Lucien Burm

Feeling stressed? Take action! Stress often stems from a lack of initiative. In Go, AI confirms the value of initiative (Sente) in openings. Don't play by others' rules; make your own moves in life's game. #MentalHealth #Wellbeing #Productivity #Initiative

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It's official!! 👀 I am joining Antler's residency as part of their 3rd Amsterdam based cohort! 😁 And it's really exciting as Antler is one of the biggest early-stage investors out there, backing exciting new projects that are in pre-seed and even pre-team stages! Being completely solo and bootstrapped means that this residency is particularly interesting to me as they will open their entire network of builders, founders, VCs and partner organizations to help kickstart my journey. Starting today and for the coming 14 weeks I will be working full-time with them and focussing on the following: 𝟭. 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗰𝗼-𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿! Working solo is fun but there's only so much you can do alone. Having a co-founder will help me split tasks that I know I'm less good at. Which is why I'm now officially looking for a partner in Sales and/or Marketing to come join me! The main goal of the residency is networking and I'm confident I'll be meeting amazing people the coming weeks but if you're reading this and are passionate about Web3, are in Sales or Marketing and want to build a new venture from the ground up please send me a message too!!! 𝟮. 𝗚𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 Right now I'm bootstrapping, meaning that all the money that goes into building the company comes from my own pocket. But if I can build a proper team before the end of the residency with at least 1 other co-founder (from inside or outside of the residency), I have a chance to get in front of Antler's Investment Committee and pitch truehandle to them! That is a shot at a possible 100k pre-seed investment!!! Exciting weeks ahead no doubt. Let's make the most out of them!! 🚀

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Fascinating data about the VC investments per capita by now in 2024 that Yoram Wijngaarde and his team at Dealroom.co brings. As we get stuck in our mindset on the big advanced ecosystems that are making lots of noise, there are incredible places where resiliency in terms of capital raised is remarkable. Singapore 🇸🇬 (Jacqueline Poh, YC Choy) is at the top of the charts followed by the UAE 🇦🇪, right ahead the US! Switzerland 🇨🇭 is the leading European country with the most VC money invested per capita, followed by Israel 🇮🇱 (Michal Freeman-Shor). My take is, watch for small countries that put tech, AI, startups and the private capital market in their priorities as a leading economic growth driver. Those are the tech exporters of talent, tech and capital and will attract investors globally. #capitalmarkets #privatecapital #venturecapital #startups #innovation #technology #AI #economy #growth #entrepreneurship #privateequity

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👋 Hello world! a life update. After nearly five years working on Netflix’s studio finance infrastructure, I left in March to start a new venture. Together with Claire Illmer, a longtime seller and fashion enthusiast, I co-founded Future Reference (https://lnkd.in/edr2Z53t), a luxury resale marketplace that eliminates listing friction by digitizing product and purchase data. Resale is booming, projected to reach $350B by 2030, yet the process remains cumbersome. People don’t know when and at what price to sell, and the ephemeral nature of product data makes it tricky to craft high quality listings. By archiving and verifying your purchases over time, Future Reference lets you monitor the value of your closet and makes resale seamless and secure. E-commerce product data is fascinating. Its SEO-first structure makes it easy to read and understand, but as seasons and evolving trends push products off the shelf, your favorite brands’ historical catalogs are lost to time. It becomes nearly impossible to retrieve size charts and details for items bought even just months ago. In our time together, Claire and I have built a tool that reads normalized product data from any URL and estimates its resale value a year from purchase. Behind the scenes, we’re building a bot that retrieves purchase history from your email receipts and proactively nudges you to resell, maximizing your wardrobe value. From a technical perspective, this project is a dream. I’m obsessive about user experience but love diving into third-party data. At Future Reference, we’re building a complex database, training machine learning models, integrating with a variety of APIs, and packaging it all in a smooth web app. Having mostly worked at large organizations, I’m constantly facing new problems with no one to delegate them to. My meeting schedule is now full of user research calls and solo “learn machine learning” sessions. Future Reference celebrated its first sale a couple weeks ago. Building it with Claire has been exhilarating so far and I look forward to our next hundred, thousand, and million sales. Interested in resale, e-commerce, or anything else we’re working on? Please reach out! Bought something recently? Check out what it’s worth: https://lnkd.in/eRwdMWdc

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🚀 Last week EIT Health Summit 2024 in Rotterdam, we were discussing startup investments in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). 📈 Fun Fact (not funny at all, though...) - Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) accounts for only 3.2% of Europe’s overall venture capital investments. Startups in the region, on average, received €1.2M in venture capital investment. This is a significant figure, yet it's only ONE THIRD of the European average of €3.8M. 🔍 This data highlights the need to bridge the funding gap to reach the European average. 🤝 EIT Health seems very determined to build a supportive ecosystem for CEE startups to thrive! #StartupFunding #CEE #EITHealthSummit #HealthTech #feyenally

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While a guest lecturer at the University of Amsterdam, a student asked me what the typical workday of a venture capital investor looks like. Here's a sneak peek: 🔍 Morning: Research & due diligence - Dive deep into market trends, scout potential startups, and conduct thorough due diligence to identify promising investment opportunities. 💡 Midday: Meetings & networking - Connect with founders, fellow investors, and industry experts to discuss potential deals, exchange insights, and foster valuable relationships within the startup ecosystem. 💻 Afternoon: Portfolio management - Engage with portfolio companies, provide strategic guidance, and support their growth initiatives through mentorship, resources, and introductions to key stakeholders. 📈 Evening: Analysis & strategy - Reflect on investment thesis, analyze market data, and strategize on portfolio optimization to maximize returns and drive long-term value creation. 🌟 Every day brings new challenges, opportunities, and moments of inspiration in the dynamic world of venture capital. Excited to continue fueling innovation and backing tomorrow's game-changers! #venturecapital #startups #funding

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You maybe never heard the backstory why I entered into the (c)VC industry as an ex-entrepreneur, intrapreneur & startup operator. I wanted to support amazing entrepreneurs, learn about new business models & technologies, invest in the companies that matched with the corporate mothership (insurance CVC) and help those businesses scale. But there is another reason .... ⚡ It's an industry wide-open for evolution and disruption by ... technology. Really? Yes ... "The VC investment process is broken It’s manual, inefficient, non-inclusive and biased." 💡 Excel has been the preferred tool for ages 💡 Human bias is all over the process 💡 Only the top 20% of VC's is datadriven (with a set of very advanced funds leading the pack like Moonfire, EQT Group, Redstone , ... ) ..... I have been considering the #VC industry as another industry that was in an urgent need for their 'digital transformation'. The acceleration of AI and GenAI was clearly THE momentum to leapfrog. 📢 "VCs need to become data-driven in search for efficiency, effectiveness, and inclusiveness" Over the last 4 days, I attended the first Data-Driven VC Summit 2024. A 4-day summit, +20 sessions and 600 investors/startups discussing the Datadriven VC across multiple domains and topics (sorry numbers are important 😎 Some (incomplete) snippets from 4 days packed with content:  * The different phases in the Investment process require different solutions & data (panel discussions) . No monoliths possible. * Getting the data and normalizing, maintaining, updating, ... them is a massive job (all sessions) * " I don't have to do every good deal, but every deal needs to be good" Mike Arpaia on deal quality versus adding sources * 'Buy or build' is clearly still a debate, with build taking the lead at the moment, with deal sourcing being an exception (buy)? Differentiation is a key motivation to build. * AI will have an impact on the investment process, but 'core people and leadership challenges' will be just as pressing (in scaling up) (Martin Mignot - Index Ventures) * Founder relationships and their impact on succes can be researched and evaluated using the same research on married couples (excellent insights by Prof. Dr. Theresa Treffers on conflict handling being the most predictive dimension) .... There was a LOT more content across all the talks, but hard to summarize here, even using #GenAI ;-) >------------- LET'S TALK 💬 If you consider upgrading your VC or CVC fund to become more data-driven (VC Platform roles), don't hesitate to reach out below to discuss: 💬 https://lnkd.in/e6kjakzF #VentureCapital #DataDrivenVC #GenerativeAI

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We @ No Such Ventures just invested €3m in Magic Lane to transform the location intelligence industry! It all started about 10 months ago with a short message from Raymond to me to meet up at Micromobility Industries's conference in Amsterdam. We invested because not only is the team, led by Raymond Alves and Johan Lanen one of the most knowledgeable we've ever seen 👩‍🚀, they are also literally changing how people interact with physical infrastructure by building the map, routing and navigation products of the future that: 📟 work on virtually any hardware (even runs on a Raspberry Pi Zero!) 🖥 can be embedded into any format: vehicles, mobile apps and platforms 📡 excels in privacy and stays working when you go offline 👩‍💻 are easily integrated into software in most coding languages via their SDKs But if you ask Raymond Alves he'll tell you that we should stop talking about that and focus on how that translates into a fast and easy to implement go-to-market for their customers - which tells you something about the ambitions of this team: they're not satisfied with building the best products, they also also adamant at creating the best business value for their customers. 💡 Next month Magic Lane will be once more at MicroMobility Europe, where Raymond Alves (and Tim Urlings!) will again share a message, but this time its not 12-word in-writing message targeting an investor but a public in-person message targeting anyone that is excited about the location intelligence of the future So whether you are an e-bike manufacturer, shared mobility operator, a logistics company, a charging pole operator, a mobile app for farmers or a producer of smart watches - if you are thinking about mapping and routing you want to talk to these guys!

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TribeAngels is a small investor in Pitch59... Watch our overview of TribeAngels in 59 seconds. I get a lot of questions of what TribeAngels is ... ❌ We are NOT a group just interested in Startups ❌ We are NOT for people trying to raise money ❌ We are NOT a networking group, where the lead self promotes Here's what we ARE ... ✅ This is for Business Owners, Executives & Investors that ARE investing $50k - $1M in the next 12 months ✅ Relationships before Transactions ✅ If you don't GIVE-FIRST you probably aren't a fit ✅ You will get the chance to connect deeply with the other members #Landons_Thoughts #June27thEvent #WhatAreWe #TribeAngels #Pitch59 Jon Barlow, Haysam S., Kyle Hanagarne, Crystal Godfrey Bartlett We mean it Relationships over Transactions ... we mean it. COMMENT What you like most about this list? COMMENT if you watched the video

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“When you invest in venture actually matters.” Jaap Vriesendorp is a legend. There’s no doubt about it. Whether you believe me or not, Episode 6 of this season of Superclusters is a must-watch. By far, one of the most deliberate guests I’ve had on the podcast so far. Not only does he break down the three pillars of building a community of entrepreneurial LPs, but also shares 3 facts that led him to create Welt Ventures’, now Marktlink Capital’s portfolio construction model. My 3 biggest takeaways: 🚪🏃 Exit windows matter more than entry windows. “The truth of the matter, when we look at the data, is that entry points matter much less than the exit points. Because venture is about outliers and outliers are created through IPOs, the exit window matters a lot. And to create a big enough exit window to let every vintage that we create in the fund of funds world to be a good vintage." 🏆 The Champion's League Effect “85% of returns flow to 5% of the funds, and that those 5% of the funds are very sticky. So we call that the ‘Champions League Effect.’" Jaap and his team constantly spend time looking at the data behind venture and is probably one of the most data-informed teams out there. He breaks down in the episode as well why his portfolio construction is 80% established, and 20% emerging managers. 🤗 Great communities all have 3 things: fun, value, uniquely organized knowledge. You need all three to create a community where each node of the network creates compounding effects. And much much more, including how much individual LPs often allocate to venture. Full episode in the comments!

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Congratulations and many thanks for this work First Momentum Ventures, Dr. Maximilian Ochs, David Meiborg, Lena Späth, Reinhardt Karpenko ! Tach2yone GmbH as a Growth Equity investor in the Green Energy Transition and related areas is looking to invest in more mature Deep Tech companies (Series B and later). One of our most important investment criterion is (positive) EBITDA: we believe, that in industries with high CapEx, EBITDA is useful because it eliminates the distortions caused by significant depreciation and amortization expenses, providing a clearer view of operational profitability. Thus, EBITDA is an essential tool for us to assess a company’s core profitability and financial health. First Momentum Ventures and community: what are your thoughts on this approach and would you consider to take also EBITDA into your napkin for later stage companies?

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All founders and only 1 problem! Just one! ‌ Last week, I sat down with several startup founders. Their biggest challenge? Sales and growth. ‌ ✨Despite their hard work, their products weren't selling as expected. The main takeaway was clear: knowing your audience is crucial. ‌ ‌ As a founder, it’s natural to focus on your product. But, understanding your audience is even more important. Your customers decide if your product succeeds or fails. ‌ Ask yourself Why would customers buy or refuse our product? Understanding this helps you improve your approach. ‌ ‌ 👂🏻 Listen Actively- Talk to your customers. Use surveys and feedback forms. Find out their needs and concerns. ‌ 🧑🏻‍💻 Analyze Data- Look at customer data. Track their behavior and preferences. Identify patterns in their decisions. ‌ 🗺️ Customer Journey Mapping- Map out the customer journey. See every step from discovery to purchase. The spot where they hesitate or buy. ‌ 🧪 A/B Testing- Test different marketing messages and features. See which ones work best for your audience. ‌ 🔁 Feedback Loop- Continuously collect and use customer feedback. Improve your product and marketing strategies based on this. ‌ ‌ Knowing your audience is not just about research. It’s about building a relationship. ‌ A customer-centric approach boosts sales and fosters long-term growth. Let’s shift our focus from just the product to also understanding our customers. ‌ Comment tips on getting to know your audience Follow Sanjay Pekam for such more updates

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YES IT CAN BE TAUGHT Yesterday, I had a very insightful conversation with the Entrepreneur in Residence at Geekdom. The question was whether Entrepreneurship can be taught? Or is it better to be identified and supported? What a great question. Ultimately, I believe that it can be taught. There are really only 4 things you need to learn. 1. How to create - Which you already know how to do 2. How to sell - Which can definitely be taught 3. How to negotiate - You’re actually way better at this than you think. 4. How to endure - This one is tricky. However it can be reinforced. That’s it. You get those four things and you’ve got what it takes. Of course, this is just my opinion. I’m curious though. What do you think? #entrepreneurship #question #ai #ml #leadership #business #executive #coaching #eir #debate #intelligence #saas #founder #funding

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Where is the best place to meet like-minded founders or investors for your next round? 🤔 FounderFuel.vc event of course! We curate all of our events to make sure the right connections are made 🤝 Our next event is on May 1st in Amsterdam! Send a DM or apply through the website. Existing FounderFuel members get in without waitlist 📋✅ See you there! 🍻 #community #founders #investors

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🚀 Calling all AI Founders in the Netherlands! 🚀 Shape the future of Dutch AI by taking this quick survey. Your insights are key to navigating the global AI landscape. Make your voice heard today! #AI #Netherlands #Survey #Innovation

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I was glad to have attended the recent event hosted by our Plug and Play Netherlands team with AmCham. It was a real pleasure to meet so many interesting "innovators". I had a great time and engaging discussions. We saw a lot of interest in open innovation from companies across all industries aiming to innovate further, more efficiently and faster. Most of them are already collaborating with startups but are still interested in increasing their ROI from their open innovation activities. In terms of tech focus areas, the highest interest was in Sustainability and having AI impacting the business in a tangible way. 🚀 #PNPTCNetherlands #Sustainability

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One of the top things that make entrepreneurship hard is when you lack a community of people who are all in the same boat. So, after years of working from cafe's, flex- and home office, Buster Franken and I deemed it the right time to take matter into our own hands and create a community of startup founders in Utrecht. Instead of an anonymous flex office or a co-working space, we want it to be a tight-knit group of people working seriously on their (impact) startups. Aside from work, there's also the important things that bring us together like shared lunches, drinks, community events and work-out sessions. The beautiful thing is that the community is for and by founders, where everyone will contribute to make it their own 🔥 Here's a video tour & intro: https://lnkd.in/ecvj88HZ (yes my face looks great on the thumbnail don't you think 🤣 ) Apply here: https://lnkd.in/efVF5Xm4 :) Even more info on the Notion page: https://lnkd.in/eEbyz5GX

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🚨 We did it again! We've created the ultimate Side Event List for this week's SuperVentures & SuperReturn and TOA Berlin. Plus, we're giving away Tech Open Air tickets and guest list spots for the biggest VC Party, organized by Join Capital, EUVC , Isomer Capital and others. 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦👇 What is the Superventure / SuperReturn conferene? How Amy Lewin would describe it: "SuperVenture is the Berlin conference where VCs go to fundraise and catch up with their LPs". Kinda like the definition! And let me say this! The Side Event's this week are on fire 🔥. Here are my top 3 + 1 event from the 45+ Event List: - Diversity Drinks at the stunning Fotografiska space. Networking with a purpose! Organized by Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund, the Evangelistas, Out Investors and identity.vc I Backing LGBTQ+ Entrepreneurs - JOIN CAPITAL is doing it again, and is running the biggest VC Party this Wednesday. We have limited tickets available for FOMO Insider Subscriber. - Cherry Ventures & Felix Capital are coming together to run a networking event at the coolest flagship stores Berlin, at Highsnobiety - FOMO (fearofmissingout): HIT x Yoga meets Rooftop Session, Thursday, 8 am start. ​Amidst a busy week with Super Ventures, Super Return, and TOA, we're creating a sanctuary away from the typical networking and business noise. Link in the comments. Here’s how you can win: - 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 45+ 𝐒𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: Subscribe to FOMO Berlin and comment below. - 𝐉𝐎𝐈𝐍 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐕𝐂 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐲 𝐆𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭: If you're in the VC, LP, EP, GP scene, comment below your favorite Berlin VC fund. - 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐀𝐢𝐫 𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐭: Comment below your favorite event and tag the event organizer & FOMO (fearofmissingout).

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Understanding the Rule of X for SaaS Scaleups For SaaS scaleups, the Rule of X offers a straightforward framework to estimate revenue multiples. It was originally developed by Bessemer Venture Partners and supplemented with data last week by Dealroom founder Yoram Wijngaarde. It emphasizes that growth significantly outweighs profitability, even amid VC crunches. However, when growth is constrained, profitability becomes essential. Framework Overview: The Rule of X combines growth rate and free cash flow (FCF) margin to evaluate company value, using a multiplier (typically 2-3x) on growth. Datadog Example: With a 25% growth rate and a 25% EBITDA margin, Datadog achieves a Rule of X score of 100%, implying a 15x revenue multiple for 2024. Importance of Growth: Growth has a compounding impact on valuation, significantly outweighing FCF margins. Subscribe to ‘Siliconnector’ Telegram channel for insights and news from Tech world and Silicon Valley: https://t.me/siliconnector

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