Carl Hartmann On Raising The Highest-Ever Seed Round For No-Alcohol Spirits With $11.5 Million In Funding

In this episode of the Dealmakers’ Podcast, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Carl Hartmann, an Australian entrepreneur who has taken his innovative ideas and turned them into two successful businesses.

His latest venture, Lyre’s Spirit Co has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Futurecraft Ventures, VRD Investment, Doehler Ventures, DLF Venture, and DLF Venture.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Prioritizing health and work-life balance as a founder to prevent burnout and maintain peak performance.
• Focusing on your strengths and delegating operational tasks to others to free you to tackle complex deals and strategic challenges.
• Embracing the “return on effort” concept, where you concentrate your energy on areas where you can deliver the most value to your business.
• Leveraging your experience and knowledge to build a successful family office portfolio, balancing active involvement with passive investments.
• Recognizing the significance of the better-for-you trend as health-conscious consumers seek alternatives to traditional products, opening new entrepreneurial opportunities.
• Staying adaptable and preparing to pivot your business strategy, as the COVID-19 pandemic showcased the potential for unexpected shifts in consumer behavior.
• Learning from past experiences and continually refining your skill set to evolve as an entrepreneur and leader.

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About Carl Hartmann:

Carl Hartmann has worked in a variety of roles in the business world since 2001. Carl began their career as a Category Manager at JB Hifi, then moved on to become a Key Account Manager at News Corporation in 2005.

In 2007, they became a Senior Commercial Manager at Domain.com.au. In 2009, they Co-Founded and served as CEO of Temando, a technology company that raised over $56M in funding and was successfully acquired in a trade sale by Neopost S.A.

In 2018, they became a Director at Parabolic Growth, helping founders achieve amazing growth and investing in various companies. In 2017, they Co-Founded and served as Chairman of Compono and also became an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at The University of Queensland.

In 2021, they became a Non-Executive Director at Maropost. Finally, in 2019, they Co-Founded and served as Executive Director of Lyre’s Non-Alcoholic Spirits, a range of 13 alcohol-free classic spirits. Lyre’s is the most decorated non-alcoholic spirit brand globally, having won multiple awards.

Carl Hartmann attended The University of Queensland from 2001 to 2005, where they earned a BBusMan / BA in Marketing, Psychology, and International Relations.

In 2021, they attended Harvard University and INSEAD to take courses in Navigating Organizational and Cultural Change. In 2022, they attended London Business School to take a course in Tools for Scaling your Business.

Connect with Carl Hartmann:

• Linkedin
• Crunchbase
• TheOrg
• Twitter

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Already hello everyone and welcome to the deal maker show. So today. We have a really amazing founder a proven founder that has done it multiple times I think we’re gonna be learning quite a bit from him and also finding his journey quite inspiring. We’re gonna be learning also a lot about people. And what makes successful companies successful so without further ado. Let’s welcome. Our guest today Carl Hartman welcome up to the show. So originally born in Queensland Australia so give us a walk through memory lane. How was life growing up.

Carl Hartmann: Um, thanks for having me on hundred.

Carl Hartmann: Ah, look I think it’s probably exactly as you you might imagine growing up in Australia warm and wonderful and safe. But yeah, um, basically grew up in Brisbane Australia I did university there. Went to the university of Queensland which is one of the largest universities in Australia. It’s got about 60000 people on campus. So good. Fun um, graduated had an early career in in media worked for for Newscorp and then fairfax which um was one of the I guess the first big digital players in Australia and then. My first startup was inspired from my university job actually so I worked for a company called jb hifi which is sort of the australian equivalent of a best buy and I was fascinated that people would come into the store. We had a limited amount of stores at the time and they would try to get. Um. Big big ticket items you remember like twenty years ago when Plasma Tvs used to cost like you know $10000 and we used to try and predict what it costs to ship and let’s just say long story short. We were always wrong and I think you know having an early career working in some big companies and and.

Alejandro Cremades: Yeah.

Carl Hartmann: My first job out of Uni was at Newscorp I was in I looked after the retail as as a customer segment and interestingly all these businesses were going online and none of them. Um, were kind of doing it right because they were just copying what was happening in the us at the time which was free shipping. And in a country like Australia which is the size of the continental us. But with only 20000000 people doesn’t quite work because you don’t have the the same sort of logistics infrastructure in Hubbard Spokeke nature um so there were some horror examples where they were literally losing money on things they sold online with big items particularly like. You know, couches and Tvs and whatnot so I was just yeah, fascinated so decided to have a crack at solving that problem and the rest was history.

Alejandro Cremades: So then let’s talk about that because you know the first company ended up being tamando. So um, yeah, so so tell us about how did the whole thing come together and and how do you launch this because I mean this was 2009 you know coming out of the craziness.

Carl Hartmann: That’s right? yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: You know the economic downturn that we experienced at that moment and and also you know like launching a hypergrowth business you know in Australia at that point you know probably Bc was something new and inexistent. Yeah.

Carl Hartmann: Amen.

Carl Hartmann: Nonexistent exactly? Yeah well yeah I think there’s an ah idea it was something we had started thinking around I think 2005 to 2007 as ah, sort of ah as a as a concept but you’re exactly right? then the gfc happened and we were having some. Some early conversations with investors which has basically said all investment was closed for the foreseeable future. So yeah, just something I think that was sort of on the backburner. Um, and they were sort of coming out of the gfc. You know we had started to just bootstrap it. Um, we had built that up to about. A million in revenue which is always this magic number when people start to take things seriously like oh this could be a real business. Um, and then basically at that time there was just no real venture capital like there’s a little bit of private equity. There was no one really backing early stage unlisted. Things so this is really pre-linkedin in Australia Linkedin I think might have existed as a concept that it certainly wasn’t something mainstay so what kind of helped me at the time is there’s ah, there’s a local magazine which is like our version of Forbes which is called um. Bw and I remember getting it. There was like ah a rich list and I literally started just calling. People’s company switchboards and you know just putting a bit of hustle in and just pretending I had all these different skits. It was literally just cold calling and in some cases I was pretending to return their call. He’ll know what it’s about.

Carl Hartmann: And games like that and I reckon there’s about out of 100 people I probably got through to about half which I thought was a pretty good odds. What amazed me though is when I finally got through and said hey look I’m not after money. It’s after advice. Um the vast majority of people actually met with me and. I really think some of my early success came from that just the advice of others and all I was trying to do is just actually just get some facetime with people that had sort of raised some money scaled. Um you know how how they raised who they raised from when they raise because timing is everything right? And yeah I can. Honestly say without the advice of some of these people I just wouldn’t be here today because you know I was in my early 20 s and didn’t really know what I was doing I was sort of driving the bus and trying to build it at the same time and um, yeah, got there like um I think it was a combination. My first million raised was very much. Um.

Alejandro Cremades: I hear him.

Carl Hartmann: You know some small checks from people having a bit of a punt and then I’d set some goals and then you know came back a little while later and said yep, all those revenue goals that we said we were going to do we did and then people were like and then all of a sudden they all have existing networks as well which we’ve got referrals and then our. Our first sort of big institutional check if you like from ah from ah a pe that was moving into vc um and that was a 5000000 series a which back then was huge. No one was doing that those sort of numbers I think you know quickly if you remember the rounds just got bigger and bigger and sort of those check sizes became. Particularly pre 2021. They got you know a little a little bit mental for a while. But I think that’s been the pattern in terms of you know, raising some capital having a growth plan setting some goals achieving those um, creating that cycle of trust with investors you know doesn’t always go to plans and think it was long if you. Something doesn’t go to plan I think it’s just explaining why it did it and how you’ve pivoted and how you’ve learned from that and then you know double down the things that do work.

Alejandro Cremades: And and and I guess for the people that are listening to really get it. What ended up being the business model of tomando. How are you guys making money.

Carl Hartmann: Yeah, sure so um, easiest way to explain it is you’ve ever bought something online and you see all those delivery options in the checkout we were the first company really to do that and we built a middleware layer that sat between the various retailers and the different couriers and back then. If you went to go to ah any career company in the world and said do you have an api they would have just just giving the most puzzled look um there was no, they didn’t have apis. They didn’t have any integration layers at best they sort of might have had an Ftp file transfer right? like um so they were very unsophisticated. Um, during the birth of ecommerce and I think we acted as a technology partner to really? um, basically I think just bring them into that that modern way of of trading electronically um and then so we started off um the only real way to. Ah, to get around some of the technical hurdles is we had to actually handle the money and the transaction. Um, that as they got more sort of advanced is something that they um yeah long-term didn’t want to do because they want to be close to their customer which we perfectly understood. Um, so where we sort of settled was like just a b two b saas model so we would sell technology to the retailers which would enable them to trade with the various career companies and then we integrated really deeply with all the the ecommerce platforms. So the.

Carl Hartmann: You know at the time the magento is the shopifys the big commerces and so forth. Oh so yeah, we did a 1000000 seed five series a and 50 series b so 56000000 australian

Alejandro Cremades: And also prior to the acquisition. How much did you guys raise for the company. So.

Alejandro Cremades: What was what was that in.

Carl Hartmann: Which back back back then the us dollars were I think we’re about 1 for 1 these days. It’s about 1.5 so it’s yeah little little bit sad in terms of the exchange rate. So yeah, call it I don’t know thirty five Ishmilyian usd at current exchange rates maybe 40

Alejandro Cremades: And and and how was that experienced too of you know, coming from Australia to San Francisco because say this was you know around the time with this company. You know that then that you also tested the waters in the Us.

Carl Hartmann: Yeah, yeah, so um, ah we had picked up some really big global brands a lot of them had a presence in the us as well. So we got to I guess expand into that market. Um, on the back of those contracts. But yeah, what? what? I was finding is most of our technology partners back then were were bay area based and I was coming probably every twelve weeks or so and it just got to the point where what I found as a foreign founder is like I would fly over I have some great conversations and many of them. But just stay as conversations because it’s like without you being on the ground to progress them week to week month-to- month. Um, if you’re out of sight out of mind particularly you know for ecommerce at the time I mean the bay area was very much the the hub of activity for that. So it got to the point where um, on the back of our series b and I just decided to move over just be the vanguard if you like build a team. Um, and then yeah, that proved to be ah, a very important decision because it just allowed us to sort of forge some big global partnerships with a lot of those those companies that were based there.

Alejandro Cremades: So how did the acquisition come about.

Carl Hartmann: Um, look I think it was one of those classic examples is we started to to do go deeper down the sort of the value chain. We started to partner directly with some of the postal companies and. Particular there was a couple of big technology suppliers um to the postal authorities one was Pitney Bose based out the us one was near post based out of France and then I think we just caught the eye as we started to form these partnerships you know with some of these companies and. You know if you’ve got a big company who’s ah and um I guess the default or the incumbent supplier to a lot of these. Um you know, but they start to see value that you have that they don’t and um, obviously they look to fill that gap and I guess the rest is history.

Alejandro Cremades: And how does that look like when when a partnership turns you know into an M and a you know ah transaction.

Carl Hartmann: Well I Think in our case, we had no partnership with the company that bought us it was more I think we were a risk that we would assert the the incumbent supplier. So I think that’s that’s what creates the M and a transaction right is like you know it’s It’s Fomo fear of missing out. So. You know you sprinkle some competitive tension in there and I think that’s how you get the best result.

Alejandro Cremades: Was that a long process from the beginning of the conversations to the moment that everything was said and done.

Carl Hartmann: Yeah, look always I mean I think even when you’ve got enthusiasm from both sides particularly if you’re you know, dealing with the listed companies. Um, there’s ah, a certain speed that they they move at so I would say in Memoryy probably about six months to a year is probably the. Full cycle.

Alejandro Cremades: And in terms of um of this I mean obviously see first company. You know first exit which is remarkable and I believe that he was in the 9 figures. So So really Nice. I mean I got to ask you? What were what? what was that thing that you wanted to buy that you ended up buying you know after the transaction.

Carl Hartmann: Yeah, well I think after living in the bay area for a number of years and you know it’s pleasant, but it’s never warm. Um, so I had thought about going back to Australia you know I think a couple of things after living in the us for a long time is. You don’t take for granted one’s the weather two is the healthcare system and then 3 is just probably security right? like um, you know we had 1 to be controversial. We had one sort of shooting once and our government did steal Jim Jeffrey’s lines basically said that’s it no more guns and we went. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Yeah, so. Um, yeah, and it was just something I think yeah I’m I’m an avid kite surfer and I think I’ll in the water once in San Francisco because it’s bone chillyly cold. Um, so yeah, moved back to Australia and um I bought you know I had a. There’s a place called? No so which is north of Brisbane and I think as a kid you go there and go’ ever had the budget I’d love to buy a house there and that’s what I did and you know what those what front ones the boat. You know the sort of you know goal 1 of life sort of set up if you like yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing. That’s amazing and and then how was life there. You know when we went there to Australia because you know they say once an entrepreneur entrepreneur always an entrepreneur so I’m sure that.

Carl Hartmann: Um, yep.

Alejandro Cremades: You didn’t you know, like stop you know? And in fact, you have 2 babies now. Not one. You have 2 that you were running at the same time in parallel so one so tell us about it.

Carl Hartmann: Yeah, well my original plan was to do nothing for a while that lasted precisely twelve weeks and I think out of my first exit I got enough to be comfortable, but not enough to do nothing and in retrospect that was the perfect amount if you. Get into f you sort of money territory I think maybe you know you lose a little bit of passion but um, for me, it was like I found out about myself I need to be busy to be happy. Ah, and then there’s 2 guys I went to university with um, you know one was was Rudy with compon and. My biggest learning out of building tomanda was people and I think there was 2 experiences there that that shaped me the first was um, you know I think at the series a east I stage we had some investors came in this had hire a clo I did. Um, let’s just say long story short that didn’t work well and it wasn’t because it was a bad person. It was just someone on paper that looked right? that was wrong because they had come from a big company and we were a 50 person company and let’s just say the the way that someone executes in a 20000 person company is very different to 50 and um. You can have a bit of a squarepeg round hole situation and then when I was in the Bay Area um I had to go head-to-head with companies that literally have unlimited budget for talent. Um, my favorite experience was I was interviewing someone who in the interview asked me what was on the menu each week and I said we’re a team of 12 we. Don’t have a chef.

Carl Hartmann: And this person said oh well this this job’s not for me because I don’t want to spend my own money on food and I think that was very ah um you know indicative of what the um I guess the entitlement culture was a little bit in the bear at the time. Um I’d love to know if that’s still the case in 23 I think a lot of that is. You know perks have been wound down a lot like a lot of companies. But yeah I mean you you have people that were offering crazy salaries and crazy perks that I couldn’t do so but I had some great experience where I went further down the talent pool I identified some people that had great potential but I just had to upskill them. And um, had some people that had this, you know one guy who has worked for me and my sales team. He actually came from the coast guard. He was medically discharged just wanted. Ah um, a chance and you know became one of my top sales performers. So. Kind of got me thinking how many other people are having the same problem and as I spoke to other ceos. The answer was pretty much everyone you know in terms of iterations and you know you flash forward post covid 23 you talk to any founder you talk to any Vc and said what’s the number 1 problem you’re having. Or what’s the number 1 problem your portfolio companies are having respectively and they all say it is a skill shortage. It is they either can’t find enough people full-stop? Um, or they can’t find enough good people in terms of that. Um, you know they want to hire or it’s just keeping the people they have right? so.

Carl Hartmann: Ultimately, that’s um, my the first company I found in post-exit with Rudy was component. It’s focused on solving the skill shortage which we do in two ways. Um you know one we have um our higher product which basically integrates with a thousand job boards across a hundred countries. Um, and we’ve built an engine that does skill qualification and culture fit matching of talent and um at the heart of that we’ve built a bit of a brain that ingests sort of you know circa one and a half million candidates a month from 350000 jobs. We put out a month and. We build a taxonomy of sort of 58000 skills and 28000 qualifications and that’s using Ai it’s self-learning every month just gathering more information. Um, just automatically um and we’ve got a real deep understanding of talent at 3 levels where we we’re seeing what. Skills people are using and different roles. We’re seeing. We’ve got our own proprietary psychometrics. So we can see um you know what is the ideal work environment of someone. What’s their ideal job design and how’s their personality fit and part of the platform actually has an employee survey that can go out and measure that in 3 minutes from an organization. So in in context, what’s what’s happening a lot at the moment is this this weird economic cycle where people are sort of simultaneously hiring and firing. So um, you know they might be right sizing in their core country but they’re looking potentially for cheaper labor inputs and that’s something which we post covid can give people a lens into global.

Carl Hartmann: Global talent. So for example, you might have um, a company in of the us. Um, that um, that might be considering say people within the time zone and you might only get ten twenty people apply say in the bay area but all of a sudden you consider Canada Mexico Argentina. But know Chile um, you might get 500 people right? and then you need a way to quickly ascertain in that bucket. Um, you know who might be a um, a good fit for the company and particularly if it is a remote role. Can they work remotely successfully because that can another go really? well, really badly depending on the type of person. Um, and then we’ve also for roles that can’t be done globally. We’ve got a part of the platform where we can effectively micro credential and upskile talent. Um, so that’s doing about one hundred Thousand micro credentials a month. um and yeah um I think it’s a really interesting use case because I think there’s a lot of those yes butt type of use cases where someone comes through the door and particularly if you can see that the culture fit the soft skills and they’re a perfect match. However, then they tend to be sometimes missing some hard skills. Um. The good thing about that situation right? is that you can teach people new skills. It’s really hard to teach someone you know, ah like you can’t change. Someone’s personality. So you know if you’re a set in your ways particularly as an adult your personality is pretty immutable but hey you know you don’t have a.

Carl Hartmann: A qualification and I don’t know a financial services legislation. You can probably pick that up and smash that into quarter right? So solvable problem.

Alejandro Cremades: So so obviously if a launching and and building and scaling our companies. It’s not easy. You decided to do it. You know twice you know at the same time. Oh.

Carl Hartmann: Yeah, yeah, because I’m because I’m absolute sucker for punishment. So yeah, the second one that I co-founded was with and fun enough. Ah, another guy I met at Uni and we we worked at Jbi Hiway together which was liars. So. But my other big learning was so I was traveling so I built ah my first business was a you know a global business and um had people in sort of 6 countries my peak year of travel was two hundred and thirty days and I think my career average has been I dont know between one hundred to hundred and fifty days on the road it. Um, you know. So like for the listeners. It’s like if you ever think about being a global Ceo. They’re the parts that’s kind of left out of the details. It’s like it sounds fun but you actually do spend a lot of time you know on the road and anyways come came back and ah and then Mark was working on these liquids and I was like oh what’s the concept here and he’s like oh look. Um, he had spent his whole career in in consumer goods and of first wave was really this you know plant-based dairy right? and everyone was like oh you know is that the thing and they’re like you know this this sounds a bit niche now. It’s like 15% of the category that is plant-based meat and. What was happening with this better for uwave. Um, he had noticed that for the first time alcohol growth was starting to slow and um, there were a few brands that were popping up in terms of being non-alcoholic but sort of marketed for the adult occasion. But.

Carl Hartmann: They all either very bad or didn’t quite allow people to recreate the drinks they’re you and love so the concept of Liars was to recreate all the major spirits in a non-alcoholic format so you could basically have any drink that you know either with less alcohol or alcohol free. And um, you know so this is everything from making a non-alholic margarita to an espresso martini to a Negroni and so forth and the early movers in the spirit’s place were all sort of gin adjacent. They didn’t really taste like the base spirit. Um, so we had taken a very science-led approach to do that. So. Anyways, and join Mark as as cofounder and then because ah my my thought on it was look I would be the first customer of this as someone who’s traveled a lot I mean I had ended up sort of at the end of my first startup journey being you know, overweight exhausted because it was just a byproduct of. Going from function to function and having this I guess societal pressure to drink all the time right? like you go visit your team for a week and they want to take you to a client every night and full you know you’ve been out sort of 5 6 nights a week and it’s just not sustainable and. Particularly in places that have a big drinking culture like ah like a London or ah or a toque tokyo where you go I’m not drinking and they’re like what’s wrong with you? Um, and that’s changed obviously a little bit postcod but back then it was like very weird you know of New York New York’s another place where just like you know it’s just so easy to.

Alejandro Cremades: Absolutely so.

Carl Hartmann: Just kind of go on for an afterwork drink. Um, anyways came back and I was like I’d be the first customer for this and I’d already started drinking a lot less and getting really fit a byproduct of moving to where I was was you know good weather. Good lifestyle right? And you you start to prioritize fitness and health. Um, but then I think the big. Wave for us was was covid and it was interesting because at the start of covid I mean we we had launched a business I think we had expanded into maybe 6 or 10 countries at that time and on a distributed approach. But what basically happened was. All our bars and restaurants simultaneously shut and we were freaking out the star saying oh my god how are we going to trade through this but we sort of pivoted my ecommerce background. We just went all in on ecommerce and. Was fascinating actually because we had a completely captive audience through digital acquisition channels and that was probably the best thing we did we we wanted to be ah sort of ah a digitally led brand first and foremost but it was like fishsing a barrel at the time and I think a lot of people in our space. Um. You know the direct-to-consumer piece was an afterthought whereas a core pillar for us. Um, and then the most interesting thing happened where during covid people went one of two ways they either basically became stay at home alcoholics and went a little bit hard because they were bored.

Carl Hartmann: Um, or they use the time to become the best version of our themselves and I’d say there was probably equal quarters on either side and there was a 50% mixed bag in the middle. Um, and you had these people that were particularly in the government saying you can only go out for exercise. That’s what they were doing. They were just you know probably having peak levels of exercise. Um, you know they weren’t drinking. They were looking for things to do so we did these digital master classes and we’re teaching teaching people you know in their living rooms like how to make you know, non-alcoholic cocktails and 1 bottle would lead to another. And then post covidvid. Ah you know I think initially we thought maybe this would be like ah a fleeting wave. But it’s actually intensified so this this better for you wave has just continued and continued and you look at what people are spending on health and wellness now and how they’re prioritizing health and the alcohol consumption rates continue to drop. Um, and there’s there’s sober bars that are popping up everywhere from New York to London to Sydney right? like um, you know you never even imagine a concept like that five years ago right yeah

Alejandro Cremades: Yeah, no kidding and obviously for this you know you guys have already raised a quite a bit of money $82000000 which is amazing now I guess 1 thing that they comes to mind and I’m sure that people listening you know are wondering is how do you juggle about you know running 2 companies at the same time. Okay.

Carl Hartmann: Yeah, so look in in both cases you know I’m not the Ceo of each that definitely helps I think with with the exception of maybe Elon Musk who can seem to be the Ceo of like 5 different things I think focus is everything um you know in both cases I played more of a supporting role so in component I’m chair.

Alejandro Cremades: Yeah, kidding yeah.

Carl Hartmann: Um, play an executive role role in um, you know in Liars and um, and then ah you know got a portfolio of other things through the family office. Um, which is smaller a bit more passive. But I think it’s for me about thinking about what value can I deliver. Um, and I think. Of a concept called ah roe return on effort. So you know there’s executional or operational things that there’s probably far better people than I that can do these things but there’s some complex deals raising capital ah you know governance stuff. Um particularly when the business is in multiple jurisdictions and I’ve got lots of. You know experience from the school of life right? like sometimes you learn the hard way of doing these things. So so for me, it’s like I try to focus on the boulders. The big things and let someone else work on the pedbbles. Um, so and in a lot of those cases some big complex deals or. You know capa but they’re very time- consuming right? So I think it allows me to focus on things where I can deliver a lot of value for the company and it might free up people to do day-to-day operational stuff. Um, you know where you really do need to be in the weeds day-to-day on some of those things so things just about dividing conquering and I think um. You know when you’ve got if you’ve been ah a first time found and you’ve exited you do reflect a lot and then you go what am I good at what am I great at what am I terrible at um and I think if you can put all your energy into the things you’re good at even if it’s a narrower scope. You can probably do a couple of companies. Um, maybe that’s Elon’s Success you’ maybe have to get him on your ah.

Carl Hartmann: And your podcast can ask him but I assume you know there’s things that as a founder that you can do and you can move mountains right? Um, and um, yeah, like obviously if you can bottle that that energy and you can unleash it when it makes sense. Um, you can have a big impact in businesses.

Alejandro Cremades: Absolutely so obviously now you know you’ve ah you’ve been pushing 3 companies. You know one that you already exited very successfully so and now do that thing that you have you know as well of the all the other stuff that you are you know, ah having on the family office side of things. But. You’re now you know looking back and and let’s say I was to put you into a time machine and I was to bring you back in time you know maybe to that moment that you were thinking about launching a company of your own you know, right before Tomando and they let’s say you had the opportunity of having a chat with your younger self. And you could give your younger self one piece of advice before launching a company. What would that be and why given what you know now.

Carl Hartmann: Ah, look I probably say prioritize health. Um I think the biggest personal learning is um, you know I’ve reasonably fit my twenty s and then I started a company I think it was like over a 10 year journey it was like the law of diminishing returns. And I definitely think that if I could go back I probably would have just tried to get a better worklife balance and maintain health like I’m sort of feverishly protective of Worklife balance now. Um you know that just every morning I carve out time I train six days a week and I’ve probably never felt better right um. I think it’s so easy and I see this mistake happening all the time with founders where they like they just put work above everything above family about fitness and it just erodes them right? And eventually you will break like um, you know we’re pretty amazing as human beings. But. We definitely have a limit that we can push ourself to um and I think you know yeah, there’s a lot of research that’s coming out now that says like a successful founder or a Ceo you know, almost. We need to think herself being like ah like an athlete right? As in. We got to look after our bodies. We’ve got to look after our minds now. Whatever you choose to do to do those things like whether it’s you know meditation for the mind or whether it’s running for the for the body. It’s like or swimming or in my case, kite surfing. Love it right? because I think it’s you’ll find a lot of entrepreneurs that do it. It’s.

Carl Hartmann: Because it’s both It’s physical, but it forces you to be in the moment. It’s the only thing I found that requires me you know I just don’t think about work because if you if you’re doing that sport you think about work. You’re probably going to crash the kit and or hit a sandbank or something you know so it kind of forces you um I think being on the mountain you know a lot of the. Skiing sports and snowboarding I think similar as well. Um, so just forces that disconnect. Um, but yeah, certainly I think that um that is something which don’t overlook. Um, it’s a common thing for founders I think to to sort of get that imb balance and. Going to It’s it’s like ah it’s like technical debt right? like you, you’re going to have to repay it at some time. Um and it can take many years to recover so yeah I think work-life balance everything and if if the team if your team is looking for you for inspiration. Make sure you’re setting the right example and saying like It’s okay to take a break in middle of day and have a war can clear your mind and not burn out like mental health is absolutely everything.

Alejandro Cremades: I love that so Carl for the people that are listening that will love to reach out and say hi. What is the best way for them to do so.

Carl Hartmann: Ah, Linkedin yeah I’m very responsive on that as as much as physically possible anyways, these days that yeah like like Linkedin’s good and otherwise I’m my name at every social handle. So yeah, can’t miss me I’m an early adopter.

Alejandro Cremades: Well easy novel hey Carl thank you so much for being on the deal maker show. It has been an honor to have you with us today. Thanks.

Carl Hartmann: Um, yeah, thanks for having me.

*****

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