From Surfing to Entrepreneurship | Ram Shoham

0:01 Introduction From Frankfurt School, this is Studio 57 and I'm William My guest today is Ram Shoham. 0:18 Ram is the Director of the Frankfurt School Entrepreneurship Center, Frankfurt School's in house accelerator and incubator founded in 2022. He is also a serial entrepreneur and business Angel. On this episode we cover Rams background, including how surfing became a key part of his story, as well as a deep dive into the Entrepreneurship center itself, what it is, how to get involved and who they're looking for. 0:44 Ram is an excellent storyteller and he has no shortage of stories to share. So without further ado, I present to you Ram Shoham. 0:56 Surfing, sports analogies Ram, thank you for doing this. 0:58 Speaker 2 Thank you for having me. 1:00 Speaker 1 I want to get right into it. You work at a university, you're surrounded by university students every day. What was Ram Shoham like at this age? 1:12 Speaker 2 Wow, that's an unexpected question. Ram Shoham at that age. Yeah, I, I have to say that when I look at the students now that I'm surrounded with, I, I really think they're much more mature than I was at that age. 1:31 I had surfing in my mind. That's it. And I just came out of my surfing career, towards the end of my professional surfing career. What I what I tried to become professional. Yeah. And I was like, oh God, now university, OK, we enjoy it, but I was always thinking, when is the next weekend I can go surfing? 1:55 So I was a beach bum, you could say. My my parents forced me to go to university and get out of the beach do. 2:03 Speaker 1 You remember the first time that you picked up a surfboard? How did it happen? 2:08 Speaker 2 I remember my first wave. I think every surfer probably remembers his or her first wave. It was at the age of 6/6 or seven. I was my cousin. My cousin actually was surfing champion in Israel, one of The Pioneers of surfing, and he just convinced my mum to take me into the water. 2:33 The waves were were nice as far as I remember, but vividly I remember sitting on that board. He was holding me. We were in the line up. Everything was quiet. And he just told me, look, you just I'm going to put you facing towards the shore and as soon as the wave will come, I will let you know and I'll push you. 2:55 And all you have to do is hold on to the board and enjoy the ride. And the adrenaline was pumping and I remember saying, Graham, this, this wave has your name on it. And it's one of the biggest of the day, you know? And he pushed me and I was looking, looking down that slope of the water slide down, water splashing in my face. 3:19 And I made it all the way to the shore with that one wave, you know, and I was a kid. It felt like a like a mountain of a wave, but it was. It was so much fun. 3:31 Speaker 1 Was it typical for people in that area to surf, or was this an unusual thing that you picked it up at such a young age and kept going? 3:40 Speaker 2 Interesting. I don't, I don't think it was, I don't think it was typical to be honest. It was typical to be in the beach, in, in, in, in Israel and play with the waves and so forth. But at the time, surfing was still quite, quite small, you know, so not not really, but it really hooked me. 4:05 I remember in high school then it was already like the big hype. Everybody was a surfer, but many people were doing it just because it was trendy to AI bought the surfboard. You walk, you, you walk with the surfboard, go into the waves, don't catch a single wave and then come out like you're, you're, you're a hotshot surfer. 4:28 And many, of many of the kids in school, they, they, they just, you know, it just faded off like any trend. And they were telling me I don't pass around the bug. The bug will pass, you know. Well, yeah, 40 years later, it hasn't passed. 4:46 And I just finished my, my surfing season for the winter. And yeah, I'm looking forward to the next one in October. So we're recording this now in, in March. So no, the bug has not passed. If anything, it's getting stronger. 5:03 Just because surfing has a life, a limited lifetime, I say eventually when you grow too old, it's very hard to do this sport. So I hope I I still have it in me for the next 20 years, maybe 30, who knows. 5:23 But as long as I can, I want to do it as much as possible. 5:26 Speaker 1 I love that. I think that most of the people who know your name or your face or your brand on campus at least, are very aware that surfing is closely tied to how you approach entrepreneurship. At what point of this surfing journey where, at what point of your life did you make that connection? 5:46 And did you know that surfing was going to be your brand? 5:51 Speaker 2 I don't see it as a brand, but very good question as well. I, I love this it, it opens thoughts that I've never never had before, but it's the passion that's really the, the main connector. 6:08 You've heard me speak now for what, 4 minutes? You, you clearly feel the passion that I have for surfing, for the ocean, for, for the force of nature, everything around you trying just to destroy you. 6:24 And you're, you're just trying to find that perfect wave so you can dream about getting that next one afterwards. And anything in life that gets you that feeling this, this, this passion, the the, the drive to do something is worth pursuing. 6:45 And I see that in entrepreneurs. I always saw that in entrepreneurs. And without even knowing what entrepreneurship was, when I spoke to entrepreneurs, even as a kid, I always found it fascinating to to understand what is it that that makes them tick? 7:03 What is it behind it? And to, to hear about their stories. It always fascinated me. And, and, and then later, as we we started hearing more about entrepreneurship, I understood, OK, these these guys are surfers. 7:19 They're just passionate people who are trying to find the perfect wave and they won't stop. They have resilience, they have discipline. So yeah, everything connects to it. It could be. 7:34 For me it's surfing, for others it could be another sport. But you usually see sportsmen that do make good entrepreneurs, right? 7:45 Speaker 1 Yeah, look and coming from the United States, right, sports culture is very different than Europe. It is in our universities. It is a huge market and I think that we see in many cases the skills or parallels between growing up and having that discipline and that stick with it Ness. 8:08 However, you want to define that in a sport and then how as you get older, if you don't play professionally, that translates into something else. 8:16 Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. I, I, I want to, I want to name one of the best sportsman or my idols is Michael Jordan. And I don't know if you, you saw the documentary on Netflix. 8:31 Was it called the Last Dance? I think there's one episode in that season. It's, it's a one season thing. I think. I think it was episode 7 towards the end of of where when where his teammates, his main teammate Scottie Pippen, just sat down on the bench as a protest to to the management and Michael Jordan. 8:58 When he was telling this, he literally had tears in his eyes because he couldn't understand it. It was he and and he still has the passion that the guy's over 60 doing a documentary of things that happened, you know, 40 years ago or or so, but he still has tears from this. 9:17 He didn't understand. Like you let the team down. Our goal is to win. Our goal is, and these are small moments where to me it brings tears to my eyes, Elon Musk had one moment like that as well when he saw his idols, Neil Armstrong criticizing SpaceX. 9:42 And Neil is his idol. He grew up idolizing Neil. Neil Armstrong, the first guy on the moon, you know, so when, when, when he in the interview, he has tears and you see the passion. This is incredible. 9:59 And these people are totally I, I, I will never compare myself to them. The only thing is I have, I have the passion. At the end of the day, I didn't make it to professional surfing. I didn't make a career from surfing. I had to go study, get my master's degrees and and do the next best thing, which is surround myself with passionate people and chasing the next big wave or the next perfect wave better and better to say, you know, so you think we're always chasing bigger waves? 10:32 No, we're chasing the perfect wave doesn't matter for me, the size, the perfect wave, the perfect wave is with everything. When everything aligns the conditions, you're, you're at the mercy of nature. The, the positioning where you are, you need a bit of luck and then also what you do on that wave, you know, so everything has to align and that's the perfect wave. 10:59 And with startups, the same we, we, we see so many startups at the height when I was very, very heavily involved with my private accelerator, we were looking at 800 startups a year, 800 startups a year. And you need to try and find the perfect wave. 11:17 You need to pick out of those the, the, the best ones. Yeah, it's, it's fascinating. And when you do find that perfect wave, you want it again. You don't just retire and goodbye. You know, an entrepreneur that sells his company, his or her company makes a big exit. 11:37 They don't retire. They they either give back, they invest, they they mentor start-ups or what I've seen, they are serial entrepreneurs. They do it again. 11:49 Early career: army, studying, co-founding I, I want to get into all of this and, and this is amazing, the surfing analogies, the connections between entrepreneurship, the passion, the people. But you mentioned studying and sitting across from me is the serial entrepreneur director of the Entrepreneurship Center. 12:06 You spoke a little bit a little bit about studying and surfing, but the man sitting across from me is not a professional surfer in 2025. Maybe you can help me bridge that gap from surfing all the way to the Entrepreneurship Center. What did your journey look like? 12:23 Speaker 2 OK, so I made peace with myself that surfing is not a career for me that that could pay my, my living expenses. I, I was literally living on my mom's borrowed car. 12:42 It was parked in front of beaches around Europe, you know, and I was sleeping in a car. So that's not, that's not a future. So I went to study. I, I studied in the Netherlands. 12:58 I did my bachelor's in international marketing, which was, which was really fun. I, I can see myself as a, a bit of a marketing slash sales person, but I only found that out a bit later. 13:14 I'll, I'll get to that perhaps. But then I worked at Philips digital video systems in the marketing department. But I found out that, OK, if I start now working at a big corporate and building a career, I'll probably never go back to, to, to getting a master's degree. 13:35 And I, and I think back then a master's was, was probably more important than nowadays. It's still important to have it. But definitely then if you wanted to stand out, you, you needed this to, to have an MBA. 13:51 And so I left, I left Phillips and went immediately back with one year of working experience to do an MBA. I haven't talked about in, in Israel, when you graduate high school, you need to do the army. 14:06 It matured me in many ways, but at the same time, I, I, I told you I was still very mature to, compared to, to the students I see here at Frankfurt School at my age. And maybe it's because you're, you're, you're at a too young age going already to combat and you feel things maybe are missing, you know, so, so the first thing when you join, when I personally joined the army was I was thinking of the day I will leave the army and start travelling the world and, and all that. 14:41 So, so I was like a little kid at the age of 21, like, wow, I'm free. Let's say let's go surfing, let's enjoy. So so coming back I did, I did my MBA and during my MBA is when I teamed up with my two Co founders. 15:04 First real Co founders I had I had when I was younger a frozen yogurt. I tried a business in frozen yogurt when it was really something very new in Israel but that didn't work. I messed it up. The whole merchandise melted because I pointed the air condition towards the the frozen yogurts. 15:26 Speaker 1 I remember it in the US when it was a big thing, very trendy in my childhood growing up it would pop up and close. Was a high turnover rate of these froyo stores. 15:36 Speaker 2 Exactly so that didn't work. I washed cars as well stuff like that. But in my MB AII met my 2 Co founders who basically they decided to build websites and they, they were more the techies and they told me that, hey, you can do the business development stuff. 16:02 And yeah, we started working on on that business. It grew quite nicely in terms of revenue because we were still young and we're the business was making money. You could pay actually your MBA from from the money. 16:22 Funny enough, the university became one of our clients, but it was very labor intense. So every time the the customer needed a change on the website, we're talking, yeah, we're talking 90s. Yeah, the late 90s they had to call us and we had to do the change, even if it's a letter, a word, you know, we have to do. 16:45 And sometimes the website just didn't work that they had to rebuild the website all over again. But every time you did a change, we would invoice basically. So it's very label in terms very, I would say very consulting focused. 17:02 And, and already then I, I, I felt that it's not what we should be doing. You know, we should, we should, we should be offering the clients, OK, we can build the first thing, but then teach them how they can log in and make the changes themselves. 17:21 And we can charge for that service, you know, like a subscription fee. So SAS business didn't exist then, but that would mean letting go of, of of the nice cash flow that comes in 'cause my other two Co founders loved it that they all the time had coding work to do basically. 17:45 So there was a disagreement, I would say, and I made my exit and I call it an exit, but it's not really an exit. I just walk, walk, walked away. That was the the first startup experience. 18:00 And if you think about it nowadays, it's exactly that's what's happening. If you look at wix.com, it's basically you can go, you pay, you pay a monthly fee and you build your own website. So I didn't have that in mind. 18:15 But what I did have in mind is that they don't need to call us every time they need to make a change. 18:22 Speaker 1 Were you on the forefront back then? I mean, talk me through late 90s while this is going on. I was born in 2000. What what was the landscape like? Was this a very on the frontier type business? Right websites, website design bring that B to B. 18:38 Speaker 2 Yeah, basically the Internet was just picking up. Just kick it, you know, and everybody wanted a.com website or whatever. And all these agencies were popping up. Our competitors were, were were sold for, for millions and we thought we were worth millions. 18:59 So yes, everything was there and I was talking to, to to clients of, of what can be done. So, so it was almost easy to get business development, but we couldn't on board more clients unless we on board more personnel, more people. 19:18 And that meant more commitment upfront and signing work contracts and stuff like that. And that's that's where where it's not what what would I like to at the end? Yeah. 19:33 So there were there were disagreements. It's the typical way for for split founder disagreements. I still occasionally talk to the guys. We, we never had a fight that we don't talk and we're not friends. 19:48 We remained in contact. They continue the business for a couple more years and came to a very similar conclusion. And by then they were quite far behind the competition, I would say. So the business All in all closed down and I made, I graduated my MBA and I made it into the finance world. 20:12 Mid career: credit risk, investment banking Should I go into that? 20:13 Speaker 1 And you went to Hong Kong, right? Yes. How did that happen? How did you go from, you know, all the way up to the Netherlands to Hong Kong? This is a very international story. 20:23 Speaker 2 I'm an international guy, so I grew up all over. I, I know I talked about Israel, but between the age of 6 to 16, roughly 10 years, I, I was in Mexico and Spain, mostly Spain. 20:38 That's where I grew up due to my dad's job. The first wave that I told you about, it was one of these summer holidays to Israel where my cousin took me out. But we were living actually in Mexico at the time. 20:53 So yeah, I grew. I grew all over. Maybe it's why what would define me quite, quite diverse in communication to other cultures, understanding other people, being more empathic. I think they did. 21:09 This definitely contributed because I've seen the world. I I worked in an international company in, in Amsterdam after my MBA even before I graduated. I, I, I have to gloat a bit, but I graduated highest in my class with, with the MBA and the company basically saw that and they offered me a job as a, as a credit manager, finance, looking at companies, analysing and so forth. 21:42 So I went to work for them. I got bored pretty quickly after I think 2 years with, with the mundane job of again, looking to this and, and my boss noticed it. 21:58 My boss was a British guy, very, very tough. And, and I have to say that at the time you, you would say what an ass and this, but he, he was not. 22:14 And looking back, he, he was probably the best boss I could have had because being tough, never been satisfied with what you do pushes you more and more to, to to learn. But then occasionally he would have these, these moments which looking back, I, I would, now I see them that he would Take Me Out for a whiskey, invite me over to, to, to his home and there. 22:42 So he was a very, he's a very kind, kind person and he's still around and he really made me excel and he saw that I could do much more. And the company was expanding. We, we had 23,000 employees, €6 billion in sales and decided, OK, we, we need a credit department in Asia Pacific, credit risk management department for the whole Asia Pacific region. 23:12 And Ram, you're going to go and build it. So build it for based out of Hong Kong, but basically taking care of Singapore, Japan, Australia, India, so all Asia. 23:29 And that, that was, that was exciting. That was really, really fun. I, I travelled through all those places setting up, recruiting the people, training the people, setting up all the policies, all the processes for doing it. 23:44 And this also helped the business grow because when you can offer credit to your clients, clients can buy more. So, but you still want to be able to collect. So he, he, he was fascinated. I learned about the clients who are mostly entrepreneurs, private owned businesses around Asia and that that lasted about I think 2 years again, the, the two year itch, you know, and I, I basically again started getting bored because everybody, everything worked and started looking at investment banking. 24:24 I thought that that was something cool. My friends were in it and so forth. And yes, I got, I got an opportunity to move into investment banking. We're focusing mostly on leveraged buyouts. And again, as a, as a credit guy, I would go meet the entrepreneur who was selling his company to, to a private equity firm. 24:49 And then our bank needed to be fast and give the best offer. So we get to the deal and we get to finance that deal. So it was fascinating things like financing railway tracks in Mongolia or or an entrepreneur that build, build a huge factory somewhere in rural China that makes makes bathrooms or toilets. 25:20 Metal, steel plant, metal plants, even oxygen plants because next to I think steel plants, you need oxygen to cool it down. So you saw everything and I met amazing entrepreneurs along the way who were making exits, were selling to private equity companies. 25:37 So these entrepreneurs learn got to become high net worth individuals who wanted to invest in startups. Should I go quicker? 25:47 Entrepreneurship vs. working corporate This, this is great. I mean, I think it's fascinating that you went from one side of the aisle to the other. And there's perhaps a lot of Frankfurt School students that are confronted with this choice where they think, do I want to start my own business and go the entrepreneurial route or do I want to go more of a corporate path? 26:05 How do you compare and contrast, you know, your early startup experiences or what came afterwards with this time working credit or an IB in a more corporate setting? How? How would you speak to Frankfurt School students who are confronted with the same choice? 26:23 Speaker 2 So surfing defined what I want at least to surround myself in life, which is surround myself with passionate people. That's that, that, that was the number one thing. And whenever I lose, I lose that, I lose interest. 26:41 I, I'm, I don't like playing corporate politics or, or anything like that. So whatever I would recommend to, to students, whatever they do, they need to love what they do or they need at least to see a value that they're getting from it, that it's interesting. 27:00 Don't really don't become a zombie. Just keep on. If you see your when, when I work with my analysts here in the entrepreneurship centre, I, I, I really strive. You were one of my analysts will, and you can say it, but I really strive to make sure you guys have a learning curve. 27:19 Because for me personally, when that learning curve flattens, things become boring and, and then also you don't perform as well. So coming back to, to investment banking and the bank setting or any corporate setting, I was always in the way. 27:38 I, I, I, I had the luck to be the entrepreneur, the, the entrepreneur within the, the corporate and allowed myself to, to, to have some flexibility and freedom to do things, to go and knock on the CE OS door with an idea or stuff like that. 27:58 So just really be, be direct and there's not, there's nothing wrong with it. What, what, what could happen? You know, I think if anything, they, they would appreciate it the the CEOs to to see a young enthusiastic person can't come along. 28:17 So sometimes it pisses off people, maybe my direct bosses or stuff like that. But but as long as long as you enjoy, you always perform. And that's what what kept me so long in corporate, in a corporate setting, I could say, yeah, it was probably 11 years in a corporate setting was, was really that I kept being surrounded by passionate people. 28:45 So when I, when I, when I was doing the investment banking and after that, I actually got back to, to the previous company that sent me to Hong Kong because we were working on M and as I, I was always out. I was never sitting in the office really doing mundane work. 29:04 I was out meeting the entrepreneurs, understanding what makes them take, understanding the businesses around it and being always curious in in a way. Of course there are, there are the Excel sheets that that you, you spent hours and into the middle of the night with. 29:23 But working on those Excel sheets, you start always coming with more questions. Why is this number there? Why is it like that? What happened there with and you can't wait to get to the next meeting with, with the entrepreneur and ask these questions and try to. 29:39 And then when you understand, you're like, oh, OK, that makes sense. And you see again, it's fun, It's a game, it's a puzzle, it's a Riddle. So that's what made me go through through corporate and the end of my corporate career at the time, because now I'm back at the university, which is also corporate, but was really started with the financial crisis back in 209 to 10 leveraged buyouts were stand still M and as you know, everything, the world was crumbling. 30:19 So many, many people left corporate and started becoming entrepreneurs and that's, that's the next phase where what led me to where where I am today. So I think now I'm in 2010. 30:37 Late career: Accelerator Frankfurt, connecting people And at some point you went and you started Accelerator Frankfurt. You found your way back to Frankfurt. And I have this quote and you can tell me how how up to date it is, but I'd love it and I want you to explain it to me. Says Ram Shoham is to fintechs what George Martin was to The Beatles. 30:53 This is off of the the accelerator Frankfurt materials. So tell me, what does that quote mean? 30:58 Speaker 2 So I started, I, I helped a friend of mine in my, my first start up experience was a friend of mine who needed to raise some money. I, I tell this story over and over again. I was based in Hong Kong. 31:14 Silicon Valley was dry. He knew I was there. He he asked if I can help him raise, raise some money and and there were three Co founders. But I just knew this one guy. He was from, from the Army. They were a cybersecurity company. 31:30 And I told him, OK, why don't you talk to the chief information security officer at, at the bank and let's see, let's see if you're on to something. And I asked the seesaw to to have a call. And the seesaw, Long story short, was, was quite impressed. 31:46 Wanted to look more into it and run a pilot with the company, but I told my friend that he cannot continue the way that he wants to sell this business because it was a consulting business. 32:01 Remember my previous experience? So they, they, they were cyber experts who would come in, who would build you a system on premise and would operate. And again, you know, the bank needs to call them. And I told him you need to move to a licensing model. 32:16 That's that's the next strategy. Build, build sort of a dashboard, go into the bank, you know, two weeks, train one of the seesaw employees in the bank and let them run the system. 32:31 And to do that, obviously they needed money to, to change the whole model. But that's where I came in and I brought all parties together. So the startup got a potential client and I called the the network of Finet worth individuals that I knew at the time. 32:49 And I told him, look, they're about to do a pilot with a big bank, They need money, why don't you meet them? So I brought the parties together and then this is what I do till today. I'm a connector. I connect the dots and wherever I can. 33:06 I also like to to have skin in the game. So for example, if if if I bring it together, I collect a success fee and hopefully reinvest it into the startup as a business Angel. So I have skin in the game. The startup success is my success, the startup fail is my failure. 33:26 And this is in a way, I think this is where it came because I was here meeting one of the banks. So from Hong Kong, you always transit in Frankfurt Airport. And every time I was in Frankfurt Airport before I officially moved here, I would try to get meetings with the banks. 33:44 And they, they were always willing to meet because back in 2012, the banks were underserved. They, they didn't have access to new technologies, the startup ecosystem didn't exist here or anything like that. So they were happy to meet. And there were one, one of them, I remember I was so impressed every meeting that he then made me an introduction to someone over e-mail and he wrote that, that sentence, you know, and then I, I asked him, who's George Martin? 34:19 So the, the listeners are probably too young. So if you should Google it, I was all even too young to, to, to know who he was, but he was, he was the 5th wheel of The Beatles. So The Beatles, huge band, they made it around the world. 34:35 But without George Martin, they may have not succeeded as much because he was the guy who connected the dots. He was the guy who got them the gigs. He was the guy who really coordinated everything. And that's I guess what he saw with what I was doing with the startups. 34:54 The start-ups need a person like that, that has the connection to the investors, know what the investors are looking, so I can bring value to the investors. That's why they want to meet as well as to the clients. The clients of my start-ups were usually financial institutions and I don't like wasting anyone's time. 35:13 So they know that when I call, I call maybe once every half a year. It's worthwhile having a coffee and listening to what I have to say. I don't just call opportunistically every week. Let's meet. And that's, that's where where it grew. 35:31 I found that Frankfurt was a was a blue ocean. And that's also something very important for entrepreneurs to define. Going into a red ocean market with tons of competition is just not not the right strategy. 35:47 Find something a blue ocean with where a gap, an untapped potential. And if you think about Fintech or cybersecurity financial institutions at the time, London and New York, those were the hubs. 36:05 But Frankfurt, nobody thinks about Frankfurt. I was the only one. I was the first one. And therefore accelerator Frankfurt is the first accelerator in Frankfurt. And that's where we decided to to build the company and expanded quite successfully doing exactly what we're doing now. 36:25 When I say quite successfully for the start-ups, huge success. We were a big added value. An accelerator per SE is a very difficult business model. You need cash flow, you need somebody to sponsor it and, and most of the time it it, it, it is work that I didn't like doing to try and get sponsors to finance the operation. 36:50 I liked working with the startups and investing in the startups. So we had great startups. They succeeded 10% of them made exits, which is a huge, huge success. But but the, the, the cash flow thing, the accelerator is a difficult thing to do, but we're what we do. 37:12 And when success comes, it's it's great. 37:15 Frankfurt School Entrepreneurship Centre It strikes me from hearing you speak that it's always a story about the people. It always sounds like, like you just said, you're bringing people together, connecting them. And frankly, in the the couple years that I've known you, that seems to be the story at the entrepreneurship center here as well. 37:30 At some point you mentioned the value add. Maybe you can tell me when did you come to Frankfurt School and what is the core value proposition that you have for the startups that work with you? 37:42 Speaker 2 So obviously being in, I moved to Frankfurt, I believe it was 2014. So I've been in Frankfurt for a while, I working in the finance field, I've been to Frankfurt School, sometimes gave a lecture and so forth. 38:00 So it was, I was not the new guy, you know, pitching to the president. Let's let's build an entrepreneurship centre. But COVID hit, and you're very right, it's all about people. When COVID hit, we cannot meet people anymore. 38:16 We cannot fly anywhere. I cannot fly in startups to the city. The accelerator Frankfurt was basically brought to a standstill. My I had to let go the working students, the interns who were Frankfurt School. 38:32 But I remember one of them was actually one Frankfurt School existing student wanted half an hour with me to pitch me his his startup. And he's been bugging me for that half an hour. And I finally gave him the half an hour. 38:49 We talked about his startup and he says, you know, Ram, this half an hour has given me in entrepreneurship, particularly entrepreneurship more than the two years I've been studying at Frankfurt School. So I'm not, I'm not saying Frankfurt School is bad. 39:05 They just did not tap into entrepreneurship. And I was like, OK, that's interesting. So I emailed the president with without without expecting anything. 39:20 Remember what I said earlier, just knock on the CE OS off the door. You know, even if you're a junior banker, if you have something interesting to offer. So I literally I have the e-mail still. I emailed him. I told him COVID hit I have time on my hands. 39:36 I really miss working with the start-ups because I want to surround myself by with passionate people. What you get in return is you get experience and a network I bring and we can build a program. And the president is very open minded. 39:55 He he's, he's a professor of strategy, so he understands down the road the strategy and everything. And I was so surprised that Neil's replied to me very quickly, literally I think within the hour that, you know, good timing. 40:11 So he called me. To said, let's set up a meeting, come over and things move very quickly. So what was the, the proposition? I, I came to the to, to the, the meeting with Niels and I showed him a print out of, of a study that was recently done show showing the top 10 universities for entrepreneurship in Germany. 40:35 Obviously Frankfurt School was not there. Nils was telling me that the prospective students are asking what do we offer in entrepreneurship? He also said that existing students, you know, banking is nice, but not everybody wants, people want to build their own companies more and more. 40:52 So it's it's a growing segment. So I told him we can become, give me five years, we'll be in the top 10. And the only thing we need to do is focus on getting these students to go to the Notar to, to set up a legal entity that's one and secondly, to raise venture capital. 41:13 So these are the two criterias what what they used in that particular study for, for the rankings. And so that's, that's what we agreed. He he was fully committed. 41:28 I asked him to at least in the beginning, not, not involve the the faculty to, to separate these things because I cannot work with entrepreneurs or with students that are doing it for credits for a grade, because then they won't go to found a company. 41:50 And I also can't waste investors time and money talking to, to students for a grade, you know, so, so we kept these separate at least for the 1st 1 1/2 year where it was focused purely on helping them with the strategy tell to guiding them a little bit, connecting them to serial entrepreneurs from my network who could also mentor them and coach them. 42:17 And I'm happy to say that 2023 was the first year that we were fully operational and there were already enough startups being founded that got us into the list of the I think it was the top 30 in Europe, Europe wide, not Germany wide. 42:33 So that's, that's great. You know, we're, we're making progress. Startups are being founded. So that's 111 great step. But that's really what the entrepreneurship is all about. I can talk later if, if you want, about what programs we do, but our, our guiding star is we need students to found companies, go found companies. 43:00 Second step, raise funding. You don't found a company for the fun of it. You need a solid business model. You don't raise money if you don't have a solid business model. So if that, that is our guiding *. And we always, anything we do has to lead to that guiding * then we're in the right track and don't get, don't get deviated by other things. 43:26 And that's something I, I, I also learned a bit a bit later, too late in life to say no, for example, to things because I was always saying yes. And then you just deviate from that guiding * focus. 43:43 Programs, events, getting involved I want you to speak to those students, current perspective or perhaps alumni who hear these words. Accelerator, incubator. What is the difference between them and and maybe as a good example, a startup walks through your door. How do you determine which program is best for them? 44:02 Speaker 2 So, so the, the process is we, we cater to any FS related, whether it's a student or an alumni. The alumni and at least one of the founding team members has to have a link to FS. 44:20 So it's not exclusive FS, the startup, not all of them need to be, but at least one. Why? Because if that startup makes it and we have one Co founder in that startup, that is a startup that was founded by an FS founder. 44:35 So even if students have an idea, they don't even know if it's worth pursuing or anything. So we offer on our website to my calendar is open there and it's called Idea Talks. You just click it and book 1/2 an hour meeting with me. 44:50 You don't need to prepare anything. We just have a chat and I can give you my two cents, you know, from what I know of the particular market and stuff or send you back to to do some more research and stuff like that. 45:07 But if I think it has merit and you've done enough of the research and we could incubate it. So for me, incubator comes before the accelerator. We, they applied to the incubator. And then my research analysts we because we're, we don't, we're not focused on any particular industry. 45:27 It's not like the accelerator Frankfurt, that's totally financial industry here in the entrepreneurship centre. It's everything. So I need the research analysts to be my, to be the experts in particular fields, whether it's sustainability or real estate. 45:46 And so as a startup applies to the incubator, then we assign it to one of the research analysts who just loves getting starts researching the market, the competition and giving, bringing back knowledge so we can help the startup more. 46:02 And we're trying to, to incubate the startup towards an investment ready stage so that they've done the research, they, they validated the problem, maybe even have proof of concept. But once they, they've worked and, and we feel that OK, they're ready to, to secure investment to go to the next phase, then we, they qualify to the accelerator. 46:30 And the accelerator is basically 5 weeks. So the incubator runs all the time. But once we feel they're ready, then they can apply to the accelerator. It's twice a year, summer and winter break, and it's a it's five weeks in tents where we everything they've done culminates into a demo day where we invite usually 3 to 400 people, show up many investors and six of our top startups showcase their businesses and try to secure funding. 47:07 Speaker 1 And there's a prize, right? 47:08 Speaker 2 There's, there's a prize, yes, that, that's, that's really great. The, the Frankfurt School managed to get it. It comes from the Frankfurt School Foundation. I'm very grateful for that. It's 100,000 a year, so basically 2 demo days a year. 47:26 So we divide 5050 and usually the top 2 startups split that and the, the winners are chosen by an independent jury of VCs, venture capitalists. And usually for these VCs in the jury, they're FS alumni. 47:44 So there's plenty FS alumni working in the VC industry. So everything ties together that our mentors, they're just growing. We, we have close to 200 mentors now and it's serial entrepreneurs and investors that are FS alumni and they're growing. 48:03 So these are here to stay. And you always want to come back to support your alma mater one way or another. So that's, that's really nice to see how, how the community is growing. It's probably one of the most exciting parts of my job today. 48:21 Just before this podcast, I spoke to to an alumnus who I think graduated I think 2010 or in the old campus already. He's based in Egypt. He's Egyptian, sold his company, sold his company 5-6 years ago, made his money. 48:42 He's now in real estate and he's investing actively. And you see, I surround myself with passionate people for for me, it doesn't matter. I have a packed day, but I'm speaking to these amazing people and they're like, wow, when I was at Frankfurt School, this didn't exist, you know? 48:57 So I'd love to contribute, I'd love to give back, use me as a coach. If you have any interesting startups in the, in the real estate sector, Proptech, send them to me. I'm also investing. So this is just one example, and it's one out of many, out of hundreds, literally. 49:19 Speaker 1 I have seen this take place over the past couple years. I've been to your events to demo days. You said I, I've worked for you. I, I've seen the inside of of the machine and it's clear to me that you're playing a big role in building the community, as you say. And I've heard that out of people's mouths. 49:35 This wasn't a, this didn't exist when they were here 10 years ago, right? I've heard numerous people say that. One question that I had for you regarding this is at the end of the day, this is a finance and management consulting focused school. 49:50 In terms of where we deploy graduates, the group of startups and students that come to you, is it rather homogeneous because of that? Is there a lack of tech founders and tech talent, and how do you deal with that as the entrepreneurship center? 50:07 Speaker 2 So it's a, it's a good question. It's something that when I first started stressed me a bit because we're a Business School, we're not a tech school. How are we going to get great start-ups? One, one of these alumni that that I, I had a meeting with had basically an e-commerce platform, which he sold for 300 million. 50:34 So he looked me in the eyes and he said, don't worry, I'm not a tech person. Still made a nice exit, you know, so so I was like, yeah, you're very right, Sebastian. So yeah, OK, so that calmed me down there there there are possibilities of making it without being heavy tech. 50:54 You don't need to build robotics and drones and and stuff like that. But having said that, yes, I I am trying to relentlessly to to get more in touch with the technical universities and do these Co founder wanted events. 51:10 We've done five of them. In each one of them, at least one start up was formed was was founded and raised money. So that's a great success. For example, with Aveta Achen 2, two industrial engineers came with their agriculture robot pitched that they need a, a business development guy and ACFO. 51:35 I mean, we're the perfect place for that. And they did find this this guy there, he became a Co founder and now it's an FS startup as well in robotics. So collaboration is key. It's it's really important. 51:52 I come from a very small country that you have to collaborate with everybody and you can't just keep staying a silo. Germany is different because it's very big, very fragmented. You have the different regions. We have Berlin, we have Munich, we have Frankfurt, we have Aachen. 52:10 So it's, it's a bit more difficult to, to, to do these collaborations, but every small step counts, you know, and we're, we're, we're getting there. And the next Co founder wanted is we're already integrating universities from Heidelberg, from Dresden. 52:29 And we tell them, you know, we have the business people. You can't build a startup without a business person, without a financial guy, you know, or girl, sorry, but this, yeah, this is super important. 52:40 Speaker 1 So you're bringing them, bringing these tech people in house and I think it's the most compelling sales pitch you could give that a startup has been funded and or created and and brought to investors out of each of those Co founder wanted. That's pretty amazing. 52:54 Speaker 2 Absolutely. And I love to see it because when it happens, we can celebrate. Hey, we got, we got the perfect wave, guys. Let's go on. 53:05 Speaker 1 Yes, a couple more questions for you. Let's imagine that I'm in current FS student and I want to get involved and I don't have an idea. I come to you. What do you tell me? 53:19 Speaker 2 Look, it's you can become an entrepreneur also a bit later. You can go into consulting for five years and then get business experience and maybe identify, identify a gap, a niche, something. 53:35 These are actually the best entrepreneurs, I would say. So don't pressure yourself finding a startup idea right now. You can't. You can't force it. I spent nights when I was younger with my friends trying to brainstorm on the next big $100 million business. 53:56 It didn't work. So you can't just force it. It needs to come naturally. You need to identify it. You need to be alert to it. So go pursue a career wherever opportunities open. Make sure make sure that you keep learning. 54:14 So don't stagnate. Don't, don't look for the easy, easy way out. You know, you learn a lot in the banks, you learn a lot in consulting. You can also learn tons in a startup itself. 54:29 You know, there are startups that are growing, they raised funding, they can hire as well. That's what I would tell them. Keep, keep learning and entrepreneurship at the end of the day is not for everybody. I I've seen many of my friends regret the fact that they left a steady salary and and free weekends, you know? 54:53 Yeah. So it's not for everybody. It sounds fun, but there's no money in entrepreneurship. There's no money in entrepreneurship. One of the founders of an FS founder recently raised 30 million. You think he's made it? 55:08 No, that those 30 million have a have a purpose. It's to grow, to hire people. It's not to pay yourself a big nice salary. No, you still, you have equity. You live on on very, very small salary. 55:26 The idea is to use those 30 million to grow the business to 100 million and maybe one day make the exit. But there's no money in entrepreneurship. 55:36 Speaker 1 That's a good answer. 55:37 Lightning round I want to close out with a lightning round, so just a couple sentences. I'm going to hit you with them one after another. What was the best piece of advice that you've heard for a startup founder? 55:48 Speaker 2 Best piece of advice for start up founder. You're not an entrepreneur. I don't know. You're not an entrepreneur. So yeah, I, I, I can elaborate, but. 56:04 Speaker 1 So very blunt, right? 56:06 Speaker 2 Very blunt. When somebody comes and asks you where how do I, how do I find investors or how do I reach? How do I find, how do I reach my clients? I mean, if you can't think of that by yourself, you, you're not an entrepreneur. 56:24 You, you can't have somebody hold your hand and guide you step by step. You need to think out-of-the-box. 56:31 Speaker 1 If you had €10,000 to start a business tomorrow, what would it be? 56:35 Speaker 2 Oh God, €10,000 to start a business tomorrow. I'd probably put it on, on, on a bright team. 56:50 You know, I, I sometimes not sometimes daily I meet the students here. Some of them are, are mind blowing what they're doing. I, I wanted to say also that many of the master students are technical people. They're, they're not all business people. 57:07 So it's quite amazing. And whatever they work on, you know, if it's €10,000, yeah, let's gamble it put, put it on this guy because I know that he or she will make it one day. So the people put it on a bright mind. 57:24 Speaker 1 What is the most common mistake that you see entrepreneurs make? 57:29 Speaker 2 I've I'm also I also did it and I still do it is build before before you. You do the research before you get the get the market feedback. So first do your research, understand the problem and fall in love with the problem. 57:50 Too many entrepreneurs are in love with their solution and that is wrong. 57:57 Speaker 1 And finally, the one book that you would recommend to FS students. 58:04 Speaker 2 So this is really, really a coincidence that we're recording this because this week I met one of my idol entrepreneurs. It's not the first time I meet him. He's an Israeli guy called Dove Moran and he invented the USB flash drive. 58:21 You know, the USB flash drive, nowadays you don't use them too much because we have the cloud. But back in the 90s or back back in the 2000s, I mean, this was the how I transferred my work from office to home and home to office and so forth. So he invented that. 58:37 They, they made a very nice exit, I think 1.6 billion exit. He wrote a book called 100 Doors by Dove Moran, and that book really made me think so many times to the resilience and not to give up because he was very close to give up because he kept getting nose, nose. 58:58 And if he had given up, we would not have that USB flash drive. Maybe someone else would have invented it, but that's that's the one. 100 doors, knock on 100 doors. Don't tell me I spoke to investors. How many investors did you speak to 410? That's not enough. 59:15 Knock on 100 doors. I I would even go as far as 800 doors because that's what I did. 59:22 Speaker 1 For anyone listening at home who wants to get in touch with you, what's the best place to connect with you? 59:26 Speaker 2 LinkedIn Ram Shoham. LinkedIn, Yeah. 59:30 Speaker 1 Excellent. Thank you for doing this RAM. 59:32 Speaker 2 Thank you very much, Will. It's been nice.