Daniel Naeff

Daniel Naeff is the founder of Oakura, a platform where curated startups and vetted experts engage to create next generation businesses. We’ll get into what this actually means in the episode. He also served as the COO of Teralytics, one of Switzerland’s leading data analytics startups. He is also on the board of directors of the ETH Alumni - one of the world’s top 10 universities. We’ll take about bootstrapping vs. funding your company via venture capital, how to make smarter decisions as a founder, hiring the best team, favorite books, and much more.

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Show notes: 01:52 -- How and why Daniel got into entrepreneurship 07:50 -- Daniel’s time at MIT and how he got there 09:22 -- Recommendations and reasons for studying abroad 11:02 -- Diamond Heels - Daniel’s first startup 15:30 -- Teralytics and Daniel’s role 17:45 -- What is the right type of funding for your startup & how Venture Capital (VC) is broken 22:30 -- Why Daniel left Teralytics & next steps 24:20 -- Using insights to help out the next generation of startups 26:40 -- How Oakura started - Using blockchain technology to disrupt the traditional VC model 29:19 -- How to decide if you should continue or stop your current project - “Think in different scenarios” 30:20 -- Leveraging Essentialist thinking and the concept of “sunk costs” to help making important life decisions 33:20 -- Tips on hiring and assembling the best team 36:34 - Should you start a company with your friends or not? 40:00 -- What does Oakura mean 41:50 -- What’s the purpose of Oakura and how it could revolutionize the venture industry 49:20 -- How Oakura is tokenizing startup equity 51:18 -- Daniel’s favorite books 53:30 -- Unique hobbies and how to distract your mind from the daily entrepreneurial work 55:48 -- Thought experiments 58:25 -- Advice to your younger self / university students 1:00:00 -- Closing thoughts

Resources mentioned:

• ETH Juniors
• “We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.” - Walt Disney
• The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg
• The 48 laws of power - Robert Greene * Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari

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