{"id":17511,"date":"2025-02-04T13:17:46","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T12:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/?p=17511"},"modified":"2026-04-14T17:26:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:26:53","slug":"bmt-venture-insights-4-24-ode-to-the-founders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/insights\/bmt-venture-insights-4-24-ode-to-the-founders\/","title":{"rendered":"bm|t Venture Insights 4\/24: Ode to the Founders"},"content":{"rendered":"

This newslet\u00adter will be the last that I write as CEO of bm|t. After a ful\u00adfill\u00ading and pro\u00adduc\u00adtive seven and a half years of invest\u00ading in Th\u00fcringen\u00b4s highly inno\u00adv\u00ada\u00adtive com\u00adpa\u00adnies there are still many top\u00adics that I could write about. How\u00adever, it became crys\u00adtal clear over my time at bm|t that all of the inter\u00adest\u00ading top\u00adics con\u00adcern\u00ading the nuances of ven\u00adture invest\u00ading are not as impor\u00adtant com\u00adpared to where the real magic hap\u00adpens: at our amaz\u00ading Investee-Part\u00adners<\/strong>. Thus, my last newslet\u00adter focuses on the truly inspir\u00ading founders who take sig\u00adnif\u00adi\u00adcant risks to cre\u00adate some\u00adthing new in the world, to make a dent in the uni\u00adverse<\/strong>. You have taught us so much and we have immense respect for you!<\/p>\n

The great\u00adest reward for us as investors is see\u00ading the tremen\u00addous progress that our Investee-Part\u00adners have demon\u00adstrated and will con\u00adtinue to demon\u00adstrate in the com\u00ading years. One of my last trips for bm|t was to an Investee-Part\u00adner that started seven years ago with two peo\u00adple and a highly ambi\u00adtious idea to pro\u00adduce some\u00adthing that no other com\u00adpany in the world can pro\u00adduce. Along the way, there were many set\u00adbacks and times when it seemed impos\u00adsi\u00adble to achieve the mis\u00adsion. How\u00adever, the founders per\u00adse\u00advered and did not waver in their belief that it was indeed pos\u00adsi\u00adble and that achiev\u00ading the goal would cre\u00adate tremen\u00addous value. This impres\u00adsive deter\u00admi\u00adna\u00adtion con\u00advinced us and other investors to con\u00adtinue on the jour\u00adney. After this last visit, upon see\u00ading the fast-grow\u00ading pro\u00adduc\u00adtion floor, the team of nearly 20 engaged employ\u00adees and the unde\u00adni\u00adable progress toward achiev\u00ading this bold goal, we were filled with joy, pride, and mostly respect for what the founders and team accomplished.<\/p>\n

Tak\u00ading on extremely chal\u00adleng\u00ading endeav\u00adors has a crit\u00adi\u00adcally impor\u00adtant para\u00addox that founders and ven\u00adture investors alike need to deeply appre\u00adci\u00adate: the more trans\u00adfor\u00adma\u00adtional your goal is the more it will feel like you are fail\u00ading to reach the goal along the way.<\/strong> How\u00adever, if all par\u00adties can keep their eyes on the prize, and avoid the temp\u00adta\u00adtion to dial down the dif\u00adfi\u00adculty level and cre\u00adate eas\u00adier-to-reach ersatz goals, once the hard-to-reach goal is attained the rewards are mul\u00adti\u00adple times greater. This reward is the essence of the log-rule of star\u00adtups and ven\u00adture investing.<\/p>\n

This rare abil\u00adity to seek out chal\u00adleng\u00ading goals and to endure the pain of set\u00adbacks and not be deterred in pur\u00adsu\u00ading the goal is what sets the truly great entre\u00adpre\u00adneurs apart from the rest.<\/strong> Of course, even the most excep\u00adtional founders need sup\u00adport from many stake\u00adhold\u00aders, includ\u00ading investors, to achieve their goals. We at bm|t are extremely for\u00adtu\u00adnate to have the fund struc\u00adture, the man\u00addate, and now the expe\u00adri\u00adence and invest\u00ading track record to be stead\u00adfast in our sup\u00adport of extra\u00ador\u00addi\u00adnary entre\u00adpre\u00adneurs pur\u00adsu\u00ading mean\u00ading\u00adful breakthroughs.<\/p>\n

After seven and a half years lead\u00ading bm|t, I can say with\u00adout hes\u00adi\u00adta\u00adtion that we sup\u00adport the amaz\u00ading founders in Th\u00fcrin\u00adgen to the best of our abil\u00adity. And, I am cer\u00adtain that sup\u00adport will con\u00adtinue to be strong and reli\u00adable in the future, because the bm|t team is fully com\u00admit\u00adted to our work enabling excep\u00adtional founders to pur\u00adsue and achieve bold visions.<\/p>\n

Thank you all for every\u00adthing you taught me and all that you shared with me; I learned so much from you.  Most impor\u00adtantly, I am leav\u00ading with tremen\u00addous respect for the brave founders who push the lim\u00adits of what is pos\u00adsi\u00adble and am look\u00ading for\u00adward to fol\u00adlow\u00ading your coura\u00adgeous lead.<\/p>\n

Kevin and your bm|t Team<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This newslet\u00adter will be the last that I write as CEO of bm|t. After a ful\u00adfill\u00ading and pro\u00adduc\u00adtive seven and a half years of invest\u00ading in Th\u00fcringen\u00b4s highly inno\u00adv\u00ada\u00adtive com\u00adpa\u00adnies there are still many top\u00adics that I could write about. How\u00adever, it became crys\u00adtal clear over my time at bm|t that all of the interesting [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[248,250],"tags":[253],"class_list":["post-17511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2024-en","category-insights","tag-insights-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17539,"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17511\/revisions\/17539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}