#03 Sven Schmidt: VC Brain and Entrepreneurial Mastermind – meet the controversial yet admired business analyst

Sven Schmidt is Managing Director and CMO at Machineseeker Group and a serial entrepreneur. He co-founded venture-backed Verwandt, which was sold to Accel portfolio company MyHeritage. Sven also was the co-founder of Getgo, a venture-backed e-commerce ticketing company that was sold to CTS Eventim, where he was head of the New Media division. On top, he was Venture Partner at Accel and Earlybird in total for 6.5 years. He is most prominently known for being a regular podcast guest at OMR podcast and co-host of the ds-insider-Podcast. In this episode, Sven talks about his previous role as a venture partner and what triggered his investment decision in Fiverr, Vinted (formerly Kleiderkreisel), Prezi, and Mitfahrgelegenheit.de (now BlaBlaCar) back then. He also tells us why he chose to not be active as a business angel nor would consider a political career. Shifting topics to his day-to-day business, we also learn more about his vision for the Machineseeker Group and why he decided against Home Office, although everything is transitioning from offline to online due to Covid-19. Talking to Sven, we learn about the power of education, networking, and signaling as well as his favorite tools, and thought-leaders on Twitter, Newsletters, and Blogs to follow.