Sven Lackinger

The smartest planning move isn’t adding more… It’s removing what no longer drives value. Ask: • Which offerings drain cash without scaling? • Where does headcount outpace returns? • What workflows multiply effort without output? Focus is a strategy. Cutting is a strategy. Saying “no” with confidence creates room for “yes” that matters. Build the business you want —not the one momentum forces.

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Last week I sat in a room with two sales leaders from two of the fastest-growing YC startups in Berlin. Elmar Schaaf from Langdock: $20M ARR. 35 people. Zero outbound. Max Schulz from Kombo: $10M ARR. 140% NRR. 80% outbound. Almost nothing in common in their GTM, except one thing — 𝗕𝗼𝘁𝗵 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝗵𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗹𝗲𝗿. Most early sales teams hit a wall and assume it's an execution problem. So they push harder. More calls. More demos. More pressure. But most sales problems aren't execution problems. They're design problems in disguise. Four things that shifted how I think about sales motion design: → Outbound vs. inbound isn't a strategy. It's a reflection of how the buyer buys. Kombo uses outbound to accelerate a landgrab in a narrow market, while Langdock leans inbound because demand is already strong and compounding. The question isn't which is better — it’s how your market works and what it takes to win it. → If the pipeline math doesn't work on Monday, the quarter is already at risk. Kombo works backward from revenue targets to weekly pipeline thresholds per pod. No vibes. No end-of-quarter surprises. Just math. → Enterprise deals don't stall because buyers don't want the product. They stall because buyers don't know how to get it approved. Langdock tracks buying stages (legal, IT, procurement) separately from sales stages, and removes friction before it becomes a blocker. The job isn't persuasion. It's helping buyers buy. → Expansion isn't a nice-to-have. It's the compounding mechanism. Kombo's 140% NRR is a system: usage thresholds trigger alerts, outreach follows, contracts expand. Most teams build for acquisition and treat expansion as an afterthought. That's how the bucket leaks. The ultimate question for sales teams: Does your system have the structure, motion, and capacity to produce your target revenue, and does it actually match how your buyers buy? I wrote up the full breakdown of both systems on Substack. Link in comment 👇 (Thanks Zero for organizing such insightful event!)

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A warm investor meeting does not always mean fund fit. This is one of the most common traps in fundraising. The investor likes the company. They understand the market. They ask thoughtful questions. They say the team is strong. They ask to stay close. From the founder’s side, it feels like momentum. But weeks pass, and nothing moves. The reason is often not the company. It is fit. The stage may be wrong. The cheque size may be wrong. The geography may be outside mandate. The sector risk may not match the fund. The ownership target may not work. The fund may be late in its cycle, focused on reserves, or simply not built to invest in this kind of round. The wrong investor can genuinely like your company and still never invest. This week’s HealthVC newsletter is about The Fund Fit Problem, and why founders need to stop confusing interest with probability.

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🚨 Most early-stage founders don't have a bad idea. They have bad expectations. Over the last 18+ months, we've taken TAG Capital GmbH through 4 accelerator programs: – angel-backed – VC-backed – German Federal Ministry (unlocked public grants) – and one more across the globe Each one runs at a different speed, with different expectations, different investors and a completely different definition of "ready". In the last two weeks alone, I've spoken to 100+ founders. The pattern 👇 Early-stage founders are consistently: – too close to their idea – optimising for hype, not validation – underestimating what investors actually expect – treating fundraising as a starting point, not an outcome What these programs forced us to do at TAG: – build a product and tech stack that could survive outside a pitch deck – validate with paying customers across multiple perspectives – treat pre-seed as an acceleration of a working engine That balance between validation, revenue and fundraising readiness has been one of our biggest unlocks. 💡 I want to share those learnings with a small group of founders. ✅ 30-min deep-dive on your idea, market and next 30–60 days ✅ Critical feedback, no ego-massage ✅ Best practices from angel, VC and government-backed programs ✅ Concrete written action points you can execute immediately 🎯 Pitch your startup in one line in the comments. I'll send the best ones a 50% discount code (limited slots). ❤️ Impact-driven founders (health, climate, inclusion, etc.): DM or connect with the note "impact" + one liner. This one's on me. Booking link in the comments 👇

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Most VC databases don’t fail. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘆. Quietly. Founders get excited about a new investor list… …and by the time they actually use it, the data is already wrong. Because investors move fast: Funds deploy. Theses shift. Stages change. Geographies evolve. Static lists can’t keep up. That’s the real problem in fundraising. Not access to names. Data half-life. This is exactly why we built VC Match at Amela the way we did. Not another spreadsheet. Not another “AI matching” demo. A living system available to all of our members and Fundraising Bootcamp participants. VC Match plugs directly into our live CRM, which means the data improves as a byproduct of our daily work, not from occasional manual cleanups. That single architectural choice changes a lot: • targeting gets sharper • outreach gets more relevant • matches age much better Quick technical shoutout: Attio just launched their MCP server, and it’s made building AI-native workflows on top of the CRM meaningfully smoother on our side, and what enables our app to be different from all the generic lists in the market. Still early, but the direction is very promising. We’re rolling out VC Match in phases. If you’re raising soon, DM me and I’ll add you to early access 🚀

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Why would investors look at NRR more than LTV:CAC? Two companies can have the same LTV:CAC and radically different risk. Quick refresher on the metrics: - CAC is Customer Acquisition Cost. - CAC payback is how many months of gross margin it takes to recover that CAC. - LTV is Lifetime Value or the gross profit you expect from a customer over the full relationship. - NRR is Net Revenue Retention, the revenue from last year’s cohort of customers (including expansion and churn) divided by that cohort’s starting revenue. LTV:CAC tries to compress all of this into one ratio. That ratio is useful but it hides the shape of the business. So investors should look at the efficient growth matrix instead. As you move up into higher NRR, the business becomes self-healing. Even with slower CAC payback, high NRR companies deliver solid Rule of 40 scores because the existing base expands. Companies with low NRR never fully catch up, even if CAC payback is excellent. You can acquire customers cheaply, but the bucket leaks. That is a very different risk profile, and LTV:CAC alone will not flag it in time. My advice for investors: 1. Treat NRR as your primary risk filter. Above 110 percent NRR you have room for error on CAC. Below 100 percent NRR you are paying for churn and any CAC mistake is amplified. 2. Use CAC payback as the throttle. Once NRR is healthy, shortening payback improves capital efficiency, but it should not come at the expense of long term product or customer success investments. 3. The most interesting deals are often medium NRR, medium payback businesses with credible levers to move into the high NRR row. That move changes the resilience and the valuation multiple, even if the LTV:CAC ratio looks similar today. In a market where AI will pressure pricing in many categories, owning slightly slower growth with very high NRR beats chasing a flashy logo wall with leaky retention. i5growth / i5invest: Investment Fund, global tech M&A arm, team of 100+, offices in San Francisco, Vienna, Madrid, Berlin, Frankfurt; 200+ exits & strategic partnerships with tech leaders such as Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Qualcomm, Samsung, Nvidia, Naspers, NBC, … #strategy #startups #growth #i5growth #i5invest Image Credit to Kyle Poyar and Growth Unhinged

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Don’t Fall into the “More Slides = More Safety” Trap In this post Leon Eisen, PhD stayed that he had learned a key lesson the hard way in his pitching journey: Adding more slides doesn’t create a safety net; it creates uncertainty. Many founders present to VCs by focusing on potential outcomes like “100x ROI” or “fast growth.” This might seem appealing, but it sets a larger trap. The reality is that VCs prioritize confidence in you over your traction or product. When you lead with potential, you prompt the question: “Can you really execute?" Here’s a common scenario: 1. Start with the big prize. 2. Present impressive market charts. 3. Add slides for “safety.” What happens? Questions become sharper, energy wanes, and your well-planned pitch shifts to a debate. To close those rounds, shift your focus from selling a dream to instilling confidence. Here’s How: 1. Evidence Ladder: - Present three rungs: Past, Present, Future - Keep it simple: one number, one slide. 2. Name the Biggest Risk First: - Clearly state one risk. - Outline the trigger to watch. - Share a simple “if/then” plan. 3. Control Points: - Identify three weekly inputs you manage. - Tie each to a specific output and assign an owner. 4. Focus by Saying “No”: - Highlight what you choose not to pursue this quarter. When done correctly, your pitch transforms. Questions shift toward next steps, diligence becomes smoother, partners advocate on your behalf, and terms become clearer. Remember, a pitch is more than just slides—it’s a steering wheel. Investors trust founders who identify risks early and have a clear direction. Do you have the courage to take this approach? Credit : Leon Eisen, PhD Repost by : Salem Bagami

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Lovable turned 1 🔥The team reached $200M ARR in 12 months. This is WILD!! They did this by stacking 12(!!) growth channels. Here is the playbook. It started with a contrarian bet most people thought was crazy: "All code will be written by AI" Anton and Fabian thought building AI tools for engineers would make them 10x more productive, but wouldn't change the world. So they asked: What if we empower the 99% who can't code? From there, they took growth to another level. 𝗚𝗶𝘁𝗛𝘂𝗯 Launched as GPT Engineer, the project quickly earned 54,000 stars. The GitHub repo was the landing page and devs became the earliest evangelists. 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗛𝘂𝗻𝘁 Lovable didn’t just launch once. They relaunched with every key feature milestone. GPT Engineer in January, Lovable in April, and more to come. Each drop reactivated their audience. 𝗧𝘄𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿/𝗫 Founder Anton Osika posted daily: product updates, raw numbers, user wins, and roadmap previews. He turned followers into waitlisters into customers into promoters. 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻 Same strategy, different tone. Anton repurposed Twitter content into credibility-building posts aimed at founders, agencies, and execs. Now the entire team is leveraging LinkedIn to become their B2B surface. 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗧𝘂𝗯𝗲 Tactical demos, onboarding flows, and community walkthroughs. Lovable didn’t chase volume, they built evergreen utility content that compounds. 𝗦𝗘𝗢 They blogged transparently about their own growth, ranking for high-intent queries from builders and founders. Growth became the marketing. 𝗥𝗲𝗱𝗱𝗶𝘁 Strategic use of high-signal threads. No spam just updates, behind-the-scenes builds, and AMA-style engagement that built grassroots buzz. 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱 100,000+ members and counting. Their community doubled as a feedback loop, support desk, and product roadmap in real time. 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽𝘀 Lovable created an affiliate-like model for agencies, discounted access, rev share, and a use case that made them look like magicians in front of clients. 𝗔𝗱𝘀 (𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗴𝗹𝗲 + 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗧𝘂𝗯𝗲) Performance spend came after PMF. Lovable scaled what already worked with warm audiences from Product Hunt, YouTube, and SEO. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁𝘀 Anton hit every major tech show: 20VC, Lenny’s Podcast, Cognitive Revolution, TWiStartups. These weren’t just hits, they were credibility milestones. 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 From Slush to founder dinners, they built offline trust to reinforce digital reach. High-leverage, low-cost storytelling. Here are my 3 favourite Lovable accounts to follow  Anton Osika Felix Haas  Elena Verna

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