#15 Michael Brehm, Founder & MD of i2x | Making It Real Podcast with Jan Brinckmann

Michael Brehm is the Founder & Managing Director of i2x who
helps sales and customer support agents to excel at their job by
providing the most intuitive, productive and personally tailored
learning to improve each individual’s skill-set. Prior to i2x,
Michael has run and founded multiple internationally successful
companies in the last 15 years. His last company, Rebate
Networks, was an e-commerce and daily deals network. He also was
Executive Director & Investor at VZnet Netzwerke Ltd.
(schülerVZ, studiVZ, meinVZ). Apart from building companies
himself, Michael also enjoys supporting founders as a Partner of
Redstone, a Berlin-based VC firm managing multiple corporate
venture funds through their unique VC-as-a-Service
approach. 





More about i2x: https://i2x.ai


More about Redstone: https://www.redstone.vc





Michael Brehm, Founder & MD of i2x | Making It Real Podcast
with Jan Brinckmann | Episode #15








00:00 What's your personal story into the entrepreneurship
domain?


03:46 The studiVZ success story: Why did you decide to take on
the challenge to battle Facebook?


07:59 How did you meet your co-founders?


10:01 What was the game plan of studiVZ having huge competition
like Facebook?


13:36 Do you have to put in an incredible amount of hours to get
your venture going in the beginning?


18:15 Painting schools pink as a marketing hack for schülerVZ


19:29 Getting users for a consumer app


23:01 Core mistakes you see in other ventures


28:33 After having launched Rebate Networks and a VC, how did you
determine the opportunity for i2x?


31:59 Development of i2x


34:25 How can you finance a technology venture before revenues?


38:39 Convincing potential customers to sign a letter of intent


41:13 Passion, resilience and timing


43:44 How can you judge if it's the right timing for your
product?


46:17 What do you personally enjoy the most in entrepreneurship?