Philipp Moehring

Author: Philipp

  • If you care what I do while I travel…

    …check my tumblr. Pics and more.

  • On the road again – hope to see some friends on the way

    We are taking some of the Seedcamp winners of 2010 and 2011 on our now annual road show to the USA in March 2011. With a total of 14 companies, we will tour both East and West Coast, and end up at SXSW to meet up with the rest of the international tech scene.

    We will start off the trip on the east coast, visiting two of the most important tech hubs, New York and Boston, where we will also host 2 Seedcamp-format mentoring events to mix and mingle with local entrepreneurs, investors, and product experts. The New York event will be hosted by our friends and sponsors at Google. The Boston event is going to take place at the Hubspot offices (with a lot of help by our friends from Atlas Ventures).

    After a weekend break in Tahoe, we will spend the second week in the Valley, visiting, amongst others, Facebook, 500startups, the Google headquarters, various VCs, and meet the tech scene of the valley. We will host mentoring events at Google and our friends at i/o ventures. We will also go to the Northwest to visit two giants of tech – we will see both Microsoft and Amazon Headquarters, to get inspired by what was built in only the last decades.

    The grand finale will be at SXSW in Austin, Texas, where we will probably end up exhausted, happy, and with pockets full of business cards – a Seedcamp on the road, with loads of new friends and contacts to be made.

    Our Seedcamp US trip

    I am about to leave on a two week whirlwind of a trip to the US, where we’ll take the Seedcamp winners of 2010 and 2011 to meet local investors and entrepreneurs. My first trip to the US in a long time, and my first trip to the West Coast/Valley ever. I’m beyond excited.

    Besides meeting some friends in New York and Boston, I will see some London folks in Tahoe and some of the Berlin and Lausanne connections in Austin at SXSW. If you are somewhere close, let me know, so we can meet up!

  • Was mache ich überhaupt bei Seedcamp

    Mit Joel abhängen und Videos drehen:

    Philipp Möhring (Seedcamp) im Interview: “Deutschland hat einen zu kleinen und großen Markt”

  • Ein Post, den ich eh schreiben wollte.

    Je suis dans le news.

    Momentan sehe ich die folgenden Makro-Trends, ohne auf einzelnes einzugehen: Online-Offline ist ein Thema, das immer besser umgesetzt wird, wobei sich Startups auf die Nischen konzentrieren müssen, die nicht von den Big Boys wie Google und Groupon angegangen werden. Big Data in allen Bereichen wird immer wichtiger, und erlaubt noch viel Innovation. Die Software”-isierung” von klassischen Technologien wird fortschreiten, und alles geht in die Cloud.

    Mein Interview auf Seedfinance.de: Philipp Möhring von Seedcamp: “Entscheidend ist die ökonomische Logik und internationale Skalierbarkeit!”.

  • VC vs startup career – Quora blogging

    As many others, I’m becoming addicted to Quora – loads of deep and good information and insights on interesting topics.

    Here’s my (admittedly biased) answer to the question “What’s the case for working as an associate at an early stage venture capital firm rather than a startup?”

    Some of the skills you develop at an early stage investor are very similar to what you do in a startup – and some are very different.

    Why would you work for a venture investor in the first place?

    • You get tons of exposure to what is happening in the market. There is no better way of developing an overview of trends and movements than at an early stage VC.
    • You are actually working in a startup yourself. Early stage firms are small teams, have limited amounts of capital, need to be very flexible, and require massive amounts of work – that’s very similar to a startup. You are project managing, recruiting, marketing, developing website and similar things – for your own firm and for all of your portfolio.
    • There is no better way to build a network – no matter if you want to startup yourself or want to continue being an investor.
    • You are not dialling for dollars (cold calling potential investments), because early stage firms work different than later stage – you have to meet people. Also, to understand businesses in the early stages is totally different than looking at numbers and growth rates in established businesses.
    • An associate role is much less analytical and theoretical than in a large fund, and usually much less business/finance focused. This is the case for most of the folks in early stage though: you need to have a very good grasp of operations to run successful investments (more hands on, advice, etc in early stage than later).

    (a lot of these answers coincide with the original answer, also check back there)

    Why would you not start a startup instead?

    You need some different skills than as a founder. It’s a great job (the best, in my eyes), but definitely not an easy one.

    • You need to handle 10-30 different companies, understand different markets, have totally diverse contacts, and a good overview of all of this.
    • Skills include much more of broad knowledge, less specific and deep domain expertise. For some, this comes more naturally.
    • You might be on the look out to start something longer term, with a lot of insights.
    • You have ADD, in which case the dynamic nature of the job fits your personality really well.

    Negatives:

    You have to say “no” a lot. It could make you hesitant of starting your own (but then, why are you in the startup world).

    Depending on the firm, you can get used to a lot of money coming your way, resulting in the same challenges you have as a consultant or banker: It is really hard to start a company after getting used to a paycheck.

    I am an associate for Seedcamp in London, a micro seed fund in London. Above reflects my own experience, so feel free to deduce from that.

  • I am addicted to my Kindle

    I bought a Kindle about a month ago, and it was the best gadget purchase in a long while. I read about a hundred pages per day on it, because I take it everywhere (and I always think “it’s awesome” when I see it lying on my table).

    I actually pre-ordered it when it was announced, but reneged on my decision to get the 3G version – which stupidly put me at the back of the waiting list when I reconsidered.

    Why is it awesome

    Reading on it is great. Period. I prefer it to a book now – here’s why:

    • It’s smaller and lighter than a book and fits in a coat pocket easily. I just have it with me all the time and take it out on every bus or tube ride.
    • It’s better to hold in one hand than a book. You can grab it at every corner and you dont have to awkwardly bend the spine by spreading your fingers.
    • The screen is perfect for text. Forget an iPad for reading a book (or lots of them, for that matter) – it will strain your eyes.
    • You have all that stuff with you – books, magazines, articles. I always travelled with at least one non fiction and one fiction book, and got the economist and some fun magazine at the airport. Lots of dead trees to lug around – not anymore.
    • I use Instapaper like a madman now. You can bookmark long articles on the web and they are automatically synced. My own personalised magazine, and givemesomethingtoread.com has great content (hat tip to Johannes).
    • Do not think iPad vs Kindle – purpose, size, weight, value, and most importantly the screen are not comparable. You buy this to read books. Think discman vs iPod.
    • Doing only one thing means you are focused, and it carries over from a paper book. You can’t do anything but read with that, either.
    • I love buying books, and paper, and the smell, and all that. I am not missing it at all. I own a ton of vinyl, but I love my iPod – you get the point.

    Features and 3G Version

    I’ve yet to put a value on a lot of features like notes, clippings, and the 3G usage. I am only reading on it, and I am already hooked. The question of 3G or not is not really important – if you can afford the extra 40 pounds, just get the 3G version, I am sure you’re only gonna miss it when travelling a lot.

    I like simplifying my life, and scratching the huge bookcase from my moving list feels great. Get your partner one for Christmas (I hope Isa doesn’t read my blog).

    Oh, and check out my case:

  • IDCEE Kiev and thoughts on Europe

    I was in Kiev last week, representing Seedcamp at the Investor Day Central and Eastern Europe. Besides seeing this beautiful city for the first time (autumn colours, wide roads, and impressive Soviet-era buildings), the trip was well worth it.

    I was to give a keynote at IDCEE about the emerging models of early stage financing (think super angels, micro seed, etc.), and I had prepared an elaborate affair of why and how to work with the individual actors. While enjoying the reception the night before, i quickly realised I needed to work on the slides again – there is no such thing as an active angel community or even seed funds in the Ukraine. That’s why I focused on a more general introduction to the topic, less on specific items such as strengths and weaknesses.

    The grass is always greener on the other side

    It is interesting to see with which kind of enthusiasm new models of funding (or rather, fair and entrepreneur-focused models of funding) are greeted in less active markets. I saw the same in South Africa, Singapore, and other places I’ve been to over the last few months. Entrepreneurs are really hungry to prove themselves and go international with outside investors, no matter where they are. Of course, that’s also the attitude we see in teams who come to our events in London from further away. Likewise, all the European teams who are blessed with an at least somewhat working funding market are more than eager to head westwards to New York and the Valley. Over the last years I saw Austrians pitching in Germany, Germans go to London, and Londonites engaging in an endless debate on why the US is a better place to start their business.

    Stop whining

    My take away from Kiev especially (as the situation is really underdeveloped and dire) was that it’s really important to build the local markets and help kickstart your own community. Sitting on a panel on “how to go to the Silicon Valley”, we agreed that the best result of all these moves across the pond would be knowledge, networks, and money coming back home to support the next generation of companies. The worst would be a brain drain that leaves Europe in the dust. To prevent this, it’s really important to network across borders to be less isolated from what is going on in Europe and build an ecosystem that works together. I could go on about all this for a while, but I think the most important point is this: it’s too easy to complain about the risk-averse investors (or the unimaginative founders) – if you don’t help changing the status quo, you shouldn’t be whining about it.

    Stuff from Kiev

    So, here are the slides I promised to put on my blog:

    IDCEE – models of early stage funding

    …And a little bit of my German accent mixed with too much coffee for your entertainment:

    I hung out in Kiev with Mike Butcher from TC Europe, who had some thoughts on the current situation – mirroring IDCEE and the excellent f.ounders event in Dublin, and Martin from The Next Web – his thoughts about IDCEE are here.