driven. I 493 00:30:39.530 --> 00:30:42.850 wanted to actually then, you know, make it successful and sell the company at some 494 00:30:42.850 --> 00:30:46.530 point. So I couldn't stop, even though I 495 00:30:47.410 --> 00:30:51.010 needed to. But 496 00:30:51.090 --> 00:30:54.770 going a little bit down the road, you once stepped 497 00:30:54.770 --> 00:30:58.130 away from the second company that he founded. 498 00:30:58.450 --> 00:31:01.810 What was your first real step toward 499 00:31:01.890 --> 00:31:05.570 healing and clarity and what began to 500 00:31:05.570 --> 00:31:09.170 change? Yeah, so after the first company, after I 501 00:31:09.170 --> 00:31:12.610 sold it, we were in that company for another two years because of 502 00:31:12.610 --> 00:31:16.210 Arnold and because, you know, they of course wanted to stay. Even though we were 503 00:31:16.210 --> 00:31:19.980 pretty bad in terms of energy levels, we kind 504 00:31:19.980 --> 00:31:23.540 of kept on being in the company. And after two years we felt actually a 505 00:31:23.540 --> 00:31:27.380 lot better. And we thought, what about now? You know, what can we do now. 506 00:31:27.460 --> 00:31:31.220 And we thought like, perhaps we feel better 507 00:31:31.220 --> 00:31:34.740 by, you know, founding the next company just because 508 00:31:35.060 --> 00:31:38.660 we wanted to go somewhere. Like, you know, perhaps that's kind of a way 509 00:31:38.660 --> 00:31:42.420 to heal ourselves. And we kind of were a lot better already 510 00:31:42.810 --> 00:31:46.290 after two years. So we founded the next company which was called 511 00:31:46.290 --> 00:31:49.930 Vidlab 7. And the thing was, we did exactly the same. 512 00:31:49.930 --> 00:31:53.730 We hired people, we built up the product, we got investors 513 00:31:53.730 --> 00:31:57.530 on board like eqt, so really strong company 514 00:31:57.530 --> 00:32:01.130 again. And we did everything from scratch again, kind of similar 515 00:32:01.130 --> 00:32:04.850 playbook than we had in the first company. But then, you 516 00:32:04.850 --> 00:32:08.650 know, during that time my body just really kind of 517 00:32:09.490 --> 00:32:13.290 told me to stop. Like I had headaches again, I had burnout symptoms 518 00:32:13.290 --> 00:32:17.090 again. I was really in a horrible place at some point. And after 519 00:32:17.090 --> 00:32:20.690 round about a year, I just needed to leave. I gave everything 520 00:32:20.690 --> 00:32:24.130 back and I just needed to drop out and do something 521 00:32:24.130 --> 00:32:27.730 completely different because my brain, my, my, my body, 522 00:32:27.810 --> 00:32:31.490 my, my mind was just telling me to stop and not do this any 523 00:32:31.490 --> 00:32:35.090 day further. So it was a tough decision. I talked to my co 524 00:32:35.090 --> 00:32:38.530 founder, I talked to my investors and, and it was really hard to actually make 525 00:32:38.530 --> 00:32:42.090 that decision. But at some point, you know, I just couldn't do it anymore. And 526 00:32:42.090 --> 00:32:45.930 it was the best decision that I've ever taken, to be honest. And 527 00:32:46.410 --> 00:32:50.010 then I went to Africa. I spent a couple of months in 528 00:32:50.010 --> 00:32:53.850 Africa doing social work. So I'm. I support 529 00:32:54.250 --> 00:32:58.010 an organization called Amos where we support animals 530 00:32:58.010 --> 00:33:01.570 in the field and we build fences and so to protect them from 531 00:33:01.570 --> 00:33:05.410 poaching. And then there's other social projects in Cape Town that I support. 532 00:33:06.050 --> 00:33:09.890 So we visited some kindergartens and disability homes which I 533 00:33:09.890 --> 00:33:13.650 support now. So that kind of, you know, 534 00:33:13.890 --> 00:33:17.690 was an eye opener for me because I've, you know, I 535 00:33:17.690 --> 00:33:21.370 was just all of a sudden with people that have nothing, but they were 536 00:33:21.370 --> 00:33:24.610 super happy. And I always thought like, you know, being 537 00:33:24.610 --> 00:33:28.210 successful, having money, being wealthy is like the way to go 538 00:33:28.210 --> 00:33:31.740 and be, you know, to be happy. But then I thought, saw all these 539 00:33:32.620 --> 00:33:36.220 people that had literally nothing. They were living in a shed, like in, 540 00:33:36.300 --> 00:33:40.140 you know, like, like, you know, a tree house or something. Like it 541 00:33:40.140 --> 00:33:43.420 was crazy. And they were super happy, super friendly, super open. 542 00:33:43.820 --> 00:33:47.580 And so that's where kind of my mindset shifted. So I came back from 543 00:33:47.580 --> 00:33:50.700 Africa and then I thought, okay, what could I actually do to 544 00:33:51.340 --> 00:33:55.140 help also people, right? Like not only do something for myself, but also 545 00:33:55.140 --> 00:33:58.320 do something to contribute to the society, to help Hope, 546 00:33:58.720 --> 00:34:02.440 you know, someone actually built something because I have done it 547 00:34:02.440 --> 00:34:06.000 over 10 years. I know how to build A company. I know how to get 548 00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:09.520 investors. And that's where kind of I thought, okay, how about I write a book? 549 00:34:09.760 --> 00:34:13.480 That was kind of my initial idea, but writing a book takes you like one 550 00:34:13.480 --> 00:34:16.480 and a half or two years, and you need to really be motivated to sit 551 00:34:16.480 --> 00:34:20.080 down every day and write a book. You know, 300, 400 552 00:34:20.080 --> 00:34:23.880 pages, even more. And I thought, like, how about, you know, just 553 00:34:23.880 --> 00:34:27.640 sharing quick and small stories every week? Because through that I can 554 00:34:27.640 --> 00:34:31.470 reach more people earlier, but also I can get feedback on 555 00:34:31.470 --> 00:34:35.270 the stories really early, and then at the end, I can actually write 556 00:34:35.270 --> 00:34:39.110 a book about it. Right. And so that's how I started Substack and from 557 00:34:39.110 --> 00:34:42.510 Substack, which is a newsletter where I reach a lot of founders and 558 00:34:42.510 --> 00:34:46.190 CEOs, kind of coaching evolved. So 559 00:34:46.190 --> 00:34:49.710 people would ask me, like, hey, you've done it already a couple of times. You've 560 00:34:49.710 --> 00:34:53.510 scaled companies. You sold your company for 60 million. Could you actually help 561 00:34:53.510 --> 00:34:56.630 me in the M and A process? Could you help me in fundraising? Could you 562 00:34:56.630 --> 00:34:59.990 help me in go to market? So that's when I started to actually consult companies 563 00:34:59.990 --> 00:35:03.700 and then consult founders and actually, you know, making these 564 00:35:03.780 --> 00:35:07.380 transitions or these challenges happen. And from 565 00:35:07.380 --> 00:35:11.100 that, I thought it's nice to help people one on 566 00:35:11.100 --> 00:35:14.900 one. But how about I create products that can actually help a thousand or 567 00:35:14.900 --> 00:35:18.740 million people straight away? So now what I'm doing is actually building 568 00:35:19.140 --> 00:35:22.580 products like frameworks and digital courses, like a 569 00:35:22.580 --> 00:35:26.220 fundraising course to actually help people at scale. And that's what 570 00:35:26.220 --> 00:35:29.800 I'm currently doing. And I'm super happy by, you know, doing that. And 571 00:35:29.800 --> 00:35:33.320 it's been a relief. And, you know, like, 572 00:35:33.480 --> 00:35:37.080 I just want to don't go back anymore into like building a B2B 573 00:35:37.080 --> 00:35:39.960 AI company. It's just not anymore for me. 574 00:35:41.640 --> 00:35:45.480 Many founders talk about reflection, but few were 575 00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:49.160 built as publicly as you did. Why did you choose 576 00:35:49.160 --> 00:35:52.680 to create the actually a newsletter? 577 00:35:53.000 --> 00:35:56.570 And did it help help your own recovery? 578 00:35:57.930 --> 00:36:01.170 Yeah, I mean, it links to the things a little bit that I said, like, 579 00:36:01.170 --> 00:36:04.650 I mean, of course, like, my goal was actually to write a book 580 00:36:04.650 --> 00:36:08.490 because you could put down your thoughts and you can think about 581 00:36:08.490 --> 00:36:11.930 them a couple of weeks and months and you can write down your story and. 582 00:36:12.090 --> 00:36:15.450 But the problem is with a book, you take ages until you write a book, 583 00:36:15.450 --> 00:36:18.890 and it doesn't really like you. You could create. 584 00:36:19.050 --> 00:36:22.450 You create value at the end once you kind of publish the book, but you 585 00:36:22.450 --> 00:36:25.710 can't create value during the process. 586 00:36:26.670 --> 00:36:30.470 So. And all of a sudden substack came up. I think a 587 00:36:30.470 --> 00:36:34.190 friend of mine told me, and I Looked at Substack and what's good about Substack 588 00:36:34.190 --> 00:36:37.790 or in general newsletters is actually that you can just share 589 00:36:37.790 --> 00:36:41.550 tiny stories every week and reach a lot of people. And 590 00:36:41.550 --> 00:36:45.230 that in connection with my LinkedIn where I had already like 15, 000 591 00:36:45.310 --> 00:36:48.910 followers, I could, you know, kind of link all of these 592 00:36:48.910 --> 00:36:52.600 together to actually get a lot of following and then, you know, help a lot 593 00:36:52.600 --> 00:36:56.120 of people through that. So I didn't need to start at zero. I started at 594 00:36:56.120 --> 00:36:59.880 already, you know, quite a, quite a good following. So I just needed 595 00:36:59.880 --> 00:37:03.440 to kind of, you know, tell everyone that I'm 596 00:37:03.440 --> 00:37:07.280 actually, you know, helping them through a newsletter and at the end then 597 00:37:07.280 --> 00:37:10.560 through coaching. And that's why I started all of this. Yeah, 598 00:37:12.080 --> 00:37:15.440 I see that actually. Very interesting choice. 599 00:37:16.720 --> 00:37:20.300 I was wondering for our audience, what was this one success 600 00:37:20.540 --> 00:37:24.300 moment that nearly broke you? Feel free to share it with us 601 00:37:24.300 --> 00:37:27.940 and tag us on X or LinkedIn. Guys, 602 00:37:27.940 --> 00:37:31.380 we will be back after short ad break where Xava 603 00:37:31.380 --> 00:37:35.180 reveals the playbook shift that made him a better coach, 604 00:37:35.180 --> 00:37:36.780 better founder, and a better human. 605 00:37:42.140 --> 00:37:45.660 Hey guys, welcome to our 606 00:37:46.310 --> 00:37:49.350 part of the interview with Xavier Lehman. The 607 00:37:49.910 --> 00:37:53.550 co founder of Ebol7 talked about his 608 00:37:53.550 --> 00:37:57.270 experience with Exit Burnout and a lot of other private stuff. 609 00:37:57.590 --> 00:38:01.270 We are now talking about frameworks, coaching and clarity. 610 00:38:01.910 --> 00:38:05.670 After stepping back, what changed in how 611 00:38:05.910 --> 00:38:09.510 you think about success, team leadership and productivity? 612 00:38:10.230 --> 00:38:13.950 Are there some frameworks that now guide you coaching sessions with 613 00:38:13.950 --> 00:38:17.490 founders? I mean, what 614 00:38:17.490 --> 00:38:20.770 changed was actually I always thought success is about 615 00:38:20.850 --> 00:38:24.450 wealth, is about like, you know, being on stage 616 00:38:24.450 --> 00:38:28.290 and in Forbes 30 under 30 and staying in luxury hotels and having 617 00:38:28.290 --> 00:38:31.970 sporty cars and stuff like that. But actually, like, you know, 618 00:38:31.970 --> 00:38:35.250 my kind of definition of success completely changed 619 00:38:35.410 --> 00:38:39.130 throughout the last years and especially throughout the last couple of months when 620 00:38:39.130 --> 00:38:42.870 I spend a lot of time in Africa. So I think it's much more valuable. 621 00:38:42.870 --> 00:38:46.430 I mean, of course I have, I've had the success and I've, you know, I 622 00:38:46.430 --> 00:38:50.270 think for me it was important to have had success already. So 623 00:38:50.270 --> 00:38:54.030 I know it's actually not the solution. Right. I think what's 624 00:38:54.030 --> 00:38:57.350 more important and what I learned is actually spending a lot of time with your 625 00:38:57.350 --> 00:39:00.830 family, with your friends, you know, doing the things you love, being free, 626 00:39:01.230 --> 00:39:04.950 you know, just waking up and, you know, working on something fulfilling 627 00:39:04.950 --> 00:39:07.790 and, and it doesn't need to be a big startup, it doesn't need to be 628 00:39:07.790 --> 00:39:11.590 a unicorn. It can be anything. Right? And so this is kind 629 00:39:11.590 --> 00:39:15.070 of what changed for me in terms of success. And I'm using 630 00:39:15.550 --> 00:39:19.190 different tools now that I've kind of developed over the last 10 631 00:39:19.190 --> 00:39:22.990 years to help founders on their journey. Right. I 632 00:39:22.990 --> 00:39:26.429 also kind of try to, you know, kind of 633 00:39:26.830 --> 00:39:30.550 get new ideas and more ideas through different coaches. So I 634 00:39:30.550 --> 00:39:34.390 spent some time with Tony Robbins two weeks ago. I spent four 635 00:39:34.390 --> 00:39:38.110 days, actually day and night with the guy. And. Which was 636 00:39:38.110 --> 00:39:41.900 crazy and was a really good experience. And, and you know, also 637 00:39:41.900 --> 00:39:45.500 there a lot of really good concepts can come into 638 00:39:45.500 --> 00:39:49.300 play and I kind of can use them on 639 00:39:49.300 --> 00:39:53.140 my journey and also in my coaching sessions. But it's most of, most 640 00:39:53.140 --> 00:39:56.340 of the stuff that I'm kind of teaching is like, 641 00:39:56.660 --> 00:40:00.500 my stuff is, you know, the things that I learned over the last 10 years. 642 00:40:00.900 --> 00:40:04.660 But also in addition, I take some things from Tony Robbins and other 643 00:40:04.740 --> 00:40:07.070 great coaches actually into it. 644 00:40:08.670 --> 00:40:11.150 You're now also a coach 645 00:40:12.750 --> 00:40:16.510 helping early stage founders 646 00:40:16.750 --> 00:40:20.190 post burnout. What patterns do you see that repeat? 647 00:40:20.350 --> 00:40:23.630 Are there mindset traps specific 648 00:40:24.110 --> 00:40:27.470 to founder? For example, of AI SaaS or tech in general? 649 00:40:29.070 --> 00:40:32.830 I mean, the mindset trap is probably like that you 650 00:40:32.830 --> 00:40:36.430 need to be really quick and need to raise money as much as possible. 651 00:40:36.590 --> 00:40:40.310 I think these kind of. It 652 00:40:40.310 --> 00:40:44.070 changed a little bit. Times changed. So I think today with, you know, 653 00:40:44.070 --> 00:40:47.830 all the vibe code coding tools, like lovable, like, you 654 00:40:47.830 --> 00:40:51.550 don't need to have a big team anymore, right? You can, you know, test 655 00:40:51.550 --> 00:40:55.350 out different technologies, different products, you know, 656 00:40:55.350 --> 00:40:58.830 in within a couple of hours even. So I think the 657 00:40:58.830 --> 00:41:02.590 founder journey, you know, completely changed in a different direction, I 658 00:41:02.590 --> 00:41:06.310 think in a better direction. But like, you know, the 659 00:41:06.310 --> 00:41:09.510 trap is to think that you always have to raise money, you always have to 660 00:41:09.510 --> 00:41:13.310 be successful, you always have to kind of build a unicorn. That's actually not true. 661 00:41:13.310 --> 00:41:17.110 It depends what you actually want in life. Like, you don't even, you 662 00:41:17.110 --> 00:41:20.430 know, of course investors want unicorns because they need to pay back their 663 00:41:20.590 --> 00:41:24.310 fund, right? So they need outliers, like billion companies to 664 00:41:24.310 --> 00:41:27.870 actually return their funds. But as a founder, of course. And that's 665 00:41:27.870 --> 00:41:31.670 why, you know, kind of sometimes the values and 666 00:41:31.670 --> 00:41:35.270 also kind of the goals are different from investors and 667 00:41:35.430 --> 00:41:39.070 you know, like, compared to founders, because founders are happy with, you 668 00:41:39.070 --> 00:41:42.630 know, like a few millions or 10 million or 50 millions or 20 669 00:41:42.630 --> 00:41:45.390 millions. Like, it depends on who you are and what you want to want to 670 00:41:45.390 --> 00:41:49.030 do. Right? But that's where the interests are not really aligned. 671 00:41:49.190 --> 00:41:51.790 So the trap is to think that you always have to build a unicorn, which 672 00:41:51.790 --> 00:41:55.630 is totally not true. It depends on what you want. You 673 00:41:55.630 --> 00:41:59.320 can also build a cool bootstrapped company which is, you 674 00:41:59.320 --> 00:42:03.160 know, successful because you're waking up every day and you feel like, 675 00:42:03.160 --> 00:42:06.600 you know, you're really interested in working for it and are really 676 00:42:06.600 --> 00:42:10.400 thriving and exciting. And so it doesn't 677 00:42:10.400 --> 00:42:14.080 need to be, you know, investors money. It doesn't need to be a 678 00:42:14.080 --> 00:42:17.840 unicorn. It can just be a small kind of company that you're 679 00:42:17.840 --> 00:42:21.680 building over the years. And, you know, I 680 00:42:21.680 --> 00:42:25.370 think that that's, that's kind of the trap that everyone kind of could 681 00:42:25.370 --> 00:42:29.050 go into. I'm 682 00:42:29.050 --> 00:42:32.050 curious, looking back now with us, the most 683 00:42:32.370 --> 00:42:35.930 valuable decision you made during your time, for example, at Ebol 684 00:42:35.930 --> 00:42:39.010 7, that wasn't so obvious at the time. 685 00:42:40.930 --> 00:42:44.570 I mean, perhaps it's obvious, but for me it wasn't. 686 00:42:44.570 --> 00:42:48.370 Back in the days, I was really drowning in work after 687 00:42:48.370 --> 00:42:51.890 like two or three years at working at ebot7 because I'm. I was kind of 688 00:42:52.050 --> 00:42:55.850 the guy for everything. I did finance, I did operations, I did admin, I did 689 00:42:55.850 --> 00:42:59.150 hr, I did sales, I did fundraising. So almost everything kind of. 690 00:42:59.550 --> 00:43:03.270 And what was a big relief for me was actually when 691 00:43:03.270 --> 00:43:06.950 we raised that Series A and I could finally hire 692 00:43:06.950 --> 00:43:10.190 people that could take over my work, which is 693 00:43:10.350 --> 00:43:14.110 redundant, which was kind of repetitive and always the same and didn't 694 00:43:14.110 --> 00:43:17.950 create that much strategic value in our company. So there was the time, 695 00:43:17.950 --> 00:43:21.750 you know, getting the money, but also spending the money on really 696 00:43:21.750 --> 00:43:25.470 strong people who have done it before was. Was a game changer for me 697 00:43:25.550 --> 00:43:28.430 because I. Because back in the days, we didn't have a lot of money and 698 00:43:28.430 --> 00:43:31.870 we needed to find ways to get people on board which were 699 00:43:31.870 --> 00:43:35.590 probably not, you know, the most skilled, the most 700 00:43:35.590 --> 00:43:39.190 experienced people at the beginning because you needed to train them a lot. 701 00:43:39.590 --> 00:43:43.430 But at some point we could just take money, get the best 702 00:43:43.430 --> 00:43:47.270 people on board. And this changed everything for me. Who was 703 00:43:47.270 --> 00:43:50.710 the most impactful customer or partner for 704 00:43:50.710 --> 00:43:53.830 EBIT 7 and why? What made 705 00:43:54.310 --> 00:43:57.670 their relationship really transformative? Definitely O2 706 00:43:57.670 --> 00:44:01.390 Germany, I would say. So they were kind of the first customers we got 707 00:44:01.390 --> 00:44:05.110 on board. They were also the ones that shaped our product. They 708 00:44:05.270 --> 00:44:09.109 kind of offered us also to visit their customer support center. They were 709 00:44:09.109 --> 00:44:12.910 super helpful, super easygoing. They were one 710 00:44:12.910 --> 00:44:16.390 of the best customers. And in connection to that, Vayra, 711 00:44:16.550 --> 00:44:20.230 which is kind of the accelerator of O2 Germany, which 712 00:44:20.780 --> 00:44:24.500 kind of we, yeah, we got into Vayra first and then we got 713 00:44:24.500 --> 00:44:28.100 actually into O2 Germany. That's kind of their vehicle to look 714 00:44:28.100 --> 00:44:31.860 for innovative startups. And so I think Vira, in 715 00:44:31.860 --> 00:44:35.500 connection with O2 Germany, was definitely, you know, kind of 716 00:44:35.500 --> 00:44:39.300 the most important partner for us at the time. I think back in the 717 00:44:39.300 --> 00:44:42.820 days until, you know, five years later, they were the 718 00:44:42.820 --> 00:44:46.550 biggest customer of ours. So yeah. 719 00:44:46.630 --> 00:44:50.110 And whenever there was any problem with the technology, they were the first 720 00:44:50.110 --> 00:44:53.750 ones to tell us, but not in a bad way, in an angry way. 721 00:44:53.830 --> 00:44:57.550 They were super, like productive and just telling us what to do. 722 00:44:57.550 --> 00:44:59.910 And yeah, that was amazing. Actually. 723 00:45:01.510 --> 00:45:05.150 You scale it quite impressively with this company. But 724 00:45:05.150 --> 00:45:08.470 many founders to hit a wall when scaling somewhere between 30 725 00:45:08.950 --> 00:45:12.750 and 100 people would advise that do 726 00:45:12.750 --> 00:45:16.310 we give today for managing culture and energy at that stage? 727 00:45:17.430 --> 00:45:21.110 Yes. I'm a little bit torn between two worlds because on the one hand 728 00:45:21.510 --> 00:45:25.110 you kind of, you need to, to grow the startup into 729 00:45:25.110 --> 00:45:28.870 something like a corporate, right? You need people, you need different kinds 730 00:45:28.870 --> 00:45:32.710 of people for, for a bigger company because you need 731 00:45:32.710 --> 00:45:36.390 skilled people, you need experienced people who have done it before because you add at 732 00:45:36.390 --> 00:45:39.030 another stage you're also working with different kind of companies. 733 00:45:40.080 --> 00:45:43.920 So. But also, on the other hand, you shouldn't lose your 734 00:45:43.920 --> 00:45:47.120 startup vibe culture because that's essentially why 735 00:45:47.440 --> 00:45:51.160 actually people decide to work for your startup, right? To have, you 736 00:45:51.160 --> 00:45:55.000 know, cool people around you who, you know, you can go for 737 00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:58.760 lunch with them and they're not colleagues, but actually friends. So this 738 00:45:58.760 --> 00:46:02.000 is kind of, you know, it's, it's quite hard. You need 739 00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:05.690 hierarchies, but also you don't want that many and too 740 00:46:05.690 --> 00:46:09.530 deep hierarchies. You don't want to be a corporate, but you also want to 741 00:46:09.610 --> 00:46:12.410 kind of keep the startup culture. That was also kind of 742 00:46:13.210 --> 00:46:16.410 a little bit of difficult to find a balance between those two. 743 00:46:17.610 --> 00:46:20.650 So this is what I would actually say, you know, 744 00:46:21.289 --> 00:46:25.090 you know what, I. Personally have always Google in mind 745 00:46:25.090 --> 00:46:28.730 when I saw this, because under the founders, it was big company 746 00:46:28.730 --> 00:46:32.010 with listed companies, was a very successful company, but it still 747 00:46:32.490 --> 00:46:36.220 had some startup vibe to it. But then at one 748 00:46:36.220 --> 00:46:40.020 point under new leadership under Alphabet, it completely changed. 749 00:46:40.020 --> 00:46:43.780 And a lot of the stuff that made the startup feeling at least 750 00:46:44.020 --> 00:46:47.820 watching from the outside disappear, then that's the point where I 751 00:46:47.820 --> 00:46:51.100 thought you cannot keep it for 752 00:46:51.100 --> 00:46:54.020 eternity if you want to be big, if you want to be growing. 753 00:46:54.980 --> 00:46:58.100 Yeah, probably. I don't know if it's possible. 754 00:46:58.900 --> 00:47:02.640 You need to change your startup, your environment a little bit. But, but 755 00:47:02.640 --> 00:47:06.360 I would always suggest not to do it too much and just, you know, 756 00:47:06.360 --> 00:47:10.000 to keep the startup culture. Because I've seen it a lot, founders growing 757 00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:13.760 into like big companies, like having 100 or 200 and 300 758 00:47:13.760 --> 00:47:17.560 people and getting these, you know, corporate structures because they 759 00:47:17.560 --> 00:47:21.360 hire corporate people at some point and corporate people are, you know, kind 760 00:47:21.360 --> 00:47:25.160 of, they expect corporate structures and they establish 761 00:47:25.160 --> 00:47:28.970 corporate structures. So at some point, you know, all of A sudden 762 00:47:28.970 --> 00:47:32.650 you're getting, you, you're becoming a corporate and I think that's 763 00:47:32.650 --> 00:47:36.130 where you have to be careful not to be too much of a 764 00:47:36.130 --> 00:47:39.730 corporate, you know, and have too much processes and too much structures 765 00:47:39.730 --> 00:47:43.490 and. Because at the end of the day that's why you were successful, because 766 00:47:43.490 --> 00:47:47.170 you were quick, you could, you know, break things and you, you could hire 767 00:47:47.170 --> 00:47:50.650 people that, you know, really like a different mindset, different 768 00:47:50.650 --> 00:47:54.430 attitude. So yeah, that's kind of the, the different 769 00:47:54.430 --> 00:47:57.270 balance that you need to keep actually. 770 00:47:57.990 --> 00:48:01.750 Personal experience, personal feeling is you're still a startup. If you 771 00:48:01.750 --> 00:48:05.430 do the management decision at a stand up in the morning, like 10, 15 772 00:48:05.430 --> 00:48:08.710 minutes, you're fixed, everybody's on the same page, we keep going 773 00:48:09.110 --> 00:48:12.910 and you're corporate. If you have to track all your decisions in an Excel 774 00:48:12.910 --> 00:48:15.910 sheet or something like that. Yeah, probably. I mean, 775 00:48:16.790 --> 00:48:20.550 he's smiling. That's one of the things you can, you can say. Yeah, but it's, 776 00:48:20.700 --> 00:48:24.540 it's, it has a lot of different variations to it. Right. So 777 00:48:24.540 --> 00:48:28.340 yeah, but probably if you have a lot of recurring meetings and a lot 778 00:48:28.340 --> 00:48:31.900 of, you know, hierarchies in your companies, then that's a bad, 779 00:48:31.980 --> 00:48:35.500 bad sign. I guess for the vault members. 780 00:48:35.580 --> 00:48:39.420 You walk us through your founder hiring diagnostic and the 781 00:48:39.420 --> 00:48:42.860 early signals that tell somebody's building the wrong team. 782 00:48:44.060 --> 00:48:47.820 Everybody will be able to find the link to the founders Vault 783 00:48:47.980 --> 00:48:51.700 down here in the show notes. We'll start it pretty soon for subscribers only 784 00:48:51.700 --> 00:48:55.400 and we already very excited about it. Looking 785 00:48:55.800 --> 00:48:59.400 now a little bit forward, what excites you most about the 786 00:48:59.400 --> 00:49:03.040 intersection of mental health coaching and 787 00:49:03.040 --> 00:49:06.800 the next generation of founders? Yeah, so 788 00:49:06.800 --> 00:49:10.640 I mentioned it a little bit earlier. So a lot of things have changed 789 00:49:10.640 --> 00:49:14.480 over the years. Right. So you've got LLMs now like ChatGPT where 790 00:49:14.480 --> 00:49:18.320 you can literally build something from nothing. You don't 791 00:49:18.320 --> 00:49:22.170 need big teams. I think you will definitely see unicorns, like 792 00:49:22.170 --> 00:49:25.890 really big companies with just a few people on board. 793 00:49:26.290 --> 00:49:30.130 So it's really exciting. But also I hope that, you know, 794 00:49:30.370 --> 00:49:33.970 founder teams can actually incorporate some of the mental 795 00:49:33.970 --> 00:49:37.410 health strategies and like recoveries into their 796 00:49:37.410 --> 00:49:41.170 daily practice, because that's super important. I didn't do it, I went into 797 00:49:41.170 --> 00:49:44.610 burnout. So I hope, you know, founders will not take the same route. 798 00:49:45.170 --> 00:49:48.910 And because of AI, because it's super dynamic and super fast 799 00:49:48.980 --> 00:49:52.700 past the probability that you go into something like a 800 00:49:52.700 --> 00:49:56.540 burnout and like something like a depression is much, much higher than if 801 00:49:56.540 --> 00:50:00.180 it's like a low passed environment. Right. And so 802 00:50:00.900 --> 00:50:04.300 I would strongly suggest to keep your body and mind in in 803 00:50:04.300 --> 00:50:07.620 balance and you know, kind of try to, 804 00:50:08.420 --> 00:50:11.700 of course try to take advantage of the whole development around AI 805 00:50:12.100 --> 00:50:15.220 because you can build something from nothing. You don't need a big team anymore, you 806 00:50:15.220 --> 00:50:19.060 don't need big fundings anymore. And that's the beauty of it. And at the same 807 00:50:19.060 --> 00:50:22.610 time you have to keep, keep, keep, keep, you know, your body in balance. 808 00:50:24.290 --> 00:50:27.490 A discussion that I had with some friends recently 809 00:50:28.850 --> 00:50:30.930 was one should 810 00:50:32.450 --> 00:50:36.290 move the school into teaching more about mental health, about 811 00:50:36.290 --> 00:50:40.130 meditation practices than actually writing essays. Because right now you 812 00:50:40.130 --> 00:50:43.930 just need to talk to an AI and we'll spit out a perfectly structured 813 00:50:43.930 --> 00:50:47.740 essay. But nobody takes care of your mental health. There's 814 00:50:48.770 --> 00:50:52.330 just food for thought for the people out there. I was 815 00:50:52.330 --> 00:50:55.930 wondering, don't worry. I know predictions are always 816 00:50:55.930 --> 00:50:59.690 difficult, especially concerning the future, but what predictions would you 817 00:50:59.690 --> 00:51:03.370 make about AI startup culture over the next three to five 818 00:51:03.370 --> 00:51:06.450 years? Are we heading for more founder, 819 00:51:10.050 --> 00:51:13.690 Are we heading for more founder attitude or a 820 00:51:13.690 --> 00:51:17.410 healthy research? So I hope, 821 00:51:17.410 --> 00:51:21.210 of course it's going to be a healthy environment, but there's 822 00:51:21.210 --> 00:51:24.730 a high probability that it's going in the, in the other 823 00:51:24.730 --> 00:51:28.330 direction. So the thing is with AI, it's really 824 00:51:28.330 --> 00:51:31.890 fast paced. You know, it's, with technology you 825 00:51:31.890 --> 00:51:35.490 get, you know, not happier, but lonelier I would say, 826 00:51:35.890 --> 00:51:39.610 because you don't meet you, you meet less friends, you are 827 00:51:39.610 --> 00:51:43.370 less in public, in, on the outside. And I think you 828 00:51:43.370 --> 00:51:47.130 can see it already with the current generation now. You 829 00:51:47.130 --> 00:51:50.130 go to a coffee place and then everyone's on their phones and 830 00:51:50.610 --> 00:51:54.290 especially like, you know, seven, eight years old already like with phones. And 831 00:51:54.610 --> 00:51:58.210 you know, back in the days we went playing football and we went, 832 00:51:58.210 --> 00:52:01.650 you know, going out with friends and stuff like that. We didn't have devices. 833 00:52:01.730 --> 00:52:05.410 So there's a lot of things that change and I think it's going to get 834 00:52:05.410 --> 00:52:08.890 worse and I just hope that there's like kind of a 835 00:52:08.890 --> 00:52:12.470 contra movement towards like more, you know, 836 00:52:12.470 --> 00:52:15.830 spending more time in nature, spending more time with family and friends 837 00:52:16.230 --> 00:52:20.030 because at the end of the day it's about, you know, being 838 00:52:20.030 --> 00:52:23.510 healthy and not being lonely, you know, being 839 00:52:23.510 --> 00:52:27.110 happy. And if you just spend your whole time, 840 00:52:27.110 --> 00:52:30.830 your whole life on devices, it's not gonna be, it's not 841 00:52:30.830 --> 00:52:34.510 gonna be good for you. Yeah, I also have 842 00:52:34.510 --> 00:52:38.000 a, something for myself, like my own 843 00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:41.800 rule. I also use all the 844 00:52:41.800 --> 00:52:45.640 information that I put in different AI tools because I've worked with them 845 00:52:45.640 --> 00:52:49.440 for hours and hours because I'm basically here by myself. Chris is in 846 00:52:49.440 --> 00:52:53.000 New York, we're in different time zones and editor and 847 00:52:53.000 --> 00:52:56.640 VA are also in different time zones, who help me with all the publications and 848 00:52:56.640 --> 00:53:00.160 the back office and stuff. So I basically here 849 00:53:00.320 --> 00:53:04.120 just simply with my AI, I'm actually, I made a habit 850 00:53:04.120 --> 00:53:07.880 out of it to ask them what they know about me that will 851 00:53:07.880 --> 00:53:11.720 be useful for me, plus give me regular 852 00:53:11.720 --> 00:53:15.520 reminders and practices to stay mentally healthy, to 853 00:53:15.520 --> 00:53:19.080 stay fit and so on and so forth. So 854 00:53:19.080 --> 00:53:22.640 basically you can also make the AI work for you 855 00:53:22.720 --> 00:53:26.320 in that respect. And there's a lot of stuff out there, what you can do 856 00:53:26.640 --> 00:53:29.520 just food for thought and start your own research, 857 00:53:31.130 --> 00:53:34.410 but not doing research. Asking you here, what's a 858 00:53:34.410 --> 00:53:38.130 popular belief in startup land but you 859 00:53:38.130 --> 00:53:39.610 would firmly disagree with. 860 00:53:41.770 --> 00:53:45.570 I would say it connects to something that I talked about earlier. It's 861 00:53:45.570 --> 00:53:48.970 about like the belief that you have to build a unicorn. And you know, 862 00:53:48.970 --> 00:53:52.690 investors always expect to build a unicorn because of course they need to 863 00:53:52.690 --> 00:53:56.530 return their funds. But like, deep down honesty, it depends on what you 864 00:53:56.530 --> 00:54:00.310 want to do in life. Like for founders, you know, unicorn doesn't need to 865 00:54:00.310 --> 00:54:04.110 be the perfect outcome because there's also a lot of dilution, a lot of funding 866 00:54:04.110 --> 00:54:07.910 rounds. Like, you know, unicorn is something that startup lands kind 867 00:54:07.910 --> 00:54:11.590 of startup land kind of wants and expects and something like 868 00:54:11.590 --> 00:54:15.070 that. But it's actually, you know, something completely 869 00:54:15.950 --> 00:54:19.550 stupid because you don't need to build a startup that's worth a billion or something. 870 00:54:19.550 --> 00:54:23.390 You don't need to do that. Like, I know that, you know, some 871 00:54:23.390 --> 00:54:26.970 founders, like, you know, they, they're trying everything they can 872 00:54:26.970 --> 00:54:30.690 to, to build a startup in that area and then expect like, or actually demand 873 00:54:30.770 --> 00:54:34.210 higher valuations, higher valuation. Then at some point they dilute and they, 874 00:54:34.450 --> 00:54:38.050 you know, they have at the end of the day of like 1 or 2% 875 00:54:38.050 --> 00:54:41.490 on the company and then it's a billion worth. Like it's, it's better to 876 00:54:41.490 --> 00:54:45.170 bootstrap your company to 1 or 2 million. It's. You've got more than 877 00:54:45.170 --> 00:54:48.370 you know if you have a billion and like nothing left. So 878 00:54:49.490 --> 00:54:53.110 I would say that's something like a popular belief, but I would not say 879 00:54:53.110 --> 00:54:56.950 it's true. Only agreeing with you here 880 00:54:56.950 --> 00:54:59.910 without any external investors in startup radio. But 881 00:55:01.590 --> 00:55:05.110 I was wondering when you've been talking about that, is this 882 00:55:05.270 --> 00:55:09.030 a firm belief of startup land or is this a belief of investment 883 00:55:09.270 --> 00:55:11.510 land pushed into startup land? 884 00:55:14.390 --> 00:55:18.110 Yeah, probably the second. Yeah, I 885 00:55:18.110 --> 00:55:21.700 mean they need to return their funds. So they of course expect startups 886 00:55:21.700 --> 00:55:25.380 to perform really well and like, well means higher valuations 887 00:55:25.380 --> 00:55:29.020 and higher exit volumes and stuff like that. Right. So it's 888 00:55:29.020 --> 00:55:32.540 interesting for our audience. I was wondering 889 00:55:32.620 --> 00:55:36.220 if you Guys could redo your startup journey with just one 890 00:55:36.220 --> 00:55:40.060 lesson from today. What would you change? Tag us on social media 891 00:55:40.060 --> 00:55:43.420 startup rate IO and use startup reset. 892 00:55:43.900 --> 00:55:47.440 Sada Final two questions we're talking about almost 893 00:55:47.520 --> 00:55:49.280 for an hour now. 894 00:55:51.520 --> 00:55:54.800 Some final reflection, some final 895 00:55:54.800 --> 00:55:58.560 reflections here. If a first time founder 896 00:55:58.560 --> 00:56:02.080 stopped you at cafe so not playing with his or her device 897 00:56:02.080 --> 00:56:05.920 and asked you what's one thing you wish you knew earlier, 898 00:56:05.920 --> 00:56:09.600 what would you say? I would probably say that 899 00:56:09.680 --> 00:56:13.040 mental health is more important than you think. I mean 900 00:56:13.440 --> 00:56:17.280 I've done the whole journey and always neglected it. I 901 00:56:17.600 --> 00:56:21.360 kind of worked my ass off day and night and I didn't pay 902 00:56:21.360 --> 00:56:25.040 too much attention, you know, towards, you know, meditating 903 00:56:25.040 --> 00:56:28.880 and I mean I did my sport the whole time, I did my workouts but 904 00:56:29.040 --> 00:56:32.520 you know, having enough pauses, you know, doing lunch 905 00:56:32.520 --> 00:56:35.760 breaks, having weekends off, that's super important and I, 906 00:56:36.160 --> 00:56:39.560 that's something I would definitely say, you know, take that more 907 00:56:39.560 --> 00:56:43.400 seriously. Weekends off is also one of my 908 00:56:43.400 --> 00:56:47.020 rules. What's the boldest, most 909 00:56:47.100 --> 00:56:50.780 honest thing you've learned about yourself through 910 00:56:50.940 --> 00:56:53.500 like the complete journey? Everything you went through? 911 00:56:54.540 --> 00:56:58.380 Honestly, I would say that, I would probably say, 912 00:56:58.620 --> 00:57:02.460 and I wouldn't have admitted it back in the days, but 913 00:57:02.460 --> 00:57:06.140 I think I thought that money solves all problems, but 914 00:57:06.140 --> 00:57:09.980 it definitely doesn't and I think freedom solves most 915 00:57:09.980 --> 00:57:13.820 of the problems. Like my values changed a little bit in the sense 916 00:57:13.820 --> 00:57:17.380 of first I wanted money, I wanted to be, you know, 917 00:57:17.380 --> 00:57:21.100 financially free and now it's about freedom of work, 918 00:57:21.100 --> 00:57:24.940 freedom, whatever I can do whenever I can with whom I want. 919 00:57:25.100 --> 00:57:28.860 So my kind of feeling of like 920 00:57:28.860 --> 00:57:32.220 my values changed a little bit in that direction. So 921 00:57:32.540 --> 00:57:35.740 I thought money was kind of the answer, but it's not. 922 00:57:38.470 --> 00:57:42.110 Awesome closing words. Ksava, thank you very much. Was such a 923 00:57:42.110 --> 00:57:45.790 pleasure talking to you. Actually we had such an intense and long 924 00:57:45.790 --> 00:57:49.470 conversation. We need to have a second interview 925 00:57:49.470 --> 00:57:53.150 session just for you to give to give us your wisdom 926 00:57:53.150 --> 00:57:56.910 in the founders world. Everybody would like to learn more. Go down here in the 927 00:57:56.910 --> 00:58:00.630 show notes and subscribe to the Founders World and we'll see you back 928 00:58:00.710 --> 00:58:04.430 shortly. Answering a few questions for our 929 00:58:04.430 --> 00:58:08.070 audience there, Sara, was a pleasure having you as a guest. Thank you very 930 00:58:08.070 --> 00:58:11.710 much. Best of luck and keep us updated and of course everybody will 931 00:58:11.710 --> 00:58:14.910 find your substack newsletter down here in the show notes as well. 932 00:58:15.310 --> 00:58:18.630 Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure and 933 00:58:18.630 --> 00:58:22.150 see you next time. See you next time. Bye bye, bye bye 934 00:58:22.150 --> 00:58:22.510 bye. 935 00:58:27.630 --> 00:58:31.160 That's all for find more news streams, 936 00:58:31.320 --> 00:58:32.440 events and 937 00:58:32.440 --> 00:58:36.760 interviews@www.startuprad.IO 938 00:58:37.160 --> 00:58:39.160 Remember, sharing is car.