Who this is
Andy Bruckschlögl sold his first backpack from his mother's bag shop on eBay at the age of twelve. After two online shops of his own he learned search engine optimisation from Markus Tandler and co-founded OnPage.org as one of four founders, an SEO software company with its own crawler that was renamed Ryte after five years. Alongside it he co-founded Bits & Pretzels, which began as a founders' sausage breakfast in Munich and is now a European founder platform. He wrote his book “Das Startup Playbook” over two years on top of his day job, with more than 200 guest authors ranging from Carsten Maschmeyer to Frank Thelen.
Episodes
Numbers from the episode
FAQ
How did Andy write the book?
For two years he wrote every morning from 5 to 6 and every evening from 9 to 11, sometimes half days at weekends, more than 1,400 hours in total. He dictated many of the later chapters into ChatGPT's voice input during his 20-minute dog walk and then reworked them himself. In his ChatGPT project he specified that the model should not do external research, only process his own knowledge and that of the guest authors. To the episode →
Why did Andy self-publish the book?
Frank Thelen advised him against a publisher, mainly because of the rights, so that Andy would stay flexible. What Andy underestimated was how entrenched the book industry is: just getting listed on Amazon took two to three weeks. Roughly more than half of the revenue goes to retail and distribution; he has invested a six-figure sum and is far from breaking even. To the episode →
What is Ryte?
Ryte is the software company Andy co-founded with three others. During their SEO audits the founders realised that much of the work could be done better by machines, so they built their own crawler. The company started as OnPage.org and was renamed Ryte after five years when it went international, because a .org domain sounded like a non-profit to people in the US. To the episode →
Why has Bits & Pretzels gone without mega headline speakers recently?
According to Andy, fees for top speakers have risen sharply in recent years because more and more conferences compete for them. Instead of making tickets much more expensive, the team focused on business value for attendees. Big names such as Toto Wolff or the extreme adventurer Jonas Deichmann still took part. To the episode →
Quotes
„… ich würde immer sagen, fangt nebenbei an.““I'd always say: start on the side.”
„… Technologie kommt und geht so oder entwickelt sich weiter. Und meines Erachtens, was sich aber weniger stark dann eben verändert, ist einfach diese persönlichen Skills.““Technology comes and goes or evolves. But in my view, what changes far less are these personal skills.”
„Ich muss sagen, wir haben ein so geiles Land und mich kotzt das an, wie schlecht wir uns da jedes Mal reden und wirklich unnötig.““I have to say, we have such a great country, and it drives me mad how we talk ourselves down every single time, and it's really unnecessary.”
„… ein Nein ist nur Nein für heute. Ist einfach Fakt.““A no is only a no for today. That's just a fact.”