EP 71 – Leveraging data to build an augmented venture capital approach with Dr. Andre Retterath

The Most Awesome Founder Podcast

We are thrilled to welcome Andre Retterath to episode #71 of our podcast. Andre is one of the leading figures in disrupting the traditional VC landscape by implementing data-driven approaches to improve decision-making. So tune in to hear interesting use cases, why the days of purely gut-based decisions investing seem to be over and what the future might look like.

If you want to not miss out on any new developments, you can also check out Andre’s newsletter: Data-driven VC.io

Chapters:

(0:50) Intro from Dries to our guest Dr. Andre Retterath

(2:05) Andre talks about his professional career

(4:35) How could Andre leverage his Ph.D. for his later practical career?

(7:45) Andre talks about the challenges of disrupting the VC industry

(12:03) Data as a tool to level the playing field

(17:05) How to use data analytics in entrepreneurship as an outlier game

(22:10) What kind of data quality does one need to do data analytics in VC

(28:10) The relationship between VC strategy, market and data

(34:10) How good is the predictive power of a data-driven approach that’s reliant on historical data

(40:35) Future developments of machine learning approaches

(45:10) How does Earlybird specifically use LLMs (large language models)?

(49:10) The usage of LLMs in general

(51:40) Is it better to invest in a failed founder or one that never failed before?

(53:25) Does founder education matter?

(55:05) Does diversity matter in founder or investor teams?

(57:45) Can a data-driven approach also mitigate co-founder conflict?

(1:03:00) Andre's book recommendations

Guest recommendations:

Principles: Life and Work

No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention