Zoltan Vardy is a startup mentor and speaker who helps B2B tech founders sell and market to enterprise clients by applying his sales and marketing blueprint called The Launch Code.

The Launch Code is built on the principles, tools, and techniques Zoltan used to close $2 billion in sales over his 30-year global career as an executive, entrepreneur, and investor.

Zoltan has helped 200+ startups in 25 countries by teaching how to apply The Launch Code via a personal mentoring program, group workshops, and an on-demand, online course.

Zoltan was formerly Sr. Vice President/Global Sales at NBC Universal International and a regional CEO at Germany’s ProSiebenSat1 Media. He helped launch a dozen media, technology, and professional services businesses including eEuropeMedia, Brainient, and Antavo, where he also serves as Chairman.

He was born & raised in the US, graduated from Cornell University, and divided his time between London and Budapest. He tests his personal limits by participating in Spartan Race obstacle course races. You can access a free value proposition video guide at zoltanvarady.com/podcast 

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PETER ĎURIŠ is the CEO and co-founder of Kickresume. Although his main focus nowadays is business development and product design, he used to do everything from customer support and revising resume samples, to working with HR experts and hiring. Peter is the original mind behind Kickresume and has been working with resumes for more than 7 years. 

Together with Tomáš Ondrejka, transformed Kickresume from a small student start-up to a successfully running tech company with over 1M subscribers from all around the world. His skills and responsibilities include technological design, business strategy, and product management. He enjoys connecting innovation with design and making people's lives easier and more enjoyable through his work.

Previously, he co-founded SaleBook, a group-buying site of the new generation. The first of its kind in Slovakia.

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BrokerChooser was founded in 2016 by Gergely Korpos and Tibor Bedő, quickly becoming the leading European broker comparison site.

BrokerChooser is the go-to site for uncomplicated and trustworthy online comparison of brokers. It helps independent investors and traders to find an online broker fitting to their needs.

They compare online brokers, be it a local one or a large international platform. Browse their tests and compare brokers along more than 50 dimensions. Their tutorial videos show you the trading platforms and guide you through the account opening steps. Also, their articles about online trading provide direction among jargons and lingos, which is a challenging even for professionals.

Brokerchooser helps people invest by matching them to the best investment services. You tell them what is important to you in an online broker and they show you the top 3 best fitting your needs.

BrokerChooser has been mentioned in several media from all around the world, such as Business Insider, Forbes, Fortune, CNBC, Financial Times.

In this podcast learn about the journey of the two founders, what drove them and how they managed to grow their company

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Bjoern Wolff (Björn Wolff) is the Founder & Managing Director of mymoria GmbH, the pioneer of tech-enabled digital funeral services with a nationwide network of quality driven funeral homes. 

Björn is a digitalist, entrepreneur, mentor, Chief Undertaking Officer, founder and winemaker. His professional career includes Westerwelle Foundation (as mentor), HRS - The Hotel Portal (Director Customer Acquisition and Director Mobile & New Media), YOC Mobile Advertising GmbH (Head of Country Operations Germany, Head of Sales, Head of New Business Mobile Marketing, Senior Manager Mobile Marketing, Manager Mobile Marketing, Junior Manager Mobile Marketing), Scholz & Friends (Junior Account Manager), TBWA (Intern Account Management) and Hugo Boss (Intern HUGO Sales Department Intern HUGO Sales Department).

Björn has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, International Marketing from the Hanze University, International Business School, and has also studied International Marketing at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and International Business & Management at Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen. 

Along with other authors, he published Develop Android apps, a Concept and needs analysis for Android developers. 

About mymoria GmbH

MYMORIA offers a one-stop-online-shop for full configuration and complete commissioning of funerals. Mymoria is able to offer its services significantly cheaper than traditional mortician homes. The company is offering its services nationwide and works hard to organize our processes efficiently while maintaining the high service standards.

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Mattia Franco is the founder and CEO of Xceed, a venture-backed startup that is taking over the information business by linking the B2B and B2C side of the nightlife industry, providing real-time analytics, and addressing the untapped Big Data space in the market.

Mattia was one of the Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2019, while its company has been classified by Apple amongst the Best 100 Apps in the World in 2016 and the fastest-growing Start-up of Spain by Tech5 in 2018.

Xceed is on a mission to create a world where everyone can live extraordinary experiences by joining authentic music events and connecting with inspiring people. Xceed App allows party lovers to browse through the best upcoming events in their hometown or while traveling, and to access guest lists, purchase tickets or reserve bottle services. Xceed Nightgraph, on the other hand, is a cloud-based B2B solution that helps clubs target and engage a specific audience, track conversions and increase profits through online & mobile sales, and promotion.

Lastly, Xceed is taking over the information business by linking the B2B and B2C sides of the nightlife industry, providing real-time analytics and addressing the untapped Big Data space in the market.

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Simon Vestner grew up with elevators. He is the grandson of Wilhelm Vestner, who founded the elevator manufacturer of the same name in 1930. For several years, Simon ran the successful family business together with his father. Then he decided to build something of his own and reinterpret the role of the elevator in the building. He founded VESTNER.DIGITAL - now Digital Spine - with the brand Aufzughelden in Berlin in 2015. The team consists of over 30 people: IoT and AI professionals, engineers and technicians, and building experts work daily to make elevators more digital.

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Johannes Stuhler is a Co-Founder of ListNRide, a digital company that provides booking platforms for bike rentals, test rides, and activities.

Johannes is also the Managing Director of ListNRide. His previous experience includes HAWE Hydraulik SE (Head of Management Accounting and Head of IT) and Edmund Lutz Textil KG (assistant to the CEO). 

Johannes Stuhler is a Co-Founder at LR Mobility. He attended Erasmus University Rotterdam (M.Sc. Economics & Business, Entrepreneurship and New Venture Building) and Mannheim Business School (ESSEC & MANNHEIM Executive MBA, General Management).

According to his f6s profile he loves creating new products, new services, new business opportunities and new businesses. He likes to jump into new projects, leading as he goes. He provides product development expertise and leadership and he is passionate about quality.

Johannes leads teams in planning, creation and execution of online products. This includes business planning and development, budget analysis, board level pitching, intra- and inter-organizational organization, prototyping, supplier negotiation, content production, product development and lifecycle management.

He can identify and implement positive, efficient and successful team structures. He works by building consensus and, where necessary, saying no in order to reach goals.

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Balazs Sandorfi is the CEO and founder of Bankmonitor Ltd., the market leader in banking products comparison in Hungary. 

Balazs is an enthusiastic start-up guy in the field of online financial services. His ultimate goal is to achieve everlasting #1 market position by applying very new business models. 

He is a passionate fan of finance. The word of the new times, the Internet, quickly took hold of the banking sector, so he mostly carried out innovative activities in his own companies. As founder and company manager, Balazs built Portfolio.hu for 10 years. When he felt that it was too narrow to deal exclusively with the investment area, he came up with the idea of ​​Bankmonitor.hu, where they tried to cover the entire financial needs of households and small and medium-sized companies and serve them with expertise that is unique in the country.

Today Balazs has 20 years of financial experience. He regularly deals with everything from the finances of the average person, to the questions of the wealthiest individuals, and questions of corporate financing. As a guest lecturer, he visits the leading institutions of higher economic education in Hungary and from time to time he is in a leadership position at well-known, market-leading domestic companies

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Bogdan Badea is the CEO of eJobs Romania, the first recruitment platform launched in Romania. He is an experienced business leader with +16 years of working in the HR business services environment. 

Bogdan is proficient in Business Development, Strategy, Marketing, HR Software, Job Classifieds, HR Outsourcing and Recruitment. Throughout the years he held positions of Business Development Director, Managing Director, Associate Director, Business Development & Strategic Alliances Director at companies such as eJobs, Procter & Gamble, Smartree, Accace and EY. 

At eJobs, he is responsible for developing business strategies and aligning them with the company's long-term and short-term goals, as well as motivating, developing and growing the team.

Bogdan has a proven track record in building high performance teams and a devoted advocate of moving things forward through the means of critical business thinking and creativity. He is passionate about innovation in HR and new technologies that can improve our lives.

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Ioana Dragomir co-founded together with Larisa Burca a B2B marketplace for event management named TULIPR. Ioana leads global digital transformation projects in the corporate environment, while Larisa is familiar with the events industry where she works as an Event Planner.

Ioana talks about automation, event services, customer experience, tools and technologies, and digital transformation. 

She previously founded The Inside (www.theinside.ro), being also its Corporate Well-being Advocate. For more than 11 years she has worked at Genpact, making her way up to Senior Manager Transitions. 

TULIPR is a B2B marketplace that brings digital transformation in the Events Industry. Their platform seamlessly connects businesses who service the events industry (venues, vendors, event managers, event tech platforms) with those organising events (meetings, conferences, workshops, exhibitions a.o.) Their mission is to empower event organisers & professionals to build outstanding events, through automation and digital tools.

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Eva (Micheva) Vucheva has worked during her professional career in 12 companies, founding and co-founding some of them. In present time she is the Co-Founder and GM of CONTENTO.tech (7 yrs 5 mos) and Founder of Impakt_ID (2 yrs 5 mos).

Her educational background includes Harvard Business School Online (other; CORe and Sustainable Business Strategies), SPD (Visual Communication), Universitet za nacionalno i svetovno stopanstvo with a Bachelor Degree in Marketing and Pforzheim University with an IMP in International Management.

When Eva Vucheva, CEO of Bulgaria’s Contento, started the business with her cofounder Silviya Dineva in 2016, they wanted to conduct “a company culture experiment”. “We wanted to build a decentralised company with up to 40 people who are independent of one another but at the same time act as a team,” she says. “Happy to report we have succeeded.” Today Contento.tech — an outsourcing business which focuses on supporting ecommerce businesses with data management and digital marketing solutions — is 60 people strong, and its revenue last year reached €1.2m. 

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Chalid El Ashker is the Founder and CEO of Spacewise, a pioneering all-in-one solution for leasing of flexible spaces. He is also the founder of Ashker Ventures. He founded two other companies and has worked amongst others as lawyer and Head of Digital Unit for several  companies. 

Spacewise is a digital platform that offers digital end-to-end solutions, which cover all aspects of the (flexible) leasing process - tools to optimize revenue & occupancy, and attract exciting new tenants.

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Bogdan Bocse has been working as an IT professional for 12 years, in organizations of varied size and industry, in roles such as solution architect, project manager and technology consultant. He is the managing partner of Knosis.ai, a marketplace for quality-controlled machine learning data sets, and Envisage.ai, a end-to-end solution for computer vision and face recognition. He is also leading the open source, non-profit DeepVISS initiative, aimed at bridging the gap between industry and academia in visual machine learning. Bogdan has experience in filing patents, both in Romania and the US.

Bogdan set up his first two startups in college. Subsequently, in 2016 he made the first attempts in the area of ​​recommendation systems. In 2017 he pivoted towards machine learning, face recognition and computer vision.

"The mission of the two start-ups is to teach computers to define what they see. When a person looks at a photo, they recognize the characters, objects, and the place. However, a computer does not do this by default ", he explained. Recognition of characters, action, and place in images, whether it's video or pictures, is extremely useful especially in the field of video surveillance, biometric IDs for online payments, or for quick check-ins at the airport, or events, for example.

Bogdan strongly believes that to an open mind there are no closed doors. As a science-fiction fan and a chief-executive-geek, his life mission is to craft the truce between humans and machines before Skynet comes online completely.

”My vision is to bridge the gap between business needs for automation and digital enablement, on the one hand, and the wave of innovation rising from computer vision, visual machine learning and artificial intelligence, on the other hand. My mission is to bring the advancements from the research community and academia into the mainstream, where they can deliver business and societal value, as well as consideration and protection for privacy, objective, fair decision-making and sustainable development.”

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Co-Founder & CEO of Busuu, one of the world's leading mobile apps for language learning with more than 100m+ users. Their vision is to inspire the world to learn together!

Bernhard is frequently invited to speak at international conferences about Edtech and entrepreneurship, such as DLD, Webit Congress, Noah Conference, SIME, SXSW Edtech, BETT, GET Beijing etc.

Originally from Vienna, he traveled around the world during his studies, spending 5 years in Madrid and now living in London where their headquarters are based.

In 2009 he was awarded “Entrepreneur of the year” in Austria for his academic achievements. UK Winner of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year™ 2018 award in the 'Disruptor' category.

He has a Bachelor's Degree at Vienna Business School, one at Universidad de Belgrano and an International MBA (with honors) in Business Administration from IE Business School. He also has a Magister degree in International Business Administration from WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business), graduating with "summa cum laude"; among the top 3% of all students.

When Bernhard Niesner relocated to Spain to study his MBA he didn't know that he would end up creating a new company with fellow student Adrian Hilti. The result was busuu.com, the largest and most active language learning community in the world.

Before founding Busuu, Bernhard worked at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants in the area of consumer goods and retail in consulting projects around Europe. In addition to busuu, he is an Associate Professor at IE Business School in the area of online marketing.

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CEO & Founder Expertwired.com. Reinier Huisman is a disruptive tech enthusiast & experienced (+15 yrs) strategy consultant and entrepreneur. In-depth marketplaces experience (ex-eBay corpdev). Reinier Huisman studied Econometrics and Business Economics at the University of Amsterdam.

Reinier Huisman said: “Strategy is making choices today which will significantly impact the company’s future performance. No entrepreneur or investor wants to make blind sighted choices and this is exactly why strategic analysis of market trends, customer behavior and the competitive landscape is so incredibly valuable. What motivates me is a client who is impressed that our work would yield so many actionable and quantifiable insights about the future, and is subsequently able to make judgment calls on acquisition and investments with higher comfort”. 

Reinier's experience is characterized by the quantitative approach to strategic advice and the consistent quality with reliable findings.

Listen this podcast episode and find out more about Reiner's experience and advice for tech entrepreneurs.

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Andreas Millonig is the Chief Operating Officer of IMMOunited GmbH. Born in Carinthia, he successfully completed his studies in applied business administration at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt in 2009 and started his professional career as a key account manager in the Immounited sales team. In June 2012 he took over the business development agenda and at the beginning of 2018 he was promoted to Chief Innovation Officer and was responsible for innovation management and the innovation processes of the entire group of companies.

In January 2021, Andreas took over the operational management of Immounited, the market leader in the online provision of information about real estate transactions in Austria. The business economist and data mining expert has been with the company for almost ten years and, as a close confidante of company founder Roland Schmid.

IMMOunited is the market leader in the online provision of land register and real estate data throughout Austria. 

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Sander Van de Rijdt is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of construction documentation and task management platform PlanRadar, being responsible for the corporate and growth strategy at PlanRadar, but the Finance, HR, Legal and Administration departments also report to him. 

Sander studied at the Vienna University of Technology and Vienna University of Economics. Prior to PlanRadar, he founded five other IT companies with operations in Europe, the U.S., the Middle East and Central Asia and guided them from concepts to growth companies by leveraging his international experience as a business consultant.

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New podcast out! Today’s interviewee is Kristofs Blaus, Co-founder of  Nutrameg and Science22.com, an e-health startup that employs nutritionists & data scientists to develop AI/ML technology to personalize diet plans. Kristofs won “The Best Business Idea”, twice, in 2007, and appeared in Forbes Latvia with his app. Listen to his podcast here:

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 A new entrepreneur has joined our #EuropeanBootstrappingChampions podcast: Till Schmid. He is the founder of Consultport, an online consulting platform that takes on board top-tier, highly experienced consultants and digital experts to advance successful projects. Their portfolio includes companies of all sizes, from multinational large companies to start-ups, in more than 53 countries.

Till Schimd is passionate about digitalization and entrepreneurship, always eager to connect with people who are interested in these fields and also in consulting. 

In 2004, Till was awarded the Goldman Sachs Global Leaders Program,an annual international competition, through which are identified and rewarded “the academic achievement and leadership potential of 100 of the most accomplished students at 54 designated top-ranked universities in 16 countries and regions.” As stated on his Linkedin profile, he was offered an educational scholarship, being also awarded for academic excellence, leadership potential and exemplary service.

After working as a strategy consultant at BCG for six years and helping to build BCG Digital Ventures, he founded Consultport in 2017 to disrupt the consulting industry.

Listen in to find out his story, but also his advice to entrepreneurs.

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Stefano Pavignano is the Chief Executive Officer of Bakeca.it, one of the main classifieds sites in Italy. Bakeca.it users can not only publish their ads for free, but they can also find jobs, accommodation, courses, pets and other products and services. The ads are divided into 110 cities (all Italian provincial capitals) and 87 categories. To continue a growth path, the company management is strengthened and renewed with appointing Stefano Pavignano as CEO. 

In this episode Eugen B. Russ talks to Stefano about his career path, about how to grow a business , how the pandemic affected his portal, but also what advice he has for tech entrepreneurs.

Listen to this great talk and learn from his years of experience.

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In this epidode of the European Bootstrapping Champions Eugen B Russ invited Mathias Mathias Ockenfels  from Speedinvest to talk about the differences in the investment approach in a VC and a private equity firm, what advice he has in entrepreneurs looking for funding, but also about the Marketplace Conference 2021.

Mathias Ockenfels is a partner at Speedinvest, one of Europe’s leading Venture Capital funds, with its headquarters in Vienna, Austria. Investment professional working in Startups, Venture Capital & Corporate M&A since 2008; strong focus on tech-companies in particular online marketplaces, classifieds, platforms, SaaS, SaaS enabled marketplaces and any other digital business benefiting from solid network effects. Serving on several boards of portfolio companies, significant deal making experience buy- & sell-side.

“I ❤ Network Effects. Our team will elevate your startup to the next level! Seeing businesses flourish when Network Effects unfold is what drives me (…and, let’s be honest, dark chocolate and espresso, too).”

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Rado Daradan is one of the 2 founders of Hooray Studios, a company that creates personalized children’s books. He played a crucial role in growing the company from a team of four people to 120 team members and establishing it as a market leader in 6 countries around the world. In 2018 alone, the company sold almost half a million unique books and achieved a turnover of 12 million euros. And Khloe Kardiashian knows them…

In this episode Nicola Szekely, RMEP managing director will be talking to Rado about how he founded the company together with Mic Melanšek, what were the challenges how they made most of the opportunities and how they managed to grow a fantastic team and a successful business.

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Marius Donhauser is the founder and CEO of hotelkit GmbH, an All-in-One Hotel Operations Platform as the ultimate solution for hotels.
In this episode Eugen B. Russ is talking to Marius about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur during a pandemic and what it takes to build a tech company from scratch.

hotelkit´s solution for collaboration & service optimization makes handovers smoother, communication simpler, and guests happier. With hotelkit housekeeping, hotels benefit from digitized processes, seamless interfaces to PMS, and real-time updates of the room status. Delivering outstanding service has never been easier and now hoteliers can spend more time doing what they do best: making their guests happy.

Father of two daughters and enthusiastic hobby athlete – the everyday life of Marius Donhauser is many things but certainly not monotonous, and the story behind it is just as exciting.

Listen to our newest episode of the#EuropeanBootstrappingChampionspodcast, where Marius shares with us his entrepreneurial journey.

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Reinhold Baudisch is the founder and managing director of Austria's largest independent tariff comparison portal, Durchblicker.at, since 2009. The company is Austria's largest comparison platform

Durchblicker currently offers 28 tariff comparisons for insurance, telecommunications, electricity and gas, as well as traditional financial products such as loans, current accounts and savings interest. With the user-friendly comparison calculators, consumers can find top offers in these areas without haggling, they can conclude online deals quickly and easily and thus save several thousand euros a year. In addition, durchblicker offers free advice and supports you when switching to a cheaper provider.

The Vienna-based start-up currently employs over 80 people. 

In this Talk, Eugen B. Russ talks to Reinhold about his early career, how he came up with the idea of this business, but also what advice he has for young entrepreneurs.

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Karriere.at is Austria's largest career portal. The opportunities of the market leader in online recruiting connect suitable candidates with the best employers. Since the company was founded in 2004, two things have driven us above all: service and innovation. 

Klaus Hofbauer is co-founder and co-managing director of karriere.at. Due to his orientation in the company, he has his very special opinions on the subject of HR and technology, online marketing, SEO and many more. His comments are sometimes not very serious, but always thoroughly researched and give insights behind the scenes of a large online portal.

In This Episode Eugen B. Russ is talking to Klaus about how he built his company, what drives him as an entrepreneur and what are the next steps in his career.

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Eugen B. Russ, Managing Director of Russmedia Equity Partners, welcomes you  to the European Bootstrapping Champions podcast. A show with and for bootstrappers to discuss ideas, opportunities, and to learn from tech entrepreneurs about what drives them and what is their key to success. 

In this episode we'll learn from Martin Lenz, Jobiqo CEO about his journey as an "entrepreneurial executive".: how he left a well paying job in a large corporation to join a 5 employee startup, but than shortly together with the team managed to quadruple the revenues and position Jobiqo as a major player on the recruitment solutions market.

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In this webinar Bergfex CEO Alexander Katzmaier talks about his experience building a cost-efficient data analytics setup from scratch.
During the one hour conversation, Alexander gives you practical insights into building an automated reporting solution with a limited budget that is easy to manage and will share the main learnings for entrepreneurs from this experience.


Dos and don’ts, tips and an insightful Q&A session.

This session is dedicated to all entrepreneurs and CTOs that are interested in learning more about building a cost-efficient data analytics setup from scratch.

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Russmedia Equity Partners (RMEP) invites you to join this talk where you can learn from the speakers‘ experience about what it means to sell a company.

Dos and don’ts, tips and an insightful Q&A session. 

Who are the speakers?

Markus Kümmel is managing director and co-founder of Bergfex, the leading online company for outdoor enthusiasts in Europe. In 1999 Markus co-founded Bergfex as a passionate skier and snowboarder. He is jointly responsible for the strategic development and growth of the outdoor platform since the beginning.

Eugen B. Russ is Managing Director of Russmedia Equity Partners. In his role he supports the leadership of our portfolio companies in building and developing sustainable, results-oriented online marketplace and SaaS businesses.

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Acquire your competitors to accelerate growth
Russmedia Equity Partners (RMEP) invites you to listen to the webinar on how you can consolidate your market share with M&A activities. This is the recording of the online webinar that took place on zoom on March 25th and is dedicated to all tech companies that are interested in learning the ins and outs of buying a competitor in the online marketplaces and SaaS industry.

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Martin Lenz, CEO at Jobiqo describes the cooperation with Russmedia Equity Partners At the end of 2019, Russmedia Equity Partners (RMEP) acquired a majority stake from Jobiqo founder Klaus Furtmüller, who is still on board as minority shareholder and director. Martin Lenz, shareholder and CEO at Jobiqo also stayed to continue and support the growth of the company. A year after joining the RMEP portfolio Martin is still convinced it was the right move to do and believes that this is a cooperation built to endure.

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Peter Weiler is the managing director and founder of Dating Central Europe, Hungary’s leading online dating company.He started his career as a graphic and web designer in 1995 and was involved in launching Hungary’s leading news portal Origo for Hungarian Telekom in 1998. He started his own company Habostorta with a group of co-investors in the year 2000. Habostorta was the first entertainment and dating portal in Hungary that merged into the newly founded Dating Central Europe in 2014. Peter has been actively involved in developing and growing the online dating business in Hungary and the CEE region ever since. Dating Central Europe joined the Russmedia family 18 months ago, and for that reason, we wanted to chat with him and see how he sees in retrospective the negotiation, the onboarding process and what it is that a company should be looking for when in search of an investor.

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