ICONS

About ICONS

Join serial entrepreneur & host Roman Kirsch as he uncovers real founder stories, and growth secrets behind Europe’s fastest-growing serious businesses. No fluff, just actionable insights for entrepreneurs, marketers, and brand builders. The ICONS Show is the podcast diving deep into Europe’s most iconic consumer businesses and entrepreneurs— revealing how they won markets, built legendary brand identities, and made bold strategic moves to rise above the competition. Subscribe for high quality episodes featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders, founders, and innovators shaping the future of European business. Hosted by Roman Kirsch.

Publisher

EUIcons

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

13 May 2025

Latest episode

23 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

12 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   23 Sept 2026

   He Backed Europe's Most Valuable Startup From a Random WhatsApp Text | Christian Miele

   Christian Miele grew up carrying one of Germany's most recognizable names, without ever being a shareholder in the family company. That tension shaped everything that came next: building his own startup, becoming a VC, and backing the highest valued private company in Europe. In this episode, Christian explains how a random WhatsApp from a friend working in the French government led him to Mistral, now valued at $21B, and why he believes the smartest career advice for young people right now is to become an electrician, given Germany's 250,000-person shortage. He also breaks down why he thinks "the math ain't mathing" on Germany's budget, and makes the case for Europe's shot at staying relevant through robotics, AI, and energy. Guest: Christian MieleHost: Roman Kirsch Timestamps:0:00 – Cold Open1:08 – Growing Up With the Miele Name8:36 – The Chip on His Shoulder9:42 – The Builders Network Origin Story23:48 – The Mistral Deal — From WhatsApp to $21B26:38 – Europe's AI Sovereignty Thesis34:54 – Going On Shark Tank Germany40:15 – "Germans Are Terrible Entertainers"1:02:23 – What We're Underestimating: Become an Electrician1:04:34 – Germany's Budget: "The Math Ain't Mathing"1:07:13 – The Optimistic Case: Anthropic, Nvidia & Europe's Shot

2. 

   9 Sept 2026

   He Scaled to €800M Revenue, Then Said It Was "The Wrong Choice" - Julian Teicke

   Julian Teicke is a serial founder, in the last 12 months alone, he's co-founded four companies. But before any of that, he spent 10 years as CEO of the company that made his name, scaling it to €800M in revenue and 1,500 people. He raised the money using an "ultimate experiment of manifestation," as he calls it: find the largest round ever raised in your vertical at your stage, then take it times two. It worked — Series A went from a $15M benchmark to $30M raised, Series B from $120M to $240M, Series C from $300M to over $600M. Then he tells you the part most founders never say out loud: it came from wanting to be seen, not from a calibrated goal. In this ICONS episode, Julian gets specific about what actually happened — not the sanitized version. He explains the difference between building from "dirty fuel" (a paradigm he calls the dominant theme in venture capital, built on exploiting childhood trauma) and building from a grounded place. He recounts the moment an employee confronted him directly: that his unresolved dynamic with his father was scaling to every corner of the organization, taking the whole team hostage. And he admits, on the record, that going full-stack instead of building a broker model was the wrong choice — one that cost the organization its spirit. He also walks through what he's building now: The Delta, a Berlin campus and venture builder that started as a way to process the 30 business ideas he generates in a single hour, and BAD1, the conference that grew out of it. He makes the case for why Berlin is the ecosystem worth betting on, backing it with the ecosystem's own 10x ambition — from €169B to €1.7T by 2036, with 250 unicorns and €30B in annual venture funding. And he closes on something AI still can't do, no matter how good the models get. Watch or listen to the full episode on our channel or Spotify. Guest: Julian Teicke, Co-Founder of wefox, Founder of The Delta & BAD1Host: Roman Kirsch Topics Discussed Scaling wefox to €800M in revenue over 10 years as CEO — with his father joining the team as a hire along the way The fundraising formula: find the largest round ever raised at your stage, then raise 2x Series A, B, and C — how the round sizes escalated, and what it revealed about manifestation The honest admission behind the strategy: raising to be seen, not from a calibrated goal "Dirty fuel" vs. clean fuel — why he calls trauma-driven ambition the dominant pattern in venture capital The employee who confronted him: how an unresolved family dynamic was taking the whole organization hostage The full-stack insurer decision he now calls the wrong choice, and what it cost the company Why trauma is not required to build great companies — and what he believes now instead The job of a CEO: spotting which data point turns into a positive spiral versus a negative one What he looks for in founders now: whether they seek discomfort or avoid it Co-founding four companies in the last 12 months, and the one just announced that's "a completely different beast" The Delta's origin story: turning 30 business ideas an hour into an actual venture-building platform How BAD1 grew out of that same need His case for why Berlin is the ecosystem worth betting on Berlin's 10x ecosystem goal by 2036 — from €169B to €1.7T, 250 unicorns, €30B in venture funding What Julian believes AI still can't replicate about human connection Chapters: 0:00 Cold Open1:12 Meet Julian Teicke3:41 Welcome, Julian!4:57 Why He Became an Entrepreneur6:44 "Dirty Fuel" vs. Clean Fuel8:04 The Manifestation Story13:41 From Dirty Fuel to Balance14:52 Hiring His Father — The Hostage Moment17:00 Would He Do It Again?18:29 The Delta & BAD1 Origin Story20:12 Luca App, Theo, Handly — The Hit Rate21:49 What He Looks For in Founders Now23:45 4 Companies in 12 Months29:57 How AI Changed Company Building32:10 15 Years of Lessons41:59 The Fundraising Formula: Raise 2x44:47 The Goal Wasn't Calibrated47:18 The Wrong Choice: Full-Stack Insur

3. 

   7 Aug 2026

   Liquid AI's CEO: "Humans Will Stop Talking Within 25 Years!" — Ramin Hasani

   Ramin Hasani spent a decade studying a 2-millimeter worm before anyone outside academia knew his name. Then he solved an equation that had gone unsolved for over 100 years, published it in Nature Machine Intelligence, and woke up to an inbox full of term sheets he never asked for. That paper became Liquid AI. While every other foundation model company was racing to build bigger transformers and consume more compute, Ramin went the other direction. Liquid foundation models cut the exponential energy cost of AI down to linear — same output quality, a fraction of the hardware. They run on phones, laptops, and cars. No data center required. Today his models are downloaded 1.4 million times per week on Hugging Face. Liquid AI raised $270M at a $2.2B valuation with 110 people — while the companies they compete with raised that in a single week. In this ICONS episode, Ramin covers the full arc — from growing up in Iran with an anatomy professor uncle who made him study the human brain, to the two professors at Politecnico di Milano who introduced him to brain-inspired computing, to the PhD at Vienna and MIT where he discovered that a microscopic worm with 302 neurons could control 95 muscles better than any robot ever built. He explains the mathematics behind liquid neural networks, why the transformer architecture hits an inevitable energy wall, and what two years at Vanguard — the $8 trillion asset manager — taught him about building for real enterprise value. He also talks about closing Mercedes-Benz in four months, why he thinks 85% of AI token spend is waste, and what he believes the world looks like in 25 years when humans stop talking to each other entirely. Topics Discussed Growing up in Iran, studying in Italy, completing his PhD across Vienna and MIT The C. Elegans worm: 302 neurons, 95 muscles, and four Nobel Prizes How modeling worm neuroscience led to the discovery of liquid neural networks Solving a 100-year-old differential equation — and why he thought he'd win a Nobel Prize The Hacker News moment: one paper, one morning, and an inbox full of Silicon Valley term sheets Transformer architecture explained — and why it becomes an energy crisis at scale Liquid foundation models: reducing exponential compute to linear without sacrificing quality Two years at Vanguard: what a $8 trillion business teaches you about enterprise and large numbers Why foundation model companies should be started by scientists, not operators Raising $270M while competitors raised $20B — and why that's a feature, not a bug 1.4 million downloads per week: how a 110-person company became one third of Nvidia's open source footprint Mercedes-Benz: closing an enterprise OEM deal in four months Shopify: foundation models powering product search and recommendation at scale Why they charge per request, not per token — and why contracts run 4 to 10 years The talent war: winning 3 out of 10 battles against Anthropic, xAI, Meta, and Cursor The taste test: why training a machine learning model is an art, not a recipe The next frontier: Bezos's Prometheus, AI for science, and the world model thesis Why humans can't grasp exponentials — and what the worm's nervous system has to do with it 25 years from now: neural chips, parallel communication, and realities indistinguishable from the physical world The goal: Liquid foundation models running on 50% of all devices on the planet by 2029

4. 

   21 Jul 2026

   The Unicorn Founder Storing Human Embryos for the Apocalypse | Martin Varsavsky

   Martin Varsavsky has never had a job in his life. Not one. He arrived in New York at 26 as an Argentine refugee, convinced a Nobel Prize-winning scientist to build a biotech company with him, and has been founding unicorns ever since — six in total, spanning telecoms, fertility, and now AI medicine. At 66, he has just launched Certuma, the first medical AI company explicitly designed to be FDA-regulated and capable of writing prescriptions. The trigger: an AI correctly diagnosed a condition in his eye, recommended a specific medication, and then said 'I'm not a doctor.' He decided to fix that. In this ICONS episode, Martin covers his entire arc — from the pre-money valuation insight that unlocked entrepreneurship for him, to the meeting with the King of Spain where he said fertility — not nationalism — was the country's greatest threat. He talks about the technology his companies are building to make having children easier, the ethical lines he draws on designer babies, why he believes frozen embryos should be stored as a backup for civilization, and how cycling 14 hours a week at age 66 means he never had to plan for his own decay. Topics Discussed Fleeing Argentina during the military dictatorship, arriving in New York at 26 with nothing Never getting a job offer — and how the same bank that rejected him funded his first company Co-founding biotech with Nobel Prize winner César Milstein: how a random holiday party at Oxford changed everything The Columbia MBA lesson that unlocked entrepreneurship: the magic of pre-money valuations Three consecutive telecom unicorns: Viatel ($1.2B exit), Jaztel (€4B+ exit), and Yardcom His method: solve problems you personally experience — telecoms, fertility, now AI medicine The fertility crisis: every developed country is collapsing toward 1.0 — and the political divide nobody talks about His private meeting with the King of Spain: 'Your heirs will have no inhabitants in this kingdom' Gameto's Fertilo treatment — compressing IVF from 14 days of injections to 3 days Overture: the embryology robot that automates the making of human embryos with ICSI Vitara: the artificial womb saving premature babies, and the FDA battle blocking it Why frozen embryos should never be discarded — as insurance for the species, not for religious reasons Embryo selection: monogenic illness screening yes, designer babies: where he draws the line Germany: the worst country in Europe for IVF regulations, and why Certuma: the AI doctor company born to be regulated — and the story behind the founding moment Starting his most ambitious company at 66, and why age is a bias not a barrier Longevity through sport: 14 hours of cycling a week, blood work every quarter US vs. Europe: healthcare waste, defence spending, and what America gets wrong about learning from Europe

5. 

   29 Jun 2026

   Oskar Hartmann: The Unicorn Founder Formula, Building 20 Companies, and Why Being Normal Is the Biggest Red Flag

   Oskar Hartmann is one of Europe's most prolific serial entrepreneurs and early-stage investors — a man who launched his first company on the day Lehman Brothers collapsed, co-founded over 20 companies while running a 1,500-person business, broke two world records in indoor rowing after a near-total physical breakdown, and then built a 17-city stand-up comedy tour just to get something out of his system. He's the founder of Accumulator, a SEC-regulated share-pooling fund designed to help unicorn founders diversify their wealth — now holding $500M in approved assets from 65 member companies including Monzo, Discord, and Etoro. In this conversation with host Roman, Oskar shares the unvarnished truth behind building in chaos: the €500K personal liability that triggered a decade of parallel company-building, the hospital stay that broke his nervous system, the philosophy of 'alternating' beast mode and recovery, and the concept of 'mini lives' — how he approaches each chapter of his personal life with the same focused intensity he brings to business. Topics Discussed From fitness belts to Pro Fitness Shop: how Oskar built his first internet business at 18 in Germany What AI-powered research reveals about the 10,000 people who've built billion-dollar companies — and why 'you have to be abnormal' How to read a founder in the wild: the warehouse CEO, the nightclub closer, the street fight walker Launching KupiVIP on the day of the Lehman Brothers collapse — and the courier company that stole all the revenue The true story behind building 20 parallel companies: a €500K personal liability and a desperate need for $1M in safety 2013: the year everything collapsed — bankruptcies, hospital, nervous system shutdown The alternating framework: seasonal beast mode, recovery weeks, and what decathlon athletes can teach entrepreneurs about balance Mini lives: how Oskar used 18-month focused sprints to break world rowing records and complete a 17-city stand-up tour The Accumulator Fund: share pooling, adverse selection, and why 75% of founder outcomes are outside their control What founders need differently in the AI era: speed, noise-muting, and trillion-dollar ambition

6. 

   20 May 2026

   Inside SumUp’s €8 Billion Machine with Marc-Alexander Christ

   Marc-Alexander Christ, co-founder and Head of Payments at SumUp, pulls back the curtain on how a five-founder startup launched simultaneously in Dublin, Berlin, and Bulgaria in 2012 and grew into one of Europe's most formidable fintech companies — serving 4 million merchants across 36 countries at an approximately €8 billion valuation. From the early mistake of hiring 100 salespeople before achieving product-market fit, to the iron discipline of a 12-month payback period that governs every growth decision, to a planned proprietary stablecoin — Marc delivers a rare, unfiltered account of what it actually takes to build payments infrastructure at global scale for small merchants who were almost entirely underserved before SumUp existed. Topics Discussed SumUp's unusual origin: 5 co-founders, 3 launch locations simultaneously — Dublin, Berlin, and Bulgaria The original merchant super-app vision and why early investors said it was too big to build Why payment is the single universal common denominator across every small merchant business type The €10/month per merchant revenue problem and why human field sales was a structural impossibility Facebook as the winning early acquisition channel — the discovery of a 9-month payback period that worked The 12-month payback period rule and the math behind why incremental CAC breaks responsible growth SumUp's three business lines: Get Paid (card acceptance), Run My Business (POS/software), SumUp Card Account (banking) Self-setup, zero human labor onboarding — marginal cost of adding a new merchant approaches zero Tap-on-phone: 30% of new merchant acquisition, SumUp as European market leader M&A strategy: 10+ acquisitions, lessons from Tiller (CRM fragmentation failure) vs. Payleven (48-hour integration success) The "run all distances" philosophy — competing horizontally across verticals rather than owning one like Toast SumUp Edge: AI co-pilot for small merchants with competitive pricing intelligence and seasonal recommendations Building a proprietary stablecoin to reduce payment settlement from 24-48 hours to instant Why acquiring AI companies makes no sense right now — but deploying AI everywhere internally does Consumer products: SumUp Pay (neobank card and account) and SumUp loyalty aggregator Marketing evolution: performance-first → retail (14,000 stores) → 3,400 integration partners → direct and field sales

7. 

   13 Nov 2025

   Razor Group: 300 Acquisitions, $700M Revenue, Zero BS

   In this episode of ICONS, host Roman Kirsch sits down with Tushar Ahluwalia, Co-Founder of Razor Group, to unpack one of the most complex entrepreneurial journeys in e-commerce. Tushar's career spans three continents and three ventures: building India's first major D2C fashion brand (SBL) that reached 100 crores in revenue, creating Razor Group into a $700 million revenue aggregator that acquired 300+ Amazon businesses, and now launching ADA AI to solve supply chain complexity with artificial intelligence. This conversation reveals the operational playbooks, capital strategy, and leadership principles behind building at massive scale—plus the hard-earned lessons from navigating board dynamics, capital stack challenges, and market timing. Topics Discussed: Building and scaling D2C brands in emerging markets with limited infrastructure Navigating complex board relationships and investor dynamics as a first-time founder Timing market opportunities and surviving when assumptions change The FBA aggregator model: capital structure, underwriting assumptions, and what actually happened Operationalizing extreme complexity: integrating 300 businesses, 500 suppliers, and 5,000 SKUs Multi-founder team structures and why trust matters more than pure skill Post-COVID market correction and strategic consolidation through M&A Building AI-powered supply chain automation for enterprise The "human glue" problem in global supply chains and how AI can solve it

8. 

   23 Sept 2025

   From the Tiny Faroe Islands to a Billion-Dollar Wine Empire: Vivino’s Heini Zachariassen

   In this episode of ICONS, host Roman Kirsch interviews Heini Zachariassen, founder of Vivino and current chairman of the board, who is now building Vota (vota.org), a quality rating system for restaurants. Growing up on the remote Faroe Islands (population 50,000) between Norway and Iceland, Heini developed the entrepreneurial belief that you can walk to parliament and knock on the prime minister's door to create change. This island mindset shaped his approach to building global businesses. Despite knowing nothing about wine, Heini transformed his intimidation at wine store "walls of wine" into the world's largest wine database with over 15 million wines and over 70 million users. Starting as a simple wine scanning app competing against 600 other wine apps, Vivino succeeded by focusing relentlessly on match rate over aesthetics, achieving 70-80% word-of-mouth growth with near-zero marketing spend and reaching a billion-dollar valuation during the 2021 boom. Through surviving the COVID boom-bust cycle and transitioning from community to marketplace, Heini shares hard-won lessons about founder-market fit, data moats, and building sustainable consumer businesses in competitive markets. Today, he remains connected to his Faroe Islands roots, regularly visiting home where they now boast a two-star Michelin restaurant while he builds a whiskey distillery to help diversify the local economy beyond fishing. Topics Discussed: Transforming personal pain points into scalable consumer products Building community-driven marketplaces with authentic user engagement Surviving boom-bust cycles and venture capital market volatility Creating defensible data moats in competitive consumer categories Scaling from product-market fit to marketplace monetization Managing founder transitions and maintaining company culture Leveraging AI and emerging technologies in established product categories

9. 

   30 Jul 2025

   Google to IKEA: Digital Transformation in 180 Days

   In this episode of ICONS, host Roman Kirsch interviews Barbara Martin Coppola, one of the most accomplished global marketing and digital transformation executives of our time. Barbara shares her playbook for scaling iconic brands globally, having led transformations at Samsung Korea, Google/YouTube, IKEA, and Decathlon. Her unique perspective comes from successfully navigating vastly different corporate cultures while maintaining brand consistency and driving exponential growth. From turning IKEA from a digital skeptic into a €12 billion e-commerce powerhouse to scaling YouTube's global expansion through localized community building, Barbara reveals the tactical frameworks that work across cultures and industries. Topics Discussed: Building consensus-driven execution across different corporate cultures Scaling global brands while maintaining local relevance and authenticity Leading digital transformations in traditional retail environments Creating viral growth through community-driven content strategies Managing stakeholder alignment during major organizational changes Balancing centralized brand control with local market adaptation Converting offline brand experiences into digital touchpoints

10. 

    16 Jul 2025

    From $10K to $500M Deals: Bending Spoons' Acquisition Playbook

    In this episode of Icons, host Roman Kirsch interviews Luca Ferrari and Matteo Danieli, founders of Bending Spoons. Operating from Milan, Bending Spoons has evolved from a failed startup into Europe's most sophisticated digital acquisition platform, acquiring and improving dozens of businesses worth over $1.2 billion in revenue. From their first $10,000 acquisition to writing $500 million checks, the founders share how they built a unique culture-driven approach to scaling tech businesses through strategic acquisitions, proprietary technology platforms, and an unconventional talent strategy focused entirely on developing young graduates into business leaders. Topics Discussed: Building a serial acquisition platform from startup failure to billion-dollar scale Creating a culture where talent allocation drives competitive advantage Developing proprietary technology platforms that enable massive operational leverage Strategic decision-making around geographic expansion and market positioning Managing risk and capital allocation across dozens of acquired businesses Scaling from consumer mobile apps to enterprise software worth hundreds of millions

11. 

    27 May 2025

    The Inside Story How SoundCloud Hit 100M Users With Zero Marketing Spend

    SoundCloud founder Eric Wahlforss discusses with host Roman Kirsch building a user base of 100 million with no marketing spend, focusing on product utility and community building in this interview.

12. 

    13 May 2025

    How Wild Built a £230M Deodorant Brand—and Got Acquired by Unilever

    Charlie Bowes-Lyon, Co-founder of Wild, discusses building a £230M refillable deodorant brand with Roman Kirsch, focusing on sustainability and mainstream appeal in this interview.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

83,108

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Podcast Authority Score: 23 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

15

Social presence

0

YouTube

76

Engagement

0