Skills4School shows that entre­pre­neurs can be found ever­y­where #DHDL

Skills4Schools founder Rubin Lind embo­dies one of Eric Ries‘ („Lean Startup“) most important pieces of start-​up wisdom: „Entre­pre­neurs are ever­y­where“. In Rubin’s case, at the begin­ning of his entre­pre­neu­rial journey, he was still at school. But the now 19-​year-old has a few things ahead of the other, usually older start-​up CEOs, something that not only the lions, but even Ries himself would certainly be thrilled about.

The Lean Startup prin­ci­ples are the programme at Skills4School: Not only did CEO Rubin Lind launch the company as a 17-​year-old schoolboy, proving once again that entre­pre­neurs can be found ever­y­where. The young founder, who has built up a really exci­ting company with his team, also scores in other areas. Because as much as it is often roman­ti­cised: Entre­pre­neurship is not only moti­va­tion, passion and the famous „burning“ for a topic or a solu­tion. It is also struc­tured, disci­plined work, espe­cially with numbers. Even if that doesn’t sound as exci­ting as the spee­ches about moti­va­tion and seemingly tire­less foun­ders.

Because when inves­tors are really impressed by a founder, the phrase „That’s a good founder“ often is heard. But what exactly do they mean by that and, more importantly, how do you get them to talk about you like that? Because this sentence is often even like a code from one investor to another, meaning something like: „I think we invest“ or at least „Even if phase/round size etc. don’t quite fit, if it fits with you, I can comple­tely recom­mend this case to you“. So it almost seems as if the finan­cing round is already a whole step closer with this predi­cate.

In general, as is so often the case with such titles, it is made up of a whole range of charac­te­ristics and factors, so a clear defi­ni­tion does not exist. However, it is fair to say that certain things are always included, and of course „soft“ quali­ties such as moti­va­tion and passion for what the company does are also part of this. It is often seen as even more preferable if the story of the foun­ding is prac­ti­cally based on the founder’s own problem-​solving, i.e. the founder prac­ti­cally recognised a problem or even had one himself and was deter­mined to solve it. As in Rubin’s case, who was annoyed by the fact that there was no modern, simple and, above all, mobile solu­tion for lear­ning school mate­rial and then decided without further ado to develop one himself. If, as in Rubin’s case, the founder is also a member of the core target group, this also reduces the risk of not meeting the customer’s needs.

But for inves­tors, the hard facts also count: Do the foun­ders have their company „under control“, i.e. do they know all the important key figures and what they mean? Can they assess where there is poten­tial or even a need for impro­vement in the short, medium and long term and do they have a plan for this? In Rubin’s case, ever­y­thing was just right: no matter whether it was sales figures and growth, user beha­viour in the app and the corre­spon­ding acti­vity figures, or the important fact that parents have to be addressed as paying custo­mers for the most part: the facts and figures were correct and, properly inte­grated into the overall argu­men­ta­tion struc­ture. This was also well received by the inves­tors. Even if the figures them­selves are not perfect (because they never really are), what counts are the argu­ments and the solu­tion stra­te­gies. Because even if there were still one or two points of discus­sion regar­ding Skills4School, it quickly became clear that the lions agreed that they had a „good founder“ in front of them.

Because the mixture of moti­va­tion and passion, but also the mastery of facts and the ability to distin­guish the important from the less important and to see key figures not only as indi­vi­dual values to be opti­mised, but always to be able to embed them in the overall context and never lose sight of the big picture, is what makes a good founder. And then even a valua­tion discus­sion with the lions can lead to a good ending, into which they probably wouldn’t have entered other­wise.

Photo (above): TVNOW / Bernd-​Michael Maurer