This is Joe from Startupradio dot Joe, your startup podcast and
YouTube blog from Germany, bringing you another
interview in startuprate. Io.
But this time, we don't have a guest who has
a big relation to Germany. But we do
have Yvette here, a VC based, as I
just learned, on the outskirts of New York City. Hey. How you doing?
Hi. How are you? Good to have good to be here. Thank you so much
for inviting me. It's a pleasure to have you here.
Be before we get into what you did,
and there there's a lot of interesting stuff you did and what we can talk
about, I would like to put the
interview in perspective because a lot of German,
Austrian, Swiss based Startupradio, tech startups, they
need to look abroad when they want to raise serious money,
serious a, serious b stage around that. So that's why
we thought today we do an interview with a US based
investor and get your perspective from the outside
in, what is interesting in this industry, what is
not interesting, and the few how we can
approach investors like you. Happy to talk about it. Yes.
But first, let me introduce you a little bit because,
you are very interesting. You received numerous industry
awards. I I have to look it up because there are a lot. 2020
lifetime Achievement Emmy for Engineering and Technology,
National Cable and Television Association, Wengard Award
for Leadership in Science and Technology, named industry
pioneer and Emmy for your work in video on demand at c
change, named an industry
one of the 11 most influential women in television industry,
and consistently being ranked as one of the top
100 industry executives. And I when I read
this, I had two observations because first, what completely
astonished me is you have 2 degrees in mathematics. No
production, no filming, no camera.
How did you end up in the,
more or less, video on demand TV industry? And, of course,
you're a mathematician. Can you tell us a good math joke?
You know, by default, when you're a mathematician, you you have to
have no sense of humor. They don't allow us to be able to tell jokes.
It's one of the requirements before we graduate.
We're very dry. So, but what I will
say is that, I'm very much a deep technologist.
I was working on AI long before it was cool
recently, a very, very long time back when we had to do our
own algorithms and we didn't have all the amazing AI toolsets that
exist today to make it so easy to low code, no code.
But, but I went into the television industry. I was
working as a as a serious mathematician doing pattern recognition
algorithms for the Department of Defense. And, and
I heard that the that we were trying to, go to digital
get digital signals and lay fiber. And, and and I
thought well, I that's all mathematics to figure out how to get digital signals through
fiber. And, and so that's what led me to the television
industry. And I am very proud of having a Lifetime Achievement Emmy,
which is usually people think of for actors and actresses,
but mine is truly for television engineering and technology
development. So streaming, DVD, App Store, many
things that everybody uses today that I'm quite proud of
having a piece of, of the development of.
Just out of curiosity, you have a Emmy. How high would you rate your
acting skills? I don't have any of those. Yes. I I
guarantee that my acting skills had nothing to do with my
Emmy. Yes. But I'm very I'm very proud of the
academy because the academy is of television arts
and sciences, and we typically watch the arts part on
on, on the award shows. But the science is
is very important, for for for signal, for compression,
for delivery, for creating streaming, for for for,
cameras, all of that, plays a role in the,
on the sciences side. And it's the same Emmy, so quite proud of
that. Yes. When when I read when I read all of
that, I was expecting to see a lot of TV
outlets in this v, like NBC, ABC. Okay. I have to
admit I found Time Warner and PBS, but I was quite
surprised that you started your career as a senior
radar engineer for radar systems at Lockheed
Martin. You also have been a senior
VP, senior vice president at Cisco, and you have been a president
at NASDAQ listed SeaChange, a supplier of video
delivery systems. Would you say you're a tech
geek? Yes. No doubt. I'm definitely I am
definitely a geek. Yeah. That's for sure. But,
but I, I start you know, I think that when you
when you when you rise up to a president level from,
from from pretty serious technology and it ties in with
investments and being a VC as well. It's always good to
really understand the technology, and it's really it's really good to be
able to dive in deep with the technical teams. And, of course, if you're too
technical and you don't understand the business and the finances and and and
and those trade offs, that's not good
either. So I I just I just learned the latter,
later later in life, you know, to how to run a business, product
management, of all of the all of the other aspects
of of, running a company. I see. So I
assume you run your your complete home on a raspberry pi.
Yeah. Or or or, or or alternatives. Right? You have to
have some, you have to have your fault tolerance built in.
I see. So now that, we have kind of set the
frame, who you are, what you did, pretty impressed. Actually, you're the
first Emmy award winner ever on my show. I do have a lot of
other winners of, prestigious award. But Emmy, that's the
first one. I'm I'm still short of an Oscar winner, so
maybe we can talk about this later. Yes. There's
always tomorrow. You have, and and, maybe a Grammy. You
should just really diversify. Oh, yeah.
Yes. Exactly. You're here,
because you're an US based investor and you already
have an investment here in Germany. It's called Ditron.
It's in Kassel in in the state of Hessen in the north.
A little bit off the beaten path, but I do believe they
are making some pretty cool stuff there. Can you talk just a
tiny bit about what they are doing? So Ddrone is an anti drone company.
Very, very interesting. You know, when we talk about drones, we think about this kind
of drone or that kind of drone. We don't tend to think about the drone
threat. And so what the drone is, if you if you,
they, Menninger. So take an airport, for example.
You remember that there have been several incidences where drones have have
interrupted air traffic. An airport can can see
drone activity in the area. They can actually triangulate the
drone source. In defense cases, you could actually
take action on the drone. Right? So so, the need
for drone, realization, understanding,
using artificial intelligence to do things like this tree triangulation.
Very, very interesting company to as an anti drone,
as an anti drone company. So they are based in Kasia
and, and, very,
very, very interesting technology. So we we
can already tell you are interested in deep tech and
green tech. Do you see a future for the German and overall
European Startupradio in this direction? Well,
I do. I think that especially in Germany, I mean, you
have government subsidies and help for start ups in the
green side. I mean, there's a big energy push, that
that's very, very strong in Europe. And,
so I I think that that that's a that that's a a real opportunity. I
think that there are a lot of, there's a lot of focus on that both
from the government and the start up side. So clean energy,
I think, manufacturing optimization. There's
certain things that I really think are are are strong
where you're at, Joe. And, and I think that in
general, in the world, it will continue to be to be more,
and more important. And maybe a mix too. Let's let's be
honest. Right? Maybe it's it's also,
optimizing or automating or making more efficient and green
energy. I think that that mix is also valuable. I see.
We we here to talk about the
StartupRadio from, your outside perspective as well
as the outside in perspective, meaning the outside
perspective, what you see of the German German speaking StartupRadio
scene, and also how start ups from here can
approach you. What are some
interesting trends you see you kind of have an eye on if we
talk about Germany or the the the broader
area here in terms of startups. We we already
talked about the drone, drone defense.
Anything else? Maybe video compression, video on
demand discussed.
Well, I think that video on demand when when I was on
the on the, team creating that, you
know, think about it. We had nothing. It wasn't now streaming, everybody
opens their phone and their laptop and starts streaming. Every time they do,
I'm very proud. But at the time,
you have to invent things before you know you need them.
I remember very distinctly people telling me, Yvette, you're silly. People
don't wanna watch video when they wanna watch it. People are fine waiting till
8 PM on Tuesday night to watch that show. And,
and you have to believe and you have to to to to push for a
change. So, and I'll talk about it in a minute, Joe, because
it does matter. Creating a better compression to get just a
tiny bit better signal is very less disruptive
than changing an industry and changing the way that we would that we
watch content. Right? So that disruption becomes more important. Today,
people are looking for something big disruptive as opposed to moving an inch
to a better product that was disrupted yesterday. So so the
example you brought up is a good example, but we could come up with 1,000.
Right? Which is, are you really disrupting a market?
And, you asked me about Germany. So I think
that, you know, things I think about with Germany, love
Germany, by the way. Fun fact. I was raised in
Germany. And, clean
energy, I think, that you already brought up, I think is very strong
in manufacturing. Matter of fact, Germany, the country, very strong in manufacturing and on the
industrial side.
Fintech. There have been a lot of Fintech focus and
successes. And I think health also, also,
I mean, as a as a United States based, just
person, I would say beyond tech. Right? Everybody knows knows what,
what happened there, some years ago. So so,
you know, it's it's on the radar of, of
of people in general, but I wouldn't say that,
your Silicon Alley is is is yet is known as the
Silicon Valley. Right? Joe, so that that
that at a high level in terms of you know what? The other thing I
think of consumer goods, you do a lot on on the, consumer
delivery and optimization and even health care delivery. They'll you've had
some successes there too. Mhmm. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes. Interesting perspective.
You said But, Joe, you have to tell me you can't ask me the perspective
without commenting. Do you disagree? If you disagree with me, I'd love to
know. No. No. I I I actually, would completely agree.
BioNTech actually is not too far away here, in the
city of Mainz, and they're using the tax proceeds to
really build a biotech hub. And we
already had 2 of the companies
there, already established in the interview. 1 of
them is already listed on Nasdaq, and the other one is
very early stage. A very smart lady. She's a
professor at University of Mainz, and she is working
on a technology to, make
it easier to transplant, organs,
to transplant, stem cells, in order
to therapy, leukemia, for example. But
she's still waiting for her first for
her first patient, at the stage of the interview. But
there's a lot of activity going on. And I do
believe that is something that doesn't always grab
the headline attention, but it's something we do
except for appearing on StartupRadio. How
would a start up get your attention? Well, you just answered.
It's you, Joe. But, I
think, it's a really good question because
because I think, creating that that
that interconnection is
magical. And and it's the right question to ask because,
startups wanna know who who do I go pitch. Right? I have my pitch deck.
How can I get in front of more people? And to your
question of, you know, looking at the US VC market,
how can I especially get into US VCs? Right? And,
NVCs are bombarded with everybody. Right? You're always getting
an email with somebody's pitch deck or a one pager. Right? And,
it is impossible to keep up with all the people that email me and say,
read this, read this, read this. So I think that that the the the
the magic I'm gonna I'm going to give you the answer in
a different form, which is instead of just trying
to crowdsource or trying to just say, I'm I'm throwing
it out there and seeing what will stick. It's creating meaningful relationships.
It's the same as your customer base. How do I find customers? I have a
great product. Why won't everybody buy it? Because you have to
create meaningful relationships. And so you should look at UVC community the way that
you look at your sales community. It's a network. It's something that you invest in
long term. It's something you invest in before you need funding. Funding is
hard. It's become more and more difficult in in the US as well as
Germany worldwide. It's, it's it's it's it's,
it's been it's been a very difficult, last year.
And so, so being at all of the,
being at the events, it's not something about where can I send my deck
to or how can I get the right introduction when I need it? It's it's
about, creating long term relationships with VCs at
VC events, but being in the communities. I
think that, take Germany, for example,
and and, I'll take a couple of companies that I'm close with like
Siemens. Right? And Siemens is very very, caring
about the StartupRadio community, and they reach out to the start up community.
But go one step further. Have relationships with your companies. By the way, many
companies have have VC arms. Right? They do they do here. Right?
And they and, they do there. So it's not just investing in
them. It's it's networking beyond them with several companies
and then extending that into the US market, into the VCs in the
US. Most people just look at it at a very tactical way. You
have to look at this strategic, and you have to grow that network. It's it
takes time, effort, and it's worth it.
And the the the kind of, the bottom line that I see, it's easier
to get a, like, a first meeting in person at an
event with you or one of your colleagues, then
just, sending out, like, a gazillion of emails. Because
personal experience, there there is not a lot of
people who would reply to those emails. I
think that I I I agree everything you said is is is
exactly my point. But why do so
many send the emails and go that route? I get so many a day and,
Joe, you have to know what I'm talking about. I'm sure you see the same.
Right? It is the easiest way. I do something once I put it
into a into, you know, mail bombardment. But,
many of these VC events, and, again, go start with the
German one. Right? Because the German ones can expand. People know
people. You have one person there. You'll get invited to 1 in the US. And
I think that if you start that cycle and you understand how to network, many
of these include speed dating, is is what we call it in the US.
Right? Where you get 15 minutes with the Startupradio you actually take the time to
say I'm doing 15 minutes, 15 minutes, 15 minutes, 15 minutes.
Practice a really tight pitch that's 15 minutes
and see if you get that follow-up. And those kind of events are magical
and much, much better. And even if you don't get invited
to 1 of the 15 minute sessions, be there at the dinners, be there for
the for the discussions, Again, it's a long term investment,
and everybody knows everybody. It's a small community. So,
so so that network is very worthwhile. 1st, did a
a a a a little geeky detail here. I
know speed dating works not only for online dating. Actually, I do
have a friend who's a very geeky computer scientist. We gave him a
birthday present to go for speed dating. Somebody had to watch him. That was
me, and I actually met my wife there. Oh my goodness.
Congratulations on that too. Well, this would be VC
Startupradio dating, and let's assume it's the same. Exactly.
Exactly. But for me personally,
it was it will be also interesting to find the
right events because as we talked about the emails, like,
there there are a million emails, there are a million
events. How would I find the right ones,
the interesting ones? Right. And so and so,
I have my I have my favorite. You have your
favorite, which we we won't we won't share. But,
but I think that, you have to get into
the right area first. Right? It's the it's the same as networking.
It's the same as as as sales. You get as close as you
can and you leverage that network to get to the next step. So I
said I would say, let's say for example, you're very tight with,
a good venture group in Germany. You start with that venture group and go to
those events and you really look at the attendee list and you see who's there
that's in the group that you'd like to be invited to and then you go
talk to those people and see if you can get invited to that group the
next time. Let's say you're not in that venture circle in
Germany, but let's say you have, a good customer circle.
Ask to be introduced to your customers venture arms and go to their events, right,
because they have the right people. All of again, it's a small community
and, and and and it's and it's truly worthwhile to network
in that community. The the job of a CEO is hard.
Right? Because you're trying to sell. You're focused on your technology.
You need to find the right product market fit. You're focused on marketing and you
need to focus on your investments. You need to be looking at your prior rounds,
always as as opposed to, you know, don't look at it just 6 months
in advance. You should be close with that with that industry. So it's,
something to add to your to your day to day job for sure. And when
you attend those events, is it more important to have? I
already know the answer, but I I I want to have it again from
you. Is it more important to have 70 pages of pitch deck
with you, a one pager or business card or both?
I think that, now you just do an electronic LinkedIn connect.
So so no business card. And, I think
that, you wanna capture somebody's, interest.
So the biggest thing is what you can say with your words. You don't need
a deck. 1 pager to leave somebody with is fine, but it's
all about the story. Have your story well and crisp.
Joe, if I can just if I can just pivot for a second about that
story. Right? Because the key is what
makes a VC interested? Forget US
or or or if you're if you're in India or if you're in
in in Germany, why do I like you? Right?
And and for for for us, our criteria,
and I think for most VCs, the very first thing
is, the people. Right? You have a
I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've taken I have this many unicorns
in my, in, in in my past. Right? Or I'm a first it's a
first time and I just finished sending out 50,000
emails and they didn't work. So that's my first pitch to you and I'm not
succinct. Right? All of those things matter. So you really need to
get your story about the people right as to why I should trust you and
your team. I have the best team. I have a proven team.
My team has lots of experience and I and I believe in
you. That's the first criteria. If you show up with a
bad pitch or you show up with 75 pages to your question, Joe,
it's a tough, It's it's an uphill battle. Right? You're probably not gonna
get very far, and you're saying, I finally was invited to the party,
and I failed. Right? So so do your homework for the party.
Call Joe. Joe will Joe will help you. He knows what to do at the
party. What, but I think the second
part is that you have to be in a market transition. Right? The
market transition is very important to us. So so,
I say that because because you said earlier
better compression for video versus versus inventing
streaming. Inventing streaming changed the world. Better compression? I
don't know if people care. I don't know what people would pay. Are you gonna
pay more for your streaming every month because it's a better compression?
Maybe, maybe not. Right? It's difficult that somebody every day comes up to
me to say, I'm going to make streaming better because I have a better user
interface, because I have a better compression, because I have a better this. I have
I can we I have, technology to share videos, to do video
parties. There are so many things to make it one step better,
but is it disruptive enough like the first invention was?
Right? And, and so that
disruption is really, really important. You have to have something different. You have to
differentiate yourself from everybody else, and then we go way
deep. We we will go to the customer base. We'll talk to our
friendly customers because we have a huge connection. I work with
John Chambers, who's a legend in Silicon Valley, and,
and we use our own connections to to to to say, is this a
right market fit product market fit? Would you buy this? Even
though you don't even know the Startupradio yet. So so all of those
things matter, and you have to have all of the things that you're trying to
accomplish in your pitch deck, in your mind, and say I
have to have an elevator pitch. I'm on the
elevator between floor 1 and, say, floor 5, not
floor 25. Floor 5 floors. Do I have a pitch
short enough to answer those questions? I'm super the best team.
I have a disruptive technology for a market transition that's going to rock your
world. Five stories. You gotta practice that. Then you've gotta do the
15 minute pitch, you know, for the,
for, for that type of speed dating environment, right? Where you're doing
VC after VC after VC and, and then have your
longer deck. But if you always have the 80 pages, you you you you
won't you know, you'll be lucky to get far. It's it's it's an uphill battle.
But does that make sense, Joe? I mean, that that criteria Yeah. Yeah. It does.
It quicker and tougher. It totally makes sense. And
actually, that is something that has gotten easier over the
years because many people it
it's very easy to come up with a 80 slide presentation.
It's much harder to come up with an 8 slide presentation.
But when I was talking about this, it's gotten easier. There
are a lot of tools out there to help you first do an very
impressive presentation. I know that matters a little bit. And
secondly, also, tools like Chat GPT who help you just to
summarize 80 slides into 8 slides. They can help you
with that. Because if you're an entrepreneur by yourself,
it's very, very, very hard to really cut down
all the things you you thought about, all the all the details
you want to include that highlights, what makes you different.
But actually, a really good trick that,
somebody told me, one of my former bosses, was try to
explain it to your grandma. Yeah.
Yeah. As a mathematician too. Yeah. She doesn't
get the details here and there and this, and she doesn't even know Disney
plus. But if you could explain it to your grandma that
she'll understand, you're set. That is a that it
that is good advice, Joe. That is very good advice. When I
started, I I, you know, I started on the super
techie, geeky side. And, when people told me I need to bring
it to 1 page, I would just change the font size. I've learned much since
then. You know? So the grandma is a good idea, and I
think, Joe, the other thing that's really changed is the financial criteria has
gotten, much more, stringent. So
it used to be that, I would believe in you, Joe, and you're
pitching to me, and I've and I've been through 2 startups with you in the
past. And I think now there it's a show me instead of
believe me stage. It's gotten worse over the last 24 months.
You have to show me your growth. You have to show me your growth in
much more stringent time periods. You have to show me a
much more aggressive growth. It's,
people would like to see a, I
think that VCs in general are are,
the you know, you you you know well. Right? The growth is is
different for different size of of of of revenue. But, but,
again, that that criteria gets gets stricter and stricter. And,
and so I think really focusing on the financials in addition to the
grandmother stories is is very
important because a lot of pitches to me focus
on how cool my technology is. And then I talk about the money, and they
say, well, Yvette, you're gonna help me with that. And I just think, wow. If
you don't have that ready and you don't understand that, that's a that's a big
miss, especially on early seed. Mhmm. And,
also, what what I've experienced in my
life is a lot of the people who have, like, the
technical details and all the stuff, the product hammered out,
they completely believe you just need 1, 2,
3,000,000. You throw them into marketing. The marketing guys will
do something with it and then you're good. That doesn't work
anymore. Right? That is so right. You are so right. And which is why
I say, think about all the answers before you do your presentation
and make sure that you can give all those answers in the various
sizes, extra small, like an elevator pitch
to to to small, like 15 minutes to medium and
large and extra large. And, and, and it's amazing
how most of them will be smaller medium pitches. And you have to
capture you have to capture a VC's,
interest in that short period of time because your only goal is
to follow-up. Your goal is not to let them understand the detail of slide
number 157. It's really just to get the
follow-up meeting. Actually, I do believe if you can
make a VC sit in to slide 157,
he or she is already very interested. This is
true. I don't know if I've ever seen that, though, Joe. Have you?
157. That's a lot. He gave me a very, very
new way to think about the pitches. So you
have x s. It's like the one pager, you have the s
pitch, the m pitch, and maybe somewhere there's the x l
pitch. But basically, you just use it as,
in German, we would say, as a collection of slides that you
can throw together, to make shorter pictures. Yes. Yes. That's
right. And and and, not just the sizes, but
but know what your goal is of the meeting because many people think I'm
looking for that technical depth. I need to get that into your head about how
amazing my solution is. And, that should not be your goal.
Right? So when we look at things, I gave you that criteria, the people,
the market transition, the total disruption as to why you're gonna be
successful and how am I gonna make money and how long is it gonna take.
Right? Joe so so you have to look at it from my perspective and
give that and and and think of that as you create those size
sized, decks. Also, for me,
many people, when they start out in the Startupradio scene, like the
very first month of fundraising.
They believe they have, like, as we talked about, a very long
extensive pitch check. They have one scheduled appointment
with the VC, and at the end of the pitch, the VC will get
out his checkbook and write a check. That's not working
anymore. How how would you say you should be
prepared? Because for me, personally, I would approach it,
get to know them in person, like attend the right events.
Then you go and, do, like, an online presentation,
like the s or the m pitch deck as we talked about.
And then maybe you should also, kind
of, get to know the the people in person.
Visit them again, Silicon Valley, New York,
Chicago, wherever they are. Yes. That's right. That
that would make a lot of difference if you visit
the VCs again. And and then at one point, they'll get
out the checkbook, but it will be a long process. Yes. As a
matter of fact, I don't I don't, I mean, we're a we're a very
close community and and, you know, in the VC
world. So we all we all talk to each other quite often.
But, but but that is, that's not the way
we do it at all. Right? So we have we have, you know, a
100 to 1, rejections of
of ones that we even, show interest in. So you have to
come in looking at a very high failure
rate probability. And, and I think
that what you do is you want in the first meeting, you want a second
meeting. In the second meeting, you'd like to have a meeting with a larger team.
Right? And in the third meeting, you'd like to have a second meeting with the
larger team. In the in the next meeting, you'd like to have somebody that falls
in love with this technology product, market
disruption, whatever it is that's that's super exciting about your
about your particular pitch. It's gonna take many meetings,
and and and and it almost always involves a larger team.
And and like I said, from our standpoint, we then wanna talk to
customers and then we talk to our own customers that we know
are are our friends and family and we'll say,
let me introduce you to to to somebody that we're thinking of investing
in and and tell me, what would you what what's your
honest thought about their sales pitch, not not the investment
pitch? So there there's a lot of steps there, Joe. It is not an easy
it is not an easy journey. And again, the financial criteria has
gotten much stricter. You can't just do yesterday's thing better. I mean, I'm not
saying you can't. Of course, any startup can do anything. But, but
but we really look for true disruptions in a market transition. It's it's
it's, it's it's it's been a difficult market. And then if you wanna
go outside of Germany and say, I would like to have that US, you have
to do all the same things in in in the
USBC environment. Mhmm. Yes. Exactly.
Plus you have to show
why they should invest because as you were saying,
there are certain economics to VC fund. That
means you you can't just, make 2,
3 times profit on your investment, then the economics
don't work because a lot of failures are always included in a
VC fund. That means the successful startups, they have to
make up for all the other failures. So you're looking really for the big
moonshot there. Yes. You are. Always. Always. Well said,
Joe. That's exactly the way it works. You are you are spot
on. You know, the only other thing I'd add to to to to this
whole discussion of of Germany that you just brought up is that,
and not specific to Germany, but but specific to the US.
One of the big disruptions right now in the VC market is of
course the economy. And the second one that's worth mentioning is of
course, all of the regulatory changes, geopolitics and things that
are happening. And so,
maybe an important thing to to add to to the whole
discussion we just had in terms of pitching is also
those those two things. Right? Because, the VC community
sees things as a slower payout right now and as a high risk
with regard to regulatory changes. And in another
country, you're dependent on the regulatory changes in that
country and and what's happening. And, so much
with with the geopolitics, with artificial intelligence, with the
ongoing privacy considerations and trust, and, and it's
just seemingly never ending as as to how regulatory
changes are being implemented. So I would add that to a
level of complexity for for, in a a cross
country investment because you're making an investment not just in the
technology, but in all of that as well. Never ever forget
the taxes. Yes. Yes. And and and and, you know,
if you have something that's that's you want me to invest in something that's
strong in country that, had that
that's, you know, in country that's a different country from where you're investing
in, then, you know, is that something we're all familiar with?
Is that is that regulatory risk going to,
going to potentially impact your success?
And so much on privacy even if you're doing grocery delivery.
Right? You know, what do you do with the data? How do you address the
data? Where is it stored? Can you store it in the cloud? You know, how
are you addressing all of the privacy factors when you go across a country
line? Are we technically savvy enough to address
that? All of those are more difficult when you're investing in another
country to understand what those regulations are and how you cross those
bridges. So there's definitely another level of complexity.
And I would think about we talked about Dedron based in Casa.
You know, they were they were their their headquarters was in in in in,
in San Francisco, and our headquarters is in San Francisco. Joe,
or in, Palo Alto, I should say, Silicon Valley. And,
so so think about, are you going to have a presence in the US? If
you're if you're seeking US, investments,
are you planning to expand? Do you have US customers? You have 2 US
customers. One thing that we do, Joe, is we
we actually help with customer expansion. So we have a
very, very, very large customer base that we're close with,
and where we know their their executive teams. And we set
up jc2days. And in jc2days, we might invite
between 5 10 startups to do this speed
presentation to to to a customer with the goal to see which one
the the the customer would like to follow-up with. And, and
so we actually help with sales introductions so so much.
But if you're only in country, then that so much of that
would not be applicable. Right? So how how good of a fit are you with
the culture of the VC and how they run? Because we take such an active
role and we help with introductions. If you're only in country
in Germany, then that would be very limiting. I see.
To get towards the end because we're talking for over
35 minutes for now, That will be on the little bit longer side, but
I do do believe there's a lot of entertaining and also
interesting content in here. There are a lot of there there
are benchmarks out there, in terms of
series a sizes, valuations, and so on and so forth. If
you Google a lot, benchmarks, how much
investment do series a stage Startupradio, what at
what valuation, the same for series b, valuation
investment size. Would you expect the
founders to know that and not be completely off the charts?
I think that founders would behoove themselves to look up
some of the art there are some great articles out there on on what
your multiples expectations are,
what the ranges are for it, what what is the right,
growth expectation on various aspects of growth,
right, for for various sizes
of revenue. I think that all of that is something that that that, I
would recommend you you familiarize yourself with because that's what you'll be compared
to, for sure. Joe if they don't know, I
mean, Joe, you tell me if they know or not, but but, but
they should. Yeah. They they should. And, as you said,
it's just your homework you need to do. And,
getting finally to you guys, what kind of startups
are you looking for and how could startups pitch? We we already,
we already noticed you you get way too many emails.
But I've seen you have security and trust
engagement, energy infrastructure and sustainability
as broad investment topics on your website. Could
you elaborate a little bit what you guys are doing and
how start ups can make the first contact there? Joe, so I would say that
we're highly biased towards AI, have been for for many, many years.
You know, since the beginning, we've been very biased towards AI and
transformations as an underlying technology. The
areas that you just mentioned, I would say security. There's so much
happening in security and with the change of quantum computing and
and, and and and new technologies that really
affect cyber, cyber risk quantification and
and and things that address some of the SEC regulations that are happening
here. Lots of interesting things on the cyber side, and
that has to continue to change because, with AI, we now
have AI driven cyberattacks. So that is going to continue to be
top of mind for for a very long time. So so that's
one area. The next I would say is AI for, customer
experience. I think the call customer experience needs a complete
transformation. I think AI is gonna drive call calls
to a call center. Bots are gonna become better. They're gonna be more
speakable as opposed to the the the IVRs that exist
today. Lots of transformation happening in that, which is a big
interest. And then I think that you can't get rid of our roots of
infrastructure, probably continue to to stay in there and things like
network as a service. I'll stop there, Joe, but there's a couple of ideas.
Right. And everybody who would like to learn more, you can go down here in
the show notes. There will be, of course, a link to your LinkedIn profile and
to Joe investments. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure
having you here. Likewise. Thanks for having me, Joan. Totally much. Pleasure.
Have a good day. Bye bye. Bye.