Venture Europe: Entrepreneurship | Technology | Venture Capital | Eu/Acc
00:34:47 · Chaz Englander
[00:34:47] S1: Perseverance, I think. Arnd and I kind of talk about this a lot. We did a podcast with YC, we mentioned this quite a bit. The way I think about it is if something makes sense, right, persevere. Persevere at all costs. It's not blind perseverance, but you should persevere as an entrepreneur. And I think more often than not, you see that's where it starts to crack. Now, this is where it's interesting. I mean, Arne and I personally, we've invested in maybe 50, 60, 70 companies over the last few years. And we really think about this deeply, what are the things that we think are good attributes for entrepreneurs and why? Now, perseverance is one. I think that genuine interest, so curiosity and resourcefulness and being genuine is so important, right? Because, you know, the way I explain this to people is that I have two children, have a three year old and a six year old, about to turn six. So three year old and a five year old. Congrats. And, you know, I'm seeing my children three or four hours every Saturday and Sunday afternoon, even when I'm with them. Now, I hope they trust that I, you know, won't be like this forever, but just given we are in crazy times, they'll forgive me in terms of the way that we work. But even when I'm with them, if you scroll through YouTube on my phone, you're AI and technology. It's just what we care about and what we are excited about, but it's genuine, Right? And I think, like, entrepreneurs, the ones that tend to win are the ones that are genuinely interested in the mission that they're going after. And I always, even in the interviews now, I probably shouldn't say this because then people will overly prep, but I always ask go to someone's Instagram or YouTube, what was I see? It's one of my interview questions because I'm trying to understand this point. It's like, do they want to come and work at an AI scale up because it's cool or are they interested? There's a big difference, one's sustainable and one's not. And then perseverance. I think you've got to enjoy the journey, but it is a journey. It's not A to B.
00:36:59 · Calin Fabri
[00:36:59] S0: Do you have some examples of perseverance from your own journey? And also, how do you test when you invest into someone to understand if they will persevere when things will get tough?
00:37:14 · Chaz Englander
[00:37:14] S1: So, I definitely think it's important to so, yeah, I mean, the example I put is, you know, Fat Alma's first rental of our first business. Bear in mind, it was a business, and the whole idea was we were gonna be able to ensure items that lent out. Our first rental of a drone resulted in a theft. Right? So Like like, you know, it's it's like it's like you couldn't you couldn't get much worse than that. And so... But but it but it still made sense to us, and we still knew logically speaking, it's not blinds for experience. We would be able to provide technology to to sort out that problem. Now, you know, how do you how do you look for that? I I really think it's like, where is this person curious? So people people shouldn't have passions and things that they care about outside of work, but but how much do they care about the topic that they're working on versus, you know, basically just thinking it's cool or they'd fallen into it, etcetera. And it and it... You really have to, like, pull that out of people. You know? And you can see it. Right? Like, you get onto a topic with someone and boom, they're a different person. You know, they're they're... You know, I I remember an interview that I I did last week. I was really trying to, you know, I... Is this person actually, know, interested in artificial intelligence? Frankly, if you're interested in artificial intelligence and you've not used Claude Code or Codex or Lovable, etcetera, and build your own things, you are fundamentally just not telling the truth, whether that's to me or to yourself. Right? Mhmm. And when this person started talking about what they built, you know, beyond vibe coding and they weren't an engineer, you know, by trade, boom. They were just like the excitement, and you could tell that they were just... It it was about the concept of building in the AI era that really excited them. And that for me was like, it's a 100% yes, right? Because you could see the passion, you know, it's obvious.
00:39:06 · Calin Fabri, Chaz Englander
[00:39:06] S0: Interesting, like you just have to break through the sales pitch, you know, and just get to know, like, how interested they are into something. Like I've heard this that really stuck with me is like if you can explain to someone the problem very, very well, they will think that you have the solution as well. Yeah. But to explain a problem very, very well, that means you've looked into it from different angles and you understand it very, very well. [00:39:30] S1: Yeah. But you've to be curious, right? Because it's these people that are like naturally want to lift up the bonnet a little bit more and understand a little bit more. They're the people that deeply understand these problems. To your point, though, it's it's definitely more anecdotally. It's easier to do this in Europe versus The US. I think in The US, just because everyone is, you know, so good at selling Mhmm. It's so... I find it so much more difficult to unpack, like, you know, where is the where is the actual truth here? Like, where is the reality? Right. I find it more difficult. [00:40:11] S0: You're just excited about Maybe [00:40:12] S1: that's why, you know, maybe that's why if we take the Nordics as an example, because they're like in the extreme case. I mean, like, you know, if you're if you're from Stockholm, you're saying you're saying how it is. Right? And it's... You know, maybe that's why in this era, you know, the likes of Max and Anton are doing so well because, you know, it's just... No one's messing around.
00:40:12 · Chaz Englander, Calin Fabri
[00:40:12] S1: that's why, you know, maybe that's why if we take the Nordics as an example, because they're like in the extreme case. I mean, like, you know, if you're if you're from Stockholm, you're saying you're saying how it is. Right? And it's... You know, maybe that's why in this era, you know, the likes of Max and Anton are doing so well because, you know, it's just... No one's messing around. [00:40:33] S0: Absolutely. And and what's a what's a book that had an outsized impact on you? It can be any type of genre.
00:40:39 · Chaz Englander
[00:40:39] S1: I definitely remember reading the hard things about hard things that I was younger, there's that chapter where it talks about, like, on repeat, like, this is hard, this is hard, this is hard. I think that the, you know, no one can prepare anyone for any entrepreneur journey regardless of scale. It is hard. It's hard from start to finish regardless of how successful you are. In fact, I think it's almost inversely correlated. The faster you are, the harder it becomes because you're trying to keep up, you know, learning as an entrepreneur. No one can prepare you for how hard it is, right? So you've got to enjoy journey. But equally, there is nothing, at least in Aani and Aani's eyes, that is more rewarding than building something and putting in someone's hands and then smiling and loving it and enjoying it and bringing delight to their lives. Right? Like, if you actually just look... And that, by the way, that concept isn't just applied to being an entrepreneur, it's applied to really anything, I think in life. And so, view is once you've got it in your mind as like, I might be an entrepreneur one day, or I'm going to go and build something. It's very difficult to reverse that. We often say it's just a matter of time. It's like particularly people that are working at corporates, banks, did a lot of people in the finance world at the moment. When I speak to people that are considering a more entrepreneurial journey, it's just a matter of time.