Category Archives: startup

entrepreneurship, pitching, startup

Migrant Momentum

Recently I was honored to be invited to “Migrant Momentum“, an event focusing on immigrants and entrepreneurship during the Startup Week DUS to speak a bit on a panel about fundraising for early-stage startups and moderate one of the break-out sessions on fundraising hurdles and success metrics for fundraising for founders.

I had really no idea of what to expect, but it turned out to be one of those rare “lightning in a bottle” event where the atmosphere and the attitude of everybody participating was contagiously positive in the extreme.

Many thanks to the event organisers Avela Gronemeyer and Archita Fritz for creating such a pleasant and productive atmosphere!

And I wasn’t at all prepared for the feedback I received… Made me blush.

“[…] thank you so much for the passion, energy, expertise, and heart you brought to yesterday’s “Migrant Momentum”. We received unbelievable feedback from the “Investor Circles” – your authenticity, openness to honest talks, passion for your work, and your humanity was clearly felt.”
– A. Gronemeyer, Event Organiser

On the panel I spoke a bit about what investors are looking for and how to attract investor attention.
From my break-out session on fundraising hurdles and next steps to funding (turned out to be popular as it was 100% oversubscribed – which made it a time-management catastrophe… LOL!)
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Customer Development, Education, mentoring, startup

Alumniportal Challenge Workshops & Mentoring

Recently I was honored and excited to be invited to teach and mentor the startups participating in the Alumniportal Challenge online. I first held an interactive online workshop on why most startups fail and what to do about it (customer development, lean startup, and all that), and then mentored the international teams over Zoom later in the month.

Alumniportal Deutschland is a non-profit online social network of “Germany Alumni” that is designed internationally for people who have studied, researched, worked or completed further training or a language course in Germany or at a German institution abroad.

The primary non-profit and non-governmental organizations responsible for creating, maintaining and promoting Alumniportal Deutschland are the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD – the world’s largest funding organisation for the international exchange of students and researchers), and the Goethe-Institut. Since 2019, the Federal Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt) is responsible for funding the portal.

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Customer Development, mentoring, startup

Teaching & Mentoring for Founders Institute (FI) MENA

Recently I was asked to teach the current cohort of FI MENA startups about idea validation (aka Customer Developmen), business models and revenue sources and mentor them through later sessions.

Full disclosure: I am NOT a member of FI and I am not participating in the FI participation scheme. I’m not a big FI fan and I chose to remain completely independent, but I’m a big believer in helping grow more founders and financial independence in underserved regions – so when the call comes, I tend to answer regardless.

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pitching, startup

Summer time is Rheinland Pitch Summer Finals Time!

Germany’s largest pitching event rolls on: Recently, the Rheinland Pitch‘s regular “Summer Finals” edition took place at the University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf (HSD) in co-operation with Gründungszeit HSD!

And the winner was… an app to help people with diabetes!
The Rheinland Pitch Summer Finals 2025 team!
That guy – co-founder, moderator on stage, and pitch trainer behind the scenes since 2013.

Photos by Manor Lux.

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Education, pitching, startup

Pitching Masterclass @ C3 Competition by Gateway Excellence Startup Center, University of Cologne

Recently I had a blast prepping the startup finalist for the C3 pitching competition, back again at the Gateway Excellence Startup Center at the University of Cologne with my Pitching Masterclass, Startup Edition.

Image by Gateway

Interested in my Pitching Masterclass for your students, startups, or employees too? Get in touch!

It was initially created to serve the Rheinland Pitch back in 2013 to help educate our regional founders and prepare them for raising money – and has been constantly evolving and updated ever since, and today it contains accumulated knowledge and feedback from over 3.000 startups served – and counting.

The Pitching Masterclass Startup, Student, and Corporate Edition used to only be available to applicants to the Rheinland Pitch or people lucky enough to be in an educational institution, incubator, accelerator, or corporate innovation program who had booked me for my in-person, on-location Masterclass.

Some of my happy Pitching Masterclass customers…

Today, in addition to the on-premise editions, my Pitching Masterclass is available to anyone everywhere as on-demand eLearning, featuring +2 hours of video and all the hundreds of slides as a booklet download.

Also available in bundles, especially popular with companies and organisations, including prepaid online mentoring & support vouchers for employees, booked and managed by the teams themselves on demand.

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