Scaling Europe
00:11:14 · Margarethe Böhme, Sebastian Johnson
[00:11:14] S1: Exactly. Right? [00:11:16] S0: But you built this team and you're part of a team of the youngest investors in Europe. And becoming a VC is often something that happens later on in someone's career. Normally they've built something, they've operated or whatever, right? They've exited the classic old route of banking or consulting. How do you screen for great team members at Wave? What do you look for for the next generations people, the next managing partner? What are they gonna look like? And how do you screen them?
00:11:46 · Margarethe Böhme, Sebastian Johnson
[00:11:46] S1: I think there are a couple of things that we we always look for, and it's number one. Like, the absolute most important thing is always agency. Like, has this person shown that they are exceptional and have high agency? So, like, if you look across our team, like, most of us have built things before. Like, I've started companies. My colleagues have. Some have exited them. Like, all of these things point towards you wanting to build something and that you're kind of like a dog with a bone. And that is super important to me. And then, like, on a separate note, funnily enough, something I I learned from my parents, so something you can take from from an older generation who are more from a corporate background. Always hire people that are better than yourselves. Because end of day, like, there are things, like, with our, like, most recent hire, for example, Arthur, he's great. He's been at, different venture firms. He's worked at our portfolio company, and he's an AI engineer. And I was like, this is absolutely perfect for what we want to build. He has a different set of knowledge than other people in the team. So always look for, like, where are the gaps in order to make this the best performing fund on Exactly. [00:12:55] S0: Interesting. Okay. High people better than yourself. And then if if there was advice that you could give to other people, right, who are relatively, you know, maybe like a similar age to yourself and the team who are really interested in an eventual career, what would be your advice to them?
00:12:55 · Sebastian Johnson, Margarethe Böhme
[00:12:55] S0: Interesting. Okay. High people better than yourself. And then if if there was advice that you could give to other people, right, who are relatively, you know, maybe like a similar age to yourself and the team who are really interested in an eventual career, what would be your advice to them? [00:13:10] S1: It's funny, actually. I, I think that a lot of people think, you know, I need, like, x y z in terms of qualifications in order to get anywhere. And in my opinion, that can be further from the truth. Like, every single, like, job or, like, company or anything I've done, it's been because I've gone out and I've, like, reached out to people and asked, oh, could you help me with this? Or I wanna learn this. So, like, with, the company I started when I was 17, I started just cold calling, like, two fifty people who were in the industry. And I was like, I don't understand why this isn't happening. Can you explain it to me? And I think that led into different connections that got me a job when I was 18 operationally at a startup. And that got me the job at the venture firm after. So I think just be super proactive and show that you want to learn and, like, be out there because there's no way to stand out from the crowd otherwise and just show that you're excited about something. Like, of course, everyone wants to work with somebody who's, like, motivated, excited, and ambitious.
00:14:17 · Sebastian Johnson
[00:14:17] S0: Yeah. It's really... We... I hear that a lot from, like, startups as well. It's like the tradition... Whatever the traditional route is in that career is like it's going out the window. You want a job at a startup, it's like applying for the applying by the form or whatever is like the last way that you're going to get into the role. I want to talk about the New Nordics. I think it's phenomenal moment you mentioned Tandem, Lovable, Legora. A lot of these are Stockholm based. Are there any like, what are the other hubs we should be looking at? Is it Helsinki? Is it Copenhagen? Like, where are the other places where you think, okay, this could be the next Stockholm, the next big hub of the New Nordics?
00:14:57 · Margarethe Böhme
[00:14:57] S1: It's a good question. I think, like, all the different hubs... That's the kind of beautiful thing about the Nordics is that all these different hubs have... They're specialized in different things. Like in Finland, you have amazing technical talent, like, often super overlooked. In terms of, like, what they've built in defense and health tech and more, like, regulated industries, it's amazing. And, I mean, the same kind of goes for, like, Estonia. Now Lithuania is popping up as well. And when you look to Denmark, you have great companies coming out of there. Also, like, say, the Lunar founders just did Repoto, or you have great companies in the current YC batch from Denmark. The only one I might be a bit more iffy on is Norway considering the legislation and everything, which makes makes it quite hard for founders to build from there. But I wouldn't really look at it in the way that, like, what's the next Stockholm? My hope is that the Nordics come closer together, and that's kind of what we've tried to do with Founder's House in Stockholm and Founder's House in Helsinki. Because I think that we're such a small region, and we've always been a region that has kind of outperformed in terms of our size, our population, and all of that. Like, we've set the standards for the world with, like, Bluetooth and the seat belt, IKEA, like, all these amazing innovations that have come from different Nordic countries. And I think that, like, the strength lies in us being able to build together. So that's kind of my hope for the Nordics instead, that we can become, like, a region that's a powerhouse.
00:16:32 · Sebastian Johnson, Margarethe Böhme
[00:16:32] S0: Interesting. And would you take the way like similar to the, you know, Founders House has gone from Stockholm to Helsinki. Do you think there could be an equivalent Wave Ventures for Southern Europe? Right? Could this model work in other parts of Europe where perhaps they have similar... Like... But is that part of the vision? Do you think do you think you could expand? [00:16:51] S1: Well, I mean, never say never right now. I think, like, I really believe in the Nordics, and that's why we are staying Nordic. And we are focusing on, like, our geography and what we know. But, like, I think it would be amazing for Europe to have more similar funds and also initiatives like founder sales. Because when we... I... My colleague and I, we did a, like, Europe tour for founder sales this summer, and we went across to, like, Zurich and Munich, Paris, Berlin, London. And and we realized that, you know, in many of these places, there are really these hubs that, like, connect all of the young builders. Like, one of the best ones I saw was JFloor and ETH, pretty new, but they were doing amazing work. Some great ones in Munich as well. But, you know, for the really large ones like Paris, Berlin, and and London, there really wasn't that much. I mean, now I know that, Billa, who has Tech Europe, he is he is doing, he's doing some work there, which I think is amazing. But I just hope that, like, this would spread because it's done such amazing things for the Nordics.