LeapTakersPodcast_#13 - Mathias Ockenfels
Intro
Remo Kyburz: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Leap Takers podcast, the podcast for the curious, where I'm interviewing daring European entrepreneurs, investors and shapers from various fields so that you can learn how they got started on their journey. And that you can discover the insights, tips, tricks, and tactics that they gathered so that you too can take the leap.
 I'm super happy to present to you a very exciting guest for today's episode. The interview was absolutely fascinating for me, and it was an absolute pleasure to have this guest on the show. So who am I talking about? My guest today is Mathias Ockenfels. 
So who is he? Despite his relatively young age, Mathias already had quite a career, so to give you a short bio.
Mathias is a partner at Speedinvest, one of Europe's leading venture capital firms. Speedinvest is headquartered in Vienna and just recently raised its latest fund of 190 million Euro. Mathias is really someone who eats and breathes marketplaces, so that's why he runs Speedinvest X, which is a focus fund that invests into network effects and online marketplaces in Europe and globally.
Previously, he was an angel investor and VC in early stage tech startups at Point Nine Capital and Mountain Partners as well. So he had a pretty long career already in VC and we will go really deep into that as well in the podcast. His previous investments include companies like Lieferando, StarOfService, Xeneta, Syft, and Uniplaces.
And his current portfolio includes some well known names like TIER Mobility. This is one of Europe's leading scooter companies, Coachhub, Kodit.io, and Packhelp. He is also the initiator and host of the marketplace conference, which we also briefly touch in this interview. I leave it at that and let Mathias himself tell you later about his career and how he got where he is today. I'm super excited again about this episode and that Mathias decided to come on the podcast and share a lot of his personal insights and learning from his path. Also, if you're interested in online marketplaces, startups, or VC this episode is definitely for you.
As always, before we get started, I'd like to share one of my favorite quotes. Here we go:
"I think the biggest competitive advantage in business, either for a company or for an individual's career, it's long term thinking with a broad view of how different systems in the world are going to come together.
One of the notable aspects of compound growth is that the furthest out years are the most important. In a world where almost no one takes a truly longterm view, the market richly rewards those who do."
This is a quote by Sam Altman, one of the leading faces behind Y Combinator in the US. So without further delay, please enjoy this episode with Mathias Ockenfels. 
Interview
Hello Mathias, welcome to the Leaptakers podcast. I'm so excited to have you on the show. And thank you for your time. 
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:03:06] Thanks for having me. And great to be here. 
Remo Kyburz: [00:03:08] Yeah. So for people that might be not that familiar with you or what you've been up to, could you quickly introduce yourself in a few sentences? Like to someone you just met, for example, at a cocktail party, and briefly explain what you're doing and what you're working on.
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:03:25] Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm Mathias. I'm 34 years old. I, live in Berlin. I'm originally from Germany. I lived in many different places, mostly across Europe.  Actually also in Switzerland, but, also for a longer time in France. I build and invest into marketplace companies. I have been doing this already for almost 12 years now. I initially started my career working for a Swiss VC fund in 2008 / 2009 after graduating from business school. And then I'm also had some experience working on the kind of strategic side for Naspers or a subsidiary of Naspers. And after which I again went on to VC, on the venture capital side. And that's what I've been spending most of my time on for the last couple of years. Basically investing into and helping to build very early stage marketplace businesses in Europe most of the time, all of Berlin, but also are traveling quite a bit.
Remo Kyburz: [00:04:40] Cool.  And if I remember right from your bio, after you finished studying, you started at Mountain Partners, I believe in Zurich.  And for me, it looked like you knew exactly that you wanted to go into the  Venture Capital and startup investing space professionally. So is that true or where does this interest for startups, VC and marketplaces come from?
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:05:06] Sure. So this has multiple layers and aspects to it, actually. So to be very honest, when I started studying, I actually had no idea of VC and about the whole entrepreneurial ecosystem and landscape and also didn't think much about the notion of marketplaces or platforms. I'm excited and super interested and curious about the intranet, and so the opportunities that the internet was offering.
I already started building websites, basically when I was a student in, in high school and I was doing that as a summer job for a local tool trading company and building the online shop. Basically what that was over 20 years ago, basically. 
And, that was my first glimpse into the world of the internet of eCommerce, generally the kind of software landscape. And, and I knew, okay, this is something that I like. I also want to do something with business. So I studied, in the European school of business, in Reutlingen, in south of Germany,  double degree diploma, where you actually spend half of the time in Germany and the other half in another country. I picked France because I wanted to learn French. I loved that a lot, and during my studies there. I actually  came across a alumni from my business school, who was looking for someone to so intern, with the firm that he was working at, which happened to be a VC firm.
And he had seen that I had put " entrepreneur" in my LinkedIn profile on the equivalent of LinkedIn in Germany at the time. And he saw that I was at the same university that he was studying at before. So he approached me asking if I  was looking for an internship because as part of the studies you need to do kind of a mandatory internship and, it happened that I was actually in need for an internship.
And what he was explaining to me was basically exactly covering all my interests that I had, which were a little bit of finance, but also Internet, and in a very international setup. And I said, okay, that's, I only understand half of what you are explaining to me and of what you are doing. I actually have no idea to be honest.
But it's sounds super exciting.  I would love to learn more and I would often work there. I did an interview , worked well and they hired me as an intern initially. So I did my mandatory internship with them and also wrote my thesis with that same firm. And then eventually I started working there after my studies.
So pretty good start into the industry basically, and I would say it's rather unusual, at least at the time, it was still a very small ecosystem that was rather unusual that people would start  their career as a VC, basically or in as an as an investor. And I was lucky enough to have that opportunity at the time.
And that's how I started at Mountain Partners in Zurich back then. And so the good thing there was basically that this was a very small firm, and in terms of a number of employees, so every individual employee had a lot of responsibility. And even though I was quite young and still very inexperienced, I was. Yeah. Lucky enough to have a lot of responsibility and the ability to also, be involved with making my own videos and dealmaking, which I think was a great foundation to basically grow.
Yeah. Learning by doing and learning the VC craft in real life. Just trial and error.
Remo Kyburz: [00:08:44] Okay. You also mentioned, that you had a contact already that's helped you to at least get an introduction to the company, to the VC firm. And also from my experience, I feel like, it's, it's very hard to, first of all, hear about open opportunities in VC. And so there's often also not that many positions in the space. So from your view now, do you have any tips  for someone that  just graduated, or maybe that's, is, you know, like looking to enter the VC space, how to actually land a job in this industry?
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:09:20] Yeah, sure. I mean, to be honest, at the time it was even much harder because there much less firms, in Europe at least. There wasn't much money in the market at all and basically the only way to get in was through a prior personal relationship.
Which actually I did not know that person before, but he just got in touch with me because I was at the same University, right? So that was one thing that we had in common and he reached out primarily, as I said, because he had seen that I had indicated that I'm an entrepreneur, which to be honest, I wasn't really an entrepreneur. I had done a lot of side jobs and stuff, but I wasn't really running a business in a proper sense. I was a student. Right. But I think he liked that kind of attitude and that's why he reached out. And that was my way in. And I don't think that is necessarily something that works for everyone. I mean, you can always try to break into the industry through an internship. There are much more firms by now, in Europe as well, that also offer internship opportunities.
But at the same time, there's also many, many people that want to do that job. There's also by now, which did not exist at the time, several newsletters and job sites that are specifically focused on roles in investment firms or VC firms.  For example, my friend Stefan from Perego has a newsletter just for this, for the European market, and I think there's a equivalent of that also for the American market.
So, I think it's, by now much more sophisticated and much more transparent. There's also many people that blog about it, not just about VC in general, but also of how to landed a job, or about their own ajob as being a VC. What your responsibilities are and what you do. So it's mostly about finding that kind of content and then read it.
So like 10 years over 10 years ago, 12 years ago when I started, most of that wasn't there. And  there were very few VCs that were actually blogging from the US and sharing some of the knowledge and some of the insights. It was all still very much the early days, specifically in Europe.
And I think we have done a lot of catch up year in Europe. But compared to the US, but there's still also a long way to go for us. 
Remo Kyburz: [00:11:31] Yeah, definitely agree with that. I see that a lot has happened in the space, and there's a lot more content.
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:11:37] But maybe to be more precise to your question, since you were asking about what would be by tip for students or people that are interested in breaking into the industry. What I personally,  as a partner at Speedinvest value when we evaluate potential candidates for different positions that we have is basically, that people are  not just wanting to break into VC for the sake of doing VC, but they have a genuine interest in entrepreneurship in startups and building companies, and specifically also in the focus that we have.  AtSpeedinvest we have different focus areas, different focus funds that focus on specific topics. And obviously I like when someone shares our passion and has the same interests and can actually credibly show and prove that there's a deeper reason on why they want to do this. 
To be very honest, many of the people that intern at Speedinvest, actually half had prior operational experience and are not just graduating from university and this is their first job or the first internship.
Actually almost all of them have had different jobs already before and proper real regular The internship is an opportunity to, basically  get a glimpse at the VC world and see if it works for them or not. If they want to pursue a career in this industry or not, it's maybe a little bit unusual compared to most other industries, where if you are interning, that's your first professional experience or one of your first professional career steps. Whereas I think in our industry due to the big appeal, basically, there are many, many people that are already more experienced than I would say the average intern.
Right, and there  aren't that many open positions.  And that's simply because the typical VC firm is not that large and does not have that many people  on their payroll. And it's a very, very longterm oriented job and career. And so  the jobs don't fluctuate that much. Right. People committed for a long amount of time. It's all due to the dynamics and  the incentive setting in the industry. And also because probably people like what they're doing, so they simply are not leaving those jobs very frequently. 
Remo Kyburz: [00:13:56] That makes sense.  What would you say are like the skills or abilities that are the most relevant or important to being a VC?
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:14:08] I think it's not that one profile. Also different,  firms, different companies prefer different backgrounds. I think in general there's some, I would say certain character traits that I'm want, which is curiosity and the willingness to learn.  I think you need to be very good with people and like to talk to people because you need to convince founders to work with you and to work with us. And rather than with someone else.  It's a, highly people driven industry and interpersonal skills is in my view very important. And ideally you can also bring something to the table that. It's useful for the entrepreneurs and the founders that we are working with. So I don't know a specific skill that you have learned or specific insights that you have gathered is usually helpful, but there's not that one career. I believe if you would look at the profile of the most successful VCs in the industry, they're all different. So I think, yes, journalists, there's some people from the music industry, there's people with a financial background. I think this notion that you need to have, I don't know, a financial background or I don't have, having worked as a consultant or something like this, it's not really the case anymore.
I think entrepreneurial experience is  much more important. And being simply curious and open minded this is actually very, very important. And genuine interest for this industry, for startups, for new technologies, for innovation, that's much more important than seeing this as a step in your career and kind of some something that you need to cross off your checklist , right? Also, I think it's very important to understand that many, many people think this is the kind of ultimate job that you should be doing or reaching, and I don't think it's for everyone, and I don't think that's the case.
I think it's a base specific job that actually doesn't necessarily appeal to everyone.  It's not always just a great job. I obviously love it, and I think it's great for me, but it doesn't mean that it's great for everyone. It's also, I think, very important to keep in mind. 
Remo Kyburz: [00:16:30] Yeah, definitely.  So can you walk me all right briefly through your career steps from mountain partners now to speed invest and kind of different stations you went through, to get the audience  an image. 
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:16:45] Yeah, absolutely. So maybe just briefly to sum up, because I omitted a few of these steps in my, in my earlier introduction. So just to sum up quickly what the, what I actually did and then maybe I can generalize, hopefully is a bit more applicable for everyone out there.
So my, my personal steps were basically I started at this firm in Switzerland. I did an internship with them in the beginning. I worked there for two years. Then. I had already exposure to a portfolio company. So I was managing my own portfolio. I was actually doing deals at that time, which is I would say, highly unusual.
I will not do that in my team with someone with so little experience, but I was lucky enough that I was the position back then to be able to do that is something I'm very grateful for today anymore with anyone in my team. And then. After that, I, I joined Naspers, as I said, which is basically gave me the view of a strategic buyer of the companies that I was previously with Mountain Partners investing into.
Right. So then suddenly it's a different approach. It's a different view, but it was actually very helpful in comparison to what I had done before. And I think at Naspers I learned a lot of the basics and on how to do it also right.  Only working with people that are smarter and much better than I am, which was amazing. And being able to learn a lot from them and having that kind of strategic aspect and strategic view and actually also being able to do M&A deals.
And then after that, then again coming back into VC, but then it was all this prior experience basically also being able to do it right I joined Point Nine Capital  which just had raised their first institutional fund at the time, and were just building the team. So I went to Berlin  and I joined them and they wanted to build out their marketplace practice.
So the two focus areas, SAAS and market places, and I wanted to double down more on marketplaces. So I joined in order to do that because that's what I've done before both at Naspers and Mountain Partners. And, it was just great to basically be there from the early days at Point Nine and help build up the brand and firm and be part of  how this grew up and see how also the whole ecosystem grew at the same time.
And we were basically right in the middle of it, which was, it was a really great experience. And then after about four years there. Oh, that's okay. What's next? What am I doing now? I was tempted to also join the startup side of things. So I was, I was looking at my own profile and§ was thinking, okay, if I want to have a career in VC and I maybe want to have my own fund at one point,  what skills am I actually lacking?
And at the time I thought it would be smart to actually spend a bit more time on the entrepreneurial side and work in a startup or do my own startup. So  I joined a marketplace company of course, and work with them. But the funny thing is, once you are out of the industry, and because it's such a small ecosystem, I had a lot of people reaching out and talking to me for other opportunities in VC. 
So it happened that this opportunity also, basically, doing my own fund came up earlier than I had planned. I wasn't planning for it that early. And, yeah, I was lucky enough to get in touch with Oliver from Speedinvest and they had this idea and this opportunity to set up this focus fund strategy and had some of the existing LP base that was interested in a specific theme around marketplaces, which was exactly what I would've done anyways, myself.
So I decided to, to take on the challenge and I joined Speedinvest to build up this focus fund strategy together and launch Speedinvest X, which is the fund focused on network effects and all things marketplaces at Speedinvest, and basically I was fortunate enough to be there and be able to build  the fund from scratch, which we did over the last two years or a bit longer, which was extremely rewarding and a great thing to do. 
So that was basically the short, my career over the last 12 years. I know it took a little bit of time, but it was also 12 years is quite some time. I just was lucky to start early. I started at the age of 23, 24. Right. After graduating basically. And as I said in VC, everything takes a lot of time.
One fund takes 10 years. That's extremely long to see if the investments that you are making are actually successful. So I was basically reaping the benefits from the investments I made 10 years ago, only over the last couple of years. And that's basically costs long. You only see if you actually are a good investor after such a long time, that's why time plays an important role and experience basically plays an important role. It's not so much about age, it's more about when did you start and how much time did you have in order to show what you can do because it takes so much time to materialize, and basically be able to prove to people that that you can do it.
Remo Kyburz: [00:22:15] Yeah, definitely. The feedback loops in VC are very long  and  so it really takes a lot of time until you realize, Oh, I'm a good investor, or this might not be for me. 
Yeah can you give the audience a quick overview about Speedinvest, in general, like what does the company do and some quick facts, like what stage you invest in, what type of companies you'd generally look for, etc?
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:22:41] Sure. absolutely. So already mentioned this a little bit early on, but basically we are. a larger group of family of different funds and we are actually a little bit of a strange animal compared to the average early stage fund out there. So as I said already, we are focused on the very early stages of a company.
Usually we invest in pre-seed or seed stage. We are the first institutional investor coming in, even the first investor at all coming into a company. Primarily focused on Europe, but we are also investing outside of Europe, especially the sum of all focus funds with a specific focus that see a lot of opportunity in very specific areas still outside of Europe. I think the FinTech fund would be a good example for that. 
Basically what the setup is, is that we have one horizontal kind of flagship fund, and below that you have different. Vertical. It's different teams that have specific focus areas.  I'm taking care of X fund, which is focused on all things, network effects and marketplaces.
We also have a F fund which stands for FinTech. We have an I fund which stands for industries. It's IOT, industry 4.0, factory off tomorrow. We also have a dedicated deep tech team. And then we also have a, a so called general team, which basically covers everything that is also not covered by one of the other verticals and  is also looking for the new stuff that is so to say yet to come and we don't even know yet what it will be.  These are basically also, supported by different. Horizontal support functions that we have for both internally, to run the funds, but also externally to our founders and our companies in order to help them build their businesses.
So we have a dedicated HR team.   We have a dedicated growth hacking team that is called Speedinvest Pirates. We have  a Biz Dev teamin Europe and the US, to basically help companies with go to market and expansion, to the North American market. And yeah, that's the reason why we actually are quite a big operation. We have a roundabout 70 people in the whole of Speedinvest, of which more than half are actually facing the company's, so supporting the companies. And those are all spread around our different offices in Europe and in the US so we have a Pan European approach. Our headquarter is in Vienna because Speedinvest is originally from Austria.
That's also what all the funds are domiciled. But then we also have an office in Munich, in London., and we also have an office in San Francisco. And, yeah, we're currently also thinking about opening an office in Paris, which we will announce soon and yeah, that's basically the set up. We have different people from the different teams that I just mentioned in most offices to actually cover the whole market.
Remo Kyburz: [00:25:51] And you as a partner, I'm very curious to learn what characteristics or KPIs do you look for in a startup, specifically now in the  marketplaces? 
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:26:04] So I think that's an important part. It always depends right. So that's exactly the reason why we have those different and dedicated teams, because they might be looking for different, sort of say proof points or aspects of a company.
So given the early stage in which we are investing, we obviously put a lot of importance onto the people that we are investing into -  onto the founders, their background, their experience. How relevant is it with regards to what they are planning to build? Are they exciting. I've also built actually and we've developed a marketplace scorecard, as we call it, in which we actually go through all the different aspects. You can find that on marketplace-scorecard.com. It has a different headlines that are basically the different categories, and founders is one of them. That's actually the most important one. We dedicated, different points to the different categories and founders is by wide margin the one with the most points , which means it has the highest support from all different categories. And obviously the products that they are building and therefore the problem that the team is trying to solve and how big that problem actually is, which then also leads you to market size and the total addressable market. So how big is the market a team or a company is going after and is it really a big opportunity that actually provides for VC style outcomes. And then in the case of of us specifically, we obviously also look very much at the ability to develop network effects, is there a  potential to develop strong network effects, which make the business much more defensible and therefore hopefully also more valuable in the long-run.
But, I think to put it very simply, what a VC is looking for - and what is very important to understand from the founder point of view, but also for someone that is interested in landing a job in VC - is, they're generally interested into big outcomes that can basically return the fund  for the VC.
So if a VC is not interested in your company, it doesn't mean that it's not a viable business, but it just might not be a VC case. And I think that's something that's very important to understand that just because a VC might not be interested in. First of all, VCs are most of the times wrong. So that doesn't mean much at all.
But if you take some people that maybe it means that that person doesn't believe that this can be big enough to make a difference for their fund, right? So it's a very specific way also to look at companies, and there's many other ways to look at companies, which are completely fine and completely valid. 
Remo Kyburz: [00:28:48] Yeah, totally agree with that. And there are probably a lot of people that are not really aware of that and also what it means then  to get VC money and what the expectation is. So a good point. And since we are at the stage of advice for startup founders or potential people that want to go into VC, do you have any resources or books, or tools that you like or that you can recommend to, let's say aspiring entrepreneurs?
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:29:17] So I think there's a book that I can actually recommend to both founders and also aspiring founders, as well as also people looking to break into the VC industry, which is called Venture Deals from Brad Feld.
I think it gives you the  basics of how VC deals are structured and how VCs also think. So I think it's very helpful for founders to actually understand the thinking and the approach of VCs. And on the other side, for someone who wants to work in the industry, it's a great basis to basically hit the ground running when you start working.
So there's something that I can, definitely recommend to anyone, and also recommended to any new joiners that are new in the industry in our team to read it because it's an easy way to quickly get started. And then there is a ton of  blogs and also books, about it. There's probably every week  new blog posts that are being published.
And the industry is also developing. So I would just advise to follow a few exciting topics or people, for example on Medium or Substack and read their stuff. And also there's a few very well known people in the industry like Bill Gurley from Benchmark and so on that was also one of the early bloger that is producing a lot of great content. Also  some of it's centered around marketplaces. 
I think NFX from, from San Francisco, from the Valley is actually doing some great content around marketplaces as well. But then there's also many, many other people or some less well known people that could use a lot of great content. also very specialized content.
Obviously crystal from Point Nine is producing a lot of content around SAAS, which is super valuable and insightful. We are also obviously blogging. You can follow my stuff on my blog Ockenrock.com and where it's mostly about marketplaces and what we are doing at Speedinvest X. But I think that already also gives you a good idea about how we think and how we see things.
Perfect. 
Remo Kyburz: [00:31:30] Yeah, I'll make sure to link to all of these links in the show notes as well so that people can find it directly. 
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:31:37] Yeah. Great. I could also, actually, maybe I can give away, we have our own Amazon reading list for the team and maybe I can give you a sneak peek or for them we can also link to it.
Remo Kyburz: [00:31:49] Oh, that would be amazing. Yeah. if you can provide that, that would be really cool. 
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:31:53] Sure. 
Remo Kyburz: [00:31:55] Great. Then I'll also link that in the show notes as well. So. Given the time. I want to finish with a few, personal, more rapid-fire style of questions. So the first one is like, what is one of your best or most worthwhile investments that you've made so far? I guess in your context, it can be an investment in a startup, but it could also be an investment of time or of energy. So ,it's your choice.
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:32:25] I take both. On the investment side, I would say from, from the beginning where you really see the outcome really produce and therefore value for for investors was definitely Lieferando,  which was  then acquired or part of takeaway and then take away itself IPOd. From the more recent times, it's because I have never seen a company growing that fast and with such a tremendously fast, excellent execution is TIER mobility. But obviously there has been no exit so far.
On the personal side, I think my, my biggest  personal investment was really the time that I spend on doing the jobs that I did and the things I learned along the way. So I learned a lot of the things on the job, how I am and how I learn. And, I think, for example, the time I spent at Point Nine was extremely valuable  for my general development. 
Remo Kyburz: [00:33:28] Now, looking back since you already had quite a long career in VC, do you have any advice you would give your younger self when you just started out your career? Something you would have done different or something you would just tell yourself as an advice ?
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:33:44] I don't think it's a rapid fire question. I can probably talk an hour about it, or think about it at least. There's not that many things I would have  done, differently. probably what I should have done in hindsight is I should have moved to Berlin earlier. If you want to keep it very simple, I should've moved properly to Berlin  because I was spending a lot of time already before and I was kind of living here. But during the week I was spending in Switzerland.
. I love Switzerland, but no offense for what I'm doing. I should have spent much more time, much less time in Switzerland.
Remo Kyburz: [00:34:16] And is this just because Berlin is really becoming, let's say, after London or together for London, one of the main startup capitals in Europe?
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:34:24] It's just amazing to see the tremendous development it had over the last couple of years. And if you're in the middle of it, you almost not recognize it anymore. But when you take an outside- in view , then you suddenly realize what has actually happened and actually opportunities like this one now talking with you and reflect on certain things , I see how much has happened. And I should have come here earlier and should have been part of that already earlier. And it doesn't matter if it's Berlin for some other people, it might be another city. But if you have the strong urge and you feel that there's something happening somewhere else that is important to you and where you see opportunity, then just go there and don't think about it. Just go there!
It's not necessarily Berlin. For another person that might be completely different city because you're, I don't know in art or in music. You think that another city is much more inspirational to you and there's much more happening there and just go there. 
Remo Kyburz: [00:35:19] Yup. Thank you for sharing that. I think that's very good advice. 
 So  let's say I'm boarding a 10 hour plane tomorrow for a vacation, do you have any book or movie that you would recommend to me to watch? This does not need to be startup related. Free choice. 
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:35:36] Good question. I can, I can state one kind of obvious one that probably many of the people in the audience have heard about already, but, definitelyPrinciples.  I enjoyed the type of thinking behind it. I don't agree with everything, but I think it's a great framework and I think that was something that I found  quite insightful and interesting. From Ray Dalio, the hedge fund manager. 
And then if I think a bit more about kind of a fictional, less tech startup, I would think of, actually lost a lot of kind of the Hobbit and all these books.
I love them as a, as a teenager, I read all of it. So I think it's great for inspiration. Just wondering with your mind in this landscape that are described in a very detailed way in the book, and it's what I love about it and still like  about it, but that's probably also an all time favorite that everyone has read. 
Remo Kyburz: [00:36:39] No thanks for sharing.  I fully agree with two books and principles as well. Lord of the rings, obviously, which is much longer. Excellent. I still have a Lord of the Rings on my to read list. I kind of always want to save it up for a special time, but I love the movies.
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:36:58] I was actually, I was lucky that I read it before I watched the movies.
And then I think actually the movies destroyed some of them. How I had imagined it. But it was also cool to see, but I think the book is so much richer because even if it's a long, a three hour movie. You can't put everything from the book into one movie. There's so much, and that's the great thing about it.
Remo Kyburz: [00:37:23] To close off, I'm always asking my guests one last question centered around the name of the podcast -  the Leap Takers Podcasts. So, in your opinion, what does courage mean to you personally or in a startup context?
Mathias Ockenfels: [00:37:37] I think it means that you go into unchartered territory.  So you are not afraid to leave your comfort zone and make a step into the dark, so to say. But it doesn't mean necessarily it has to be unprepared or in a stupid way. Right? You can still do it in a very prepared way. And be smart about it, but still not knowing what might happen.
And again, thinking about what other advice: stop overthinking it and just doing if you're in these kind of scenarios. As I also always say like time kills every deal and time also kills every idea. You can overthink everything and always come to the conclusion that it cannot work. Or there's so many reasons why this can fail, but you have to be sometimes also just naive enough to get started and then something great will come out of it. 
Perfect. Thank you very much Mathias for coming on the podcast. I will link everything that you, that you mentioned in the show notes. And to close off, is there anything else you wanted to mention or where can people find you online for example. 
Thanks. first of all, thanks for having me. Was, was great fun. As I said, I have a blog on Ockenrock.com.  There's also all things from Speedinvest and Speedinvest X. I'm also tweeting  quite a bit also under Ockenrock.com. We also organize a conference twice a year, the marketplace conference,  which is happening between Berlin and San Francisco. The next one is up in San Francisco on March 26. So, look it up on marketplaceconf.com and, maybe see you there or on another occasion.  And thanks for having me. 
Great. Thank you very much Mathias. 
Outro
All right, everyone, thank you so much for listening to this episode.
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So having said that, thanks again for listening and have a great week. Bye bye.