Florian Wegener On Raising $88 Million To Create The Amazon Of Lab Equipment

Florian Wegener has now raised tens of millions of dollars to fuel the growth of his marketplace startup. His venture, ZAGENO has attracted funding from top-tier investors like General Catalyst, Grazia Equity, Capnamic Ventures, and HighSage Ventures.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Building marketplace startups
• Managing diverse company culture
• Florian’s top advice for starting a business

SUBSCRIBE ON:

Interested in sponsoring this show or podcast ads for your business? Go to Zencastr and fill out the contact information so Zencastr can help you, bring your business story to life.

For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel (see it here) that I recently covered. Thiel was the first angel investor in Facebook with a $500K check that turned into more than $1 billion in cash.

Moreover, I also provided a commentary on a pitch deck from an Uber competitor that has raised over $400 million (see it here).

Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below.

About Florian Wegener:

Dr. Florian Wegener is the co-founder and CEO of ZAGENO, an award-winning online marketplace serving the needs of research scientists. He is also a board-certified physician.

In 2015, Florian co-founded ZAGENO Inc. in Boston, MA., and Berlin, Germany, and has since led its commercialization and go-to-market strategy. He relocated to the Greater Boston region in 2018 to continue ZAGENO’s development – principally the company’s marketing, sales, vendor development, integration, investor relations, and brand reputation.

Prior to ZAGENO, he was a vice president and global head of eCommerce for Qiagen GmbH, in Hilden, Germany. At Qiagen, Florian led the company’s digital transformation, by executing an eCommerce strategy and by implementing a new digital marketing and sales platform responsible for approximately $400 million in annual revenue.

Between 2007 and 2013 Florian was a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in Munich, Germany. At BCG, he drove international projects including one that defined a long-term strategy for a portfolio company in the biopharmaceutical space. These included a project based on a patient segmentation/ dynamic patient model for the development of a lifecycle management framework. At BCG, his work extended to transatlantic engagements (Europe and US), for big pharma and med-tech players. This offered Florian exposure to the regulated laboratory market and the creation of a business unit for clinical testing. Further, this work provided him with significant experience in the life science market – specifically along the value chain.

Florian became a fully certified MD in 2004 and in 2005, gained the title Dr. med., magna cum laude. After completing his medical degree at the Universities of Freiburg, Frankfurt, Toronto, and New York University, Florian spent two years as a practicing cardiologist at the University Hospital of Frankfurt, where he performed invasive electrophysiological studies and heart surgeries.

Following his full-time medical career, Florian attended the IE Business School where he earned his MBA in entrepreneurship, corporate finance/valuation, strategy, and negotiations.

Connect with Florian Wegener:

• Crunchbase
• LinkedIn

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Hey, guys. Today’s episode is brought to you by Zencastr. I remember back in the day when I was looking at putting together Zencastr. I was looking for a solution that would help me in putting things together. Essentially, this is what allowed me to bring DealMakers to life. Basically, Zencastr, what it is is an all-in-one solution where you just send a link to the person that you’re looking to interview. They would plug in their computer with their video, with the audio, and then you are good to go. You would piece everything together, give it to your audio engineer or even edit it yourself, and you are off to the races. Now, if you’re looking at getting into podcasting, you should definitely check Zencastr out, and you could also get a 30% discount, and this is the discount code that you will be able to redeem by going to Zen.ai/dealmakers0. Lastly, I was very much blown away when I found out that investing in wine has been one of the best-kept secrets amongst the wealthy. This is now not the case anymore. I came across this solution, which is called VinoVest, and they are a great solution that allows you to diversify investing by implementing or including wines into your portfolio. Take a look at this: wine has one-third of the volatility of the stock market, and yet it has outperformed the global equities market over the past 30 years with 10.6% annualized revenues. It’s a really good way to diversify your portfolio, and you could also get two months of free investing by just going to Zen.ai/dealmakers, and by going there, you will be able to redeem your discount.
* * * * * *

Alejandro: Um, alright hello everyone and welcome to the deal maker show. So today we have a really cool founder I think it’s gonna be 1 of those founders that we’re really gonna be getting inspired with I mean he’s lived all over the world. He is like a citizen of the world by now.

Florian Wegener: Looking at like.

Alejandro: And he’s been building now a really interesting company so we’re gonna be learning about building scaling financing and you name it. So I guess we without further do let’s welcome our guest today Florian Wegener: Wegner welcome to the show.

Florian Wegener: Um, hi Alexandro thank you for having me.

Alejandro: So originally born in Berlin but you grew up in a freberg. So how was life growing up, give us a walkthrough memory lane.

Florian Wegener: Yeah I um, grew up in freork which is a town of you know, 200000 people in the southwest of Germany very close to Switzerland and France and it’s a city that’s dominated by students. So there are roughly 40000 students from all over the world. And while it’s a small city. You feel like you’re being exposed to different cultures. Having said that um I you know decided at a young age of 10 years to join a french school. My parents are whole german so they asked me why on earth are you you joining a french school and i. I was just super interested into learning more about another culture and a country that was so close to from where we lived at that time. Um, yeah.

Alejandro: Now you know you just reminded me of something because I remember when I was doing my my law school back in Spain. There was a gap year where you could take it was called the erasmus and most of my classmates they would go to freberg to spend a year there and they didn’t call it erasmus anymore. It was orgasmus because it was an orgasmic year of doing nothing so I’m sure that you had a blast there growing up too. But in your case in your case Florian Wegener: you know now going back to your story here. You did you know basically. But you you you are really um into traveling I mean you’ve been in Seattle in New York so where do you get that the excitement for testing new waters.

Florian Wegener: Very interesting question. Um, you know I grew up in a typical middle house household in Germany my my father is a doctor my my mother is a teacher doesn’t mean you’re a multimillionaire like in us. And it just meant that education always came first at home and um, you know I I think through going from. Ah you know one country to another country. It gave me the possibility to um. You know study in different cities and as you said I studied in freiberg in Frankfurt in New York and toronto later on in Madrid in Spain and um I really enjoyed that. But at the same time I think there’s some german stubbornness in me. so so I never took the erastmus year. Always wanted to be the first and ah basically end you know the the school as early as possible and so really just working there and studying there was a way for me to experience new countries and new cultures and I still enjoy this very much and. Luckily and now that we have kids who are born in Germany and who currently live in Boston Massachusetts um, they they’re also going to an international school. Also my wife is german but grew up in santiago de Chile and so we have a lot of languages about. Yeah.

Alejandro: Now in in this case for you. You know after after school you did the Civilian work where you have to do 1 year and you were driving an ambulance. You know it’s interesting how you ended up from driving an ambulance to all of a sudden becoming a doctor I mean quite a. Quite quite an interesting transition I guess from from driving the ambulance because to certain degree I find that being the founder of a hypergrowth company is the same thing as driving an ambulance you know you’re you’re dealing with the unknown you’re dealing with the high intensity and with the anxiety of all the events that are in front of you. So How how was that experience for you and how do you think that shaped up your personality and.

Florian Wegener: So I think being a paramedic or driving an ambulance at that time was an option to learn about a certain part of medicine I always had the dream of becoming a doctor that would do some. Heart surgery on on patients. Um, and obviously at that age of 1920. You don’t really have a clue if you really want to become a doctor and so this was the first step for me to learning about this now. Um, you know again, you you go through training you’re in very severe. Situations sometimes unfortunately too late. That’s the job of a paramedic but um, the point is that there are quite a few um I would say traits that that help you being an entrepreneur. So for an example, um, you know also being later a doctor most patients. Don’t come to you and say this is the disease I have please treat me. In fact, it’s the opposite. Usually you have to ask a lot of question either as a paramedic or a doctor to find out what is the current situation. What is the state of of you know the company the market the the customer’s mine or your employee’s mine. And you only get there through asking the right question and then here’s the second thing. No one wants a treatment really so you have to convince them that ah you know covid can be helped. You can can get some vaccination and some people don’t want the vaccination and that is the same for any treatment and so I think. Um, while becoming a doctor and driving the ambulance sounds like this has nothing to do with starting a company There are certain things that I can still benefit from and and now regarding the craziness I absolutely love turning on. The the machine and the blue lights and every car would go to the right and to left and you would just go through it so there is a certain thrill and ah, it’s funny because now that I’m a full-blown entrepreneur and we’re we’re quite having a ride here I really closely follow formula 1 which I had never been interested in but there is something about speed about giving your best performance and the team and and so so I’m a little addicted about these topics and yeah.

Alejandro: Well I mean especially being able to drive at maximum speeds without getting a ticket you know you liking formula one You know that sounds a like a good combo but in your case I mean you ended up becoming a doctor in a 27 year old a 20 27 years of age you were already on top of the world. I mean there were not a lot of people you know at that same age you know performing the type of procedures that you were doing So so how come do you decide to all of a sudden you know by put everything aside and and make a shift. In your your professional career and.

Florian Wegener: You know I I had thought that I would want to lead department of cadiology in Germany that was my plan originally and I was blessed and honored to be working with um. You know, very well-known people as you said globally my my Dr Fader as we call it in in Germany had been trained at mgh here in Boston etc, etc. And um, while I was very fast and young as you said at sort of taking some of those steps towards such a career. At the same time I felt pretty lonely. There were moments where I felt like I’m I’m all alone There’s not a team I have to do this in the middle of the night I would write a paper next morning while I hadn’t slept I would perform a procedure and you know these are sort of procedures that if they go wrong. They really go wrong. And um I think this this to a certain um extent also motivated me I mean I liked it and I loved it and at the same time I started not so liking it that much anymore. But I think what ultimately drove my decision to leave the hospital was the the fact that. Ah, for an academic career and you know with this ambition the next ten twelve years seemed to be very clear to me and and I sometimes call this it. It felt like being in ah, a long dark tunnel and at the end is sort of the light of of becoming this head of a department. At some point I said hey wait a minute I’m not even certain that I go to enjoy the next ten twelve years I’m not even certain if the light’s going to be that bright on the other side and and so you know I discussed this at home. My my my younger prater is someone who had always studied economics and and you know. Became an I banker and started a private equity fund and stuff like that and so he took the time to sit down with me this is sort of say older the brother and said listen you want to find out what you want to do there are other things that you could do out there and so ultimately I started working with ah a major consultancy in my case was the Boston Consulting group and I actually didn’t work with them for 6 years always between big farmer mettech biotech etc and they also sponsored my my Mba and so I went to your hometown madrid and and basically studied that the institute of the emresa I a business school which is the leading entrepreneur school in Europe and so. Yeah overnight I was surrounded by sort of say crazy entrepreneurs every third person on my class had already started their own company and I got really inspired by this and at some point. Um, basically I think that that laid the foundation for me to then later start to genome. Yeah.

Alejandro: now now obviously in this case, you were surrounded by entrepreneurs. It was just a matter of time. But why would you say that it took you three and a half years to really go at it and.

Florian Wegener: Um, no, what? But but sorry I didn’t understand the question.

Alejandro: Big big pick because after the master’s degree. You waited a little bit I mean you went to this next company quan and you know you were there working for three and a half years before you got started with your baby with your business. So so why didn’t you get started right away.

Florian Wegener: Yeah, quite great. Great point. So at that time I was on fire after my Mba at ie business school I was on fire to basically start something new. Ah, first of all, you have to go back to ecg for 2 years That’s part of the deal. So i. And then and then after that the day basically I had the chance to leave the firm I actually joined one of the leading biotech companies and I think um, my role at at kyogen um was a role that was not well defined when I joined. The the Ceo have interviewed me among other people and and basically said listen you’re smart guy your impressive career. So far, you want to hire you and and to a certain extent. It was unclear what I would go to do and so when I started with them I found out that they had just let go several hundred salespeople in the Biotech world. So now we’re in the life science research field very specific industry that most people had never heard about before. Ah you know covid hit and in this world. Um, on one side. There’s so much innovation. There’s so much fantastic things going on the brightest minds are. Ah, working in in in this industry and developing cure for cancer food safety nml health you know, um, they they fight infectious diseases, etc and in in in this world. Um, ah, there are though other problems that that scientists. Ah, basically face and 1 of them is that it’s a super fragmentmented market. They have thousands of suppliers and there’s no Amazon of life sciences and so at that time at Haijan I had this idea of building one you know Ecremerce Bep shop for this one manufacturer in this industry which worked out well and you know after. You know one year asking for it. They they gave me a big funding and I hired around 100 people. We went live for this one manufacturer in 16 countries and in e f three. We generated four and a billion of revenues which was roughly a third of the revenues of caygen at that time globally and and so for me I was just. Ah, so surprised by the need we saw in the lab and on the air side the fast growth we had gone through using digital channels and so we started subino which is the leading b two b marketplace today in life science which. Basically is vertically integrated into purchaing software and I’m happy to speak more about this. But I think it took me a little bit a while a while to get there and looking back I someone once said, hey first you want entrepreneur a now you an entrepreneur. So so I think I it took me a few steps.

Alejandro: So ah, what point do you realize is time to do it.

Florian Wegener: The moment that you see the opportunity and someone tells you that you should not do that you you can’t do this that is probably a pattern I’ve seen in my life. You asked me about some of the stations every time I hear this I just decide immediately. Are going to prove to you that I can do this and and and then I put all my energy into this.

Alejandro: So then we said you know what’s the um, what’s the business model. How do you guys are making money.

Florian Wegener: So on one side we help biotech and farmer companies. We help their scientists to navigate through you know 45000000 products sds that we have on the website we are by far the largest catalog in the industry. And we help them to shorten their time to identify and prepare the next experiment that they want to run. We’re speaking here. Preclinical. So ah, people basically need cooking recipes they need ah the ingredients for the meal if I may say so. And we at seino can basically offer you all of the ingredients and some of the recipes and that saves them half a day to a day every week that is very very powerful and so this is how we enable scientists to do better research faster. This is how we. Actually helped them to to save cost and and ultimately ah you know achieve scientific milestones faster. So so these companies pay us ah to answer your question. They pass a certain fee to to gain access to to the platform and then on the other side we have a few thousand suppliers by now on the platform. And they pay us because we sell their product and and so so we’re in a position where we actually monetize on both sides of the marketplace in you know from my perspective I speak to investors every day. It’s true, true this morning. Um I think one. Ah you know. But 1 thing you want to look out for being an investor if you invest into marketplace is do they actually monetize on both side of the platform and I’m not thinking about the revenues for the platform I’m rather than thinking do ah actually people are they willing the users on both sides of the platform to pay for those services and that to me. Is a clear criteria for there is a real need as a real product market fit.

Alejandro: Now when you’re building a marketplace. It’s like launching 2 companies right? So you have like 2 different areas that you need to build and typically you know you got this supply demand or the chicken and the egg I mean I remember on previous marketplace that that I built. I really just wanted to shoot the chicken and step on the economic because it’s very frustrating to really get a right? but in in in your guys’s case. How did you really think about building the marketplace and which was the weakest side of the equation that you needed to get it right to get right.

Florian Wegener: I think.

Alejandro: In order for the marketplace to really work and have the right type of network effects.

Florian Wegener: Yeah, great question. So in the life science research industry the power in these deals is with the suppliers. It’s not with the scientists. It’s not the scientists who drive the industry forward. It’s router to supply us and. That is driven by non-transparency and so in the fragmentation of the market it ah it takes them that the users the scientists hours to identify the right product and compare they actually build excel spreadsheets from different websites and then there are thousands of supplis who don’t even have websites. Now in this setup. Why would the supplies change this world. There’s no way they’re going to change it if you don’t put them under pressure and so what? what what? we? how we started this and this was our our initial hypothesis back in. Yeah, several years ago and I think by now we we have proven this is we are. Actually creating demand and and this is this is how we do it and then the supply falls to the demand now what that means is in the beginning we are pretty bald on day one we said we are the everything store of life sciences even though we just had a few hundred products and not the 40000000 that I have by now. And there were first. Ah you know academic institutions initial biotechs where the people said hey listen. Um, even if this is not perfect yet. We’re also all entrepreneurs in this industry and it will never stop. But we we always do science so we we’re all entrepreneurs. Ah you know. Start working with you guys if we like it. We’ll continue if not, we need to find something else, but it also illustrates how big the pain is that people are open to nearly anything in the beginning and so so what we built over the years is then um you know that that system that helps them find these products navigate through it. And and so really, um, to me the the transformation that we are part of in this industry is coming from the end user in our case.

Alejandro: And in this case I mean building a marketplace it costs money I mean just to get things and the wheels. Emotionally it takes capital So how did you guys go about capitalizing the business.

Florian Wegener: Yeah, so you know, um, obviously we’re we’re still not profitable. We’re we’re still venture capital backed. We’re very blessed that we have you know, very smart investors on board who understand how to build very large companies the last. Ah. Ah, you know round was led by general catalyst. Um Larry Barn is on our board. He has throughout his career proven that he knows where money is and has built several you know multibillion dollar companies over the course of the last twenty years or so and and so um. I think you need to write to find the right investor there needs to be some chemistry that needs to be some parts where you clearly align on where you want to take the company. What is the vision. We don’t always agree on how to get there I think that’s normal that’s healthy and um, you know in the last round. Again, which was led by gc a co-invesor was Kaisa Permanentmanin so I usually don’t tell that um, but but Kaiser Permanente is a vertically integrated healthcare provider here in the us it’s one of the largest one. It’s super impressive. They I think they have 100000 doctors employed themselves so they’re not just an insurers. Have hospitals. They have diagnostic test centers etc and when we met with Kaiser they quickly understood the power of what we’re doing and there’s absolutely no um conflict of interest. Because they will not ever sell anything on the platform. So we we never allowed suppliers to invest into sochino because I feel there is a certain risk that we would not be really objective anymore. Neutral um. And at the other side I think there’s a potential that they could become a very large customer for us over time. So so it’s a really great setup. Um, and yeah and we still ah have a few investors that initially you know see series a investors back from Europe um, they still invest by the way in every round because there are. Very excited about where we’re taking the company. The last round was a 60000000 round that we closed last year

Alejandro: And in total how much capital have you guys raised.

Florian Wegener: All together we’re close to a 0 um that includes though you know equity and in depth.

Alejandro: And in in this case I mean there’s probably a bunch of people that are listening to us right now and they’re probably wondering like when you’re building a marketplace What do investors really look for I mean what? what has been your experience when raising money and and and and. People looking under the hood for for what was going on in the Marketplace. So.

Florian Wegener: So it’s a mix of things in my experience people want to see a bald vision. They want to understand from a mission perspective is that something we want to you know, um, support. So if so simple in our case. Um, as I said before we’re helping wonderful people to make the the world. A better place right? A healthier place so that usually resonates strongly with them I think namely the industry we’re in was an industry that just before covid I sometimes had a hard time to explain to tech investors because they had never heard about it. That has completely changed over the course of the last two years people read about our customers. They read about the modern earners of the world. The buy on tags, etc, etc and they discuss this at home and probably we’re all a little tired of this right now. But but they they do remember this and ah. Even if you don’t understand this industry. You know someone just made some money and quote and so when we say these are our end customers. They don’t really have a problem paying for our software. No one ever questions that so market is a part and then more specifically when you look at the marketplace. I think they really want to understand what is the value proposition for both sides is there 1 in our case. Yes, um, they want to understand is the direction in our case. Yes, they want to understand are these guys from a mindset. Do. They understand how painful scaling ah will be and um. Know I’ve I’ve done quite a few jobs and every job has been fun but also painful. So I’m really looking forward to continuing this this ride. What’s the genome.

Alejandro: And we said you know I mean for the people that are listening to get an idea on the scope and size I mean anything that you can share in terms of like number of employees or anything else. So.

Florian Wegener: Yeah I’m I’m happy to to speak about some of the metrics. Um, so um, we have. Ah yeah, roughly nearly 300 people working for us by now we have ah basically a mix of internal and external people. Ah, yeah, we we have you know people in Berlin um, I’d say we run 60 people or so in Berlin we have around 70 or so here in Boston think we we had 25 last week in San Francisco I need to look every week because we’re growing fast and I think we started having people. Especially and and the engineering side in India but but we also have a few customer service sort of outsource people who are in either eastern Germany and some of them in Asia but now so and why are we doing this because we want to be there seven days per week. 24 hours per per day. And and we are offering this service which is which is pretty much outstanding in our industry.

Alejandro: So when you have multiple offices too. I mean every office has its own culture to a certain degree. So How do you go about it so that the culture is not so different from the culture that you as the founder. Really you know, influenced everyone by how do you.? How do you do it so that it doesn’t do rail so much from the actual culture. So.

Florian Wegener: So um, few points I think on one side there is by now a certain saino culture and that is not a culture that my cofounder David or I sort of wrote down and said choose ah use and this is how we’re going to do this It’s really we did the opposite so a few years back this is two and a half years back or so um, we internally interviewed all of the employees at that time and we basically let them participate in how do you define values that you feel we have. It’s genome that make us unique. What are the things you like what are the things you don’t like. And I think we came up with a list of 9 or 11 things that everyone feels. This is the culture. We sort of decreased this to 5 points. Um, and and I couldn’t have written it better. That’s exactly how I would have described this as well now how do you maintain that culture. I once learned the moment that you don’t hire and directly everyone anymore which is so long. Not the case anymore as you can imagine the culture might change I would say yes luckily it’s changing we have you know 60 something nationalities where so many languages in this company where we are really a diverse. Ah. Group of people who enjoy working with each other and so I think um, it is good that um there are certain. Um, how should I say there’s certain things we have in common the mission we want to change um the world we’re in but then. Everyone does it in a little bit different way and yes, sometimes you know that makes it a little more complicated then you have to probably overcommunic communicate but at the same time I’m completely convinced that this diversity these. People with different backgrounds different opinions different ways how they want to do certain things makes us stronger. Um, and and yes, then then there are all these programs. You know whoever we I don’t know walk together where we we had a town hall meeting in in Berlin San Francisco and Boston at the same point in time this week. People saw each other via video and at the same time you were surrounded by people in person. There were presentations. There were discussion. There were work meetings but there was also fun. You know and so I would say yes you have achieved that there is a strong subino culture. No matter what country good and it’s. Maybe in certain nuances a little different as you said, but overall it’s it feels the same and yeah, it’s it’s you know it’s it’s an honor to be working with all of these people.

Alejandro: So I imagine you go to sleep tonight Florian Wegener: and you wake up in a world Five years later you wake up in a world where the vision of a the company is fully realized what does that world look like.

Florian Wegener: The genome will not be marketplace. It will be the the tool that scientists around the globe open on a Monday morning when they go to the lab and where they start preparing the next experiment um scientists have in common that they all. Work in so-called workflows there’s one step after the other again to me is a little bit like ah um, a chef in the kitchen who has a certain recipe with certain steps and ingredients and currently we just help them to sort of order those products and then we ensure that. You know in times of supply chain challenges because of covid and Brexit and and the war in Ukraine etc that they get that product and that that makes us very unique against everyone else now tomorrow we should also be upstream and downstream in this ah da. Workflow of the scientists be present and we should help them to plan really the next experiment even better. We should maybe help them not only to order that stuff but conduct the experiment and later on analyze it and sort of share the data with other people I think another aspect that. Would like us to develop even further as the community aspect of soino now you should know that researchers are very high. Ah iq sometimes they are a little shy to basically speak within or across certain labs there. There’s sometimes. But even from a legal perspective when they’re working on groundbreaking next blockbusters. They’re not allowed to share a lot of their daily work with people from another company right? I mean there’s so much money involved but there are ways how these people could interact through our platform. We have first sort of steps of that in the platform embedded. But there’s so much more we could do and this is something where um I think the ah the the scientists can be strengthened now there are other aspects where we work with the cfos and the purchasing teams and I think there we just helped them gain transparency on spend. That’s all there I think there will be more. Sort of commercial programs that they’re interested in. You know, um I don’t know buy now pay later so we don’t have that yet. But we’ll definitely have this and and you know if not next year to year after that and I think um, when you really go on the other side of the marketplace to the supplier side There’s so much where we could. Even strengthen the suppliers more. So so imagine that in our world. Um, there are there’s big. Phar Big Farmer acquires companies and knowledge basically their extended workbench is the biotech industry if I may say so and.

Florian Wegener: You know we work with these 2 customer segments. We have more and more big pharma companies. But we’re also working with these hundreds of of Biotechs and I think what? what is really exciting is that we could help ah the suppliers who acquire each other we we could help them to bring their products to market faster. So in our industry. Without a marketplace after an acquisition. It usually takes nine months or so to really bring the product to of the company that do just aquire to the end customer with us I mean we can do this tomorrow right? You give us the product data. We sell it you ship it and so so so so that there um. Would say there’s this overall theme of of the marketplaces will still be present and this will be the core but there are additional and services that we’re going to offer.

Alejandro: Now imagine that I put you into a time machine Florian Wegener: and I bring you back in time and I bring you back to a moment where you have the opportunity of having a chat with that younger self with that younger Florian Wegener: perhaps with that younger Florian Wegener: that. You know has an idea of maybe like going at it and starting a business but not sure yet of what’s in front of him and you have the opportunity of of giving that younger Florian Wegener: one piece of advice before launching a business. What would that be and why given what you know now. Okay.

Florian Wegener: I would say trust 100 % your gut feeling and execute on that and then ah check the data later to improve and while I’m saying this I still sometimes I’m not strong enough to do that and then usually a few months later I’m angry with myself. Like why haven’t we changed this earlier I saw this coming did we have the data absolutely not but there were signs and I probably ignored them and so there’s the mix of my brain where I’m still the former scientist and indeed where I want to look for data where where and then there’s the other part where I don’t know. You brought this up but where I’m the paramedic driving the ambulance and it doesn’t matter. You just have to get there and help and so so I think that there needs to be ah, a good balance of both of these things. No one ever said this to me. Um I was rather raised in a way you know, um think about. Basically what you do twice and then do it right? that that is still true, right? but but there’s a certain ah part where accuracy doesn’t make you a better anymore and and quite frankly I don’t want to sound sarcastic but I love analysts who always tell you. This is what you should have done eighteen months ago yeah of course now it’s very clear right? but we need to make those decisions before they happen.

Alejandro: I Love it. That’s very profound Florian Wegener:. So for the people that are listening. What is the best way for them to reach out and say hi.

Florian Wegener: Ah, yeah, I’m on Linkedin. Um, but but feel free to send me an email if if you have ideas ah around what we should be doing things that I missed out if you’re if if you’re one of those investors. They’re fully loaded and and really. Ah, thinking about where is the target where we can deploy funding I might be open to to to to have a coffee with you email is Florian Wegener:@soino.com.

Alejandro: Amazing! Well hey Florian Wegener: thank you so much for being on the deal maker show today.

Florian Wegener: Was amazing being here. Thank you for having me.

* * *
If you like the show, make sure that you hit that subscribe button. If you can leave a review as well, that would be fantastic. And if you got any value either from this episode or from the show itself, share it with a friend. Perhaps they will also appreciate it. Also, remember, if you need any help, whether it is with your fundraising efforts or with selling your business, you can reach me at [email protected]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS | More