Who this is
Thomas Bachem has spent about 20 years in the German startup scene. At 19 he founded the video platform sevenload, followed by the online gaming startup FlipLife; both were VC-funded and both were sold, but neither made him meaningful money. He made his money with lebenslauf.com, an in-browser CV editor he designed and built on his own and sold to XING. In 2016 he started building CODE University in Berlin, a private tech university for software engineering, design and product management, which took in its first students in 2017. At the time of recording he is no longer running CODE day to day and is building the calendar app PowCal on the side.
Episodes
Numbers from the episode
FAQ
How much did Thomas Bachem make with lebenslauf.com?
XING paid only a five-figure purchase price, plus a few euros for every CV created. A great many CVs were created over the following two years, and by his own account Tom ended up earning a solid seven figures. To the episode →
What is PowCal?
PowCal is Tom's new side project: a desktop app for Mac and Windows that loads Google Calendar and improves it, for example by integrating to-dos more tightly. He announces it publicly for the first time in this episode and asks for beta feedback. To the episode →
Quotes
„Es ist zwar immer schön, die Geschichten zu hören von denen, die 100 Millionen bekommen haben, aber wenn du als Gründer mal deine erste Millionen oder deine ersten drei Millionen hast, dann ändert das dein Leben schon vollkommen.““It's always nice to hear the stories of people who got 100 million, but once you as a founder have your first million or your first three million, it changes your life completely.”
„Also es ist viel, viel, viel schwerer, Geld für gemeinnützige Projekte zu raisen.““It's much, much, much harder to raise money for non-profit projects.”
„… was uns aber schon gefehlt hat, ist keiner von uns ist ein herausragender Manager.““What we did lack, though, is that none of us is an outstanding manager.”
„Aber ich glaube viel mehr noch an die One Billion Ten People Company.““But I believe much more in the one billion, ten people company.”
„Also das Wichtigste ist, die richtigen Talente anzuziehen, das war mir immer klar.““The most important thing is attracting the right talent, that was always clear to me.”