Lars Tvede is the co-founder of the successful venture capital fund Nordic Eye, CEO at Beluga and advisor to a Swiss hedge fund group. He spent 11 years in portfolio management and investment banking, before moving to the high-tech and telecommunications industries, where he was the co-founder of several technology companies that have won numerous international awards, including Wall Street Journal Europe Innovation Award, Red Herring Global 100 Award and Swiss IMD Startup Award. Lars obtained simultaneously a Master’s degree in Engineering from Copenhagen University and a Bachelor’s degree in International Business from Copenhagen Business School. Also, he is the author of 15 books.
Mads Faurholt-Jorgensen is a serial entrepreneur and best selling author. He has started over 20 companies across technology, financial services, marketing, HR and education, with thousands of employees, and investors such as Goldman Sachs, Alibaba, Peter Thiel and the World Bank. Prior to starting his current company, Nova Founders Capital, Mads was Global Partner and Managing Director of the German internet giant, Rocket Internet; Head of Asia at Groupon (the world’s fastest growing company), and Management Consultant at McKinsey & Company. Mads received his bachelor from Copenhagen Business School at the shortest time ever recorded while managing a sales team of 50 and subsequently took his MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
As venture capitalists, we receive a huge amount of pitch decks. Before deciding whether they are interesting at all, we screen them quickly. Then, if one seems interesting, we re-read more carefully. And if we still like it after that, we initiate a dialog ...
As venture capitalists, we meet lots and lots of startup entrepreneurs, and some are clearly very good at articulating briefly and concisely what their business is all about. But others aren’t. And lets face it; in some cases, we end up scratching our heads and asking each other: “Did you understand what they did?” ...
In the early days of any start-up, lots of plans and intentions change very quickly — often so quickly that it makes no sense to write long and elaborate business plans. The alternative is a so-called business canvas, which is an informal tool for making your continuous business model design ...