Disrupt or Defend

Softup Technologies GmbH

In the age of AI, founders face a constant choice: disrupt the market—or defend what they’ve built. Disrupt or Defend is a weekly podcast for startup founders, CTOs, and tech builders who want to stay ahead without losing focus on people and purpose. Host Daniel Kazani, co-founder of Softup Technologies, talks with founders and experts who are shaping the next wave of software innovation. From AI agents and low-code tools to scaling dev teams and building products that last, each episode explores the decisions that define a company’s future. If you’re building in tech and want real stories, practical lessons, and honest conversations about the balance between boldness and focus—this show is for you. Subscribe and join the community of builders defining what comes next in tech.

  1. 4d ago

    How AI is automating Commercial Real Estate deals | Ep. 30

    Real estate moves slowly. AI moves fast. Daniel Kazani sits down with Frederik Raspé, founder and CEO of Acquirepad, to figure out what happens when you point fast technology at a slow, trust-heavy industry. ㅤ Acquirepad takes the manual admin out of commercial real estate investing. Frederik explains how AI reads the messy documents real estate runs on, rent rolls, lease agreements, investment memos, and structures them so a team can get to a decision faster. ㅤ The two get into where automation stops and human judgment starts, why 30% of the work can run on its own while 70% still needs a person, and how an industry that punishes mistakes learns to trust a machine. Frederik also makes the case for buying versus building, and what breaks when companies try to run their own AI tools internally. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Frederik Raspé is co-founder and CEO of Acquirepad. He studied real estate and spent his early career inside the brokerage world, working as a broker at one of the world's largest firms (Cushman & Wakefield) and then in a digital strategy and innovation role at CBRE, the largest commercial real estate services firm in the world. That mix of property and technology led him to build Acquirepad, an AI platform for real estate asset managers and investment companies. He's based in Germany. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover Why Frederik went after commercial real estate, an industry known for moving slowly, and how years inside CBRE shaped that bet ㅤHow AI reads and structures the unstructured documents real estate runs on: rent rolls, lease agreements, investment memos, offering memorandums ㅤThe split between automation and oversight: 30% of processes fully automated, 70% with a human in the loop, and why the deeper you go in a deal the more critical that human gets ㅤHow Acquirepad earns trust in an industry that's sensitive to mistakes, through free trial periods and 99.9% accuracy on core processes ㅤBuy versus build: why 80% of software cost sits in maintenance, not the initial build, plus the story of a client whose self-built tool broke when one employee left ㅤWhy an LLM on its own isn't a database, and where a vertical product beats a raw chat tool ㅤThe time savings Frederik sees on the workflows he covers: up to 80 to 85%, like turning a half-day rent-roll job into ten minutes ㅤWhere Frederik thinks AI will and won't change real estate, why the decision itself stays slow, and his read on the AGI hype ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned Acquirepad ㅤFrederik Raspé on LinkedIn ㅤAI models discussed: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Mistral, Qwen ㅤAutomation and developer tools: n8n, Make, Claude Code, Codex ㅤCompanies referenced: CBRE, Vonovia, BlackRock, Blackstone, Personio, Slack

    28 min

  2. May 28

    How AI is impacting M&A activity in Saas | Ep. 29

    What separates a SaaS business worth a real exit from one that buyers quietly walk away from in 2026? ㅤ Daniel Kazani, co-founder of Softup, sits down with Dirk Sahlmer, partner at FE International, to talk about how AI is reshaping SaaS M&A. After six years on the buy side at saas.group, Dirk now advises founders through sell-side exit processes, and he's seen both ends of how exit value gets won or lost. ㅤ The conversation goes long on retention as the new growth signal, why a lot of AI-hype revenue has rotting cohorts under it, and the valuation misconceptions most founders carry into their first exit conversation. Dirk also breaks down what real AI defensibility looks like, why a fifteen-year-old "boring" SaaS can still command a strong multiple, and the one question every founder needs to be ready to answer before a buyer asks it. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bioㅤ Dirk Sahlmer is a partner at FE International, where he advises SaaS and tech founders on competitive auction exit processes. ㅤ Based in Germany, Dirk trained as an engineer before co-founding his own SaaS company, then spent close to six years building the deal origination function at saas.group as their first full-time hire, evaluating thousands of SaaS businesses and leading multiple buy-side acquisitions. In late 2025, he moved to the sell-side at FE International. He also writes the saas.wtf newsletter on SaaS metrics, valuations, and exit readiness, followed by thousands of founders and investors. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover Why retention has become the metric buyers watch most closely in the current AI hype cycleThe biggest mistakes first-time exit founders make: no sparring partner, no clean numbers, no realistic sense of what the business is worthHow private equity and financial buyers really think about boring SaaS that survives the next ten to fifteen yearsWhat separates a real AI business from a chatbot bolted onto a websiteWhere AI defensibility actually lives: unique data, deep workflow integration, vertical focusWhy a fifteen-year-old SaaS can outperform a hype-stage AI-native startup in an exitWhy simple products like Calendly probably don't get replaced by your afternoon hackThe question every founder should answer before a buyer asks it: how is AI both an opportunity and a threat to your business? ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentionedㅤ FE InternationalCalendlyPersonioSlackAsanaHubSpotMonday.comAWSMicrosoft Azuren8nClaude CodeChatGPTDirk's email: dirk.sahlmer@feinternational.com

    29 min

  3. May 21

    How AI is disrupting the restaurant experience | Ep. 28

    Spotify and Netflix both know what you like. The one place that exists for your literal taste, the restaurant, hands every guest the same printed card. ㅤ Daniel Kazani sits down with Amir Khoshbakht, co-founder and CTO of Lokalia, to talk through what happens when AI moves out of the dashboard and into the dinner table. ㅤ Amir's team is rebuilding the restaurant menu as a personalized surface. Items sort themselves to each guest based on prior orders and cross-venue preferences. An in-menu AI assistant answers questions in any language. A new agent on the manager side predicts which ingredients to push or pull back this week. ㅤ Early data from Lokalia's customers: 15 to 20% more engagement with menu items, and bigger checks per guest. The conversation also covers why most restaurant owners almost hate AI on first pitch, and where AI actually earns its keep when it leaves the dashboard. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Amir Khoshbakht is co-founder and CTO of Lokalia. He spent over a decade in software engineering, with prior full-stack and blockchain work at Soar Robotics and a co-founder role at Aikido. He started Lokalia after deciding AI should move out of dashboards and into the parts of daily life people physically experience, beginning with restaurants and cafes. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover Why every restaurant menu is the last static surface in your customer experienceHow Lokalia's AI Waiter inside the menu changes the order flowThe 15 to 20% lift in engagement when the menu sorts itself around each guestCross-venue preference matching: liking the chocolate cake at restaurant A changes what restaurant B shows you firstWhat the data shows about why low-selling items actually sell low (rarely about quality)"The Expert," Lokalia's new agent that predicts ingredient demand for the kitchenWhy most restaurant owners almost hate AI when you walk in pitching itWhere Amir sees hospitality landing: an operating system with fewer tools, not more ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned LokaliaAmir Khoshbakht on LinkedInSpotifyNetflix

    30 min

  4. May 14

    How Fractional CTOs use AI to help Startups | Ep. 26

    The hype says AI is coming for your engineers. John McKinney, a fractional CTO who has run engineering at AOL and a string of CTO seats since, says it is closer to "super Google." ㅤ Daniel Kazani, co-founder of Softup, sits down with John to talk about what has actually changed in how software gets built. The conversation lands on the shifts that matter most for founders and engineering leaders right now: product-minded founders shipping working prototypes with Lovable before an engineer joins, the dev role looking more like a mechanic and less like an architect, and the cost of trusting Claude Code with HIPAA-bound systems. ㅤ John is a 20-year engineer and longtime skeptic of every new wave that hits the industry. He is also a working bassist in two New York metal bands, which says something about the kind of CTO he is. They get into vibe-coded MVPs, why QA engineering might be the role most reshaped by AI right now, the broken state of remote technical hiring, and the difference between sprinting to a real horizon and selling a horizon you can't deliver. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio John McKinney is the founder of Merge Conflict, a fractional CTO and technology-strategy consultancy he started in 2017 in New York City. He came up as a web developer in the Ruby on Rails era, co-founded the agency Ashe Avenue in 2007, and stayed on as VP of Engineering for AOL Core Products after AOL acquired the company. Since then he has held CTO seats at Netcapital, LaterPay, Heyday, and Food52. Off-keyboard he plays bass in the New York metal bands Woe and Glorious Depravity. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover How Claude Code went from novel to "a staple of every engineer's toolbox," and why John doesn't believe it turns one-x developers into ten-x.The shift in product roles: product leads now ship working proof-of-concepts before an engineer touches the code, and what that means for PRDs.A real client story of going from a multi-million-dollar agency build to shipping the same retail and clinician software with Lovable.The new shape of the dev job: bulletproofing, production hardening, and compliance checking after the founder ships.Why a HIPAA leak is still your fault, not Claude's, and how exposed API keys on the front end happen.The poisoned hiring funnel: AI voice modulators in phone screens, 400 unqualified applications in the first hour, and Voight-Kampff-style interviewing for replicants.What CS 101 might look like when "Hello, World" gets replaced by prompt-writing, and whether junior-to-mid acceleration actually speeds up.John's read on the "software engineering is solved" claim, the Klarna walk-back, and why the snake-oil crowd from Web3 is the same crowd selling AI now. ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned Merge Conflict - John's fractional CTO practice Claude Code (Anthropic) Lovable ChatGPT (OpenAI) Grok (xAI) VS Code Selenium Stripe Ruby on Rails Klarna (the AI-layoffs walk-back John references) Artisan (the "replace your human workforce" billboard campaign) Icon (the AI ad-maker Daniel tested) Sam Altman, Ray Kurzweil, the Voight-Kampff test from Blade Runner

    40 min

  5. May 7

    How AI is impacting Wealth Management | Ep. 25

    Most people think of AI as a productivity tool. Dr. Adam Link sees it as something else entirely: a wealth transfer mechanism, one that's quietly shifting money from people who don't understand AI toward people who do. In this episode, Daniel Kazani of Softup and Dr. Link break down what that actually means for founders, developers, and anyone trying to build financial security in a world where AI agents are replacing entry-level work. ㅤ The conversation spans a lot of ground: the collapse of the college-to-job pipeline, why non-technical entrepreneurs are outpacing developers in AI adoption, the potter's wheel vs. the factory floor, and why the court system is just the debugging process for laws. Concrete, candid, and a bit unsettling in the best possible way. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Dr. Adam Link, CFP® is the founder of Fireweed Capital, a fee-only, fiduciary wealth management firm based in northern Minnesota. He holds a Doctorate in Computer Science, a CFP® designation, and currently serves as Senior Engineering Manager at Coinbase, where he leads the Cloud Center of Excellence and FinOps teams. Before Coinbase, he worked across multiple tech startups with three exits and an IPO under his belt. He now specializes in active risk management for tech families - and builds his own CRMs over the weekend. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover Why AI is accelerating the shift from a labor economy to a capital economy - and what that means for how you think about your "war chest"The college-to-job pipeline breaking: why large tech companies are pausing entry-level hiring and what happens to the path from degree to wealthThe CRM story: how Dr. Link got blocked by a vendor on a Friday and had a fully vibe-coded, custom-built replacement running by Monday morningAI as wealth transfer - not just to hyperscalers, but to small businesses that cut OpEx, kill vendor dependencies, and keep more of their own moneyVendor concentration risk: when you replace your whole team with OpenAI, you've just created a two-vendor companyThe railroad analogy: why AI infrastructure is different from past wealth transfers - and why this time, everyone gets their own trainThe franchise model: one friend's idea to build AI-powered websites and license the software out instead of building a SaaSWhy non-technical entrepreneurs are outpacing developers in AI adoption - and why that's terrifying if you're a developerThe potter's wheel vs. the factory: how AI is disrupting the creative flow state that made software engineering meaningfulAI hallucinations in financial advising, why freeform text has no unit tests, and why good professionals still matter ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned Fireweed Capital - Dr. Adam Link's wealth management firmadam@fireweedcapital.com - Contact Dr. Adam Link directly

    36 min

  6. Apr 23

    AI Adoption among German SMEs and Enterprises | Ep. 24

    Less than 20% of Germany's "hidden champions" use AI systematically. That single stat sets the tone for this conversation. Daniel Kazani of Softup sits down with Dr. Annette Doms - EU AI Act strategist, serial founder, and one of the most influential voices on AI in the German-speaking world - to ask the question that most Mittelstand leaders are afraid to answer out loud: are we actually ready? ㅤ What comes out of the conversation is honest and specific. German SMEs aren't failing because they lack data or domain expertise - they have more of both than almost any competitor. The problem is the gap between potential and practice. Too much hesitation, too little experimentation, and a regulatory environment that adds uncertainty faster than it provides clarity. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Dr. Annette Doms is a Munich-based AI strategist, author, and serial founder with a PhD in art history and over 13 years at the intersection of technology and business transformation. She is CEO of ICAA Strategists GmbH, Vice President at the Bundesverband für KI-Transformation e.V., and Founding Partner of MindMash - a Munich community for forward-thinking technologists meeting every second Tuesday. Named a Top 50 Most Influential Woman in AI in 2026, she specializes in helping Mittelstand companies and executive boards build AI readiness strategies, including EU AI Act compliance. Her book "Von Gutenberg zu ChatGPT" frames the current AI era as a civilizational shift - not a product cycle. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover Why the German Mittelstand is "AI curious" but not AI ready - and why that gap is dangerous when competitors are moving fastThe "Rhinoceros" concept from Dr. Doms's book: how Mittelstand companies are built for durability, not unicorn exits - and what that means for AI adoptionWhy AI readiness starts with clean, structured data in ERP systems - long before any tool gets selectedThe step-by-step roadmap for a first AI implementation: assessment, bottleneck identification, scoped pilot, proof of concept, then scaleHow to think about AI as part of a company's DNA - not an add-on - and why change must be led from the topThe data sovereignty problem: why Mittelstand companies are hesitant to train on US or Chinese models, and what federated learning and platforms like Catena-X offer as alternativesThe EU AI Act's current ambiguity: how unclear penalty structures and fragmented European infrastructure are adding hesitation, not confidenceWhere the next three years lead: the companies that operationalize AI now will set the pace for everyone else ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned Dr. Annette Doms on LinkedInICAA Strategists GmbHMindMash - community meetup, every second Tuesday in MunichCatena-X - decentralized automotive data ecosystem for sovereign AI infrastructureVon Gutenberg zu ChatGPT - Dr. Doms's book on AI as civilizational shift (referenced in episode)Softup Technologies GmbH

    25 min

  7. Apr 16

    Building internal tools with AI | Ep. 23

    Most internal tools are outdated before they ever ship. That's the problem at the heart of this conversation - and it's one that almost every technical founder has felt personally. Daniel Kazani sits down with Dario Di Carlo, CEO and co-founder of bricks.sh, to talk about why internal tooling is quietly draining engineering teams, and why the vibe-coding shortcut will make it worse before it makes it better. ㅤ Dario built bricks.sh after living the problem firsthand: spending months building admin panels at a previous startup, only to ship something already outdated. The platform auto-generates admin panels directly from your database and keeps them in sync as your schema changes - so your engineers stop rebuilding the same tables, forms, and dashboards over and over again. Softup has seen this same pain up close with dozens of clients, which makes this one of the more honest and grounded conversations on the show. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Dario Di Carlo is CEO and co-founder of bricks.sh, a Milan-based startup automating the creation and ongoing maintenance of internal admin panels. Before bricks.sh, he was a Product Manager at Nibol - Italy's leading workplace management platform - and spent several years exploring the intersection of AI and APIs. He holds an MSc in Innovation Management from Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna and co-founded bricks.sh with CTO Giuliano Torregrossa. The company raised a €1.6M pre-seed round in early 2026 and has signed up 500+ users across 40+ countries. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover Why internal tools are the most-built, least-appreciated part of any product org - and why that gap creates real friction between engineering and business teamsThe difference between dashboards (read-only data access) and operational admin panels (where you actually update users, flag transactions, process refunds) - and why bricks.sh aims to cover bothWhy vibe-coding your internal tools with Lovable or Claude Code creates a short-term win and a long-term maintenance taxThe guardrails argument: why giving business users free customization without engineering guardrails turns into shadow IT and shadow AI - fastHow bricks.sh chose startups and scale-ups over enterprise design partnerships early on, and why that bet was the right one for product-market clarityThe bricks.sh product thesis: 90% of internal tools across finance, healthcare, logistics, and ed tech look identical - speed of development will beat freedom of customizationWhat the future of internal tools looks like: conversational interfaces, MCP-powered data unification, and a single source of truth across Stripe, Intercom, Linear, and PostgresThe founder side: zooming in vs. zooming out, defending a thesis under pressure, and why emotional stability - not enthusiasm - is the real asset at the early stage ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned bricks.sh - the guest's productRetool - mentioned as a primary competitor and a tool Dario used extensively at his previous companyLovable - mentioned as a vibe-coding alternative with no guardrailsBolt - mentioned alongside Lovable as a low-code/no-code alternativeClaude Code - mentioned as an AI-native coding tool in the vibe-coding conversationSupabase - bricks.sh's current lead database integrationStripe - mentioned as a data source for future admin panel unificationIntercom - mentioned as a data source for future admin panel unificationLinear - mentioned as a data source for future admin panel unificationSoftup - Daniel's company, referenced in the conversation as a concrete example of the internal tooling problem

    40 min

  8. Apr 9

    Investing in AI and Underrepresented Founders with Blerina Sanocki | Ep. 22

    The hype surrounding artificial intelligence forces investors to separate true innovation from mere noise. Daniel Kazani, co-founder of Softup, sits down with Blerina Sanocki to explore her exact framework for evaluating early-stage startups. ㅤ They discuss the difference between building an AI-first product and being an AI-forward company. Blerina shares why she actively seeks out underrepresented and immigrant founders with a "watch me do it" mentality. ㅤ The conversation also highlights how the bar for securing funding has shifted, requiring founders to validate their ideas faster using modern tools. They wrap up by evaluating the real cost of moving a startup to Silicon Valley and why health tech remains the most exciting sector for disruption. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Blerina Sanocki is the Founder and CEO of TideBorn Capital and an Operating Partner at Dardania Capital. With 14 years of experience driving strategic growth at Google, she brings deep enterprise discipline to startup execution. Today, Blerina invests in early-stage software companies and focuses on supporting underrepresented founders. ㅤ She actively deploys capital through The Bond Fund and Portfolia. Originally from Albania, she combines her multicultural background with a passion for inclusive technology and building scalable AI infrastructure. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover The three core pillars of Blerina's investment thesis: backing underrepresented founders, bettering humanity, and using tech as a force for good.Why the immigrant mentality creates resilient founders who treat rejection as a challenge to succeed.How to quiet the noise in a crowded market by distinguishing between AI-first products and AI-forward companies.The rising expectations for early-stage founders to build, launch, and validate their minimum viable products before seeking capital.When it actually makes financial and strategic sense for an international startup to relocate to Silicon Valley.The massive potential and inherent risks of applying artificial intelligence to genome sequencing and health tech.A call to action for more women to overcome their fears and enter the venture capital and angel investing space. ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned TideBorn CapitalBlerina SanockiDaniel KazaniSoftup TechnologiesDardania CapitalThe Bond FundPortfolia

    30 min
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About

In the age of AI, founders face a constant choice: disrupt the market—or defend what they’ve built. Disrupt or Defend is a weekly podcast for startup founders, CTOs, and tech builders who want to stay ahead without losing focus on people and purpose. Host Daniel Kazani, co-founder of Softup Technologies, talks with founders and experts who are shaping the next wave of software innovation. From AI agents and low-code tools to scaling dev teams and building products that last, each episode explores the decisions that define a company’s future. If you’re building in tech and want real stories, practical lessons, and honest conversations about the balance between boldness and focus—this show is for you. Subscribe and join the community of builders defining what comes next in tech.

Information

  • Creator
    Softup Technologies GmbH
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    29
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Softup Technologies GmbH
  • Show Website
    Disrupt or Defend