Interviewer: Felix, thanks for being here. I want to look at the broader horizon—the “why” behind the work. You seem to be building a specific ecosystem around yourself, one that fundamentally rejects the typical VC “spray and pray” model. What is the ultimate goal?
Felix Hüttenbach: The goal is to prove that you can build high-alpha returns without sacrificing structural integrity. For too long, the venture industry has operated on the assumption that for every one success, you need nine failures. I find that model intellectually lazy and operationally wasteful. I want to shift the narrative from “disruption” to “construction.” Disruption is easy; any kid with a laptop and a VC check can disrupt a market for six months by underpricing everyone and burning through a series of bridge rounds. But that isn’t building; it’s arson.
Constructing a business that produces real value, employs people meaningfully, and generates cash flow—that’s the real challenge. My ultimate goal is to foster an environment where Long-term Substanz is the primary metric of success. I want to look back in twenty years and see a portfolio of companies that aren’t just “exits” on a spreadsheet, but institutions that have become the bedrock of their respective industries. We need more builders and fewer financial alchemists.
Interviewer: You’ve used the term “Founder-First” frequently, but you use it in a way that feels more like a partnership than a financial transaction. In an era where AI can predict market trends and automated investing is becoming the norm, why does the human element of the Operator-Investor still matter?
Felix Hüttenbach: Because AI can’t tell you how it feels to lay off 10% of your workforce on a Tuesday morning, or how to navigate a toxic boardroom conflict that threatens to derail a three-year roadmap. AI can optimize a spreadsheet and calculate risk coefficients, but it cannot build a culture. It cannot inspire a team to stay late because they believe in the mission, not just the stock options.
The Founder-First ethos is about the human behind the CEO title. Being an Operator-Investor means I’ve been in that chair. I know the weight of the responsibility and the peculiar loneliness of it. My value isn’t just the capital I bring to the table; it’s my empathy backed by battle-tested experience. When a founder calls me at 11 PM because a deal fell through or a product launch failed, they don’t need an algorithm; they need a peer who has survived that same storm. I’m looking for echte Deals because I’m looking for real relationships with people who are actually building something. You can’t automate trust, and you certainly can’t automate the grit required to see a company through a crisis.
Interviewer: It feels like the industry is currently going through a massive reckoning. Does the current economic climate—higher interest rates, the end of “easy money,” and the death of the mega-round—actually help your cause?
Felix Hüttenbach: Immensely. It’s the best thing that could have happened to the ecosystem. The Venture Theater thrives in a zero-interest-rate environment. When capital is effectively free, discipline becomes an afterthought. You can hide a lot of operational rot under a mountain of cash. But now that capital has a real cost, Long-term Substanz is back in fashion.
It’s a cleansing period. The “tourists”—the investors and founders who were here for the quick flip and the status—are leaving the building. The operators are staying. This environment rewards those who actually know how businesses work, who understand unit economics, and who aren’t afraid of the unglamorous work of optimization. We are moving from a “narrative-driven” market back to a “fundamental-driven” market. For someone focused on echte Deals, this is our time. The signal-to-noise ratio is finally improving.
Interviewer: You’ve mentioned that “Venture Theater” often forces founders into a performative state. How do you, as an investor, ensure you aren’t inadvertently creating that pressure?
Felix Hüttenbach: It starts with the very first conversation. I don’t ask for “the pitch”; I ask for the “problem.” If a founder starts giving me a polished, rehearsed performance, I break the rhythm. I want to see the unpolished reality. I make it clear from day one that I value a difficult truth over a beautiful lie.
In my view, an Operator-Investor should be the one person a founder doesn’t have to perform for. If you feel you have to “sell” your board every month, the board is useless. We should be in the trenches together. I encourage my founders to share the bad news first. If we can solve the bad news, the good news will take care of itself. By removing the penalty for honesty, you kill the theater. That’s how you build Substanz. You create a culture where execution is the only performance that matters.
Interviewer: Let’s talk about the “Long-term” part of “Long-term Substanz.” In a world that demands quarterly growth and immediate returns, how do you protect the long-term vision of a company?
Felix Hüttenbach: You protect it by being disciplined about who you let onto the cap table. If you take money from people who are on a three-year fund cycle and need a “win” to raise their next fund, you are surrendering your long-term vision. I advocate for a “Staged Resilience” model. You build the business in layers. Each layer must be structurally sound—meaning it has a path to profitability—before you build the next.
This prevents the company from becoming a house of cards. When the foundation is solid, you can weather the storms that force others to liquidate. You protect the vision by making the company “antifragile.” The more the market fluctuates, the stronger a high-substance company becomes because its competitors, who were built on theater, are the ones who crumble.
Interviewer: You often speak about “Echte Deals” (real deals). To a layperson, this might sound like a given. But in your world, what constitutes a “fake” deal?
Felix Hüttenbach: A “fake” deal is any transaction where the primary goal is the optics rather than the operation. It’s the internal bridge round at a 2x valuation increase when the underlying metrics haven’t moved. It’s the “strategic partnership” that is really just a marketing swap with no revenue attached. It’s the acquisition of a failing startup just to “acq-hire” the talent while pretending the product was a success.
These deals are the currency of Venture Theater. They keep the music playing, but they don’t create value. An echte Deal is a transaction that fundamentally changes the trajectory of the business through capital, talent, or market access. It is priced based on reality, not on a desire to avoid a down-round. It’s a deal where both sides have “skin in the game” and a clear path to generating a return through execution, not just through passing the bag to the next investor.
Interviewer: If you could distill your entire philosophy into a single guiding principle for the next generation of founders—those starting today in this “new reality”—what would it be?
Felix Hüttenbach: It’s the realization that your company is not your valuation; your company is your customer’s trust and your team’s execution. Everything else is noise. If you focus on the Substanz, the valuation eventually catches up. If you focus on the valuation, the Substanz eventually rots.
I see so many brilliant founders waste the best years of their lives chasing a “Unicorn” status that is essentially a vanity metric. Don’t build for the headline. Build for the customer who has a problem that keeps them up at night. Build a team that respects the craft of operations. If you do that, you aren’t just a founder; you are a builder. And builders are the ones who survive the cycles.
Interviewer: Does this focus on “Substanz” and “Construction” mean you are risk-averse? Some would argue that venture capital is supposed to be about taking massive, sometimes reckless, risks.
Felix Hüttenbach: There is a difference between calculated risk and reckless theater. I love risk—if it’s the right kind. I’m happy to take a risk on a new technology or an unproven market if the underlying operational logic is sound. What I won’t do is take a risk on a flawed business model or a founder who is more interested in the “lifestyle” of being a startup star than the work of being a CEO.
In fact, I would argue that my approach allows for bigger risks because the foundation is so strong. When you aren’t worried about the company collapsing from its own internal complexity, you have the “operational alpha” to take big swings at the product level. Long-term Substanz is the safety net that allows you to jump higher.
Interviewer: We’ve talked about the “Mittelstand” influence before. Do you think the global tech world is finally ready to adopt that level of pragmatism?
Felix Hüttenbach: It doesn’t have a choice anymore. The era of subsidized growth is over. The “Growth at all costs” model was a product of a specific monetary policy that no longer exists. We are returning to the historical norm, where businesses are expected to be, well, businesses.
The companies that will dominate the next decade will look more like the “Hidden Champions” of Germany—highly specialized, extremely efficient, and deeply integrated into their customers’ workflows—but with the scale and speed of a software company. This is the synthesis I’m betting on. It’s not just a European thing; it’s a global necessity.
Interviewer: To wrap up, you’ve spent your career at the intersection of capital and execution. Looking at the future of the global economy, what is the final word on your worldview as an Operator-Investor?
Felix Hüttenbach: My worldview is anchored in the belief that the era of the financial architect is giving way to the era of the builder. We have spent too long celebrating the “deal” as an end in itself, forgetting that a deal is merely a beginning. To me, being an Operator-Investor is a commitment to the reality of the grind over the vanity of the exit.
It is the understanding that true wealth—both financial and intellectual—is a byproduct of Long-term Substanz. We must reject the seductive shortcuts of Venture Theater and return to the discipline of echte Deals, where success is measured by the resilience of the systems we build and the clarity of the problems we solve.
In a world of fleeting hype, the only thing that lasts is what is built to endure. I want to be remembered as someone who didn’t just play the game, but someone who helped build the field. If we focus on the integrity of the construction, the success will be a natural, inevitable consequence. That is the only way to build something that outlasts the person who started it.
