SPEAKER_00 0:04

Today's guest is Damien Roller, partner at Inovaxus, one of Europe's most active border acceleration funds, helping early stage technology companies scale beyond their home markets. Damien works with founders across the DAC region, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and throughout Europe, connecting ambitious startups with a network of more than 2,500 investors, hundreds of mentors, and some of the world's most experienced entrepreneurs. His work sits at the intersection of venture capital, startup acceleration, and global expansion, giving him a front row seat to what separates companies that plateau from those that become category leaders. Welcome to the Feature Ventures podcast on Scaling with Clarity, Damien. Thanks, Maxime. Good to be here. It's my absolute pleasure to have you and uh learn more uh about the work that you do in Vexus as well as uh the particularities, unique challenges and opportunities that exist within the the dark region. So why don't we start the conversation by double-clicking on your experience? How did Damien come into come into venture?

SPEAKER_03 1:29

Um yeah, so uh so originally I was born and raised in in Poland, moved to Germany uh when I was 14, studied economics at at Lake Constance and down in the south uh South Germany. And during university, uh I also started my first company. So um in e-commerce, direct-to-consumer, we sold all kinds of things, so basically learning by doing. Some products worked, some did not. Um, the one that actually uh worked well was e-cigarettes, what people now uh call vapes. Um still early in the market, so we built local distribution uh networks through retail partners. So I learned the full cycle pretty pretty early from sourcing margins and all that stuff. But after a couple of years, I got tired of the of the direct-to-consumer grind and and sold the company. Um somewhere in between. Uh, we also backed uh early product ideas from Kickstarter, brought them to the German market. So we would spot promising products, secure it and instead local. So I was only a bit early on the things. Maybe that's the that's the connecting dot to uh to the startup and to the venture now. Um after the e-commerce phase, uh I moved to day trading uh stocks and digging into real estate uh for for two years. A lonely stretch sitting at the screen by herself, uh is not how I'm I'm built. Uh I learned. And uh I kept the the real estate though. So my wife manages those as vacations rentals today. So the chapter still pays off, but it taught me that I need to be building something with other people, and that's what pulled me back into startups. Um in 2016, I joined the founding team of a of a B2B SAS company here in Munich. Um, spent eight years there until we sold the company. So we scaled, uh, we obviously hit a couple of walls, we figured out go to market, we built a team, got hit by corona, survived, and eventually exited the company. Um and what I learned is that things take take might take a while, right? So building anything uh takes you longer than anyone tells you at the start, but during that time, I also participated in a couple of uh accelerators, and I worked a lot with one of our early angel investors who was running a business uh angel community in in Switzerland. And after that, uh the exit of the company, we decided to grow his network and joined Innovexus uh as they've been expanding with their uh with their model across Europe as well. So we basically joined forces. And um yeah, here we are now. Um I'm partnered in vexus. Um we are a community-backed founders club for for early stage um European startups, and I'm also co-founder of the German entity, which is expanding the model, which we will for sure dig uh deeper into in in a sec, uh, into the Dach region. So Germany, Austria, Switzerland. And my main job is to find great founders uh and then make sure that we can actually help them with our model, um, which is on in a nutshell, a long-term supporting setup for founders, not just a cohort, but really uh hands-on support um within the community.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Can you expand, Damien? Can you expand a little bit more on kind of Inovaxis and the model and how does it work? Is it because based on what you're describing, it doesn't sound like it's uh purely just an engine syndicate. It's it it appears it's it's uh it's an organization in addition to venture scouting, uh like for companies to invest in, it provides background, uh like the the back office function, so provide support, scaling support to to companies that they're looking to uh to grow and scale.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

Exactly. So we could we combine two things. So we're so Innovexis is a founders club backed by a global business angel community, I would say. So we we started initially as a pure accelerator accelerator a couple of years ago, but grew into an investor club, I would say, that that backs early stage startups and then supports them for the long run. Um, so two things that that stand out for the model and were also the reason why I why I joined is that the funding comes from from a network of of experienced business angels. Um and the second part is uh the mentoring, which comes from roughly 500 mentors right now. So these are all experienced angels, exited founders, uh senior executives, so people who have done the things that the founder is trying to do. Yeah, and exactly we invest and we mentor, uh, and and we keep supporting as long as we are also on the cap table. So our interest is really in the in the long-term um success of the uh of the startup.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

What's the the typical check size that you guys raise? Uh that you guys write, what type of percentage do you take? Do you like do the angels have the project to follow on? Um kind of give me a little bit more specifics around how the in Inovaxus is structured.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

Um so typically founders come to us when they are preparing a pre-seed seed round, uh raising somewhere between one and five million. Uh the valuation is usually below 20 million, some revenue usually below one million, so some traction, but but early. And obviously it depends if if if they are raising one million or or or the five million. Uh, but the priorities are on the B2B, uh on the B2B side, climate tech, also on the software side, uh, industry 4.0, fintech, uh, AI, cybersecurity. So we are very, very broad. Um, but these are just guidelines, no hard rules. So we are a community, not a rigid fund, so we have some flexibility. But we look at the companies from two uh from two questions. One is it a great investment opportunity, so our angels invest deal by deal. So the the opportunity has to be something that they can get excited about, and we typically um collect 150k from an uh from the community, which we pull in an SPV and join basically like as one row on the on the cap table in in the larger round. Um lately, also uh a couple of VCs are pulling us in into the round, I would say, proactively, because they see that the value is is is larger than just the the check, right? And especially in the early stage uh of the founders, there are a lot of things that they still need to wrap their head around, I would say. So uh a community like like Innovetus is uh is filling a gap.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Yeah, and that and support that you provide, the mentorship that you provide, is this free of charge to the founders?

SPEAKER_03 9:04

There is there is a there is an entry fee uh for the founders club, which is uh a one-time fee, but that's not the core of our uh business model, and it's yeah, it's it's like a one-time fee, which is individual to uh to the startup and to their needs. Um but usually so alone if we take so so the program in uh the founders club, there are a lot of different things that we that we provide. Obviously, the mentorship is one of the uh of the key pillars, but there are uh a lot of things around, like uh let's take the perks, right? So startups pull um 130k, I think was the last number of value alone from the from the perks that they receive, right? So for me, uh the the entry fee for the uh for the founders club is basically irrelevant. You could say, like, if you would waste the money on the on the marketing campaign, uh better uh better do it with the uh founders club uh at InVEXS, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Got it. So 2500 investors, how many companies has um has Inovexis invested thus far? Um 60. 60 companies. So 60 companies to get to a portfolio, 60 companies, you must have seen uh 10x more companies at the very least before you invest in. So in uh like what kind of pattern recognitions can be developed like in seeing hundreds of startups every year? Like, what's the biggest misconception founders have about what actually drives venture scale companies?

SPEAKER_03 10:45

Um there there are a couple of things which changed lately. Obviously, through through AI, uh the the focus on on the product uh changed compared to the to the founder, and obviously you need to uh also consider at which stage are you entering. So when you're looking at a very, very early uh company, um the focus on the founder is even higher as if the company is already running for for three years, for example, right? But obviously, everything is focused on on the founder, on the founding team, uh, everything around, do they know what they are doing? Uh kind of, or do they have a a good sense of it? Are they are they driven? Um what's the what's their view on where they're gonna develop? And then obviously, are they aware what it means to uh to be a venture-backed company? And and lately, maybe a couple of uh founders uh at the stage when they are still in the in the building mode, uh, they get excited, I would say, with what they are now capable to do, but uh they forget to look at the underlying business model of the product that they are uh building. So these are the things that that need to be challenged um uh quickly, and and and obviously is an important part also for our due diligence process in general.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Uh I would like to double-click on on your last statement and just kind of ask you a two-folded question. One um you mentioned AI. How has AI shaped what companies they're pursuing? Um the second question is uh uh what business models are in the context of AI, what business models uh you find the most attractive uh currently to invest in, or and and you believe that uh there uh future property uh uh at least uh future oriented in terms of like kind of like where where the industries and the bit and businesses evolving.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

Um so with with AI I see two effects kind of so uh first is obviously AI lets uh small teams build and ship far uh more than they could even a couple of uh do a couple of years ago. So a three-person team right now can do what uh what took 15 people before, so which is good for founders and and and good for us. Um but the flip side is when when building gets cheaper, building is not necessarily longer the mode. So distribution might become the mode. So go to market uh becomes the mode, and the the ability to actually reach customers across these uh fragmented markets, as you mentioned here in Europe, I think that's the thing that that separates winners from the uh from the rest, and which is conveniently for us because it's exactly where mentorship and a community uh network like like ours um uh earns the keep, I would say. Um so on on that side, AI would not make our model uh uh less relevant, it pushes uh the the hard problem of of building during AI towards the part we are actually build uh built for, expansion within Europe. And in that setup, there are business models um where we dig deeper into how much experience does the founder potentially have in the vertical or in the space that he's building, right? So does he fully understand the core problem? Is he coming maybe from that uh from that field? Because on the on the on the high level, uh everything makes sense, right? But when you start digging into the um individual details, yeah, pain points, then you realize, ah well, maybe it's a it's a problem, but it's not at top of the head of the of the buying uh persona at your target company and so on. So these are the things that we look more deeply, um as we would just focus on a very very specific vertical, let's say.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Can you I kind of want to follow the bouncing ball you were talking about product is no longer a mode, distribution is one of the modes. What in your mind what are uh some of the other modes that are uh currently exist? If it's distribution, some of some of the things that we're coming across or seeing our distribution, velocity, um data that's proprietary to our company, but kind of like what are your observations from uh uh from the from the companies that you're dealing with?

SPEAKER_03 16:06

Um they can move quicker than they did before, right? So uh if if we take it to if we look at at Europe as a market, and if we look at a specific company that uh we we support, they usually start in their their home region at that stage, especially when they when they're very early with early revenues, you usually do uh make those revenues in your on your um uh home turf, uh let's say. And um the things that they can develop very quickly are obviously strategies, marketing campaigns, and so on. So the the the the core business uh setups are moving quicker. Um where it gets interesting is when they start building traction in their individual regions, it's easy to replicate basically the same, but let's say translate it into French. Let's take a German startup that wants to go to France, but the dynamics is more complex than just translating into a different language, right? Yeah, um so you need to take that into consideration uh very deeply. And um, this is where AI obviously helps, but what helps even more is when you speak to someone who's already been there, right? Or is on the ground there because he he went through that and he knows uh the different dynamics, and that's that's that's the same also when when startups move from from Europe to US or US startups to uh to Europe, the the behavior in each region is is different, right? And AI helps you to cover the uh the the background um topics, but uh many of those special things that yeah, I would say sometimes call uh cause scaling issues. Um it's important to to get that from from someone who's who's been there.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

I couldn't give more. I mean we within our company portfolio of companies, uh AI is massively important because it gives us velocity. What I find with AI is that uh uh it it brings out the averages. Um so if you're looking for something that's highly innovative, uh you gotta go and have like a brainstorming session or like um uh open up your creativity thinking in order to to come with something that's unique. Uh otherwise you're kind of regurgitating or repeating what somebody else has already done. Um so uh it's important, absolutely important, it gives a speech. Um what used to take a couple of years for a team of uh five or six now we can do in three months, but the other thing is like you you have it just doesn't help you think outside outside about it. It's it's helpful in in brainstorming ideas. Uh but again uh the ideas are uh things that if it's seen and in fact you need to look in the in training database in in your training space in terms of what what it has seen. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

Um you need to challenge basically what you what you get as a as a reply, right? It's it's like working with uh with a mentor, right? He makes a suggestion that it's his it's his experience, right? It was right for him, it could be right for you. Um so you need to uh basically figure out is that uh the the proper way? Is it something that I uh need right now, and does it really move outside the the box, or am I just repeating something that uh 500 other companies are doing as well?

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Spot on. Um Damien, many founders believe that capital is their biggest constraint. In your experience, what is the real bottleneck?

SPEAKER_03 20:18

Um the real bottleneck is uh closing gaps, which uh leave you kind of potentially standing standing still in terms of you don't know what what might be the next potential step, right? Especially if you don't have if the team is still small, uh a lot of things are focused on the founder, and he oftentimes has a very clear idea potentially of the of the product that he's building, but on the left and right side, he will have a couple of uh of uh knowledge gaps that he doesn't have, right? So let's take a founder who's more on the technical side, but uh less on the on the business side, right? So marketing, yeah, he knows uh part parts of it, but he's obviously not an expert there yet, and doesn't have anyone in the in in the team. So this stops him from uh from properly um yeah accelerating, properly starting, maybe even, right? And these are the gaps where um I believe also a couple of VCs see that there is uh a highly skilled founder. Now he is able to do a lot of things by himself uh through through AI, but maybe he's not able to properly gauge if that's the best thing to do or or not. Yeah, and if there would be someone kind of joining him um on the uh on on the journey. Um on the journey, and not necessarily telling him exactly what to do, but giving him ideas about the thinking process behind a marketing campaign, for example, or something like that. Um that will shorten the time where he kind of needs to figure out what the next step is. Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Okay. I mean, success and scale, uh or in this case velocity really comes down to uh things take things take what what they take. And what I mean by this is like um uh uh if you're writing code, if you're building a campaign, if you're executing campaigns, uh takes take uh things take what they take. But uh how you can accelerate velocity is by re like uh modulating the zigzag in terms of like trying to find out where you're going. And if you have that mentorship, somebody that's been an experienced operator has done this, you kind of modulate instead of going zigzag route to find out what works and what doesn't work, you're taking as much as possible the most direct line between point A and point B.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, let me uh give you a concrete example of how how the community, for example, works. So we we have a startup in generative engine optimization. So they basically make sure a brand and the product stays visible when people uh search through AI, like chat GPT perplexity instead of classic classic Google. Their their market is basically every company that wants to be found in AI answers, so it's super wide open. Uh now one of our mentors spent years selling SEO solutions to exactly those companies, yeah. And he's a sales machine, so he knows these buyers, he knows their needs, uh how they developed, and uh where their budget sits, like no, like almost no one else, right? So those same customers are now taking the next step from SEO to geo, and the startup is selling the next chapter of the story that this mentor already knows. So that's not advice from the sidelines, yeah. It shortens the cycles. He has sold the desires for years, and and that's exactly what uh what the value is of having someone individually um going the journey with you. This could be an individual angel very often in a very early stage. This is the role of a of an angel actively supporting, they oftentimes invest in exactly what they know, um, because that's where they also can provide value beside the the capital.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Amazing. Have you uh in and have you had a company in your portfolio where they have exited and uh the farmer has come back and like now it now he's on the other side of the table?

SPEAKER_03 24:55

Not yet from our uh portfolio. I mean, we're still uh pretty pretty young. So uh we have a couple of startups already post-Series, uh, post-Serius A. Most of them are uh approaching Series A um uh funding, uh but no exit there yet. But we have a lot of uh exited founders in the community uh itself. So they are typically uh investing themselves after they exited the company. So on one hand, they're interested in into participating financially with other startups, and on the other hand, they uh have also a great sense of giving back, right? The giving back mentality is is very strong, so they want to support funders on very individual topics where they say, I know exactly what his uh where he's heading.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

In that area, I can definitely uh help him have a shortcut, let's say, in his thinking process, or maybe open a couple of doors, uh, and that's how they how they want to contribute after their own um yeah, successful um start startup journey, let's say I mean you've spoken a fair bit about um your desire and passion to help founders think beyond local markets. Why do so many startups still build as if the geography matters? Um how how do you how do you mean or I mean what I mean is like the the the common refrain or the common thinking is that uh uh uh for startups to to make it big, they have to be uh US-based, or at least that's the orientation. Now we've had a lot more European companies achieve a unicorn status, but kind of like why are the European companies still very kind of like I guess constrained by geography? Is it uh the the fact that Europe uh while it might have the uh European uh union and it it's still independent countries, kind of like what what holds back European company from uh scaling uh on a global level?

SPEAKER_03 27:15

Um so so so yeah, the I think for years the story was that, and still partially the case, that uh Europe has uh talent, but no ecosystem to uh to initially scale it. And I think that that's uh that is changing. Uh and community-backed models like ours are uh maybe even part of why. Uh the the thing with scaling within Europe is that it's not one market. So everyone is looking pretty quickly to the US because they do the math and say, okay, that's one market, uh way more uh way more uh companies that I can uh attract, one language and and so on. In Europe, it's different languages, different regulations, different buying behavior, sales cultures. So a European founder has to win kind of country by country. And I would say that's like a like like a tax on European startups, right? It has it has a price. And uh, but I I believe that that's um accelerating uh because founders build more and more this cross-border thinking as a um as a skill. So they've developed that and they get very mature early enough to expand into other markets without uh without breaking um too much, uh, let's say. Um what founders oftentimes tend to do is that after kind of tackling their home market before expanding within Europe, they um directly want to expand to the to the US. Um because it obviously rewards if you if if you make it, but it punishes you at the same time if you arrive there too early or unprepared, uh, I believe. So if you treat US is just as a bigger version of home, yeah, um, that's not that simple as it is. The says motion is faster, uh I would say, as overall in Europe, the expectations are higher, and and the competition is also very, very sharp, right? So when you uh when you try to expand too early, it might get brutal for you. But that's obviously not not the rule, but um if you're having a hard time to to expand within your your direct uh region, I'm not sure if the US is the best thing to do as kind of the next uh the next step, right? Um at the same time for US companies coming to to Europe, they also need to be aware of that. Um that besides languages, there are there are different motions within individual um uh regions, right? So the fragmentation is is is is the topic, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

So I mean there have been a ton, um maybe not a ton, but there have been um a fair number of uh billion dollar companies that have come from Europe. Um many of them coming from Sweden or the Nordic countries. Um has it become easier uh uh to build uh a billion dollar company in Europe? Uh um and quite part of the question one uh and and the second question is uh and uh in order to achieve this kind of unicorn status, uh is it possible uh without spending significant time uh looking in the US market? You just talked about kind of the nuances, the differences in terms of launching to the US, but kind of like what is your perspective on is Digital Billion Dollar Company in Europe, and can you do it without looking to the US?

SPEAKER_03 31:06

Um look looking into the US has two perspectives. One uh looking for generating revenue, and the other one is looking for a uh for a VC, which might fuel my next round. And um it it it is the case that uh at the later stage there is more capital available in the US. So at some point, startups with great traction automatically look into uh fundraising in the uh in the US, um just because of the uh also because of the capital. And at that stage, they oftentimes also create a subsidiary in the US, so they kind of mature into a US type of company, right? Um, so I would say it's uh there are a lot of great companies founded in and in Europe. Uh they are growing and scaling more than in the past, uh, potentially within within Europe, but still the jump to the US oftentimes give them the uh the big launch, let's let's say, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Yeah. What are some of the companies in your portfolio that you're super excited about and and you don't have to answer the questions because it's kind of like well, which one of your kids is your favorite, right?

SPEAKER_03 32:31

So um, but if you do want to answer the questions, um so there are um obviously, especially when you're uh kind of the first one looking at at them, and if you are um looking at very broad topics, so we uh said we're doing things on the on the software side, but this could be a climate tech um company at the same time, maybe a cybersecurity uh company or a marketplace. So they are all kind of different and um they generate uh kind of an excitement there. Um oh boy, that's really that's really tough. Um, I mean, obviously, space and uh looking at the at the earth from the outside is something that I'm uh really looking forward forward to. And we have uh a couple of companies and now coming up also that are working there. Uh it's uh because the things have the narrative has has changed a little bit, right? So the ecosystem is is is going much more outside of the of the landmarks that we that we typically uh typic typically had. Um in general, things uh I think there is no startup, no kid that I don't like in our portfolio. So everything has something uh special in there.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Makes sense. Um is uh the in addition to space, is there a particular industry that you're super excited and bullish on?

SPEAKER_03 34:16

Um yeah, so robotic. So so the thing with um um with uh with our current focus is that we try to be more on the software side, so asset light. So if you take robotics, for example, we uh we look at startups which um uh contribute to the to the robotics ecosystem, but more from uh from a software side. So, for example, how can I uh teach my uh hardware to quicker adapt to to new um uh to new circumstances and and and so on. But robotics is a topic that everyone is kind of looking at, right? I mean, even privately, I'm I'm thinking uh could a robot potentially someday uh clean up the vacation rentals that we that we have, right? Or could be an assistant to the to the guests. Um and then you have um the the vision at that the ideas and sometimes the thing that you see on on LinkedIn, what robots can do or could do, or um but at the same time you see the reality where uh you you didn't grab any and any any yet, right? So that's still very early. Um but I believe that will be uh definitely something that uh will move quicker than potentially many people uh expect.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

For sure, for sure. I mean the most pertinent news of the day is this basics IPO and and kind of like what they're doing and uh um the robotics farm that uh Elon Musk has where like with a 24-7 life chain feed of like these robots kind of like learning how to do tasks. Um and and obviously the most uh likely uh first use case for for robots is kind of the dirty or dangerous jobs uh where you kind of need a non-human to be able to perform this, uh but it's for safety or other reasons.

SPEAKER_03 36:20

Um yeah, I've spoken with uh with a mentor lately who's been in the uh robotics space actually since since quite quite quite a while. And he said it's it feels like uh uh a revival of the robotics topic. So at some point it got really, really, really boring, right? Yeah, and now it uh it got a new push, right? With the humanoids, uh the robotic space became kind of uh received a face for the for the general public. And um that's what's what what drives the overall um yeah uh buzz, I would say, about it, but also it makes it um yeah easier to to uh to see it in real life for a normal for a normal person and not someone building a manufacturing line in a company and working with robots in uh hundreds of years.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

One question um that I always ask myself is kind of like imagine the future. What would the future look like um 5, 10, 15 or longer out? Um and so obviously the the the longer you go um the harder it is to predict what's going to happen. But for example, I'm I'm a massive Formula One fan. And as you're watching a race, the difference between pole position and second or third is like some in some cases you're talking milliseconds or hundredth of a second, like it's it's negligible, and a lot of it is the machine. So if I'm thinking about the future, is like are we going to come to a point where there'll be robots driving the cars or on a motorcycle? So we've got like what would a future look like? What do you have any sense for what this is going to look like?

SPEAKER_03 38:17

Every everyone every human being will be living in in a pod where he gets all the nutritions and everything that he needs with with glasses on, and then he uh watches robots driving uh Formula One car. Uh yeah, uh would be an uh interesting uh future to see. Uh I don't know if I would then uh so I'm going to the uh Formula One race here in uh in uh Hungary uh weeks. I don't know if I would do that if I knew that there is only a robot driving the car. Yeah, uh, but um yeah, completely get uh get your uh get your point there. At which uh stage uh does life become kind of boring, or what's our role in this in this whole um evolution, let's say? Um so obviously when you look at different topics, um and now with SpaceX and Elon Musk, he's always on the on the vision side pushing uh pushing the topic to make you think about oh, is this really realistic? I mean mostly people think to the moon, he's going to Mars. What does that mean for for me? And what if it really uh what if it really uh really happens? Um but uh on on the market level, I believe that uh that life will become easier uh in four or five years. Obviously, there will be a lot of uh lot of changes, uh, but they always have been changes. Um the question is can we uh adopt at which uh speed? And um when something new pops up, people sometimes tend to uh be kind of shocked and stop. And after a while, although the overall situation didn't change, they start moving again because they need to grasp kind of what's going on, and then they uh uh adapt and move on. So I don't believe that there will be massive, massive poor uh poverty on on Earth and something like that because AI took all the jobs away or something like that, right? Um, so in general, I believe the the next three five years there will be a lot of things that that change, but to the um to the better of overall, and um yeah, definitely exciting, I would say. Yeah, so things that you couldn't have imagined in the past.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

So I mean talking about the future and yeah, thinking about the companies that you guys have invested in. You mentioned uh software companies, uh B2B B2B software companies. What's your perspective on the B2B status market? Like um uh overhyped, underhyped? Um is there going to be the B2B stats apocalypse coming, or this is like wildly exaggerated, thinking that anybody can just go and build an app that replaces tasks?

SPEAKER_03 41:25

Uh yeah, I mean on the uh if you look kind of on on uh from from the outside, everything looks that everything can be replaced, uh like in a in a blink of a of a second. Um but then on on one hand, companies buying those tools move a little bit slow, and on the other hand, is um how much depth do you get with uh with something that you that you build in in a couple of minutes, for example, and what does it cost? So it's not that that everything with AI is is uh for free on a $20 subscription, so those things have also their costs, and then at the end, it's still software that you might be building stuff instead of buying. So no, someone needs to take care of that, and um so there's still space for individual software provided by individual companies focused on a specific problem. Okay, all right. I don't believe it will be wiped. It it might look like that because so uh I'm also doing a lot with cloud code lately, right? So pulling out all all the old um GitHub repos and so and so on, and trying things by by myself now. And on the UI side, uh things look great, but you need to understand that a software is more than just UI, and that there is also the business behind it, and uh someone needs to drive it. And uh if you if you take this the sales process, uh, for example, for a company, it's also oftentimes people driven, right? People want to talk with each other and there's someone selling a CRM, uh someone else, that's that's that's a people business, right? Um but individual some some software solutions will probably be wiped out, yeah. So um yeah, yeah, I mean fast for us. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Completely agree with you. I mean, um I I'm a I'm a chartered accountant or CPA by by background designation, so majority of my time I've spent is on the finance and capital side or risk. Um I I started to code in probably the last couple of years. Um and what I find is that uh the the probably the most underestimated uh um uh consideration is total cost of ownership, and you talked about kind of like well, it's not just about Building a software. It's about kind of on the ongoing maintenance of the software and contention is like once you start going on the path of building the product, you start to see all of the cases that you have not considered. And you you yeah, of course, you would have considered just the primary cases, and those are great, but what happens if this happens and how do you address it? And then you're like, okay, this is much harder than I originally envisioned and thought. And the other thing is I think that it's just a matter of time before it happens is in some ways, obviously, the inference cost is going down. But we also know that inference is not priced at market at the moment. So if you if you have to price your 20x script to Claude to what it actually cost plus the margin for Anthropic to make to make money on it, then I think that that's going to be a a big deterrent as to how many people would attempt to actually go and try to build their own software.

SPEAKER_03 45:05

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you need to do the math and you need to consider uh are you uh a company selling XYZ or are you a company building software for yourself? So what's your what's your focus actually? Yeah, so you want to use the the resources for maintaining uh own software or or not? And and we had the the question also a lot in our previous company. So we uh we were a lot of things that uh get developed or get bought by companies. There is uh like the Lighthouse project, but on the left and on the right side, there is a lot of things happening which are not covered in the main process, and those things in the past and still now happen in in uh spreadsheets, right? And back then we had uh we had a setup where the individuals could turn those spreadsheets into app and improve the process, and that's now with AI, if it's it's even the the next step, right? But these were individual kind of uh side parts of the project, but they did not by themselves uh start programming an own CRM or building their own Salesforce, right? So we need to define at which stage does it make sense to do it by myself, and uh what's what's my primary goal of of my company? Let's take a plumbing company doing 10 million revenue. Um, should they build their own software for everything, or can they just take something from the shelf, which is maybe applying AI, putting a price tag on it, and they can just keep on moving with their core business, which is the plumbing business.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

Completely agree with you, Damien. I know we're coming on time, but I have a couple of questions I want to ask you. What's something you believe today about entrepreneurship that you didn't believe 10 years ago?

SPEAKER_03 47:05

Um things take uh take a while, and entrepreneurship is um you underestimate initially how much effort it is, and that's why you start it uh in the first place. Yes, right? Uh, because everyone tells you, oh, I took longer than I expected. Yeah, if you would knew how long it takes, you'd probably not start it. Yeah, uh, so you underestimate how much it is, but you still keep pushing along the way. Um so that's the thing that that is somehow a narrative that I see when speaking a lot of of um of serial entrepreneurs and so on that they say, yeah, at the end it was harder than than I expected, but yeah, they just dive dive dive into that. And the second surprise for me was also when joining Invex is how many um people there are that are willing to uh to support um founders. They they have their careers, they're still in their careers potentially, but they still uh cut out a lot of um time um from their agenda to support uh other entrepreneurs. They want to be still active um while potentially being uh in a corporate uh position and so on, but there's still this uh entrepreneurial spirit which uh which sits on everyone.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

I couldn't gain more with you. I mean, on our website we have a social contract, and the the first principle in a social contract is something we've adopted from TechSt, which is gift first. Um you just have to help uh founders uh you know accelerate their their journeys. Um and it it just it just feels good. It just feels good to to to to be helping companies or helping founders succeed. Um in the vein of of this, um I have quite uh one question. Uh it's actually two questions, but you can choose which one to answer. Um, that I like to close uh each episode and it and and they are uh what's the best advice you have ever received? Uh or you can answer the question, what's the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

SPEAKER_03 49:34

So there are a lot of people that you meet along the way, and um there are a lot of after a while you realize how much they um kind of uh not shifted but kind of designed the way you're you're thinking, right? And a lot of those uh things come down to learning patience, right? Um what was the kind of man? That's a that's that that's a tough one. I mean, the most kind of thing, it's just the people that that supported that supported me in uh along the way. Um so the giving back mentality that we have in our community, receiving that uh I would say on a uh on a great sense. Um yeah, I would say that's that's standing out. Amazing. But I would definitely uh think about that question uh after after our interview.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

Yeah, please do. I mean, like I find that uh there's some pivotal points in my life that were really shaped by people. Some of the people like my my brother, my brother lives in Switzerland, and so he's been uh probably the most influential person in my life, kind of leading up to me living in Bulgaria. Uh a lot of my guidance came from him. Um, and then there were people that were unrelated to me that that were super influential in uh in shaping my life. Amazing. Uh Damien, I really appreciate you coming on the show and talking about uh what you and Inovexis are doing and how you're helping companies in the dark region uh grow and scale on the world stage. Um, any parting thoughts before we close off the interview?

SPEAKER_03 51:31

Uh yeah, so so we're constantly growing the uh the club, improving the uh the processes and the experience, obviously, for our portfolio. So if anyone's listening is is building uh a software first B2B company around pre-seed seats. So definitely happy to uh to hop on a to hop on a call. Uh also for for VCs. Um if they see uh the value that we that we provide, uh let's figure out together uh whether there is a real fit. So it was definitely a pleasure, Maxime. Uh uh talking with you. Looking forward to to following all the uh exciting uh podcasts that you create.

SPEAKER_00 52:14

Amazing, thank you, Damien.