Antler with Magnus Grimeland

Magnus Grimeland, founder and CEO of Antler, joined us in a conversation to discuss the new startup incubator focusing on helping founders in building and scaling their own businesses. Magnus shared his early career story in special forces with the military and how his experience to deal with extreme situations of life and death becomes vital with his stints as an entrepreneur in Zalora and Global Fashion Group. We also discussed Antler, the mission and vision and what it means to succeed and differentiate themselves as a startup generator globally.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Magnus Grimeland, founder & CEO of Antler (@MagnusGrimeland, LinkedIn) [0:20]
  • How did you start your career? [0:44]
  • You have spent a considerable amount of time with Rocket Internet, and also as the managing director of Zalora, subsequently as the COO of the Global Fashion Group, what are the major learning takeaways in building and scaling a business from that experience? [6:42]
  • Does your special forces experience of dealing with near death situations translate into the startup experience as well? [10:13]
• Antler [12:57]
  • What’s the back story behind the founding of Antler as an incubator and can you describe the vision and mission of Antler? [13:04]
  • How will you characterise the metrics if Antler is successful in three years time? [15:31]
  • There are very few success stories in the startup incubators and accelerators for example, Y-Combinator, TechStars and even Rocket Internet in its early days. How is Antler differentiating itself in that space or alternatively, another way to frame it, what’s Antler’s competitive advantage? [17:02]
  • Who are the key people driving Antler and who are the major advisors to the company? [20:22]
  • What is in the selection process to bring the entrepreneurs into the program? What traits does the team in Antler see in the entrepreneurial teams? [23:29]
  • Can you explain what happens when founders joined the program and how Antler help them to progress and graduate from the program subsequently? [29:14]
  • So all the successful startup incubators and accelerators eventually move upstream in the venture business by developing growth funds in the next stage of venture capital, do you see Antler moving in that direction as it grows in the process? [32:05]
• Closing [33:46]
  • Can you recommend a book, podcast or anything else that has impact to your work and personal life recently? [33:52]
    • Magnus’ recommendations: Analyse Asia podcast (as we need to promote ourselves too and thanks to Magnus for recommending us too), NPR “How I build this” podcast and Reid Hoffman’s “Masters of Scale” and his book recommendation: “Man Search for Meaning” by Victor Frankl.
    • BL’s recommendation: “Strategy beyond the hockey stick” by Chris Bradley, Martin Hirt, and Sven Smit
  • How do my audience find you? [35:44]

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong & weibo) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, “The Beginning” from Red Cliff Soundtrack.