Deniz Schütz

This transcript was generated automatically (YouTube auto-captions) and then edited for readability: names and obvious mis-hearings corrected, filler words removed, speaker labels added where the speaker is clear. Passages that could not be understood are marked [unclear]; short omitted passages are marked [...]. Timestamps are approximate. The recording is the authoritative version.

Konstantin Girst 00:00:01

Welcome back to, I would maybe even say, the Christmas time or end of year episode of Campus To Capital. Today, Julius and I are joined by Deniz Schütz, who's the co-founder and CEO of StrategyBridgeAI, a Munich based fintech startup that automates data-driven business analysis for the world of finance, in regions such as private equity and M&A. Well, so nice to have you here, Deniz.

Deniz Schütz 00:00:32

Yeah, thanks for having me. Looking forward to our session today.

Host 00:00:35

Great. And what I think is really interesting here is that before you went on this entrepreneurial journey, I think you actually worked at some of the companies that might be your target customers today, such as UniCredit or even Amundi. And that made me curious. Was there a turning point while you were working there, that you were like, enough is enough, and now there are some things I need to fix, and that's why you moved on to become an entrepreneur?

Deniz Schütz 00:00:59

So I think I have this history, let's say, of these target clients. [unclear] is a function. That's where I learned my hard skills, right? That's where I learned how to analyze businesses, and that's where I gathered all the knowledge I needed to be able to found a company. But actually it was never my plan to do so. I was very happy as an employee, at least for the beginning. I was very happy to have an environment where I can just learn, where I can focus on one or two problems at most, right, and just try to solve them. But working in a large corporate, you will hear the word no a lot. Yeah. Oftenly, of course. And at some point, that's exactly, that was the turning point where I and my co-founder said, enough is enough. We don't want to hear no anymore. So let's figure out how we can get things done ourselves, the way we wanted to. And that's what brought us slowly into the, yeah, founder's life.

Host

So you already had the idea for StrategyBridge before leaving the corporate world?

Deniz Schütz 00:02:03

Absolutely. No. So we first wanted to service corporates. That was actually our first plan, and to help them to... like, the idea was the same, that's true. We wanted to commercialize corporate finance. And we first figured, okay, let's do that for corporates, actually. But after having like 20, 50 cold calls with them, we quickly realized, okay, there's a big flaw, because we understand that there might be some interest in the product, but the sales cycles will kill us. So that's a very bad idea to start with. And then only the second shift was, okay, let's do that with the corporate finance experts, make their lives easier. And that's how we, yeah, slowly graduated to that version of a company, let's say, and that's where everything started.

Julius Ambrosius 00:02:55

Yeah, very interesting, and I feel like that's usually how the best entrepreneurial stories begin, if you first experience those pain points and then sort of find the best solution for it. So, Konstantin briefly introduced, yeah, StrategyBridgeAI and what you're doing, but could you maybe tell us what essentially your work looks like, and maybe give us a real world example of how the platform benchmarks and also, yeah, shows different companies' KPIs and really works?

Deniz Schütz 00:03:28

Yeah, sure. So I think, as your question already implied, in the core we are a data business, right? So we are collecting data. I guess the number one background our people have in our team is data engineers. So that's where everything starts. And the innovation our platform brings is to not do it as it has been like the last 50 years, to just, if somebody needs data, give them data in a convenient format, but it was basically the M&A advisor's, the private equity's job to do something useful out of the data. And that's where this army of interns, sometimes analysts, is evolving. And we said, okay, why not include the analyst basically right away in their database, right? Because we know what data they [unclear]. We know how they need it. We know, especially having the power of not being only a finance expert but a data expert, we know how to extract actually even more useful data from this big amount of, like, nearly 100 million businesses you could analyze out there. So that's how it starts, basically. So in the core we are a database. We cover 50 million businesses at this point in time worldwide. And we have everything you want on these businesses, right, from financials to very deep descriptions of what their product is, who their end user is, what their business model is, where in the value chain they are. So everything we need to very detailedly structure what a business is doing. And that helps us then, of course, to start, let's say, with the... you ask for a specific use case: the private equity advisor,

00:04:59

they start first with sourcing, right? That's where they start. They need a long list of businesses that potentially fulfill their criteria. This might be, for instance, a niche. They say, I don't know, I'm interested in X-ray manufacturers, and that's a market we think is interesting. So we need to be able to very easily... they just type in X-ray manufacturers, deliver them all X-ray manufacturers there are. Then they want to be further able to analyze them. So to say, I know they should fulfill some revenue criteria, some margin criteria. Now, an old school database, what it would do is basically just include the businesses that actually report that data, and all the businesses that in theory would fulfill it, but just don't publish it, because they're for instance sitting in Switzerland, they would fall off. That's the first thing where we come in, or where also an analyst would work on, right? To make estimates, to assume, is the company actually fulfilling my criteria? So that's what we do. We do large scale estimates, I think the best in the world, on estimating if a business is hitting certain revenue and EBIT margin criteria. And then you're coming into a process where you shorten that list. You make a short list and then really deeply analyze the businesses. Again, making a benchmarking or valuation is very structured, right? For a benchmark, you just want to understand: who are the competitors, how is the company performing against them, do they have a high or low performer? And then translate that information into a valuation, where you want to have comparable multiples of the most fitting other businesses out there,

00:06:29

and really understand how is an average multiple really used for my specific company, that is maybe growing faster but actually has lower margins. And we do all of that. So all these analytics are done. So the end result for the private equity users: just with a few clicks they have a long list, they can shorten it to a short list and do actually real red flag due diligences on that business. And yeah, that's a huge timesaver.

Host 00:06:55

Yeah, I mean, you mentioned analysts and also even interns, which, let's say, in an investment bank will most likely do this grunt work of doing financial modeling and picking data, and I see where it's very interesting for the banks to use your services. That would just allow them to become a lot more efficient. And I think not just in the world, but also especially in finance, AI has been one of the hottest topics this year. And with, for example, the CEO of JPMorgan, Jamie Dimon, still painting a very utopian picture, being very optimistic, saying that AI will both increase efficiency and create jobs, there's also already another side of the story, where we see for example Goldman Sachs announcing that they were planning on cutting 3 to 5% of headcount in relation to AI. So, you being an expert in the industry and also bringing AI into this industry, where do you see AI shaping the finance world in the next couple of years?

Deniz Schütz 00:07:51

So without a doubt, teams will become smaller. That's already happening. I think it was Q1 or Q2 this year where a client, after implementing our solution, immediately cut all their open job postings and didn't hire their interns. So that's happening. Teams will become smaller, without a doubt. So this idea of AI generating new jobs that will basically make up for the ones that are getting lost, I'm not believing that at all. But this is still, I think, in my view, just net positive, because what will happen is you now have, because of that transformation, highly skilled, fantastic people that so far were, you could say, to some extent exploited, right? Because the work they were doing was not matching their capabilities, not at all. They were used as cheap workers, as cheap workforce, but highly overqualified, right, coming from best universities and doing repetitive tasks that already after the second time feel like nonsense. So I think that is luckily stopping in the finance industry. And what will happen is, if these high talents won't find a job, they will found their own business, and then you have more competition, more innovation, of course lower margins. But I think for the end user this is just positive. If you can select now from... you want to sell your business, or you're not willing to do any business anymore, you are able to sell it now to hopefully 20

00:09:21

[unclear] and not just three. So in that sense, I think that has a lot of positives. If, of course, an economy is able to, yeah, build that environment where all these people can go and do founding, right? So there's a bit of dependencies, but nonetheless, that's the picture I see. I see more competition in that space, more companies being built, smaller advisors, smaller firms being able to completely keep up with the big names out there. So in that sense, that's also what we want to achieve. That's the goal of our business, right? We have lots of two, three people businesses using our solution and telling us they've won pitches against teams 10 times the size. So that's also something, yeah, we stand for, and in that sense I'm quite happy with that and bullish on that.

Host 00:10:10

Okay, nice. So you would maybe say that the future goal is not anymore to be a summer intern at one of the bulge bracket investment banks, but rather trying to get into Y Combinator, for example.

Deniz Schütz 00:10:20

Yes, absolutely. And I hope there will be, because of that, even more Y Combinators, right? So also that should democratize. So in that sense, absolutely, I believe in that.

Konstantin Girst 00:10:29

Interesting. I mean, Julius and I, we actually did an AI based hackathon a couple of weeks ago, which was with Antler in Copenhagen, and it was actually quite interesting to see. It was very impressive how people just built completely different business ideas over a weekend. I mean, it's very surprising that people were actually getting so many different use cases, but also were able to create them to such an advanced level in such a short amount of time.

Deniz Schütz

For sure.

00:10:56

5 years ago they wouldn't have done it, right? They would have done all the same DCF workshops, the same

00:11:01

nonsense. Honestly, the absolutely same nonsense. And now you see that already, just ideas being developed. Some of them might be not good enough, right, to make it, but some certainly will. That's the creative, cool part of it. New ideas emerging, and as simple as ever.

Host

Oh,

00:11:20

I agree. I mean, we had the same conversation, where we were like, we would have needed probably 10 people to do what we did a couple years ago, now [unclear] in like 12 hours.

Deniz Schütz 00:11:30

Yeah.

Host 00:11:31

But maybe let's stay at the M&A market for a little bit longer, because, I mean, we saw a big comeback this year, finally, with fees being up 40% year on year. And I mean, this was due to rate cuts, but also more abundance of capital, and I think just also a global rush to innovation as well. So, with the market making a comeback and probably also having a very decent performance next year, what is your goal, to best position yourself to benefit from this trend?

Deniz Schütz 00:12:02

I still believe tactically positioning is very difficult, right? You can do that on a marketing level, maybe also on your sales level, but to really authentically, I don't know, participate in especially small booms like we, as you described it, that's not our plan. Actually, that's not our goal. I'm very, very happy that we were a startup born in a crisis, right? When we started our company, the M&A market was pretty much dead at that point in time. And that's actually why we benefit now from these booms. I mean, when we started, our first MVP as well was just building one report, one company or market analysis per use case, and we charged quite a lot of money for it. I think the first one we sold for like [unclear], and the PE that bought it actually mentioned, that's quite cheap, because for a similar solution from a Big Four they would have paid like €70,000. So we thought, okay, we're onto it, we deliver same quality at a fraction of price, very good. But no, that was horrible. It was a horrible product, commercially horrible, because, yeah, you had huge sales cycles for just one or two products you could sell per client, and in a crisis scenario, that company was about to die. So we said, okay, we actually have to get even further. We have to cut the price from like 13,000 to a few hundred euros and really commercialize it. So the users use 50, 100

00:13:32

of these use cases, just if some pitch crosses their desk, or a corporate tells an M&A advisor, I'm thinking of selling. They right away do analysis and basically know all the information, they can position themselves as the expert in the market. So that's how we were forced by environment that we basically, yeah, make the best commercial model out of that product we could, and now we are benefiting of that, right? Because now we have a solution that is used everywhere, and so when the whole market is basically growing, we grow as well. So my answer is, I wouldn't know how to now, in the short term, really benefit from it. I think private debt is now a case where we actually now tailor our product for it, to participate there. But apart from that, I think we set the groundwork nearly four years ago.

Host 00:14:24

Cool.

00:14:24

So you just said that you position yourself in private debt and private credit.

Konstantin Girst

It's Julius's favorite keyword.

Exactly. Immediately jumped in on that.

Host

I mean, HSBC calls it the new growth engine of finance, and it was probably the topic in 2025, also in 2024, with, yeah, just fund volumes exceeding new record levels and basically, yeah, pushing the PE business a little bit into its shadow. So could you maybe tell us how you utilize your service for the private credit industry? So do you also just do business analysis on undervalued mid-market firms, or how does it work for the industry?

Deniz Schütz 00:15:15

Yeah. So this transition is very simple for us, because if you look at our current client base, you have the advisory business, M&A advisory, consulting. Okay. And then we have private equity and banks as our users. And basically private debt is not that different if you cover already these two client groups. They look at that in a similar way as banks, and having these structures, maybe the same sourcing methodologies as a private equity would have. So in that sense, what we do is now we tailor the solution in a way that they can do sourcing similarly as a private equity would do, but now just more like companies that are maybe about to go into insolvency, or, yeah, to just change the ideas on how they will do the sourcing. But in the end it's very similar. And then when we do the red flag DD: how private equity is doing it, with the valuation especially in its core, but also a strategic IC benchmarking. For private debt it's very similar. We'd also do a strategic benchmarking, but on top of that really look at the balance sheet side a bit more, which is not of that much interest for a private equity, but in private debt it certainly is, to really understand that capacity and all of that of a business. So in the end, for us it was actually even easier, because also balance sheet data is way more easy to access than income statements are.

00:16:45

So the shift was very natural for us, and with already, I think, the first private debts we approached, they right away converted. And we do that always when we win new clients in a new segment: we make them, we call that, what is the name, design partners, and they basically help us to optimize the product for their workflow. So, yeah, I also believe that private debt is a very interesting development. We benefit from it quite a lot. But in the end it's the same as usual, right? It's not that different.

Host 00:17:15

And I mean, some people argue that there is a private credit bubble that, yeah, is currently building up and might burst in a couple of years. So when you look at the data, do you see, yeah, problematic trends in that regard, or what's your personal view on the industry?

Deniz Schütz 00:17:36

Yeah. So I guess these are two questions. So number one, is it a bubble, and number two, is it about to, yeah, to burst. Bubble might be, I'm not sure, but bubble might be very difficult for me to assess. I think maybe we are still very biased in our data set, right? Most of the usage we have is within Germany, nearly all is within Europe. And we see just still the [unclear] businesses where our platform is used for, and these are usually still quite solid businesses we see. So in that sense, from our data, which again is surely biased, we wouldn't be able to see any direction in that. But, yeah, I believe we see a couple of bubbles out there, not going to lie. That's to be expected. And I guess even with the AI hype, that automatically needs to translate into private debt, and they're financing businesses where nobody knows how will it be profitable any day. So that might be, I can see that transitioning. But if it's going to burst, I think that's the very tricky question that barely anybody can answer out there. I have my history in stock markets. I know that you can see bubbles for decades and you wouldn't know when

00:19:07

the time comes. So in that I would be rather vague and say, okay, this is something that is out of my control. Let's be aware of it, but still, that shouldn't affect our business.

Host 00:19:18

Yeah. I mean, knock on wood that we won't experience it too soon.

00:19:22

I mean, you lead a data-driven business, and, I mean, data is very critical with the rise of, yeah, AI, and basically data is the key source of everything. And we live in Germany, we live in the EU, which is basically at the forefront of regulation. So in that regard, I'm curious, because the EU AI Act classifies credit scoring AI as high risk. So they mandate transparency, bias audits and so on, so forth. So how do StrategyBridgeAI's services enable, yeah, your clients, so private credit funds, private equity funds or M&A businesses, to comply with these regulatory pressures?

Deniz Schütz

So I think a big part of it is, like, still the end user, and that will remain for quite some time, is still the human. So that's a big part already, especially when you work with banks: is it if they outsource something, right, this is a very tricky part, or if you're actually just a consulting service, let's say a research service for them. And why I'm saying that is because if a human is in the end the end user, we just need to build the platform in a way that they know, okay, I understand

00:20:52

every step, I understand what is happening here. I understand, if the platform tells me, I don't know, this business is very good and is very good to finance, that they can clearly trace back to the raw data why they are coming up with it. So in the end, the requirement for us is very straightforward. We would need to be as transparent as possible. So people need to understand how raw data transforms into the actual insights we deliver. We do that, of course, and by that I think 90% is already covered, as everybody that used the platform knows right away how we come up with that, and they're able to say, okay, now I can make my assessment based on that. There is no hidden risk, basically. I said most of it is covered, because you also have things like person related data, which we offer at some places, but we need to cut off for such entities. That's definitely a no go. And there are some smaller tweaks we need to make, but in the end it's just transparency, I would say.

Host 00:21:55

Yeah. So you try to basically solve the majority in the back end, so the user doesn't have to really deal with anything. But now I'm curious, because in the last episode we talked with Robert Habeck, and we talked very intensively about, yeah, regulation stifling innovation in Europe, and being kind of that... or taking away the competitive edge of European businesses. And you, as being an entrepreneur at the forefront of innovation: how would you say that being in Germany slows you down in scaling your business? Because I could imagine that you have to comply with certain things that you wouldn't have to comply with in the US, for example.

Deniz Schütz 00:22:42

So I'm not sure if there is any time constraint on answering that, because I have a very interesting story on that. So, like, I guess most of the audience will be in Germany. Is that right?

Host 00:22:55

It's not necessarily known.

00:22:58

Okay. UK, US, Scandinavia and Germany are the biggest demographic regions.

Deniz Schütz 00:23:04

Fantastic. But then, like, in the German school system there was a big change when I did my A levels. They shortened the period of doing your A levels, of high school, from 9 to eight years, right? And I was the first year that had this 8-year program instead of nine. And from outside, everywhere, people were telling us, oh, bad for you. Yeah, that's just to your disadvantage. That's so much more difficult now, doing the stuff in 8 years than in 9 years. And also some, of course, within my class were repeating that. But already then I asked, how on earth does anybody of us know what is more difficult, because nobody has experienced the nine-year program. We have no clue, right? They don't have this peer data set to understand that what I'm doing now is more difficult. This was just the environment I'm in, and I'm willing to deal with it.

00:23:56

And why I'm saying that is, it's now the same story, right? Everybody tells me it's so difficult to found a company in Germany. Sure, I understand. We have lots to do with, like, tax and all the regulatory stuff. There's a lot to do, but there's no comparison for me, right? I didn't found a company yet in the US to really do the comparison. So I do understand that it's a bit more difficult. Maybe it's a lot more difficult, might be, but it's certainly still possible, and still the best founders out there will be able to handle it. So I am not team, yeah, be angry or worried about certain developments. Just do what we can control. Still enough to be successful. And so, yeah, I hate that attitude, I'm not going to lie. If people start complaining around me, I just leave. That's not my way of, yeah, understanding life. In the end, I think we are still in a quite privileged situation as founders, and, yeah, trust me, most of us will find their way.

Host

Yeah,

00:24:58

very refreshing perspective, actually, because I feel like the consensus in our last episodes, when we talked with entrepreneurs, was always the very... yeah, what you just described, the sort of angry attitude, that they say they have no chance, and Europe won't stand a chance if they keep... yeah.

00:25:19

Yeah, keep doing the Brussels effect.

Host 00:25:23

Yeah.

00:25:23

Yeah. And I mean, I know we talked a lot about the market, but then maybe let's actually go back to how you brought StrategyBridgeAI to success. And at the start we talked about how you were in the corporate world and then decided to become an entrepreneur. But then, within the entrepreneurial journey itself, what were the biggest events and turning points in the journey so far?

Deniz Schütz

So there have been many, way too many. But so I think when we started, first of all, as I told you, it was never my idea to found a company, actually. But the team I joined at UniCredit, they actually just, since day one, they told me, Deniz, you don't belong here. Yeah, I actually didn't completely understand what they meant. I think the first idea was I should go to a US-based investment bank. But, yeah, they were supportive of me from day one, and the moment we had the idea to launch that business and we told them about it, they immediately did all they could to support us and to do that. So I'm quite sure without their support there wouldn't be this business. So there we already had, which I feel was an unfair advantage, a network of people supporting us. And, yeah, in the end, when you start a business, you have lots of people saying, yeah, interesting, and then they ghost you. That's the typical

00:26:53

behavior. I think the worst thing that can [unclear] you, because you get positive feedback, suddenly the conversation stops, and then, yeah, you don't know what to change, basically. You need to work about everything within your own bubble. And so in that sense, we are thankful for every client that said to us, guys, that's completely... never will I pay a penny for it, or the people that told us, yeah, let's do that. I think an MDX [unclear] company, for instance, they, without actually asking too many questions, just bought a service from us, and then in the process of working with them realized certain problems. So I think I'm quite thankful for, yeah, all the business. Like, a turning point for you is when you just continue calling, calling, calling, doing outreaches the way you want, and the first people responding to that and giving you feedback, even though it's horrible, like they're telling you that your product is horrible. And so that's basically where everything started. And now I need to think what was probably one of the most interesting turning points. Hm.

00:28:05

So probably what was the most difficult part for us in a business was we didn't have a technical co-founder right from the start. And then we had a friend of ours who was a Google developer, highly talented, who said, okay... he stopped actually his Google job to work with us, and the start was fantastic. We said, okay, now we have all the competences we need. We have basically a one-man army sitting on the tech side. Fantastic. But it didn't work out. It didn't work out for several reasons. We are still friends, but we just realized, okay, that doesn't work. And then we were stuck. We had basically our first clients, we had huge goals, and we didn't have any tech competencies. And there was still, like, rather the pre-AI era. We were a team of four: two data engineers, we two founders doing mostly sales and stuff like that. I was still working more on product at that time, and no tech competency. Then, okay, we did a hiring, of course. We said, okay, we don't have in the network the competency we're looking for, let's hire it. We hired the person, best possible CV, still didn't work out, right? It took a month for him to do the first commit. It was horrible. So we had to fire him, unfortunately, continue looking. And I think there were plenty of reasons, again, when I think about the question before, where we could have stopped, where we just would have thought, okay, it doesn't make sense anymore, we are not able to solve even

00:29:35

the basic things internally, how on earth can we now think to become a startup? But we just continued, we continued, we continued. We basically made up for it just by pure handwork. Everybody of us was sitting until night and basically playing software, right? Simulating software. And our clients knew about that as well. They were quite happy, because they said, okay, then we know at least we get the best quality, so for us it's fine. And then we made the first good hiring. We realized, okay, CVs don't mean anything. We need to be way more focused on what people actually delivered before, be way more hands-on. We need to actually gather tech expertise to be able to hire that correctly. And I think that was the biggest turning point, where for 6, 8 months, quite a long time, we were really stuck in being able to continue to grow. But we were desperate enough, I would say. That was the best skill we could have: desperate enough to still go through it and to try it. So, yeah, that's maybe one of the most interesting stories I can tell about turning points.

Host 00:30:44

Yeah,

00:30:45

that's funny. I immediately had to think about Simon Schmincke, the European VC powerhouse, who was also on the show before.

00:30:52

And to quote him directly, one thing he said is that you need to have a technical co-founder.

00:30:57

So it's interesting to hear how you worked around having that from the get-go. But did you have a plan B, or was it always StrategyBridgeAI all the way?

Deniz Schütz 00:31:06

No plan B. Absolutely no plan B. That's, I think, one of the superpowers that helped us. Of course we could also now sit here and say we are still stuck and it was the worst decision of my life. That might be an actual potential outcome. Might have been, rather. But no, I think being that desperate, not having a plan B, kept us going. And I'm not even talking about us two founders, but also our first two employees. They also felt like anything you do afterwards will be just a downgrade. So why stop? Let's try it as much as we can. We are young. We don't need that money that much. So we tried our best, and I think that was one of the superpowers we had: just being purely desperate.

Host

Yeah. Nice.

00:31:56

I mean, talking about growth, you recently, yeah, raised an oversubscribed pre-seed round in the seven figures, and also gained a very prominent, at least in the German market very prominent, angel, Kasselman [unclear], who already built a very successful startup in the M&A space. So what did this, yeah, funding enable for you, essentially? Was it just data, or go to market team? What would you say, yeah, is the most beneficial for

Deniz Schütz 00:32:37

So I need to be transparent here, because that makes it otherwise quite difficult for me to answer it. This was not the last round we had,

00:32:44

but it's not disclosed, so nobody knows about it.

Deniz Schütz

I know, but so there has been a second capital event since then as well. And so I think we used the pre-seed mostly for product. That's right. The team grew by nearly 10 people. But that was also the issue with that round, that we basically optimized product, we invested as much as we could there, but still our go to market team was in comparison quite small. But that was basically the story. So pre-seed funding to optimize product, to get some structure in our go to market team. But still, every closing in the last year we made, that's actually, I think, what [unclear] for our product, was still the same two guys, so us two founders, 12 months later, you could say. And we are still growing by incredible numbers in that time, completely organically, if you want, so with not an increase in headcount in sales. And now what we did especially with the last funding round is to, yeah, optimize our go to market, hire a full sales team, marketing team. Our plan for next year is to basically have every potential user from audit, M&A, private

00:34:15

equity, banks in our funnel within the German speaking region. We will definitely achieve that. And then as well to expand within Europe, to countries like the Netherlands, UK, Nordics. So that's what we use now the second funding for. So the first was, you could say, maybe product market fit. I hate that word, but that was what we used it for. And now it's scaling and, yeah, growing as fast as possible.

Host

And I mean, when you grow quite fast, how are you ensuring to keep the same efficiency that you had with three employees, let's say comparable to 20 employees now? I don't know the exact head count, but

Deniz Schütz 00:34:58

So, yeah, that's, I think, a very tricky thing, and our answer to that is we hire founders. So some of our employees, not too few, have a side business, you could say, which is in itself already quite successful, and that's very interesting. One is a learning platform for some Asian countries, quite successful. The other one is, I don't know, a DJ business. But these are really founder mindsets. And so when we say we hire somebody, the number one rule is we hire somebody to tell us what to do, right? We don't hire people that we need to tell what they have to do, because then it's flawed, then it's a problem, then we will get inefficient. So we hire for that attitude, plus of course very deep niche expertise, and that's working quite well for us. So when somebody comes to us, we know right away, like, okay, when you join us, you will be handling our go to market, our efficiency. So surely you will have to deal with lots of clients and need to be experienced there, but probably you also have to be experienced with n8n [unclear] etc., to automatize the processes. And then they say, okay, got it, understand what your problems are. They come, they just make a, yeah, a sketch of what are the biggest problems they can see, and then just have to solve them one after another, without asking us for permission.

00:36:28

I think that's the big thing. So hiring is what makes it up. Maybe also a bit of culture, right? If we would be a high top down structure, that wouldn't work, because then these kind of people wouldn't feel comfortable. But it's actually a completely flat hierarchy. When they're responsible for something, it's as if they would be the CEO of the topic.

00:36:52

So I would say rather a decentralized structure. Yeah, that's how we live it.

Host 00:36:59

Would you say that that's how you drive hiring? Because I think it's safe to say that right now, both in tech and finance, it's as fierce than ever to fight for the top talent.

Deniz Schütz 00:37:09

Yeah, definitely. So I guess that's it. So you need to have strong, bold goals. That's already attracting the best people on the market. And when they then also understand that basically, yeah, I don't want to use that word, but I don't have an alternative: they don't want to be soldiers, right? That's horrible. Just taking tasks, basically. That's the bad word, right? Getting tasks and then just fulfilling tasks. That's the bad thing. We give them problems. We tell them, okay, we also would know how to best solve it. That's, luckily, your problem. And some will feel uncomfortable in that environment, which is good, which is fair, but then they don't fit our culture. But if they like it, then they're the best possible hiring you can do.

Host 00:37:56

Yeah. Fair. And I mean, I think also another thing that I found interesting is, next to your people, your product, your location is also super important. And Munich is a growing hub, both in finance and tech, with JPMorgan, Goldman, OpenAI and many more coming here. But what was it for you, that you wanted to be in this city, not somewhere else?

Deniz Schütz 00:38:16

So I was born here, so that was making it easier. My co-founder wasn't. But we felt like indeed this is an optimum, because we have fantastic [unclear] universities here. I did my bachelor's here as well. We have fantastic universities. Cost of living is crazy high, for sure. But still, it's an attractive city to get talent here. Nobody is saying, I don't want to move to Munich, luckily. So far nobody said that. That's quite good, and still, in comparison to other big hubs, I would say, possible to live here and not, yeah, overshoot on costs. So that made the decision for us very simple. And then of course we brought already a network here, right? Our first two employees were living here as well, or, like, one was willing to relocate here, one is living in Augsburg, so close enough. That made it very simple for us. So in the end, this was not a strategic... we had every city in the world as an option and chose Munich, that's not the outcome. But we felt comfortable enough to do it here.

Host 00:39:27

Cool. I mean, it's super interesting. I think I'm very curious to see where Munich will be in a couple of years, because I think it's very vibrant right now.

Deniz Schütz

For sure.

00:39:34

It is. It is.

Host 00:39:36

No, definitely. [...] So, I mean, we are confronted every day with AI and new use cases of AI. And maybe you, as being someone that, yeah, works at the center of this equation: what should talents or young people like us look out for? Like, which trends should they be curious about when it comes to AI?

Deniz Schütz 00:40:14

So I think the first thing I would encourage everybody is to, yeah, be bold, also in maybe trying their own startup. Especially at that age, there is no failure. I believe in that. I don't think there's any failure at that age. If you start a business and you shut it down after some time, you will still say this was such a big learning, because you're forced to deal with how to convince other people from my company, even, like, if it's hiring, if it's clients, if it's investors, whatever there is. But that's a skill that will help you anywhere in life, right? To generate ideas, bold ideas, that's already a skill in itself, but then also get other people believe in it. So that's my first thing I would encourage everybody to do. And I guess the second thing is, if you're looking for jobs, to either look for jobs that, A, encourage you in that again, that make you somebody that is getting responsibility very quickly and be able to do your own decisions, or it's really an environment where you gather hard skills, right? That's as important as it has ever been, to really build up deep niche expertise, that will also help you, best in a case that is fun to you, right? That's the simplest equation to success. But I think those would be the only two things I would look out for,

00:41:44

and chances are good you will find it.

Host 00:41:48

And when we talk about these hard skills, I mean, your team has some interesting people, with math Olympians and people that have a background in Silicon Valley. So when you're looking to hire new people, what necessary skills are you looking for?

Deniz Schütz 00:42:01

Yeah, I think, yeah, definitely deep niche expertise, right? Secondly, the founder attitude, as I said. And that makes the hiring so interesting, because when you're looking for that, the CV sometimes tells you the story, but if it does, you're usually fighting for them with many, many other top companies. So not guaranteed that you will win the talent, I mean. So, yeah, in your hiring, if you're saying, okay, that's what I'm looking for, you need to find the hidden gems, right? So that's where we optimized our process. And one interesting thing we do is, actually, next to sending us the CV, they have a questionnaire they need to fill out, which is targeting exactly the niche expertise we're looking for, with very deep niche questions on that. Sure, it could be answered with ChatGPT, but so far we have the feeling that's not used that much. People are very honest about that. And then we invite all people that meet that, and there might be 100 people, all people that meet that will be invited to a first 10-minute interview. And in that 10-minute interview there's unfortunately no time for their questions. We are just throwing questions at them. But then you sometimes realize, okay, these people are able to understand problems, solve them very intuitively. And that's how we gather

00:43:31

our talent. So I think that's one of the parts we optimize the most, because it's most important, honestly. And we try to find the people that sometimes, from the CV, doesn't shout, as you said, like Silicon Valley background, easy hiring, math Olympics, front-end developer, very easy hiring, right? But there are also some where the CV would say, okay, wouldn't have expected them to be high performers, but they surely are, as much as others. And that's, yeah, the difficulty we have in hiring, I would say, but also the cool part of it.

Host 00:44:05

Cool. Great.

00:44:06

Yeah. Oh, very, very interesting insights. I think this was a very exciting conversation

Deniz Schütz 00:44:12

for me as well. Thank you.

Host 00:44:13

Thanks a lot for letting us record this in your very nice office, by the way. For everyone that's tuning in, we're in the StrategyBridge office right now, not as usual in our studio. So thanks for that as well.

00:44:28

Yeah. And who knows, maybe being a Campus To Capital listener will make you an easy hire in the future as well. But, yeah, before I say thank you to Deniz, also thank you so much to you guys, because this has been a very exciting year. We started out in February with our first episode. Now this is our 20th one. So thank you so, so much for always tuning in, always listening. And now we'll be on a short winter break, and then we got lots of interesting stuff to come next year. So thank you so much to you as well, and thank you, Deniz.

Deniz Schütz

I want to say thank you as well, and if I'm allowed to make one last [unclear] comment on that: we knew each other before, right? I think we met somewhere at an event, at a private equity event, right? And

00:45:11

then for some months we didn't hear each other, and then you just wrote me, I think, quite a long message, mentioning your podcast and that it would be a good idea to visit it. And because we had that shared background, I first thought, okay, you just wrote, Deniz, come to the podcast, please, and then I didn't need to read the rest of the text, because I knew, of course I will do that, right? Like, without a doubt, I will come. And just now, in the preparation for the podcast, we had a look, my team as well and I had a look at your podcast, and we were shocked how, in such a short amount of time, how professional your podcast is, how, yeah, the interesting topics, also the good questions you asked today. So I also want to say, we [unclear] a couple of them now, I think 20, 30 podcasts so far. This stood out as one of the most professional ones. So congrats to you guys. And, yeah, it was a big pleasure for me to be here.

Host 00:46:08

Thank you.

00:46:09

Nice to hear. Thank you very much.

00:46:11

I think this is a good closing note to the episode. So, thanks to everyone.

00:46:14

Yeah, thank you.

00:46:15

Thank you.

00:46:16

Great.