Shahid Azim’s Post

People can't help you if you only talk about your wins. This was one of the many lessons in openness, communication, and relationship building from the #PreSeriesAOffsite hosted by Charlie O'Donnell & Lauren Magnuson (nextNYC) this week. There's a lot of fluff in the startup event space - this was the opposite. It was a day of concrete, actionable advice & discussions that I can't recommend highly enough for early-stage founders. Krystle Mobayeni opened the day with a fireside on her journey with BentoBox from services business to $300M+ platform exit: From the little things (mental shift: a services business has "clients" while a SaaS platform has "customers") to the major (check in with your potential acquirers during each funding round). Krystle also spoke candidly about the importance of leading with your multi-billion dollar vision even when your product is in its earliest days. This can be tough for women in particular. Her experience was so inspiring: bring the research, bring the receipts, and get emotionally comfortable with presenting yourself years in the future. We also heard from a range of investors through panels and AMAs. How to manage the AI bubble? What does "keeping a relationship warm" really mean? How do you prioritize your first 10 hires? Molly Alter and the others at our table handled the barrage of questions with grace. Not least in value was connecting with other early-stage founders throughout the day. So many moments of validation that we're all going through the same highs and lows together! Thanks again to everyone who brought this incredible experience to life! #startuplife #vc

15 CEOs attended the Alumni Ventures’ CEO Dinner in Austin last week. Matt Blumberg, CEO of Bolster, and Joshua Baer, CEO of Capital Factory, led a discussion about critical aspects of the CEOs work and life. Here are just three of many takeaways: •Treat your board as an asset by discussing strategic topics rather than spending much time on reporting. • Make sure you’re spending time on self-care – time spent sleeping, exercising, with friends and family, or on hobbies makes you more productive at work. • CEO peer groups are incredibly valuable forums for problem-solving and venting. We’d like to thank Bolster, an executive talent search platform for startups, and Seba Dominguez and Adam Lyons from Builders, a service providing nearshoring developers, for sponsoring the event. The other attendees were: Aneesh Dhawan, CEO of Knit, Anthony Gerardi CEO Insiteflow, Arun Nair, CEO of OpsLab, Ethan Baehrend, CEO of Creative 3D Technologies, Jacob Rosenbloom, CEO of Levee, Jon Carter, CEO of Prado, Monica Landers, CEO of StoryFit, Simon Tankel, CEO of Heading Health, Taylor Chartier, CEO of Modicus Prime, Will Coleman, CEO of Alto, Yash M. Patel, CEO of Legion, and Jin Kim of Alumni Ventures.

"We had to talk to 200 investors for 13 months before closing my round.” Thanks to Miriam Wohlfarth for her honesty in sharing her fundraising journey with us at #FoundersCircle last week. 🚀 Miriam Wohlfarth and her co-founder Jens Roehrborn show us that perseverance ultimately pays off. 🚀 A big shoutout to our panelists and experts of our last Founders’ Circle of the year: 🌟 Miriam Wohlfarth, Founder & Co-CEO of Banxware 🌟 Christian Meermann, Founding Partner of Cherry Ventures 🌟 Thomas Jarzombek, Member of the Deutscher Bundestag, CDU Deutschlands 🌟 Joanna Chudzinski (Oleniuk), Senior Associate at Osborne Clarke 🌟 Larissa Mößmer, Senior Associate at Osborne Clarke You really rocked it. Here are some insights from our panel: ⏳ 𝗡𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. Closing a round may require discussions with over 200 investors. Perseverance is key. 🤝 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. If conventional fundraising approaches fail, consider exploring Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) and alternative investors. 💰 𝗥𝘂𝗻𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀. Plan for a minimum of 12 months to close a funding round and avoid being under time pressure when closing your round. 🚀 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. Thomas Jarzombek was clear about the relevance of the state to invest in building the industries of the future. Why do we subsidies the old industries so much? 💸 𝗡𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. According to Christian Meermann we do not need more foundational AI model companies but clever vertical AI applications in defensible niches. Save the date for the next Founders’ Circle on February 29th featuring: ⚡️ Lea-Sophie Cramer, Founder of AMORELIE & Founder of Ten More In ⚡️ Shivram Ayyagari, Partner at EQT Ventures ⚡️ Thomas Heilmann, Member of German Parliament (für Steglitz-Zehlendorf) - Senator of Berlin a.D. The Founders’ Circle is an event organized by Techstars Berlin in collaboration with Osborne Clarke and powered by Factory Berlin. Apply here 👉 https://lnkd.in/dYxzE-qJ #FoundersCircle #ChangeMakers #StartupEcosystem

As August unfolds, may it bring forth a season of growth, resilience, and the pursuit of excellence. Let’s embrace the opportunities this new month presents and strive to make it truly a remarkable one. Happy New Month! #aceleralaw #startuplaw #startupfounders #startuplawfirmnigeria #techlawfirmnigeria #lawfirmnigeria

"We had to talk to 200 investors for 13 months before closing my round.” Thanks to Miriam Wohlfarth for her honesty in sharing her fundraising journey with us at #FoundersCircle this week. Miriam and her co-founder Jens Roehrborn show us that perseverance ultimately pays off. A big shoutout to our panelists and experts of our last Founders’ Circle of the year: 🌟 Miriam Wohlfarth, Founder & Co-CEO of Banxware 🌟 Christian Meermann, Founding Partner of Cherry Ventures 🌟 Thomas Jarzombek, Member of the Deutscher Bundestag, CDU Deutschlands 🌟 Joanna Chudzinski (Oleniuk), Senior Associate at Osborne Clarke 🌟 Larissa Mößmer, Senior Associate at Osborne Clarke You really rocked it. Here are some insights from our panel: ⏳ 𝗡𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. Closing a round may require discussions with over 200 investors. Perseverance is key. 🤝 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. If conventional fundraising approaches fail, consider exploring Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) and alternative investors. 💰 𝗥𝘂𝗻𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀. Plan for a minimum of 12 months to close a funding round and avoid being under time pressure when closing your round. 🚀 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. Thomas Jarzombek was clear about the relevance of the state to invest in building the industries of the future. Why do we subsidies the old industries so much? 💸 𝗡𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. According to Christian Meermann we do not need more foundational AI model companies but clever vertical AI applications in defensible niches. Save the date for the next Founders’ Circle on February 29th featuring: ⚡️ Lea-Sophie Cramer, Founder of AMORELIE & Founder of Ten More In ⚡️ Shivram Ayyagari, Partner at EQT Ventures ⚡️ Thomas Heilmann, Member of German Parliament (für Steglitz-Zehlendorf) - Senator of Berlin a.D. The Founders’ Circle is an event organized by Techstars Berlin in collaboration with Osborne Clarke and powered by Factory Berlin. 𝑪𝒉𝒆𝒄𝒌 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒕𝒐 𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒍𝒚 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒆𝒙𝒄𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒕. 👇 #FoundersCircle #ChangeMakers #StartupEcosystem

Earlier today, I had the pleasure of conversing with two major stakeholders in the innovation and startup ecosystem in the country. They revealed a significant gap in how founders think about collaboration with the government and large enterprises. They shared valuable insights and processes on how founders can tap into the public sector to solve pressing problems that the government cannot tackle on its own. We touched on the incredible opportunities that lie outside the "Lagos" circle, particularly in the north. Thankfully, at Founders Friday, with our footprints in the north, we are committed to providing adequate support to the founders there and helping them solve problems and seize opportunities in the region. Or is it when talked about how some founders approach the government with a proposal whose main purpose is to “eat of the National cake” with no practical impact or long term approach Or where we talked about being humble and kind as a founder can give you access to rooms of repute and corridors of power I could go on and on because Frank Atat, ACIB , and Oluwaseun Fakuade did an excellent job of laying out the cards on the table. I am sure the founders in the room took full advantage of the lessons learned. Thank you Velocity to putting this together. Very timely conversation. Learn more about Founders Friday: www.foundersfriday.co

Here is an example of Holman getting out ahead of the curve and preparing for the next generation of transportation and mobility.

Continuing with our series of sharing thoughts from our Spring cohort sessions! We were joined by Josefiina Kotilainen, CEO of Startup Foundation to share her thoughts on financial modeling for early-stage founders. Thank you Josefiina for joining! Succeeding by accident is rare, which is why here at Kiuas we believe in deliberately building towards it. With our ongoing batch we dove into the topic of crafting a financial model already during the first week of the accelerator program. Crafting even a simple one gives the founders and any other stakeholders an overview of the key value drivers, potential bottlenecks and challenges of the business, which helps them to take action and build a functional strategy to support the assumptions.

❄️ Oh well, Autumn Accelerator is over. We have ended this batch with a final event - Feedback Session. 🚀 Our 4 start-ups presented their pitch decks and the experts provided their feedback & advice to support the next development of the start-ups in the right direction. 🙌 We would like to thank all the advisors who participated in the final event, Pašek Peter, Ján Kasper, PhD., MBA, PhD., Andrej Petrus and Ján Búza, for their expert input. Founders deserve also big thanks and recognition for their hard work: Jan Kondula, Lukáš Pastuszek, Andrej Nagy, Richard Liverman, Strategy, Marketing, Sales Mentor, Ondřej Štěpánek, Ethan Clime and Serdar Arslanturk. With your solutions, we hope you become big players in your markets and bring lots of value to customers. 💜 #aceon #aceonaccelerator #autumnaccelerator #finished #startupaccelerator

Considering joining our 18-month, industry-led mentorship programme, but haven't taken the leap yet? Gain insights from our past cohort companies who share their firsthand experiences, revealing the transformative impact STAC Scale has had on their companies. STAC Scale is not merely an accelerator; it's a thriving ecosystem fostering growth, innovation, and collaboration.  If you are an ambitious founder seeking to propel your company forward, sign up to STAC Scale, the link is in the comments.  #STACScale #BusinessSuccess #entrepreneurialjourney