Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,
Snap unveiled a $2’195 pair of AR glasses the internet decided had "absolutely zero style", sending the stock down around 17%. AI poster child Midjourney announced its next act: a full-body ultrasound scanner you enter through "a shallow pool of golden light", with a wellness spa in SF to follow. Seems like AI will give us many options spending money for things we don’t need. Follow the Gradient and stay tuned.
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Your talk track for this week’s cocktail party
1Komma5° is racing Enpal to the stock market
Hamburg solar group 1Komma5° is lining up an IPO, having pulled in a €150m pre-IPO round and now sitting on close to €400m of equity, debt-free. Revenue reached €520m in 2024. A listing would sharpen its fight with rival Enpal for the top of Germany's home-energy market.
A Paris startup raised €32m to run the battlefield
Comand AI landed a €32m Series A led by Blossom Capital, with a strategic investment from Sweden's defence giant Saab. Its Prevail platform uses AI agents to turn battlefield data into decisions, and is already deployed with units in France, Germany and Ukraine.
Ex-Palantir founders raised €51m to untangle SAP
London-based Conduct raised a €51m ($60m) Series A co-led by Index Ventures and ICONIQ, with SAP itself investing. Founded by three ex-Palantir engineers, it uses AI to help giants like Daimler Truck, DHL and Fraport understand and modernise their tangled ERP systems, claiming 30% faster transformation work.
What do you meme?
Food for thought
Big Tech changed its mind about your job
For two years the people building AI told us it was coming for our jobs. Now Jeff Bezos says it will cause "a labour shortage", not mass unemployment, and Sam Altman says he is "delighted to be wrong" about white-collar work vanishing. The timing is convenient, given they are all hiring. Will the honest answer probably be messier than either the panic or the relief?
It's not ready yet is the most expensive lie
The hardest lesson from YC: launch early, launch often. Every founder nods, almost nobody does it, because shipping means a real user might tell you your core assumption was wrong. He has watched founders polish onboarding flows for months, for users they have never spoken to. Sounds familiar?
How is “content” done right?
Beehiiv's Tyler Denk points to Ramp as the template: built on proprietary data nobody else has (SaaS spend rankings from 50k+ companies), owning a topic rather than pushing a product, and real editorial with named writers and a point of view. His test: would you subscribe even if the company sold you nothing?
Smart hack
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From us
Hiring the wrong person is the most expensive mistake a small team makes. Darren Bush lays out a hiring system, and most of the work happens before you ever post the role.
Write the success profile first. Define what great looks like, with evidence, before you source anyone.
Use work samples, not gameable tests. Assess on real job tasks, not trivia.
Score in writing before the debrief. Every interviewer commits a scorecard first, so the loudest voice does not win.
The debrief is where quality is decided. That structured conversation produces the real quality-of-hire call at offer time, not six months later.
Hire on evidence, not on vibes.
One good read
Join the entrepreneurial journey
Are you ready to take your first steps into the startup ecosystem or seeking an exciting new opportunity? Below is a curated list of startup job openings across Europe for you to explore.
Internships
Founders Associate Intern [📍Lisbon, Portugal], MicroHarvest [Apply]
Product Data Management Internship [📍Zurich, Switzerland], Tangible, ANYbotics [Apply]
Partner Success Intern (French-speaking) [📍Paris, France], Citymapper [Apply]
B Corp & Sustainability Manager Intern [📍Paris, France], Prose [Apply]
HR Intern (2 months) [Geneva] [📍Geneva, Switzerland], FinTech (B2B), Taurus [Apply]
Online Marketing Stage [📍Amsterdam, Netherlands], Consumer, Butternut Box [Apply]
Customer Success
Senior Client Account Manager, Global Strategic Accounts (UK) [📍London, United Kingdom], Consumer, Reddit [Apply]
Junior Customer Success Specialist - fresh graduates opportunity [📍Ukraine], Foxintelligence [Apply]
Customer Success Manager [📍London, United Kingdom], FinTech, Stripe [Apply]
Customer Success Manager (German speaking) [📍Berlin, Germany], Pleo [Apply]
Marketing & Comms
Creative Marketing Executive [📍London, United Kingdom], HealthTech, Happl [Apply]
Market Activation Lead, Manchester [📍Manchester, United Kingdom], Neko Health [Apply]
Stagiair Content Creator [📍Deinze, Belgium], Cooper Pet Care [Apply]
Senior Marketing Data Analyst (all genders) [📍Berlin, Germany], HELLOFRESH [Apply]
Marketing Manager [📍Slovakia], Wolt [Apply]
Head of B2B Marketing [📍Paris, France], Joko [Apply]
Head of Campaign & Merchandising [📍Paris, France], Joko [Apply]
Sales
Enterprise Account Executive - Germany [📍Germany], API Infrastructure, Kong [Apply]
Enterprise Account Executive, Switzerland (French Speaking) [📍Switzerland], API Infrastructure, Kong [Apply]
Sales Manager - Paris [📍Paris, France], Food Delivery, Deliveroo [Apply]
Sales Team Lead (Health Center Segment) [📍Paris, France], HealthTech, Vocca [Apply]
Sales Development Representative I B2B SaaS [📍Madrid, Spain], Qlip.ai [Apply]
Junior Field Sales Partner - Roma (x/f/m) [📍Rome, Italy], Digital Health, Doctolib [Apply]
Strategy & Ops
Talent Acquisition Lead [📍London, United Kingdom], Plain [Apply]
Director of Talent Acquisition, Tech [📍London, United Kingdom], LegalTech, Legora [Apply]
Director People (m/f/d) [📍Berlin, Germany], Voyfai [Apply]
HR Generalist (x/f/m) [📍Paris, France], Digital Health, Doctolib [Apply]
Product & Tech
Embedded Software Engineer - Wearable Systems [📍London, United Kingdom], XYZ Reality [Apply]
AI Engineer [📍France], Pennylane [Apply]
Engineering Lead II [📍London, United Kingdom], 9fin [Apply]
AI Software Engineer - Internship (f/m/d) [📍Munich, Germany], Data & AI, Datagon ai [Apply]
Senior Automation Developer [📍Paris, France], Automation, UiPath [Apply]
Senior Cloud Engineer [📍Helsinki, Finland], Supercell [Apply]
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Follow the Gradient is a weekly newsletter and podcast by the serial founders Melanie Gabriel & Christian Woese about how to scale a business from Europe while staying sane.
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