Hubertus Bessau

Some of the most interesting founders we meet don’t wait until everything is figured out. Who cares if your idea isn’t fully formed. Your deck doesn't need to be perfect either. What matters is that your ambition comes from obsession, not approval. Applications for the EWOR Fellowship are open until next Monday, June 1, 23:59 Anywhere on Earth (AoE). The founders who change the world don't wait for perfect timing. They recognise the window of opportunity and move. ewor.com/apply?sc=sm&ss… #EWOR #entrepreneurship #startups #founders

Wait for EU Inc, or flip to a Delaware C Corp? Every European founder building for global markets faces this decision eventually. When Bjol's $4.2M seed round came for Sybilion, the decision could no longer be avoided. In the end, he opted for Delaware. What followed was 4 months of shareholder negotiations he describes as "quite confrontational." Investors demanded explanations he didn't yet know how to give. The plan was to finish his raise before New Year's. It took until February. Bjol also learned the hard way what happens when you try to raise and sell at the same time. By the end of last year, he had hit his emotional limit. Something had to give. Most of these lessons never make it to LinkedIn. Bjol tells the full story to @DanielDippold in the latest episode of Been There, Done That – EWOR’s new podcast series dedicated to sharing the raw, unfiltered founder stories that never make it to LinkedIn. Listen now: ewor.com/podcast/005-eu…

Everyone else looks at your pitch deck. EWOR looks at you. Applications for the EWOR Fellowship are now open. EWOR Fellows come from everywhere. Their paths are nothing like you would expect. Former professional athletes. Immigrants who started over with nothing on the other side of the world. Teenagers who crushed thousands of competitors to take home math olympiad titles. Had we screened for the startups that looked best on paper, we would have written off some of the most wildly talented people we have ever met. Even the best founders pivot – and the data agrees, startups that do raise 2.5x more and grow 3.6x faster. The startup is a variable. The founder is the constant. Obsession cannot be taught. You already know if you have it or not. The one thing EWOR Fellows all have in common: they were never going to stop, with or without the world's approval. Get in, and the fellowship bends entirely to you. Your stage, your gaps, your chaos – we have seen it all and built for it. EWOR Fellows go on to raise $6M rounds on average and make their first hires through the fellowship. We are just here to make sure nothing gets in their way – by providing up to €500,000 and weekly 1:1 time with unicorn founders who work full-time at EWOR. The best time to apply is today. Getting in is getting harder every year. Acceptance rates have dropped from 10% two and a half years ago to 0.1% today. That number will not go back up. Know someone who belongs here? Share the application link below. ewor.com/apply?sc=X&ssc…

We've rebranded. For four years, we've told founders to be tougher. Push harder. Ship faster. We meant it. But we missed something. Founding a company is brutal. Your co-founder ghosts you. Your lead investor pulls the term sheet 48 hours before closing. You haven't slept properly since 2022. And the world keeps telling you to "embrace the grind." We sat with this for a while. Talked to our fellows. Talked to founders who didn't join. And the feedback was clear: the startup ecosystem has an empathy problem. So we asked ourselves: what if the most contrarian thing we could do in 2026 isn't being edgier, but providing more love? Today we're rolling out a new visual identity. More colour. More softness. More hearts. Yes, hearts. Because builders deserve more love, and we're done pretending that's not what this is about. You'll notice the changes across ewor.com, our socials, and our materials starting today. The O in EWOR is now a heart. We're keeping it. The fellowship doesn't change. Still 0.1% acceptance. Still €500k. Still weekly calls with unicorn founders who actually pick up the phone. But: much more love. We just think the founders building the future shouldn't have to do it inside a brand that looks like a military briefing. Founding a company is hard enough. We’re giving founders the love they deserve, starting today.

Building something world-changing is uglier, messier, and more painful than LinkedIn will ever show. What you see: Julian is a rocket scientist launching on SpaceX with €8M in the pipeline for Tumbleweed, the infrastructure to make manufacturing in space as accessible as mailing a package. What you don't see are the moments that nearly killed him: 001 A co-founder who disappeared a week before the biggest field test with nothing done and no one left to do it. 002 Working 140 hours in a single week, 48 of them straight. He became so delirious that he ran into a wall. 003 Dealing with six co-founder splits – one of them being his ex-girlfriend. 004 His mental breakdown after SpaceX's rejection and getting sent home by his own team because he couldn't function. 005 Getting rejected by EWOR twice before getting in and what it actually took to make both SpaceX and EWOR say yes. Julian sits down with @DanielDippold to talk through all of it in the very first episode of Been There, Done That – EWOR’s new podcast series dedicated to sharing the raw, unfiltered founder stories that never make it to LinkedIn. Full episode live now, listen here: ewor.com/podcast/1?sl=E…

The EWOR Grand Pitch returns live to START Summit. This Thursday, March 19 (14:15-15:30), 12 EWOR fellows will take over the Pitching Stage – the same outliers who attracted 750+ investors and booked hundreds of 1:1 meetings within minutes following last week’s virtual Grand Pitch. This is the last chance to meet them before rounds oversubscribe. A preview of who you’ll see: 001 Julian Rothenbuchner | Tumbleweed | SpaceTech 002 Owen Zhang | Global Citizens | LegalTech 003 Othman Kabbaj | DueDeal | FinTech 004 Maya Polackal | EOMIND | AI Infrastructure 005 Ravi Teja Chadalavada | Sapios | Autonomous Systems 006 Adam Lababidi | @Migma_AI | MarTech 007 Alexis Vincent | K42 | FinTech, AdTech 008 Florian Scherl | explaino | Enterprise AI 009 Jean-Pascal Lutze | NoMaze | AgriTech 010 Richard Mincher | Forg3D | IndustrialTech 011 R.J. Napolitano | Ghost | Advertising, AI Services 012. Alfons Huber | REPS GmbH | EnergyTech The last Grand Pitch room filled up fast. You've been warned ;) Thanks to our partners at START Summit for spotlighting EWOR Fellows onstage as part of the official agenda for the second year in a row: David Kandler, Leo Braun, Timon Singer and Hannah Tassia Noll.

Never thought the world really needs another podcast, now I am convinced I was wrong 😇😄

Anthropic have just buried OpenAI and ChatGPT with this ad lmfao There’s no coming back from that

𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗘𝗪𝗢𝗥'𝘀 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗧𝗼𝗽 𝟭𝟬𝟬 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗠𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀. 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘥𝘐𝘯 𝘤𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴. 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘬𝘦𝘺𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘴. Mentors with scars, exits, and receipts. Mentors who challenge founders, not validate them. Advice that transforms trajectories. These 100 mentors actually move the needle for exceptional founders through lived experience, contrarian wisdom, and real outcomes. They've built companies worth billions, scaled teams across continents, and navigated the specific hell of 0→1. Find the full list: ewor.com/the-global-top…

Founder? Last day to nominate your mentor for the Top 100 Founder Mentors @EWOR_official

A new journey begins: ProjectEaden.com

This is what it feels like to ignite a new story. I'm thrilled to be founding again and can't wait to see where it takes me. Stay tuned! #staytuned