Category Archives: startup

AI, Education, entrepreneurship, Lean Startup, startup

Startup Entrepreneurship Workshops for DAAD Alumni (again)

Recently I had the pleasure to once again hold a couple of startup entrepreneurship workshops for select alumni of DAAD and the Humboldt community!

Above, ChatGPT re-interprets the Zoom workshop. ;)

On Zoom / remote to an eclectic and international group of over 40 academics, I held one workshop on evidence-driven problem discovery and using AI in that process. A second on Customer Discovery & assumption testing, including how we can test our critical assumptions behind our ideas for a business using validation experiments and tests – and also how to use AI to build validation experiments and MVPs.

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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Education, entrepreneurship, Events, pitching, startup

Eastern-European Startups FTW!

Recently I had the honor and pleasure to win the international bid to tender with +ANDERSEN & ASSOCIATES to help EU4Innovation East & Expertise France help their selected batch of startups for VIVATECH 2026 in Paris prep for the conference, including investor pitching, competition pitching, and startup conference planning & strategy for reaching their goals and maximising the ROI of attending.

EU4Innovation East is a regional project enhancing the competitiveness of the startup ecosystems in five Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. At its core is a comprehensive strategy to foster high-performance incubators, expand funding and market opportunities, strengthen community ties and amplify the visibility of EaP startups.

Expertise France is the French public agency for international development cooperation. It is a subsidiary of the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) Group and the second-largest agency of its kind in Europe.

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Little Known Fact, pitching, startup

Hello Alaska!

Awww… Look what the mail brought all the way from Alaska today! Proud to play a small part in helping entrepreneurs in underserved areas of the world. Shout-out to Linda Janes, Kristen Gibbs & the team running gBeta Alaska!

Did you know my Pitching Masterclass has been sponsoring startup events, startup support programs, and entrepreneurship education in underserved areas around the world for a couple of years now?

Feel free to reach out if you’re running a startup event or a startup support program way outside of the usual startup hotspots; My DMs are open. 📭

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Events, pitching, speaking, startup

Pitching Masterclass @ StartupDorf DUS

Recently I was invited to StartupDorf’s regular meetup in Düsseldorf to share a little about what startup founders need to know about pitching.

TL;DR

  • You have to master the high-concept-pitch, the elevator pitch, and the investor pitch (the pitch deck pitch).
  • If you want to massively improve your pitch, like +80% better than the rest out there, you have to be able to tell “which problem or need you’re solving, for whom you’re solving it, and how you are solving it” – using words and concepts that even a six year old child will understand.

That’s it! Well, not quite – but you’ll have to take my “Pitching Masterclass” for the rest… ;)

BTW: If you’re a StartupDorf member, you can get my Pitching Masterclass online course at a whopping 50% discount – just talk to them about how – valid until end of 2026!

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