Follow the Gradient

Follow the Gradient
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Insider knowledge and real stories about how to build a business from Europe while staying sane. Each week founders Melanie Gabriel and Christian Woese dive deep into one specific topic on a founder's or startup operator's mind and share how to solve the challenge together with an expert. Follow the Gradient and stay tuned. https://followthegradient.io/

  1. Why Great Founders Fire Earlier Than They’re Comfortable With | Paddy Lambros, Dex CEO and ex Atomico

    1D AGO

    Why Great Founders Fire Earlier Than They’re Comfortable With | Paddy Lambros, Dex CEO and ex Atomico

    What actually breaks a startup first: moving too slowly, or hiring the wrong people too fast? Founders often think speed is the answer, until speed quietly becomes the problem. Follow the Gradient sits down with Paddy Lamb, Talent Partner at Atomico, who has helped scale teams from the first hire to hundreds of people across multiple continents. Drawing on a decade inside fast growing startups and venture portfolios, Paddy brings a grounded view on what really compounds and what quietly erodes a company early on. This conversation is less about hiring tactics and more about how founders make irreversible people decisions under pressure. It surfaces the trade offs behind growth, quality, accountability, and the standards that shape a company long after the first few hires. We talk about: Why hiring one month later is often cheaper than fixing a rushed hire for a year How to design early teams around capabilities instead of default job titles What strong employer branding looks like when you have no budget and no name Why hiring pipelines should be built to eliminate risk, not to collect yeses How to spot hunger and ownership without mistaking confidence for signal When holding on too long damages culture more than letting go early Rather than offering a checklist, this episode explores how founders think when the answers are unclear. It is about judgment calls, standards, and accepting discomfort as the price of building something that lasts. Our biggest takeaways, including Paddy’s view on where founders consistently misjudge people decisions: https://followthegradient.io/p/paddy-lambros-podcast-video  — Where to find Paddy Lambros: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patricklambros/  Dex: https://meetdex.ai/  — 🎙 Follow the Gradient: conversations about building a business from Europe while staying sane. Follow us:  Melanie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniexgabriel/  Christian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-woese/  Subscribe to our channels: Newsletter: https://www.followthegradient.io  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@followthegradient LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/followthegradient/  X: https://x.com/followgradient  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followthegradient/ — 00:00 Introduction 02:49 The  journey from startup to VC 05:19 Hiring slower versus scaling at all costs 07:01 Deciding early roles from first principles 08:39 Attracting talent without brand or budget 11:40 Clarifying your employer value proposition 14:04 Structuring the hiring funnel like sales 17:56 Using case studies and workshops effectively 20:51 Evaluating hunger and long term potential 24:04 Onboarding for time to first value 26:44 Holding a high bar during probation 29:56 Executing layoffs with clarity and focus 35:56 Founder evolution and role layering over time

    41 min
  2. Hustle Nearly Cost Me Everything | Adrian Locher, Serial Founder and Investor

    FEB 5

    Hustle Nearly Cost Me Everything | Adrian Locher, Serial Founder and Investor

    Apply the concept of "Your personal Energy Audit" Adrian mentions here: https://followthegradient.io/p/how-to-protect-mental-health-with-the-energy-audit What happens when the traits that make you win are the same ones that quietly undo you? Most founders learn how to push. Few learn when stopping is the harder, necessary move. Follow the Gradient sits down with Adrian Locher, Managing Partner at Merantix Capital, a multi time founder and early stage investor who has seen the cost of relentless ambition firsthand. After exiting a previous company, Adrian pushed harder than ever, until burnout, depression, and personal loss forced a reset . This conversation explores how high performance actually works over decades, not months, and what founders miss when they treat endurance as a personal flaw rather than a design problem. We talk about: Burning out at the peak of success, not during failure Why founders’ greatest strengths often become their most dangerous liabilities The moment productivity collapses when fear quietly replaces curiosity Separating family time and work to eliminate the constant guilt loop Treating recovery as a non optional phase, not a reward Leading teams by modeling boundaries instead of preaching balance This episode is less about fixing habits and more about examining how founders relate to fear, ambition, and self worth when no playbook applies. It offers a lens for thinking clearly under pressure, before pressure turns personal. Our biggest takeaways, including Adrian’s view on what founders misread about endurance: https://followthegradient.io/p/adrian-locher-podcast-burnout  — Where to find Adrian Locher: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianlocher/  — 🎙 Follow the Gradient: conversations about building a business from Europe while staying sane. Follow us:  Melanie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniexgabriel/  Christian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-woese/  Subscribe to our channels: Newsletter: https://www.followthegradient.io  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@followthegradient LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/followthegradient/  X: https://x.com/followgradient  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followthegradient/ — 00:00 Introduction 03:52 Burnout at the peak of founder success 05:26 Ignoring early symptoms until everything stops 12:56 Therapy and structuring life around three buckets 20:09 Building companies as a marathon, not a grind 23:49 Leading through authenticity instead of toughness 28:06 Fear as a hidden driver of overperformance 32:25 Helping yourself before helping the company 33:58 Mentoring founders to avoid the lowest lows 37:48 Redefining success beyond money and status

    42 min
  3. Europe Isn’t Behind, It’s Playing the Wrong Game | Judith Dada, Visionaries Club

    JAN 29

    Europe Isn’t Behind, It’s Playing the Wrong Game | Judith Dada, Visionaries Club

    What happens when Europe stops cheering itself on and starts taking responsibility for the outcome? In this episode of Follow the Gradient, we sit down with Judith Dada, Partner at Visionaries Club, to unpack one of the most uncomfortable conversations in European tech right now. Drawing on her work as an investor, writer, and ecosystem builder, Judith brings a rare mix of conviction and realism to questions many founders quietly avoid. This conversation is not about tactics or trend-chasing. It is about agency, moral responsibility, and what it really means to build companies in Europe at a moment when technology, geopolitics, and personal choices are colliding. We talk about: Why performative Euro-optimism can be just as damaging as constant pessimism The hidden risk of Europe settling for the application layer while conceding models and infrastructure How statistics about Europe obscure the difference between averages and outliers founders could still become What founders miss when they treat Europe like a marketplace instead of something they help build Why AI’s impact feels invisible to most organizations while accelerating at the frontier The personal cost of ambition, from childcare trade-offs to deciding when silence becomes complicity This episode offers a lens, not a manual. It explores how founders make decisions when the stakes are unclear, the odds are uneven, and opting out feels easier than staying in the fight. Our biggest takeaways, including Judith’s view on what founders fundamentally misjudge about responsibility and long-term impact: https://followthegradient.io/p/judith-dada-podcast  — Where to find Judith Dada: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judith-dada/  Visionaries Club: https://visionaries.vc/  Opensource Nanny: https://opensourcenanny.com/  Relativity Collective: https://relativitycollective.com/  — 🎙 Follow the Gradient: conversations about building a business from Europe while staying sane. Follow us:  Melanie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniexgabriel/  Christian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-woese/  Subscribe to our channels: Newsletter: https://www.followthegradient.io  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@followthegradient LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/followthegradient/  X: https://x.com/followgradient  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followthegradient/ — 00:00 Introduction 02:30 Why European tech sovereignty suddenly feels urgent 05:39 Why realism and agency must coexist 08:58 Where Europe is too optimistic about AI layers 10:01 Why statistics don’t define Europe’s future 12:22 AI as a civilizational rather than technical shift 15:05 The widening gap between AI frontier and reality 20:12 Choosing hard problems despite low odds 25:29 Realizing no one else is driving the bus 27:56 From leaving Europe to fixing its foundations 30:21 Speaking up when silence feels safer 35:31 Parenting ambitious careers without pretending it’s easy 45:14 Building peer environments that raise ambition 48:37 Rapid fire questions

    51 min
  4. Why Shipping Faster Isn’t Enough in the Age of AI | OpenAI’s Laura Modiano

    JAN 22

    Why Shipping Faster Isn’t Enough in the Age of AI | OpenAI’s Laura Modiano

    What happens when Europe stops apologizing for its ambition and starts executing at full speed? Some founders still believe Europe’s biggest constraint is confidence. This conversation challenges that idea head on. Follow the Gradient sits down with Laura Modiano, Head of Startups EMEA at OpenAI, who works daily with founders across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. She brings a rare vantage point from inside OpenAI and from years of supporting companies from first prototype to real scale. This episode is less about hype cycles and more about how ambition, technical depth, and feedback driven execution actually compound over time. Laura reflects on what changes when speed collapses, tools feel like coworkers, and founders are forced to rethink how they learn, unlearn, and decide under uncertainty. We talk about: Why European founders systematically underestimate how fast they can go with today’s AI tooling How collapsing build cycles shift the real bottleneck from ideas to decision quality The execution gap that appears after early traction and why “building small” becomes a hidden ceiling Why technical literacy is no longer optional even for application layer founders How Europe’s fragmented markets quietly train founders to think global from day one What great execution looks like when models evolve faster than product roadmaps Rather than offering a playbook, this episode zooms out on how founders make choices when the ground keeps moving. It’s about taste, timing, and knowing when to ship, when to pause, and when to discard assumptions that once worked but no longer fit. Our biggest takeaways, including Laura’s view on what founders consistently misjudge about speed and scale: https://followthegradient.io/p/laura-modiano-podcast  — Where to find Laura Modiano: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-modiano/  Reach out at: startups@openai.com  — 🎙 Follow the Gradient: conversations about building a business from Europe while staying sane. Follow us:  Melanie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniexgabriel/  Christian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-woese/  Subscribe to our channels: Newsletter: https://www.followthegradient.io  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@followthegradient LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/followthegradient/  X: https://x.com/followgradient  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followthegradient/ — 00:00 Introduction 02:03 Why Europe Produces Globally Competitive Founders 06:07 What Founders Miss About AI Acceleration 08:52 Building Real Companies Beyond Demo Culture 12:09 Why Technical Depth Wins In AI Startups 15:42 What Switzerland Gets Right About Ecosystems 20:01 Deciding Where To Build In Europe 23:01 What Strong Execution Looks Like Today 26:10 Discovering AI Use Cases Beyond Cost Cutting 28:55 Why Unlearning Becomes A Scaling Advantage 31:26 Maintaining Founder Intensity Without Burnout 41:40 Making High Stakes Decisions With Incomplete Data 44:57 Where Startups Should Focus As Models Advance 46:41 False Beliefs Holding European Founders Back

    50 min
  5. Why the Last Mile Breaks Most Robotics Startups, with Roland Siegwart, Professor at ETH Zurich

    JAN 15

    Why the Last Mile Breaks Most Robotics Startups, with Roland Siegwart, Professor at ETH Zurich

    What actually breaks deep tech startups isn’t lack of vision, but running out of patience before reality catches up. Follow the Gradient sits down with Roland Siegwart, Professor of Autonomous Systems at ETH Zurich and one of Europe’s most influential robotics mentors. Over two decades, Roland has helped shape ETH’s spin-out culture and advised companies like Anybotics, BlueBotics, and 7Sense from research to real-world deployment . This conversation explores how deep tech companies are really built when timelines are long, capital is patient but finite, and founders must constantly trade ambition against survival. We talk about: Why abundant early-stage capital can quietly reduce urgency in deep tech startups The hidden cost of the last 10 percent from prototype to market-ready system How early revenue from “unsexy” applications can enable bigger long-term bets Why Europe’s strength in hardware systems also makes scaling slower and harder The role experienced operators play in grounding PhD-driven founding teams When founders must step aside to prevent becoming the company’s bottleneck Rather than offering formulas, this episode examines how founders learn to make irreversible decisions with incomplete information, balancing engineering rigor with the pressure to move before the window closes. Our biggest takeaways, including Roland’s view on where founders most often misjudge deep tech reality: https://followthegradient.io/p/roland-siegwart-podcast  — Where to find Roland Siegwart: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roland-siegwart-85466912/ — 🎙 Follow the Gradient: conversations about building a business from Europe while staying sane. Follow us:  Melanie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniexgabriel/  Christian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-woese/  Subscribe to our channels: Newsletter: https://www.followthegradient.io  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@followthegradient LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/followthegradient/  X: https://x.com/followgradient  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followthegradient/ — 00:00 Introduction  03:51 How Switzerland built a self sustaining robotics ecosystem  05:02 Turning university research into real world companies  07:39 Why Europe struggles to scale deep tech globally  09:46 Funding strategies for long hardware driven timelines  12:16 The painful gap between lab prototypes and products  14:09 Early signals that founders can survive the transition  15:37 Finding a first market with real customer pain  19:00 When pilots turn into scalable robotics businesses  20:47 Bringing business leadership into technical teams  23:24 When founders must step aside to let companies grow  31:49 Navigating dual use and ethical responsibility in robotics

    36 min
  6. How founders build (or break) trust in high-stakes moments - HV Capital's Lina Chong on hard decisions in startup leadership

    JAN 8

    How founders build (or break) trust in high-stakes moments - HV Capital's Lina Chong on hard decisions in startup leadership

    What actually determines whether a founder scales or silently stalls? In this episode of Follow the Gradient, we sit down with Lina Chong, Partner at HV Capital, to unpack what she’s learned from being on both sides of the table: building and exiting companies, then backing some of Europe’s most successful scale-ups. It’s a candid conversation about decision-making under uncertainty, founder psychology, and the uncomfortable trade-offs that define real growth. We talk about: Why the best founders make fast, irreversible decisions, even without perfect clarity The dark side of founder identity (and what happens after an exit) When loyalty to early employees becomes a growth constraint, not a virtue How resilient founders respond when capital tightens and markets shift Go-to-market lessons from companies like TravelPerk and Fresha When European founders should go global and why “home market first” is often arbitrary Rather than playbooks, this episode focuses on how great founders think, decide, and adapt when the path forward isn’t obvious. — Our biggest takeaways, including Lina’s perspective on what most founders get wrong when scaling: https://www.followthegradient.io/p/lina-chong-podcast  — Where to find Lina: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linachong/  — 🎙 Follow the Gradient: conversations about building a business from Europe while staying sane. Follow us: Melanie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniexgabriel/ Christian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-woese/  Subscribe to our channels: Newsletter: https://www.followthegradient.io YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@followthegradient LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/followthegradient/ X: https://x.com/followgradient Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followthegradient/ — 00:00 Introduction 01:43 From Founder to VC 03:05 Experimental Cultures vs Rigid Vision 05:05 The Post-Exit Emotional Crash 07:58 Founder Signals That Predict Scale 11:40 Loyalty vs Scale 14:58 When Caution Kills Growth 16:28 How VCs Form Conviction 21:07 Using Investors for GTM and Fundraising 25:16 European SaaS Go-To-Market 27:30 Global First vs Home Market 32:53 Resilience in Downturns 33:43 Personal Resilience

    38 min
  7. Trusting Your Gut Beats Following Playbooks - year-end reflections of Melanie and Christian

    12/24/2025

    Trusting Your Gut Beats Following Playbooks - year-end reflections of Melanie and Christian

    What do you keep when a year of founder advice contradicts itself? What actually sticks once the playbooks cancel each other out and you are left with your own judgment? Follow the Gradient closes out the year with a reflective episode from hosts Melanie Gabriel and Christian Woese, drawing on dozens of conversations with founders, operators, and investors across Europe . Instead of a guest interview, this episode turns the lens inward, unpacking what truly held up across a full year of building, scaling, and questioning received wisdom. The conversation surfaces how founders actually form convictions when advice is biased, context is messy, and no clean answers exist. It is less about what to do next and more about how to think when certainty is unavailable. We talk about: Why most founder advice is shaped by survival bias and how to tell when it does not apply to your company Thinking internationally from day one without losing focus on a home market that still needs to work Saying no as a growth skill and why focus becomes harder as opportunities increase Introspection as an underrated founder capability that quietly compounds over time Why venture capital is often treated as default advice despite fitting only narrow business models How founders actually protect sanity through routines, relationships, and deliberate reflection This episode resists formulas. It treats building a company as a sequence of judgment calls rather than a checklist, shaped by context, timing, and personal limits more than by frameworks. Our biggest takeaways, including Melanie and Christian’s view on where founders most often mistake confidence for clarity: https://followthegradient.io/p/what-we-learned-from-interviewing-50-plus-guests — 🎙 Follow the Gradient: conversations about building a business from Europe while staying sane. Follow us: Melanie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniexgabriel/  Christian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-woese/  Subscribe to our channels: Newsletter: https://www.followthegradient.io  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@followthegradient  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/followthegradient/  X: https://x.com/followgradient  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followthegradient/  — 00:00 Introduction 01:10 Reflecting on a year of conversations and learning 02:25 Why we started Follow the Gradient 05:34 Our personal paths into entrepreneurship 10:41 Thinking international from day one in Europe 13:38 Why saying no is a growth skill 14:55 Introspection as an underrated founder skill 18:34 When venture capital is the wrong default 20:15 Trusting intuition over generic startup advice 21:55 How founders can work with academia 24:02 Defining success beyond titles and outcomes 28:38 How we convince busy guests to join 31:53 Books and thinkers that shaped our thinking 36:44 Habits that help founders stay sane

    46 min
  8. Nice-to-Have Is Not Enough - Building Must-Have Products with Bea Knecht, Founder of Zattoo

    12/18/2025

    Nice-to-Have Is Not Enough - Building Must-Have Products with Bea Knecht, Founder of Zattoo

    What actually makes a startup work when almost every decision you make is probably wrong? Founders often believe success comes from better planning, cleaner structure, or safer timing. Béa Knecht argues the opposite. In this episode of Follow the Gradient, we sit down with Béa Knecht, co founder of Zattoo and one of Europe’s earliest builders of legal live TV streaming. Having founded the company in Silicon Valley and scaled it across Europe through multiple market shocks, Béa brings a rare, hard earned perspective on what actually holds under pressure. This conversation is not about frameworks or growth hacks. It is a deep examination of how founders think, unlearn certainty, and act when reality keeps changing faster than their plans. We talk about: Why European founders must treat internationalization as a day one survival skill, not a later milestone The difference between bravery and speed in decision making, and why waiting is usually just losing quietly How to tell a true must have product from a nice to have, using budget and pain as the only honest signals Why enforcing structure too early can kill the very thinking startups depend on How rapid course correction costs far less than founders imagine, even after public decisions What brutal downscaling taught Béa about leadership, dignity, and keeping a company alive This episode favors judgment over checklists, adaptability over certainty, and clear seeing over confident storytelling in environments where most signals arrive late and incomplete. Our biggest takeaways, including Bea’s view on what founders consistently misunderstand about must have products: https://followthegradient.io/p/bea-knecht-podcast  — Where to find Bea Knecht: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beaknecht/  — 🎙 Follow the Gradient: conversations about building a business from Europe while staying sane. Follow us: Melanie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniexgabriel/  Christian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-woese/  Subscribe to our channels: Newsletter: https://www.followthegradient.io  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@followthegradient  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/followthegradient/  X: https://x.com/followgradient  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followthegradient/

    36 min
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Insider knowledge and real stories about how to build a business from Europe while staying sane. Each week founders Melanie Gabriel and Christian Woese dive deep into one specific topic on a founder's or startup operator's mind and share how to solve the challenge together with an expert. Follow the Gradient and stay tuned. https://followthegradient.io/

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  • Creator
    Follow the Gradient
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    69
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Follow the Gradient
  • Show Website
    Follow the Gradient

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