Task 1
Findingthe nextunicorn
- 1What will other investors be excited about in the next 12 to 24 months, and why?
- 2Which exceptional founders are working on something new, and how do we reach them first?
Task 1A / Investment areas
Three questions I’d try to answer
What is changing in the world?
A new technology, a big shift, or something that already works in another market.
Which of those changes creates a problem someone will pay to fix?
A problem people feel now, and big enough to build a company on.
What would make other investors see it too, within 12 to 24 months?
The proof that turns it from our idea into everyone’s idea. That’s also when it gets expensive.
Task 1A / Investment areas
Where those changes come from
New technology
Something got much cheaper, faster or more reliable, and a product that wasn’t possible before suddenly is.
A big shift
Fewer workers, older patients, new rules, expensive energy. Someone now has to do something about it.
A gap between markets
It already works in the US, or in another industry, and nobody has brought it here yet.
The obvious fourth one is watching other funds: who is raising, who is writing about what.
And there are more kinds of change than these. For now I’d stay with the three, so we go deep on them instead of half covering six.
Task 1A / Initiative 1 of 3
Ask the people who build the technology
Regular calls with researchers, asking what works today, not what sounds exciting tomorrow.
Next steps
- Set up ten calls with researchers and ask for demos
- Pick two or three topics out of what they show us
- End each call by asking for two more names
- One page per topic: what works, what still breaks
How I’d measure it
Month 3. Has a call changed what we go looking for, and is there one topic we’d defend in an investment discussion?
Month 12. Did anyone build something with it that people actually bought?
Where it’s weak
People love their own field. They know what’s possible, but usually not who would pay for it. On its own this finds clever things with no customer.
Task 1A / Initiative 2 of 3
Follow one big change until I find who pays
Take something that is already certain and follow it to the company that now has a problem and the money to fix it.
Next steps
- Pick one change, say fewer nurses or new energy rules
- List the companies it hits and call five to ten of them
- Ask what they’ve tried already, and what it costs them if nothing changes
How I’d measure it
Month 1. One change followed all the way from the trigger to the person who pays.
Month 6 to 12. Did the money actually start moving where we said it would?
Where it’s weak
Everyone can see these changes coming, so we won’t be alone. And a budget doesn’t invent new technology.
Task 1A / Initiative 3 of 3
Find what works elsewhere but not here
Some things are normal in the US or in another industry and simply haven’t arrived in Europe.
Next steps
- Keep a running list, one line per gap
- For each one, write down what blocks it: rules, buyers, price, or nobody tried
- Call someone who runs the model over there
How I’d measure it
Month 3. How many gaps are on the list, and could we name the blocker for each?
Month 12. Did a blocker we bet on actually fall, and were we ready when it did?
Where it’s weak
Someone found it first, so we’re rarely early. And the blocker is usually there for a reason, which is how a copied US model dies in European healthcare.
Task 1A / Initiative 2, in practice
Using less water in industry
A UN University report from January 2026 says water systems in many regions are drained past easy repair. That’s a big change that isn’t going away, so it’s a good one to follow until I find who pays. How bad it is depends heavily on the place.
UN University, “The world is in an era of water bankruptcy”
Follow the change: which industries get hit, which factories already have production limits, unreliable supply or rising costs. The other two initiatives help from the side, by telling us whether newer sensors and treatment systems beat what is installed today, and what companies in dry regions already use that hasn’t reached Europe.
Potential candidates come out of that, for example reusing water inside factories, or using less in farming.
Whatever survives gets a one pager: what changed, who pays, how a startup could make money, what would convince other investors, whether it fits us, and the best argument against it.
Task 1B / Founders
Finding good founders is really three jobs
Find them
Be where they are before there’s a company. That’s the four initiatives coming up.
Judge them
Go by what someone has actually done, not by their CV or how well they pitch.
Earn it
Be useful early, so we’re not a stranger when they finally start something.
What I’d look at in a person
- Execution. What have they built?
- Insight. What do they see that others miss?
- Learning. What happens when they’re wrong?
- Resourcefulness. How far do they get with little?
- Recruiting. Will good people follow them?
- Commitment. Why this problem?
What we can give first
- A customer who might actually buy
- Something we know about their market that they don’t
- Help testing an assumption
- Someone to start it with, or an early hire
- An honest opinion on the numbers
Task 1B / Initiative 1 of 4
Ask the founders we know who they’d back
One question, in the conversations we’re already having: who would you start a company with, or back before you’d even seen the idea?
Next steps
- Ask it in every portfolio catch up
- Ask what they actually saw that person do
- Keep one list of names and who sent them
How I’d measure it
Month 3. Ten names, and at least three meetings we were glad we took.
Month 12. Who keeps naming people we end up chasing?
Where it’s weak
Founders know their own circle. Great for finding people, no help for finding new fields, and it keeps sending us the same type of person.
Task 1B / Initiative 2 of 4
Work out where the right people already sit
For every area we care about, a list of the labs, teams and companies where people really learn the problem. It gets us to the people the first initiative would never turn up.
Next steps
- Start with one area and twenty to thirty places
- Mark the roles where someone knows the problem and can build
- Pick five people a month and actually go and meet them
How I’d measure it
Month 3. Conversations we’d never have had otherwise.
Month 12. Did someone on the list start something, and did we know them before anyone else?
Where it’s weak
Slow to build, and a list is not a relationship. It says nothing about who even wants to start a company.
He sits exactly where I’d look: medicine, digital health and AI. A medical degree plus digital health, so he may understand both the clinical problem and the technical fix. Applied AI work and research at ETH Zurich. Startup and accelerator experience. Links to clinics including Charité.
Fifteen minutes, ask what he’s working on and where he wants to take it, then follow up with something useful. If he ever starts a company, we’re already someone he calls.
Task 1B / Initiative 3 of 4
Hang around where the technical work happens
Labs, open source projects and technical groups in our areas. People build something new there long before there’s a company, so it’s the earliest we can meet anyone.
Next steps
- Pick three or four groups instead of trying to follow everything
- Show up where the work gets discussed, not just where it gets presented
- Ask what’s becoming usable outside the lab
How I’d measure it
Month 6. Are we in the room, and does anyone there know our name?
Month 12. How many of these people are we still talking to, and did one of them start something we saw first?
Where it’s weak
Long waits and a lot of dead ends. And being great at the technology says nothing about selling, hiring, or sticking with a problem for ten years.
Task 1B / Initiative 4 of 4
Run our own events
One small format of ours that comes back regularly, plus partners like universities and research institutes. For once people come to us, and we get to watch how someone is around other people. Same idea as the conference in Task 2, just small.
Next steps
- Run the first one within three months, small, on a topic we know
- Bring in a university or institute for reach we don’t have
- Invite possible customers too, so it’s worth coming even without us
How I’d measure it
After the second event. Who came back?
Month 12. How many people did we meet there that we’d never have met otherwise, and did any of them turn into a real relationship?
Where it’s weak
Costs a lot of time and takes a while to prove. The risk is a room full of people who are good at events rather than at building.
In short
The whole thing on one slide
Investment areas
Changes come in three kinds, so three initiatives: ask the people building the technology, follow a big change until someone with a budget shows up, and look for what works elsewhere but not here.
Founders
Finding, judging and winning people are three different jobs. Four initiatives: ask good founders who they’d back, map where the right people work, hang around the technical communities, and run our own events. Be useful before asking for anything, and drop whichever one costs the most time for the fewest real relationships.
Happy to go through any of it, or the parts I cut, in the meeting.