The MBA Is Dead: Recent Episodes
Eric Brotto
The MBA Is Dead is a new podcast aimed at exploring the worlds of entrepreneurship, innovation, and business incubation. Some episodes will be interviews, some will be more instructional, but all will be fun! Join me, your host, Eric Brotto in this journey through the ever-changing landscape of innovation and technology.
Today I give you my 9 tips on how to choose a startup accelerator, addressing concerns such as stage and industry.
Today I explore Steve Blank's definition of a startup which is "..an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.” I also discuss why it is important to understand if your endeavour is a startup or not.
Today I explain what a startup accelerator is. I also explain the difference between a startup accelerator and a business incubator as well as touching on accelerator pricing agreements.
Today I recap how to write an effective cold email. I also add one more secret tip on how to increase your response rate.
Today I talk about Ash Maurya's book Running Lean and how it built on the original concept of the Lean Startup.
Today I discuss devices that track your sleep. I talk about the Apple Watch, AutoSleep app and the Oura Ring and my experience with it, which was not positive.
Today I take a final look at Airbnb's pitch deck. In particular I look at their slides concerning business model, market adoption, competition and competitve advantages.
Today I give a short history of my career which spans the globe. It started back in 2007 when I returned to school to learn how to code and how to launch startups. This experience led me to working with accelerators in Europe, the United States, and most recently the Middle East.
Today I talk about the 3rd episode of Super Pumped: The Battle For Uber. Lots of important themes discussed here, including Peter Theil's Zero To One, how the Venture Capital business model works and how founders can successfully get investment in their startups.
Today I discuss the 2nd episode of Super Pumped: The Battle For Uber. The show was great fodder for topics such as mental health in the world of startups and the morality of breaking the law when launching a tech company.
Today I continue to look at Airbnb's original pitch deck for investors, looking at slides that cover topics such as: problem, solution, market validation, market size, and product. I also discuss how much text you should put on your meeting slides versus the one you send out afterward, an important distinction.
Today I analyse Airbnb's pitch deck. A pitch deck is a power point that entrepreneurs use to get investment in their company. It's more important than a buisness plan. In fact, for startups, the business plan is dead. The pitch deck is what gets you the cash. Let's look at Airbnb's deck from years ago and what we can learn from it. If you google 'Slide Share Airbnb' you should be able to see this power point for yourself.
Today I discuss the first episode of Super Pumped, the Showtime tv show about the taxi app Uber. In particular I discuss how it relates to the dynamics of being a first time founder, including dealing with your first investor and government entities that are trying to shut you down.
Today I give my 2 cents on the Joe Rogan interview with Venture Capitalist Marc Andreessen. I also digress and give a 3 minute history on the invention of the Internet Web Browser.
Today I discuss briefly what a CRM is and why it's important. As Peter Drucker once said 'You can't improve what you can't measure'. CRMs are at the heart of measuring your fundraising processes, giving you insights on opportunities to gain efficiencies.
Today I explain how to find anyone's email address. Literally anyone. But please be responsible. With great power comes great responsiblity.
Today I'll explain the difference between a cold email and spam. A very important distinction. I'll also explain how to write a cold email that gives great results and which provides value for both the receiver and the sender. Win / win!
Today I try out a new format. No frills, no production. Just me and the microphone. I also discuss briefly why sales is important and give a glimpse of the topics of future episodes.
Today we have on our show Sara Simeone who is the CEO and co-founder of Digital Oracles, a startup that helps guide early-stage entrepreneurs through their journey, getting them to a stage where they are ready to speak with investors. Digital Oracles has raised capital in the form of private investments, but also through EU grants. Sara was also recently rated as one of ‘Top 100 women in blockchain’ by Wirex (October 2020), having produced research on Machine Learning and Blockchain applied to the AdTech industry. Lastly, Sara is a technology industry mentor and strategist, collaborating with the likes of Crypto Valley Labs in Zug and PDC Academy in Milan. Her primary goal there is to help foster the adoption of blockchain technology.
Today is an exciting day as we will be recording our 10th episode! And for this special edition, we are hosting Sara Leth, Head of Organisational Development at Nordea Asset Management. Sara could be described as a hybrid between an entrepreneur/ a business developer/ a design thinker and an executive leadership coach. She has spent 5 years working at Startupbootcamp and Rainmaking, two well known organizations focused on innovation. With them, she went all around the world advising startups, corporates and governments, doing stuff like helping startups to build scalable business models and also teaching corporates how to act like entrepreneurs. She is Head Coach with Seth Godin's altMBA, a fascinating program that is much more impactful, in my opinion, then a traditional MBA program. She also has recently launched her new course on visual note-taking. All that while holding a role as Head of Organizational Development at Nordea Asset Management, Europe's leading asset manager.
Today's episode is a bit unique. As a series we haven't completed even 10 episodes yet, and we are already bringing on our first repeat guest!
A few weeks back, we hosted Fabio Chiaramonte, Chief Technology Officer at a startup called GymCraft. Among other stories, he shared with us the crazy events behind the first amount of seed money he raised. It was fascinating stuff, but we also had a time limit and didn't get to hear about his current passion which is his Venture Builder called Cinque Monti. Venture Builders are kind of like startup accelerators, but with a slightly different model, something we will learn about on today's episode!
Today on our show we are hosting Lu Li, founder of Blooming Founders, an award-winning company that helps early stage entrepreneurs grow their businesses through content and training. Before that , Lu had a career in corporate, launching FMCG products for Procter & Gamble across Western Europe. She also worked on several consulting projects for McKinsey, BMW and T-Mobile. In 2016, Lu published the book Dear Female Founder which contains 66 personal letters of advice written by female entrepreneurs from 20 countries.
Today on our show we are hosting Fabio Chiaramonte Chief Technology Officer at a startup called GymCraft. Among other stories, he's going to share with us the crazy events behind the first amount of seed money he raised. If you know anything about early stage investment, you know that it normally it takes founders months, sometimes years to get their first cash investment. Well, Fabio did it in under 48hours. I kid you not.
Fabio also has the title of Chief of Moonshots at Cinque Monti Venture Builder. For those of you who aren't aware of the term, in tech startups a moonshot is a very very large type of goal for a company. Think inventing the cure for cancer or landing on mars. Stuff that is so incredible that you can't even believe it's possible. That said, it is sure you to be a fascinating conversation, so let's please welcome to the show Mr. Fabio Chiaramonte!
Today we have on the show Kathleen Fritzsche, who was the cofounder of 2 pivotal organizations in the Stuttgart startup scene: StartUp Stuttgart and Accelerate Stuttgart, the latter being the first privately funded accelerator program ever in that city. More recently Kathleen has worked as an Innovation Consultant for a tech firm based in Berlin, a role which surely provided her with insights on how to bring the wisdom of startup to corporates.
In today's episode, we are hosting Sam Ahmed, Head of Marketing & Communication at Nauta Capital which is a very well known London based Venture Capital firm. They invest in European B2B software startups from the seed stage all the way up to Series A.
Sam has over 10 years of experience leading marketing & communication initiatives and she's done this at an incubator, startup accelerators and is currently doing this at Nauta Capital. In her day-to-day, she does literally everything from copywriting to press relations to managing relationships with creative agencies to running events, brand development, social media, community building, and web marketing. She literally does it all. At her various positions, she has worked with Europe's most innovative founders, investors, and ecosystem players.
On today's episode we are hosting Elena Sinel, a multi-award-winning entrepreneur on a mission to inspire young people across the world to use Artificial Intelligence for good. Elena's organization Teens in AI has for a mission to help develop underrepresented talent, thereby improving diversity and inclusion in Artificial Intelligence. It offers young people aged 12-18 early exposure to AI for Social Good through a plethora of activities. We are talking mentoring, talks, workshops, education on human centered design and ethics, hackathons, accelerators, company tours and networking opportunities. Elena's dream is for Artificial Intelligence to be developed by a diverse group of thinkers and doers advancing AI for humanity’s benefit. Since 2018, Teens in AI partnered with Microsoft to scale Girls in AI across 150 countries.
On today’s episode of The MBA Is Dead we will be hosting Anna Jagric. Anna has held roles as Operations Director for two mental health focused orgs, Better Space and the Psychosynthesis Trust and was also previously Finance Manager for Startup Weekend Europe.
Anna has over 10 years experience in administering businesses, scaling small enterprises and growing startups. After training as a bookkeeper, her passion for continuous learning took her to a plethora of places, projects, and jobs. She is now an accredited facilitator, mentor and coach who is passionate about supporting social enterprise and helping individuals and groups create impact.
In this episode of The MBA Is Dead, we speak with Jana Stevanović, Sales Specialist at Strategyzer, an innovation powerhouse (founded by Alex Osterwalder inventor of Business Model and Value Proposition Canvases). She holds a Bachelor of International Relations from Political Science University in Belgrade as well as an MBA from WU Executive Academy in Vienna. After finishing her MBA, Jana was on her way to conquer the corporate world, but then decided to trade that for a career in innovation. She first worked on developing the startup ecosystem in Serbia, connecting corporates with startups and now is a part of a startup herself. At Strategyzer, Jana is helping Fortune 500 companies to create an innovation culture.
Today we speak with Amalia Agathou, who has 15 years of experience in the European startup ecosystem and the creative industries as an entrepreneur and innovation consultant.
A firm believer in innovation fueled by cross-border and and cross-industry collaboration, Agathou has designed and worked on numerous open innovation international programs like EDF Energy Awards, Global Fashion Battle and CFE's FashionTech accelerator.
Agathou is also an active mentor and advisor at several entrepreneurial communities and accelerator programs like Blooming Founders, NEF and Techstars.