Impact4Founders

Our Offerings for Startups

Impact4Founders supports early-stage founding teams in validating their ventures, sharpening their strategic positioning, and successfully connecting with industry partners.

Strategic Foresight

The objective is to systematically analyze future trends and assess their relevance for the venture. Scenario work increases business model flexibility and helps identify monetization strategies that can be embedded into the model.

Trend analysis using the PESTEL framework
Identification of opportunities, risks, and scenarios
Development of strategic response options and integration into the business model

Team Coaching

Unlock your team's full potential with a tailored coaching approach designed to foster trust, alignment, and sustainable high performance.

Personal coaching for founders to foster growth in their leadership roles, focusing on emotional regulation, stress management, and decisive action
Professional mediation to break downward spirals of conflict and restore team productivity through external perspective and neutral moderation
Structured "Founder Due Diligence" interviews to identify strengths, red flags, and actionable strategic recommendations

Business Model Coaching

This service supports founding teams in developing a viable and scalable business model. In addition to the conceptual work, a strong focus is placed on pricing logic and a realistic go-to-market approach.

Identification and prioritization of underlying assumptions and hypotheses
Development of a validation strategy and connection to relevant experts
Development of pricing strategies and revenue models
Definition of a feasible and executable go-to-market approach

Pitch Coaching

The goal is to enable clear and convincing communication of the venture towards potential customers, partners, and investors.

Structuring and sharpening the problem statement and value proposition
Optimization of storyline and pitch deck
Feedback from investor and industry decision-maker perspectives

Infrastucture & Asset Mapping

Corporations and research institutes possess unique assets and infrastructure that provide a massive competitive edge — if startups can access them.

Identifying IP, proprietary data, and innovation projects ready for transfer or licensing
Using intelligent discovery to pinpoint the highest-potential partnerships
Facilitating direct introductions to key decision-makers

Facilitation of Industry Collaborations

Impact4Founders enables structured collaboration between startups and industry partners. The focus lies on clear objectives, realistic pilot projects, and sustainable partnerships.

Connecting startups with relevant corporate partners
Positioning towards industry partners with a clear role definition
Selection of appropriate collaboration models (startup enablement, venture clienting, venture partnering, reverse clienting)
Structuring and facilitation of the collaboration
Support in expectation management and decision-making processes

Services for Corporates & Accelerators

Impact4Founders supports corporates and accelerators in the design and implementation of open innovation and startup collaboration formats.

Open Innovation Program Design

This service targets organizations aiming to establish structured programs for collaboration with external talent and startups.

Definition of objectives, target groups, and success metrics
Selection and design of suitable open innovation formats and methods (e.g. matching formats, innovation challenges, hackathons, accelerator programs)
Support in identifying and engaging relevant stakeholders (multipliers, partner companies, startups, external talent)

Startup Scouting and Activation

Impact4Founders identifies and activates relevant startups along defined search fields.

Definition of search fields and evaluation criteria
Identification and activation of suitable startups
Structured assessment and decision support
Preparation for collaboration

Facilitation of Startup Collaborations

We ensure effective collaboration between corporates and startups.

Selection of appropriate collaboration models (startup enablement, venture clienting, venture partnering, reverse clienting)
Structuring and facilitation of the collaboration
Support in expectation management and decision-making processes

Methods

We rely on proven frameworks for business model development and best practice captured in over 7 years of supporting early stage startups. For business development and validation, we follow the Lean Startup approach and leverage established tools like Strategizer and other methods summarized in the Business Model Builder framework.
In startup–corporate collaborations, we begin with strategic framing on the corporate side. This upfront work aligns objectives, decision criteria, and resources, ensuring the corporate partner is fully prepared and genuinely committed before engaging in the collaboration journey.

About Us

We are a team of experienced professionals dedicated to supporting startups during the critical early validation phase. With a founders-first mindset, we take a hands-on approach to help teams build strong, market-ready foundations.

Veronika Brandt

Veronika brings over a decade of experience in innovation and startup collaboration. From 2019 to 2024, she founded and led Bosch Startup Harbour, Bosch’ s accelerator for external startups, funded three times in succession by the Berlin Senate and the European Social Fund.
Earlier in her career, she co-developed the Business Model Builder framework for the Internet of Things and led the business consulting team. She worked with organizations such as inubit, Siemens, and BearingPoint before joining Bosch in 2012.
"Corporate–startup collaborations can unlock tremendous economic potential for both sides when they are properly managed and backed by clear goals and commitment."

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Kerstin Buschbeck

Kerstin has been rooted in the startup ecosystem since 2007—first for 10 years as a lawyer and team head at Rocket Internet in the Legal Corporate Housekeeping department, and then since 2018 as an expert in organizational and cultural development, supporting startups and founders throughout their growth phases. As a trained coach, mediator, trainer, and people & culture manager, she has delivered over 1,500 coaching hours for more than 150 startups. Her passion is for the people who strengthen our society through innovation. She is co-author of the Lean Action Canvas.
“A strong team of founders is a competitive advantage. It is worth actively building this team as well as the business and customer relationships.”

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Daniel Suszczynski

Daniel brings over 20 years of engineering leadership experience across fintech and SaaS. He has built and scaled engineering organisations from small teams to 60+ engineers, leading platform transformations, legacy modernisations, and the introduction of domain-driven design and event-driven architectures. Most recently, he led the technology function at FinCompare as interim CTO. He is now focused on hands-on AI-assisted development, building products for founders and applying modern AI tooling across the full stack.
"Feature requests are often symptoms, not solutions. The real leverage comes from understanding the underlying problem, aligning engineering around outcomes, and giving the autonomy to deliver measurable business impact."

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Ludger Hermanns

Ludger is the technology and operations expert on the team, bringing over 20 years of leadership experience from Bosch in scaling hardware and software innovations. As an engineer and former head of production for e-mobility, he has led projects from early concept to global mass production.
Today, he supports startups in turning user-validated ideas into scalable, market-ready products. He helps teams navigate industrialization and scaling—while unlocking access to research and corporate infrastructure to accelerate their growth.
“The future is built where atoms meet bits. I help founders make the right operational choices to ensure their integrated product succeeds in the market.”

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We love the early phase