Sesame Summit 2026 – application open

Reading List for Entrepreneurs W49 – Selected

This week starts with a burning question for technologists:

When will the Internet deliver its positive promise?

We’re also checking in on why is Zoomitis so strong; is it the content? The vehicle? Or perhaps virtual events have just gotten off on the wrong foot and are in need of a rebrand?

There’s also a bunch of positive news for investors willing to provide good returns to their LPs.

Quick Tips:

  • look into the last NBA draft
  • GenZ or
  • The live streaming market in China.

Have you ever heard of cliodynamics? For some historians, it would be possible to extract laws from the past that will determine the future.

When you see that 3 vaccines were designed in less than year, I’m doubtful that history really repeats itself… but, there will also be self-help books. Which I personally hate.

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The only self help book I’ve ever enjoyed.

Welcome to this week’s zoom into my brain.


Book

Sad by Design On Platform Nihilism by Geert Lovink

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Sad by Design On Platform Nihilism by Geert Lovink

“We live in a time of engineered intimacy, toxic memes and online addiction. Can we ever break free?”

Zoomitis

Before the pandemic, tech companies treated space as an annoying set of limitations to be overcome by apps.

Home Screens — Real Life
Quarantine is the future big tech wanted us to want. How long before we want out?
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Users experience Zoom more as a stultified form of virtual reality than an augmented one, because it now feels like there’s little off-screen reality available to augment

A Primer on China’s Live Streaming Market

And this is from 2018, NOT factoring in what’s been happening during the pandemic.

A Primer on China’s Live Streaming Market
I worked at Twitch and helped build Periscope and Facebook Live. So take it from me — when it comes to live streaming, China is at another level. More than 300 million people watch 3.5 million streamers in the world’s most populous country. Here‘s a primer on the Chinese market:
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When it comes to live streaming, China is at another level. More than 300 million people watch 3.5 million streamers in the world’s most populous country. Here’s A primer on the Chinese market:

  1. Streamer: Young, beautiful, and IRL
  2. Diaosi: Looking for a cure to loneliness
  3. Tuhao: Virtual diamond rings and birthday cakes
  4. Agency: A streaming star factory
  5. Platform: From hundreds of apps to a few leaders
  6. Government: Cracking down on risque content

Strategy

Why constraints are a good thing in venture & business

“a shortage of resources, or a specific pain or trauma, or any set of conditions which are “less than ideal” can lay the groundwork for creative expression.”

Why data matters
Scaling a startup is basically scaling documentation of processes and workflows. It’s all about data

Taking a data-at-your-fingertips approach is low stakes. It’s more about standardization and removing friction than it is about reinventing any wheels.

Data at your fingertips
Why you should think about your data so that… you don’t have to think about your data.
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Gen Z

Gen Z Trends Report

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Zebra IQ 2020 Gen Z Trends Report
This report is the most comprehensive deep-dive on Gen Z highlighting cultural trends and shifts, featuring a year’s worth of proprietary research.
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Skip The Gateway: smrs.link/tE4OWW

  • Link: smrs.link/tE4OWW
  • Author: Zebra IQ

Marketing

Building community in B2B

Nearly 80% of founders reported building a community of users as important to their business, with 28% describing it as their moat and critical to their success.

The Rise of Communities — Building Communities in B2B
In early September this year, 500+ shipping professionals met online at the Digital Container Summit organized by our portfolio company Container xChange, a marketplace for shipping containers. Over…
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Virtual events are the future: they just need a rebrand

One-sided and passive webinars are quickly falling out of favour. The most successful up-and-coming platforms supersede traditional video tools by focusing on engagement and user interaction through features like video one-on-ones, breakout rooms, pools, roundtables, and more.

‘Virtual Events Are Here To Stay’: they just need a rebrand
As a marketer, I have been organising events for a couple of years now. When we decided to hold Northzone’s Annual General Meeting online this September, I felt quite nervous that the virtual format…
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Software

5 reasons to build an Open Source company in Europe now

  1. Proven monetization models
  2. Proven IPO and M&A market appetite
  3. Proliferation of OS use
  4. Proliferation of collaboration tools
  5. Experienced, distributed and global talent

Atomico’s take on Open Source: 5 reasons to build an OS company in Europe now
Open-source had not traditionally attracted a lot of attention from VCs because there were very few successful cases of product-first, revenue-generating Open-Source (OS) companies. This changed…
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Venture Capital

Interview with an LP: Building (And Evolving) A Generational Fund Returns Platform

More than half of all underlying portfolio company investments lose money. Our data shows that even the very best funds lose money on north of 40% of deals.

What separates great funds from the crowd is less the ability to avoid losses, and much more to find a company, or companies, that return 10x cost or more.

Interview with an LP: Building (And Evolving) A Generational Fund Returns Platform
Getting the fund-of-funds perspective from VenCap International
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Learning from The NBA to scout startups

At its core, any efficiency metric is an expression of performance vs. a constraint. In basketball, this could be points per possession; in software GTM teams, it’s often LTV/CAC. Performance metrics express a desired outcome (such as points or customer lifetime value) divided by the opportunity cost (possessions or dollars invested).

Using NBA Metrics to Scout Superstar Startups

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History

The Next Decade Could Be Even Worse

They say history is bound to repeat itself and while I’m quite skeptical regarding any absolute laws in social sciences, it’s great to discover how some scientists are studying this approach. Turchin founded a journal, Cliodynamics, dedicated to “the search for general principles explaining the functioning and dynamics of historical societies.”

The Next Decade Could Be Even Worse
A historian believes he has discovered iron laws that predict the rise and fall of societies. He has bad news.
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Literature

The past and present of self-help literature.

I hate self-help books.

The Radical Origins of Self-Help Literature
How did the genre of self-help go from one focused on collective empowerment to one serving the class hierarchy as it stands?
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Tools

Otto – Keeps you productive while working

“Squirrel!” Killer.

Otto — Be mindful while working✨
A Pomodoro timer and website blocker to help you stay mindful and be more productive.
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Aerial

If you love that gorgeous screensaver on your appleTV, here’s a neat port bringing it over to your laptop.

Bonus: You can import/use your own video files. Dan’s currently got his set to a fireplace. How very festive.

Aerial – A free and open-source Mac Screen Saver
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Events 2 days ago

Last week, I spent three days at Bits and Pretzels in Munich — a startup-focused event with a distinctly Bavarian flavor. Think Oktoberfest meets startup conference, complete with dirndls, lederhosen, and more beer than you might expect. As someone building an AI-powered event platform, I went in with a specific mission: Observe how startups actually market themselves at events. Here’s what I discovered: GoodBytz: The power of good demos What they did: Robotics startup GoodBytz set up a booth where its robots prepared kaiserschmarrn (a traditional German dessert) all day long. Why it worked: Nothing beats seeing a product in action. While other booths had brochures and demos, GoodBytz’s robots were actually cooking. The smell, the movement and the end result stirred together an experience that people will remember and talk about. The lesson: If you have a physical product, show it in action. The old writing adage generalizes well: Show, don’t tell.  Let people see, hear and touch the product. WeRoad: The bathroom hack What they did: Posted “Missing Investor” flyers in bathroom stalls with QR codes pointing to their website. Why it worked: Pure genius. Every startup at the event was looking for investors, but the “Missing Investor” headline, while a bit on the nose, proved irresistible. Plus, bathroom stalls are one of the few places where people have 30 seconds to actually read something. The lesson: Think about where your target audience’s attention will remain undivided. Sometimes, the most effective marketing leverages the most unexpected places. Emqopter: Visual impact matters What they did: Designed a bright orange booth that displayed their drone prominently. Why it worked: In a sea of grey, white, beige and brown, Emqopter’s bright orange booth was impossible to overlook. The drone was real, too, and proved a real conversation starter. The lesson: Your booth is competing with hundreds of others. Make it visually distinctive and ensure your product is the hero. Quests: Community building using the product What they did: Created a busy, branded booth with accessories (toy car, traffic cones, a bulletin board) and used their anti-loneliness app to build communities among founders at the event. Why it worked: Quests used their product to solve a real problem right at the event, and the busy booth design generated energy and curiosity. The lesson: Use your product to solve a problem at the event — if it’s possible, of course. Demonstrate your value in real time. Dyno: Event-themed marketing What they did: Distributed branded electrolyte packs with the tagline “Your hangover ends. Your pension lasts – with Dyno.” Why it worked: Dyno aligned its messaging perfectly with the Oktoberfest theme. Every attendee was thinking about beer and hangovers, so Dyno’s goodies were quite relevant. The tagline was clever, memorable, and directly addressed a pain point most people at the event might have to deal with later. The lesson: Tailor your marketing to the event’s theme and culture. The more you tie your messaging and product to the context, the more memorable you become. So, what did I learn? Event marketing is about more than just showing up and setting up a booth; you have to understand your audience and create experiences that people will remember. Here’s what really struck me: most startups and even big companies don’t know how to leverage events properly. They book the booth, show up and hope for the best; maybe they bring some branded pens and a pop-up banner. Then they’ll go back home and wonder why they spent €5,000 in exchange for 50 business cards that never convert. The startups that stood out at Bits and Pretzels understand something fundamental: event ROI isn’t about booth size or location; it’s about strategy, creativity and planning. None of the startups above improvised on-site, or planned something the night before the event in their hotel rooms. They laid everything out 4-6 weeks before the event. A solid pre-event strategy is what separates successful event marketing from expensive booth rental.  But what matters most for early-stage startups is that you don’t need a massive budget to stand out. WeRoad’s bathroom stall hack probably cost €50 to print the flyers. A standard booth package at Bits and Pretzels would go for €3,000 to €5,500. The ROI difference is staggering when you compare the cost per meaningful conversation. That’s the difference between simply spending money and investing smartly. Building Sesamers has taught me that helping startups find the right events is only half the equation. The other half is helping them understand how to maximize ROI once they’re there. Good props aren’t a marketing expense; they’re opportunities to meet customers, investors and partners, and strike up engaging conversations.

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New Materials 3 days ago

Lios Group, the Irish startup behind SoundBounce, was a winner of JEC Composites Startup Booster 2018, and has been making significant strides since taking home the award.

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New Materials 1 week ago

Tree Composites aims to accelerate the energy transition with innovative composite joints.

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