Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,
Today’s guest is Bea Knecht, serial founder and founder of live-TV streaming service Zattoo. Bea has seen startups succeed and fail across radically different ecosystems. She has a rare ability to explain why some founders hit product-market fit while others stall.
🎧 Tune in now on Spotify and Apple and share your thoughts! In the meantime: Follow the Gradient and stay tuned!
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Why you should listen
You should listen to this because this episode explains why the biggest risk isn’t being wrong, but refusing to update, and how you can avoid falling into the same trap.
It became clear to us very early in the episode: this talk is going to be different. Bea is a true out-of-box thinker with contrarian views.
What we talk about
02:07 - Why thinking about internationalization is key for European startups
11:59 - Why non-technical founders are underrated
24:31 - Why female founders should be represented much more
29:32 - Why starting a company is easy but scaling is hard
Our main take away’s
Execution in chaos is a competitive advantage: Founders in fast-moving markets like Asia are forced to act before the path is clear. This teaches them to execute while learning, a mindset European founders often lack due to over-structuring and under-hustling.
Internationalization is a built-in constraint for Swiss startups: Because the Swiss market is too small to sustain long-term growth, founders must prioritize going global from the beginning. This forces a focus on scalable go-to-market strategies, but too many teams remain blind to this necessity.
